⚠️ Warning: The following content may include wild animal attacks, references to World War II, and graphic descriptions. The author does not intend to be pretentious or use these elements in a morbid way. Please remember that everything narrated is fiction, and reader discretion is advised.
🫠 Author's Note: You know what? I think that, at some point, I was Nuriel. I think that all of us, at some moment, have been Nuriel.
(Tholio, 2025)
🤕 Please forgive me if the English translation has some mistakes. I'm originally a Spanish speaker. I can read English, but I still struggle to understand the lyrics and prose in the English language. I would love to have a translator, but oh well… Sundays are for watching Bocchi the Rock.
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This is a memory of when Nuriel still didn't understand love. A woman, with the voice of a sparrow, spoke to him sweetly:
This is a memory from when Nuriel still didn't understand love.A woman, with the voice of a sparrow, spoke softly to him:
"Non, Nuriel, à moi, I don't really like meat, it upsets my stomach."
"But I love to chanter, and I would like a young, tall, handsome man to hold my hands and dance to une chanson that I loved, depuis long before I ever came here."
"Do you like to sing?"
"Yes, I adore it. Ma mère loved it when I sang while cleaning her room."
"So, you cleaned her room?"
"Yes, she was ill, but it doesn't matter anymore, elle est morte before all this, avant l'Allemagne à France."
"But Nuriel, don't be troubled. One day I reviendrai to sing again. I'm like a bird; I love sparrows, they remind me of the présence of Edith Piaf. Birds sing so beautifully."
"And Edith Piaf is perhaps the woman who can most be considered a bird. I'm fascinated by how she sings; une chanson in particular is called Mon légionnaire. I used to sing it when I was at the hospital with Dr. Weill."
"And why don't you sing?"
"Nuriel, do you want to get me in trouble?"
She laughed, covering her lips as she said:
"When I chanterai to a man, it will be when I love him. And you, my Nuriel, my praliné, I tell you that someday, when time has passed and these walls are gone, I will sing for you."
"Because since you've been here with me, every day I feel more at home."
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That singing voice was Élodie's. She had a beautiful voice—one that made you want to protect her, to never let her go.
Time passed so quickly; I don't even know how we went from the medical block of Auschwitz to the cold land of Greenland.
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The young German girl was screaming for her life… because that beast was sinking its fangs into the place between her radius and the muscles of her calf, pressing down hard on her fragile skin.With every passing second, she felt her throat losing its voice, unable to stretch far enough to reflect the pain inside her, as if to show that she felt forsaken, abandoned.All she wanted… was for her father to save her.
The mind of a young Polish boy was trapped within itself.Are these the consequences of choosing my life?To live with your mistakes.To live with disappointments.To live with your fears.To live with your anguish.To live with the weight of a past that only makes you think:
Were we wrong to believe there is a God… or were we wrong to believe that God listens to us?Were we wrong to believe that faith is good?Were we wrong to believe that life has value?
We were wrong—or maybe,just maybe,we can cling to the hope… of facing what threatens us.
Maybe it is possible to believe.But to believe, you must also be willing to suffer.But not to suffer foolishly.
Only men who truly believe do not believe because they never questioned it.They believe because they questioned, and only in moments of danger does their faith die—only to be reborn stronger.
From the cheeks of that delicate woman, who had lost everything—her mother, her sisters, her father—because of decisions she could not understand, in a foreign land, cold and afraid, a beast had her leg and would not let go until it killed her.
On the other side, a young man pursued by misfortune, because his father was dead, his mother too, his sisters, and the woman he loved.It was an animal that stole the life of a beautiful French woman, who loved Nuriel with all her heart.
Will Nuriel keep losing? Or perhaps the rage he feels, mixed with the fear inside him, is the reason that this time he will scream with all his strength and fight against his oppressors.
Nuriel was elevated… two meters above the ground. He wasn't thinking. He wasn't thinking at all. He was just furious, because he was tired of everyone dying for his life.He felt guilty. He felt like none of this made sense. But he refused to believe in that lack of meaning; he wanted to go against doubt, against the fears of the poor in spirit.
Nuriel was falling fast, clenching the pearls of his mouth with force, his heart pounding with euphoria. Nuriel was not thinking; he was speaking through his body.His hands were burning. Those sparks were lightning—that was his gift.But his gift was perhaps a mistake,because the metal in the hilt was burning his hands. The beast did not realize that what it had on the back of its neck was the Man of Lightning, the Beast of Thunder, the Saint of Lightning.
Piercing through the white hairs, the dagger lodged with a flash into its neck.And with a cry of power, the young man poured all his rage, his fears, his anguish, and his entire spirit into a single bolt of lightning.
