insomnia [✔]

scene. i

Madeleine thrust her hands into the pockets of her coat. She was not confident, but tried to control her fear. The young man who served as his guide was in an even mood. Impossible to know what he was thinking. Impossible to anticipate his actions.

They walked to an abandoned warehouse. There were gutted containers with rusty doors. It was an old industrial area once near the port. The place had been the scene of tragic events during the 1970s. A history that intertwined the thirst for power, embezzlement and even sordid murders.

These were the kind of places that became the domain of squatters. Except that the boy seemed to be the only guest in this warehouse. Madeleine made a statement, because he showed her another opening than the heavily padlocked large doors. The place had been sealed by the police.

"Ladies first..." said the young man, inviting Madeleine to enter first "There's nothing to worry about. You don't really think I'm going to kill you?"

"It's something I wouldn't bet on..." sighed Madeleine, who had prepared for any eventuality.

She slipped into the passage and the young man did the same, a few minutes later. The lighting worked, despite the general disorder. There were broken things all over the place and a cot.

"Here we are..." declared the young man, stretching.

"Well..." replied Madeleine.

The dark haired girl took a deep breath, then closed her eyes. She tried to slow down the race of the train of her thoughts to give way to the most total concentration.

When her eyelids opened, her eyes shone with a purple glow. In front of her, the pale-faced boy was paralyzed. His eyes were completely white.

Madeleine did not allow herself to be destabilized by this vision, although she was tempted to. On the contrary, she concentrated more until she crossed the intangible boundary between her thoughts and those of the young man.

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The scenery had changed. The young woman was in a house. She thought she was in her childhood home. Then, a number of details undeceived her. The stairs weren't on the right side, nor was the living room. In the blink of an eye, she found herself in a bedroom. There was a child. He was seated behind a desk. Madeleine saw him in profile, but the child did not seem to be aware of her presence.

"Hazel! Time to go to sleep!" came a female voice.

Madeleine turned around, and she had no time to move. A woman had just entered and walked through her like she was just a hologram. It must have been the boy's mother. They looked a lot alike. Same cedar brown hair, same hazel eyes. The picture was touching: the mother tenderly patted her child's little head, while asking him if he had done his homework.

"I'm almost done!" assured the boy. In reality, he had lost himself in the reading of a book. A book of at least a thousand pages whose main character evolves in a fantastic world.

"This book again! This must be the fourth time you've read it!" laughs the mother.

"I know...but it's my favorite book. The other books are less interesting." assured the boy.

"Perhaps you should look for another one in the same style?" suggested the mother.

"Huh." the boy shook his head no.

"Good night sweetheart. Finish what you have to do, but don't go to bed too late." said the mother.

"Yes, Mom" ​​answered the boy.

The room changed in an instant and Madeleine was now standing in the living room. It must have been another day, because the mother and the boy were having dinner.

"My mother is all I had. My father was almost never there. He came home late at night..." a voice narrated.

And Madeleine understood that the boy and the young man dressed in white were the same person. But what happened? She pondered for a moment, and deduced that it was the same night her parents had fallen asleep never to wake up again. It would be the same for the mother of this boy. Madeleine tried in vain to warn them. Guilt overwhelmed her, but nothing helped. They wished each other good night.

"No!" Madeleine shouted and landed back in the boy's room. He was crying, curled up on himself in his room. The young woman approached him. She had felt this distress before, so she wanted to console him, but now the little boy suddenly changed into the young man she had met.

"I'm really sorry..." murmured Madeleine.

"It's too late for them..." said the adult Hazel "but you can still save me. Kill me..."

"What the hell is this?" exclaimed Madeleine, stepping back. But Hazel was very serious.

"I want you to do to me what you did to them. Putting me to sleep for eternity, I've deserved it... I've gone nearly ten years without sleep. A normal human being would have lost his mind by now. long. I don't know why your grip had the opposite effect on me, but whatever. I just want you to help me escape from this existence..."

"I can't do this anymore...Never again." stammered Madeleine.

"You have to! You have to fix your mistake!" Hazel answered vehemently "Sleeping pills stronger and then drugs... Everything! I've tried everything! And yet, I can't sleep! It's insane! Only you can set me free!"

"But...I barely know how I did it the first time...and you...you want me to do it again? To kill?" reformulated Madeleine.

"There's no other way out! You've got me on a leash without knowing it. So either you let go of the leash or I'll get rid of it after I kill you!" answered Hazel.

"Is that really what you want?" inquired Madeleine, frowning.

"After what I've been through... I'm ready for any sacrifice... But don't worry, after killing you, I'll kill myself too." Hazel added. "A life for a life. What do you think? Does that seem fair to you?"