⚠️ Warning⚠️
The content may mention concentration campsand doubts about the Christian faith ⛪.
The author does not seek morbid detail 😶🌫️.All that is narrated is fiction 📖.
Reader discretion is advised 👀.
✒️ Author's Note 🫠:
Gathering the minerals for the steel alloyis tough work ⚒️. Doing it from scratch, alone,
is even more laborious 😅.
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The cave was alive.
Water ran down the walls and fell into a waterfall.
Every drop that touched the rock sounded like a pulse, marking
the rhythm of the place.
Nuriel was not in the cabin.
He had spent two weeks in the northwest of the forest, climbing the
mountain where Kamei-san used to extract minerals.
Before leaving, he had told Adelaida and Dánae that he would be
away for a while, that he needed to gather materials to
continue his project.
The air was cold, dense, filled with mist.
The roots of the pines coiled among the stones, and the
ground trembled with a low, almost imperceptible vibration.
The forest breathed.
When he reached the foot of the mountain, he paused for a moment.
The climb was steep, covered with moss and wet stone.
With each step, the sound of gravel mixed with an underground murmur,
as if something deep below responded to his weight.
Inside the cave, he set up his lamp and spread out on an improvised table
the materials he had managed to gather:
"Let's see…" —he muttered, rubbing his blackened hands— "I have
hematite, magnetite, pyrite, some bauxite… copper, though
oxidized… a bit of malachite and chalcopyrite. Gold… platinum, only
a few grams left by Kamei-san. But still no pure iron. And without
fluorite, I can't stabilize the refraction for the X-rays."
The echo of his voice distorted along the cave walls.
He looked at the veins that shimmered in the light. They were like arteries,
spreading through the rock.
"The curious thing," —he said softly, almost laughing— "is that nothing
here ever runs out."
He took out his hammer, struck one of the veins, and extracted a piece of
green mineral. He examined it, placed it in his bag, and when he looked again…
the hollow in the wall had vanished.
The mineral was there again.
Whole. Intact.
"It's like pulling out a plant and watching it grow again in the same
place," —he told himself— "This forest never stops regenerating. It's not just
soil and stone… it's alive. This entire forest is alive.
It doesn't let us take anything from it, it only lends us what it wants."
He fell silent.
The constant dripping from the ceiling matched his breathing.
He looked at the piece of mineral in his hand. It was warm.
"Maybe that's why gold doesn't make us sick…" —he whispered— "Nothing
here truly belongs to the physical world."
He sat on a rock, took out his notebook, and wrote a sentence:
"The matter here seems to obey a different principle of
conservation. There is no loss. There is no equivalent to a null concept,
or I'm understanding it in another way."
Then he looked up.
The air around him began to vibrate with a faint hum.
His thoughts sank into what obsessed him most:
his gifts.
He began to speak aloud, to keep his mind busy.
"Sometimes I think my gift should have a thermodynamic basis…
but I can't find it."
"The energy I emit doesn't seem to respond to a temperature gradient
nor to a variation in enthalpy. There's no heat flow
nor mass transfer."
"It arises from a nonexistent point of equilibrium.
It's energy ex nihilo, violating the first law of thermodynamics."
"If the human body is a closed biological system, governed by the
conservation of energy, how do I channel a discharge of
megavolts without suffering immediate thermal disintegration?"
"My nervous system should collapse under such an extreme potential difference."
"I've tried to quantify it."
"The discharges seem to originate in a subcutaneous nodal region,
perhaps a bioelectric vortex where the action potentials
overlap in resonance."
"The intensity doesn't match any known neuronal dynamics."
"It's as if consciousness were a quantum capacitor, releasing
energy in the form of coherent photons upon reaching a certain
frequency… maybe willpower?"
"A natural lightning bolt arises from a dielectric rupture between
regions of opposite charge. Mine, on the other hand, lacks atmospheric support:
there's no ionization of air nor potential difference between cloud and
ground."