With this decision, Nuriel was declaring that he loved Adelaida.Adelaida loved Nuriel, but that love was pure.Together, they had shared warmth when it was cold, food when one was hungry, an embrace when one cried, and love when the other was in need.
The brother who cared, who protected.The sister who carried and also protected.They were showing each other that they both loved, and that they would both cling to life.
Because Nuriel loves Adelaida, and because he loves her, he decides to abandon the selfish idea of hating her. He no longer cares where she came from, or who were the bastards who stole her life.
Keep living.
That beast could no longer move, and it only took a moment for its body to reek of burnt hair and charred flesh. The bear became unrecognizable: its eyes exploded, its head smelled of a corpse, and it stopped moving.
After a few seconds of silence, the siblings looked into each other's eyes:—Nuriel?—Adelaida?...
But it wasn't over, because the bear on the right was dead, while the one on the left remained. Adelaida raised her rifle and fired until the cartridge was empty, but the beast still charged forward with violence. At that moment, as the bear reared up, Nuriel reacted quickly.
The rifle had a bayonet, and as the bear lunged, its own weight drove the blade into its neck, angled so the weapon pierced through. The bear tried to break free.Nuriel thought fast, scooped Adelaida into his arms, and ran without thinking. But he was so nervous that sparks still flickered in his hands.
—Nuriel, please, it hurts, put me down.—What? We have to go, and you're saying you can't walk.—I saw it… your… ahh, Nuriel, it hurts.
Nuriel's hands were channeling electricity through his body. His winter gloves were scorched to ashes.—Your hands… they hurt me. It seems like this is your gift of creation.
They realized there was no longer any danger from the bears. Looking back, they saw the beasts had stopped moving.They embraced, but Adelaida pulled away when she saw his hands.—Your hands…
Nuriel's palms were black, the skin torn and cooked by heat, as if an iron bar had fallen upon them. She was worried, but as soon as he set her down, she collapsed into the snow instantly: blood loss and fatigue had overtaken her.—Adelaida! —Nuriel cried, terrified.
It made sense: the height, the wound, and the exhaustion from traveling from South Greenland to the North was too much—even for a saint.
Desperate, he went to the supply pack. He searched for morphine, bandages, scalpels, and medicine—painkillers, disinfectants—prepared for a possible surgical intervention from bullets.Nuriel laid Adelaida down and improvised beds in the snow. He knew he had to act quickly. He looked around to make sure no bears were near. He had no time to think: under the faint light of stars barely visible, he began examining Adelaida's leg.
She had eight deep punctures. Nuriel checked to ensure it wasn't shattered and found a slight fracture. Taking advantage of her unconsciousness, he straightened it in one swift pull. Then he applied injectable morphine, the same kind used on soldiers in the 1940s, brought from the medical block in Iceland.
With scalpel and the few medicines he had, he cut away damaged flesh and stitched both the main artery in her calf and the surrounding muscles and tissues. Fortunately, the bear had only gripped the leg—it hadn't destroyed it completely.—If it had attacked for a few more seconds, Adelaida might never have walked again… —he murmured nervously.
He had treated patients in Auschwitz, but never anything like this. He prayed for strength, but no answer came. So he clung to the medical knowledge he had learned for a year with Dr. Weill in the medical blocks. The procedure took him eight hours.
He knew that even with all he had done, it wasn't enough. He lit an improvised fire with what little wood he could find, both to melt snow for water to disinfect with and to provide light. The smoke was suffocating, but necessary. Fortunately, there was no snowstorm, and the stars and auroras lit the night.
Nuriel left Galton lying in the snow, breathing but motionless. All that mattered was saving Adelaida's leg. He stopped the bleeding, removed dead tissue, and administered medicine against tetanus and rabies, which he carried as a precaution. Still, he knew it wasn't enough.
Afterward, he pulled bones from the bears with his dagger, lined them up, and fashioned an improvised splint for her leg. With the fire, he cured the bearskin as best he could to cover Adelaida against the cold. He went two days without sleep.
—Adelaida… forgive me. I don't hate you… I'm so sorry. I don't hate you… —he whispered as he worked.
Wrapping Adelaida in the bearskin—not perfect, but enough to protect her—he tied a rifle to his back, adjusting the rope across his shoulders like a makeshift harness. He slung her onto his back while the supply pack rested against his chest.
"You don't have to think now, Nuriel," he told himself. "You just need to get Adelaida to the nearest doctor. I can't heal her completely."
Then he looked at Galton. He was still breathing, though unresponsive. And at that instant, Nuriel saw something strange: an angel appeared briefly, holding a staff, and seemed to be closing Galton's wounds. When Nuriel came closer, he noticed the wounds sealed, as if by coal.
