After what feels like an endless run, we finally reach the shack. Suspended in the shadows like a relic of time, barely visible in the darkness.
— Me (heart skipping a beat): This place looks more haunted than a Scooby-Doo episode on acid.
The air is thick—dense with silence and moisture. The scent of damp earth and rotten wood mixes with something metallic, as if the house itself were breathing.
Torches flicker against the walls, their flames dancing on living shadows, shifting with a will of their own.
— Me (mentally, already defeated): Are there Airbnb's in the afterlife? Cause I swear, the listing for this one straight-up lied.
The old rasta walks ahead of me.
His tangled dreadlocks sway slightly, his presence looming, a void of silence stretching around him, as if he bends time itself.
Each step he takes presses down on the atmosphere.
This shack isn't a refuge. It's a trap.
A carcass of rusted metal and rotting wood, a corpse of time itself.
A place where death lingers, unseen yet ever-present.
The walls seem to close in.
Every creaking plank, every whisper in the air, everything feels like a murmur from another world.
Inside, the air thickens, almost turning liquid, as if the shack is a living entity.
Every breath I take feels like it's pulling a piece of my soul away.
The floorboards groan under my weight, the sound slicing through the silence like metal fangs sinking into bone.
The stench of moldy wood and acrid smoke churns my stomach.
I want to run.
But my legs betray me.
I collapsed onto a bench, my eyes locked on the old rasta, still motionless, the master of this place.
He checks behind us before shutting the door with a deep, resounding thud, like the closing of a chapter you can never reread.
Then, he turns to me.
His eyes are bottomless voids.
The silence thickens, suffocating.
A judgment.
— Old Rasta (amused): Rasta… Do you even know who you are?
BOOM.
The question crashes into my mind, heavier than a stone plummeting off a cliff.
— Me: Bro, is this a job interview or a mystical paternity test?
Then—an echo. A resonance. A long-forgotten truth brushes against me, burning from the inside.
My thoughts fractured.
— Me (thinking): A king in exile? A chosen one? Or just some guy who's really about to regret asking that question?
I understand the words.
But the meaning slips through my fingers like a truth refusing to be held.
JOKER.
Phone a friend!
Author refuses to translate!
Shit!
Brain crashing. Need a solution!
— Me (mentally): Uh… Iris, translation?
A soft beep.
Iris' voice, usually cold and calculated, now carries something almost hesitant. Like she doesn't have all the answers for once.
— Iris: Do you know who you are?
Why does that question terrify me?
The air grows heavier. An unseen pressure crushes my chest.
— Me (thoughtful): I feel like I'm in Men in Black, right before they drop some cosmic truth on you—with no user manual.
I try to keep my cool.
— Me: Of course! I'm Jacques William Alco.
A pause. A dry, strange chuckle.
Not a laugh of joy.
More like a warning in disguise.
— Old Rasta (taking a drag from his cigarette): No, brother… That was before.
His gaze pierces through me.
— Old Rasta: But now… who are you really?
My head vibrates.
This isn't a headache. It's a storm ripping through my thoughts, a whirlwind.
— Me (in awe? Or pure panic?): This is like a ghetto version of Star Wars. Wait… don't tell me—you're about to say, William, I am your cousin?
The old rasta shakes his head.
His dreadlocks ripple like living serpents.
When he speaks again, his tone is deeper, his words hitting the ground like stones.
— Old Rasta: You are not just Jacques William Alco.
He whispers, each syllable carrying a weight of absolute certainty.
— Old Rasta: You are a Traveler.
— Me (internally, panic? Excitement!): Hold up, hold up… I'm a Traveler? Like Doctor Who, but without a TARDIS and on a budget?
He shakes his head again.
A puff of smoke rises slowly, but the air is too thick for it to dissipate.
The silence deepens.
— Old Rasta (graver now): But be careful… You are not alone.
A breath.
The wind slaps against the shack's walls.
A strange sound. Like a heartbeat, distant yet thunderous.
— Me (mentally): I can barely manage my phone bill, now I must deal with past lives too?!
My vision wavers.
An 8 appears on his forehead.
It glows with a pulsing black light, like a mystical code trying to consume me.
— Me (mentally): Is this a magic QR code? What does it mean?
My stomach twists. Vertigo swallows me whole.
A deep hum.
A voice.
Gamm Micheline's.
Distant, almost lost to time.
— Mo passer, la Rivière Tanier… mo zoine avec grand mama…
The song echoes differently now.
Heavier. Sadder.
A weight pressing down with every note.
The world tilts.
And suddenly, I feel like a stranger in my own skin.