"The lightning is born within me, as if the boundary between matter
and spirit suffered a spontaneous discharge."
"Perhaps my so-called 'gifts of creation' are not miracles, but
an anomalous manipulation of entropy: a direct transfer
of potential energy into electrical kinetic energy, a process that
subverts the entropic balance."
Yet among all his hypotheses, that was the one that frustrated him the most.
Not because it was inconsistent, but because he couldn't prove it.
"Of course…" —he scoffed, kicking a rock with the tip of his foot— "Logical,
yes. As logical as Popeye being the father of the human genome… and
Alice in Wonderland the lost sister of Sadi Carnot, teaching her how to bake
cinnamon rolls."
He let out a short, hollow laugh.
"What stupidity!"
The echo of his voice was lost among the damp walls of the cave.
Nuriel inhaled slowly. The air was dense, almost vibrating, as if
the very particles contained electricity.
Every time he spoke about his gifts, the forest listened.
And outside, as if in response, the sky trembled with lightning.
This... it seems there's a storm outside.
Nuriel looked at the stones and said the following:
"I'd better take it all. I'll have to go for the other stones."
Nuriel had gathered all the possible minerals
from that area, since other sacks were waiting for him
at the foot of the mountain.
However, when he was about to climb all the way, he said:
"I don't know if this will answer my questions,
but the truth is that..."
"No matter what I do, every time I try to answer something,
it ends up being the exact opposite."
An angel appeared in the middle of the cave and whispered:
"Nuriel..."
"Who's there?" —he asked.
A faint glow lit up the cave,
not bright enough to interrupt his work.
The angel appeared before him.
But, for some reason, took the form of a woman,
very similar to his mother.
Nuriel raised an eyebrow, turned, and said:
"What's the message?
Tell me, please, that Kamei-san and Jack have returned."
The angel replied:
"I'm sorry to interrupt you,
but Jack and Kamei-san have not returned."
"Then why have you come here?" —said Nuriel.
The angel touched Nuriel's blackened hands
gently, showing compassion.
Despite her holiness,
she still bore the marks of Greenland,
memories of her past.
His hands, though mobile thanks to his invulnerability,
remained a living scar.
The angel spoke:
"God has ordered me to make you stop for a moment.
I know you have doubts,
but why didn't you ask Him directly
how the gifts of creation worked?"
Nuriel replied:
"Because the truth is that deep down I don't want to know anything.
Even though I believe in God,
I'm not content with how He does things.
And if I had asked to know how it worked,
He surely would've given me something vague, meaningless."
He violently released the angel's hand.
"I already brought Adelaida and Galton to Vermont.
The immortal fool is gone.
My sister is here. That's all I want.
I don't want to know anything else."
The angel asked:
"Do you hold any resentment toward God?"
"Not like you think! It's not as if His actions
were questionable."
"Like, for example, that He abandoned us in Greenland."
"He hasn't abandoned you. He was there for you."
"Oh, really? Was He there the day the bear bit
Adelaida? Or when the only man who could protect us,
Galton, lost his strength?
And no one ever heard from him again?
"What are the orbs of creation? Oh, right!
They're not going to tell us. I have to do everything on my own."
"Because I know that God doesn't want us to touch His domain.
But if we were given the prophecy,
why were we given the orbs to begin with?
All of this seems like nonsense to me."
The angel tried to ease things.
She wanted to persuade Nuriel.
"The reason I have come here," —she said—
"is because I want you to understand the opposite."
"God is not going to stop you.
You're not doing anything wrong,
but the direction you're taking is."
"You're holding resentment toward Him
and toward the past."
Nuriel answered with irony and protest.
"The past? Please.
If I truly held resentment,
I wouldn't be in this forest."
The angel replied:
"Then where would you be? Outside?
In the world, where you would have grown old?"
"That would be much better than all this."
"You mean it would've been better
not to have been with your sister?"
"Shut up already!" —said Nuriel.
He headed toward the exit
and began descending the mountain.
The angel tried to approach him,
but this time she took another form:
that of his father.
