Jagger [English version]

Chapter 42: The two entities

Jagger was in crushing darkness. He blinked a couple of times to make sure his eyes were open, but to no avail. He touched his chest, searching for the wound Voltar had just given him, but found nothing but his intact body. He looked down and realized that he was able to see himself quite clearly, even though there was no light to illuminate him.

He tried to look around him, but again he had the feeling that his eyes were closed, trapped in the endless darkness.

"Jagger," said that strange dark voice that haunted him, but there was something different about it. All the times he had heard it, it had sounded distant and abstract, like a thought, an idea or consciousness itself, but now it seemed to be present in all the nothingness around him, in that black void in which only his body was illuminated, "finally you have arrived..."

He desperately tried to find the origin of the message, but it was impossible; there was no way to understand anything in that strange place.

"Show yourself!" he challenged.

"I'm here," answered a voice behind him.

Jagger turned quickly, ready to defend himself, if necessary, but his body froze as he beheld his host.

The body of that presence was black, like a shadow or a wraith, so dark that Jagger would not have been able to see the outline of it without the white lines and purple aura marking its edges. A black silhouette, with no features present apart from red eyes where a face should have been, and an evil grin with sharp teeth where one would think a mouth would be. But beyond that, nothing gave the thing human or Gefordian characteristics. There were no visible eyebrows or muscles, no nose or ears, just a figure, as if a shadow had managed to rise from the ground along with a merciless pupilless gaze and a devilish smile...

Then, Jagger realized that the silhouette of that entity was without a doubt the same as his. From the outline of his hair to the shape of his back and legs. It was himself.

"What does this mean?" He asked, confused.

The shadow smirked and lunged at him at full speed. Jagger tried to move, but felt the ground open up under his feet and he fell in a vortex of white light that appeared at just the right time for the dark silhouette's claws to fail to grab him by the head.

Jagger looked up and saw how the monster followed him with his eyes without losing his horrible smile. He shifted his gaze down and noted with surprise that he was speeding toward what looked like the open sea. The waters were an incredible blue, but the horizon and the sky were as white as black had been the darkness he had first encountered.

His body plunged dizzily. It was impossible for him to determine if the water was hot or cold, or even lukewarm. He tried to swim to the surface, but his arms and legs felt heavy and only made him sink faster and faster.

Suddenly, he felt his feet come out of the water and the rest of his body went with them. His head was uncovered, and a second later he fell back into the water, though his weight had now stabilized. He looked around and caught a glimpse of a shore. Without looking for more details, he swam as fast as he could and collapsed exhausted on the sand. He rolled over onto his back for a few seconds, feeling the sun warm and comfort him.

"So many years without seeing each other and you go to take a nap first!" said a voice to his left which was familiar and friendly. "Why does this not surprise me?"

Jagger didn't open his eyes right away. He cursed his brain for playing such an awful prank on him at such an inopportune moment, but it had sounded real and convincing. He stood there, straining to remember why he spent twenty years resigning himself to the fact that he would never hear that warm, brotherly tone again.