A cherub stepped in front of him and spoke: "Young man…"
"I don't have time to talk to you," Nuriel snapped. "I have to take Adelaida to the nearest doctor. You're not going to heal her—I can see you care more about that bastard than about Adelaida. If it were otherwise, an angel would have healed her leg."
As the angel who had been tending to Galton withdrew, the cherub spoke again: "Young man of the lightning… you must take Galton with you."
Nuriel glared at him. "You want me to carry that wretch too?"
He raged at the angel: "Why didn't you protect us from the bears?! If he's so chosen, then you take him! I won't. He dragged us into this, ignored our warnings, and put Adelaida's life and mine at risk.
If God really wants him alive, then let Him carry his damned self back to Vermont."
"I will rescue Adelaida and take her away from here. I'll bring her to the nearest village and forget this cursed journey. We don't deserve this."
The cherub replied: "No matter how much you try to deny it, Nuriel, you are still the Saint of the Lightning. The reason God chose you—across all ages—is because you are the one most fit to be the sacred bearer of the thunder, the blessed of the storm, the Saint of the Lightning.
You are the only one in the world who can bear that title, Nuriel. God did not choose you without reason. Nor did He choose Galton without reason. Even if it seems otherwise, the original purpose has been there from the start. But don't think this man will go unpunished.
God has seen him. This man is not aligned with God—not even a little.
That is why we sent Kamei-san. He not only stands aligned with God, but he was meant to go with you from the beginning. Yet there were no other options. Galton was the only one who could do it. Without him, both of you would have died.
You must save his life. We will show you what you must do. As much as we wish to intervene, unless God permits it, we cannot. Nuriel, if your heart still believes in God, in hope, and in the love you have for Adelaida, let that love move you to heal and forgive Galton."
Nuriel's anger boiled over; he shouted at the angel, perhaps now understanding why Galton had conflicts with God: "Tell me something… Does God really love us? Or does He enjoy watching us suffer? I didn't see God do anything for the Jews in the camps—nor for the countless people who died in this war. Tell me, cherub…
Does God love us?! Are we His children—or are we His puppets?!"
The cherub answered: "The injustices of mankind are the result of its disobedience since it left the Garden of Eden. The reason God does not intervene directly is not indifference, but because if He did, humanity would be annihilated.
God intended to destroy the demons, but they entered the garden and corrupted humanity. In short, if God had destroyed the demons, He would also have had to destroy humanity.
You are innocent. God tried without forcing you. But man is selfish by nature. He tried—but now He is focused on saving what He can and purging what is impure.
If you knew the power of God, you would understand that nothing escapes Him—not even me."
—Nuriel, don't think I don't know what you feel. I too lost brothers to a war that was a mistake from the very beginning. I too once asked myself if my Father was good.—And if you see me here, then you know the choice I made. It grieves me for humanity. You did nothing wrong.—And God is no tyrant; He creates life, Nuriel. Germany will not go unpunished. At the Final Judgment, the greatest sins will be judged. God is neither wicked nor unjust. Your human perception limits your vision.
The angel began to fade:—Nuriel, the future hangs by a thread.—Please…—I know you will make the right choice.—Nuriel, I trust you will carry Galton to Vermont.
Nuriel shouted at the angel, but the light vanished in that very moment.He stood there, staring at Galton's body, about to walk away, but only seven steps later he muttered:—Kurwa mać! (Damn it.)
—Very well then, God, Lord, God of the Jews, of Israel, and of the whole world who gave me these gifts… —Nuriel cried—. If I must not judge, I will respect Your divinity! But hear me well: this is not fair to me!—I will never forgive Germany, nor the Nazis!—I love Adelaida, and because I love her, I will carry her out of here. And if You say I must carry Your chosen one, then I will!
—Do You hear me? I will!—But I will tell You one thing, God!—Why didn't You take all those people? What did they ever do to You?—My family!—I was the only one left!—I don't care what happens to those fools, those sons of bitches, I don't care what happens to those demons of Germany!—This girl comes from Germany, and You chose her! Do they matter to You more than us?! Tell me! Where is Your love?!—Where is Your love?!
Shouting to the heavens, seeking an answer:
Nuriel, with all his strength, dragged Galton while carrying Adelaida on his back. He did this for nearly three weeks, moving step by step. The combined weight of Galton and Adelaida was an immense burden. The bear bite had caused a fever, forcing Nuriel to stop and tend to her.
He understood that Galton was in some kind of coma. Finally, Nuriel managed to seek help from a nearby tribe. They lent him a small canoe to head south, through the Davis Strait.
—Don't worry, Adelaida. I will protect you. We'll reach a city, and we'll heal your leg.