With a different voice, he said:
"Stop now.
This is not what God wants.
God wants to make things right, Nuriel."
"If He wants so badly to make things right
and takes the form of my father,
then I understand God's priorities.
He wants to fix everything with everyone,
when deep down that isn't true."
"Out there, people believe in God blindly.
But I already know He exists."
And now I ask:
"Are you so shameless as to take the form
of my father and my mother?"
"What will you do next?"
"Take the form of my sisters?"
"Of Élodie? Of Dr. Weill?"
Do you think that gives me peace?
No. It's a form of blackmail."
The angel perfectly understood
what Nuriel was saying.
So she took a different form,
not to threaten his feelings,
but to speak to him as an equal.
The angel spoke:
"I'm here because I care about you, Nuriel.
We worry about you.
Do you really think we are insensitive beings?
Do you think we enjoy human misfortunes?"
And Nuriel threw it back at her, saying:
"Yes. Because if it weren't so, then you would have intervened
in the concentration camps.
You would have intervened in that damn war where
thousands of people died.
You would have intervened in the number of sick
who arrive at hospitals because of people
we don't even know."
"I believe so.
Because if we are truly His most precious children,
then why did He abandon us?
Or at least, that's how I feel."
"On one hand, I think He is with us,
but only when it suits Him.
And just as He sees me as a tool,
then I will see Him as one too."
The angel said the following:
"So everything we did for you,
is that what you're trying to tell us, Nuriel?"
Nuriel turned with annoyance.
"What do you mean?" he said.
"I am one of the angels who intervened for you
in the Auschwitz camps," replied the angel.
"God ordered us not to interfere
in the massacre of the Jews.
It was part of destiny,
and the conclusion of paths.
Thanks to that, Israel was born again,
as a form of resistance against tyranny.
Those who died are now in Sheol,
and the judgment to come
will be the one that gives them justice."
Nuriel replied:
"So you're telling me that God needs
a tragedy to occur in order to bring justice?
And that way affirm a 'righteous justice'
through a catastrophe He could have prevented?
Do you realize how stupid that sounds?"
"You call them 'Jews,' but there was more than that
in those places!
There were gypsies, French, Italians! Like me!
Or are their deaths any less important?
You are just like those damn Nazis!
Jewish or not, we're still people!
Don't label us for something we never asked for!"
The angel replied:
"We cannot touch anyone's free will."
"Oh yes, free will," said Nuriel.
"Don't come to me with stupidities.
If God cared so much about the individuality of each one,
He would have let us choose our own decisions
in the midst of this earth.
I wasn't given options.
I had no options.
I have no options.
I'm the saint of lightning, aren't I?
So much is my misfortune that I can't use my gifts.
And the reason I can't use them
is because I'm almost eighty percent water."
"Haven't you thought about it? Maybe angels, being spirit,
can use it. If the spirit
can even be called a 'concept.'
A concept.
Just like the orbs of creation are a concept.
God is a concept.
The angels are a concept."
"And though at first I didn't believe in that,
it was when I saw them that I felt the horrible burden
they are to creation.
If God tries to reconcile with me,
there is nothing He can do now.
Because, to begin with, my mother is gone.
My father too.
My sisters, even less.
And the woman I loved, Élodie, is gone as well.
My second father figure,
Dr. Weill, is no longer here.
Now He tries to make up for everything that happened,
sending me to a forest where things regenerate.
Yes, I have to admit I'm interested in this place.
And I'm also interested in my sisters,
Dánae and Adelaida, who await me in that cabin.
But they have no idea what I suffer every day.
How I remember in dreams everything I lived in the camps.
How every day they kicked me, spat on me,
and told me I was a filthy Jew.
Every day hearing the same thing:
that I had no worth."
"Maybe I do have worth!" he said, his voice breaking.
At this moment, Nuriel cannot process
all his feelings at once.
"Is that God's justice?
Is that what He so fiercely defends?
To oppress the Jews, to oppress anyone,
and then come as a savior
and say He has set us free?
Is that the God who wants to reconcile with me?"
The angel said:
"God chose you from among all the Jews in Auschwitz,
Nuriel. There is no one, in any century,
more capable than you of being the Saint of Lightning.
Because the Saint of Lightning must channel himself
in a single direction,
without looking to the sides.
But his energy can branch out
and contain his anger toward the divine,
reflecting the power and justice of God.
If God has chosen you, it is for that reason.
God loves you.
And because He loves you, He took your parents and siblings.
Not out of pride,
but because they had nothing left to do in this war,
including Élodie."
Nuriel answered:
"Yeah, sure. So what? Am I here to remember their memory?
I think I have to accept that, for me,
the fact that God did not exist,
or was only a concept,
would have been more comforting
than finding out that He does exist.
And now that I know He exists,
I realize nothing will ever be the same again."
Nuriel sighed, holding something broken inside him.
The angel took one final form.
He changed no more.
He revealed his true appearance.
His garments were white,
his hair curled,
his skin pale,
and his eyes, crystalline.
So alike to a human,
and at the same time so distant from its concept.
The angel looked into his eyes,
touched his cheeks, and said:
"I am not going to convince you not to hate God,
but I will tell you something, Nuriel.
We love you.
And God does too.
You may take time to understand His love,
but I want you to know that God does not delight in injustice.
The order He created, the justice and the universe,
He made them for one single reason:
So that all,
the just and the unjust,
may have the opportunity to redeem themselves."
The angel simply vanished.
And with him, in a certain way,
one of Nuriel's doubts also faded.
But that doubt would remain only within him.
Even though one of his questions had been answered,
the answer did not please him.
He looked toward the sky and understood
that he was not the only angel there.
There were thirty-two more,
suspended above the clouds.
And it was not until Nuriel ignored them
and continued walking downhill,
that the angels began to disappear.
Nuriel descended to the bottom of the mountain.
He decided to return to the cabin,
to advance with his X-Ray project,
and to better analyze the morphology of his body.
As soon as he saw the bags, he did not think twice.
There was a huge drawer,
a wooden structure that would allow him
to carry the eight sacks full of minerals at once.
With his tremendous strength, he lifted everything and walked.
He was already used to it,
but he could not help remembering Greenland,
when he carried Galton and Adelaida
for kilometers through frozen snow,
and the reason for his blackened fingers.
Silence accompanied him.
The evening was falling,
and sadness filled his mind.
Not because of what the angel had told him,
but because of what it could mean.
Perhaps it was a feeling he could not answer.
Not because he didn't know how,
but because he refused to allow himself to be weak.
"Weakness is the pattern
that oppressors use to manipulate us."
That was what Nuriel thought.
He believed that anyone who tried to impose something on him
was an oppressor—
someone who sought to take away his freedom.
Tears began to slide
down his cheeks.
He made no gesture,
no sound,
no sob.
He just let them fall.
An expressionless face.
And within him, the memories:
his home,
his family,
the woman he loved,
the doctor.
Everything.
"Why is it that every time I change places,
I can't find peace?" he asked himself.
He thought he would find it in the factory.
He didn't.
He only found oppression.
Auschwitz was no better.
Buchenwald neither.
He thought Iceland would be different,
but Greenland buried him under its cold.
Everything he left behind,
all because of Galton's foolishness,
for refusing to slow down.
Nuriel, with an empty gaze, murmured:
"The angel asks me to ask God for forgiveness.
But I think it's God who should ask me for forgiveness.
I don't believe I was born only to suffer.
And if I was born for that,
then God doesn't want forgiveness.
He wants me not to think."
He kept walking.
And although he didn't know it,
the angels still protected him from afar,
preventing him from stumbling,
watching in silence.
Meanwhile, Nuriel repeated in a low voice,
again and again,
like a desperate mantra:
"I have to keep my mind busy.
My mind must always be busy.
I must keep it busy.
My mind has to stay busy."