In the apothecary's shop, the acrid smell of the bubbling stills was so intense that it made his temples throb. The dim light, thick with vapors, enveloped the herbs hanging from the ceiling and the shelves laden with books and glass bottles, barely illuminated by a few dim candles.

  Peter, or rather, his feline version, stared at him silently, waiting. Those lively, overly intelligent eyes on the cat's face were fixed on Nico, as if waiting for an admission at any moment.

  Nico frowned and shook his head. “I don't owe you any favors,” he said with a puzzled tone. “Maybe you remember wrong... but I saved you. If it weren't for me, you wouldn't have gotten out of the Dark Tower.”

  The cat, assuming a strange grin resembling a smile, replied in Peter's mocking voice: “Excuse me, but perhaps you didn't consider that you were only faster than me because your room came before mine. If the attendant had come to me first, you would still be locked up in the tower.”

  “So you're saying you wouldn't have come to free me if I had asked you?” asked Nico, puzzled.

  The cat, its eyes bright and feverish with amusement, replied with that strange, crooked smile on its cat-like muzzle: "I'm not saying that.

  I'm just saying that even if you had freed yourself, you still wouldn't have been able to get out of the tower. That damn Black Tower is a kind of labyrinth. Before entering it, I spent weeks crouching under the walls, like a cockroach, or in the form of a mouse, to memorize the various escape routes. And anyway, in the end, they managed to catch me. They're clever, those ones."

  The woman named Clarissa waved her hand in the air, causing the various shawls she was wrapped in to flutter. One came dangerously close to a candle flame, but fortunately did not catch fire.

  “So they would have captured you?” she asked.

  The cat shook his head with a grin and replied, “That was an unfortunate accident.”

  “And what would that unfortunate accident be?” asked the woman, frowning, even though she had a strange smile on her face.

  The cat shook his head, turning his muzzle away, as if to hide something, and muttered, "Unfortunately, you know that when I see catnip, I can't resist... I was a little mouse. I saw a cat rolling around in catnip and I knew right away that I wouldn't be able to resist. I went over, sniffed it, and the rest just happened.

  A janitor saw me change... He screamed, others came, and then BAM, they caught me. But these things happen. Anyway, here I am, free as a bird."

  In the dim light, as Nico blinked, the cat's paws retracted and its fur lengthened, turning into feathers; the cat's sharp face pointed into a beak and a black sparrow flew across the room, perching on Nico's shoulder.

  The bird whistled a tune, moving its head from side to side, then, in Peter's voice, said, “Anyway, whatever happened, I got you out of there, so now you owe me a big favor.”

  Nico shook his head, then turned to stare into the bird's black, lively eyes, feverish like Peter's.

  “Let's say you're right. What is this favor?”

  “You were struck by the Nothing, right?” Peter asked, as if asking a question he already knew the answer to.

  Nico frowned, looking the sparrow straight in the eye, which were unnaturally bright.

  “How do you know that?”

  “Well, it's very simple,” said Peter. “They only put the dying who have been struck by the Nothing in that wing of the tower.”

  Nico raised his eyebrows, his eyes widening. His stomach contracted in a spasm and a lump rose in his throat.

  “I'm not dying,” he blurted out. “I don't know what you think or what you believe has happened to me, but I'm certainly not dying.”

  He frowned, thinking that perhaps his tone had been too irritated.

  The little bird fluttered away and landed on the counter where several flasks and stills were simmering.

  Nico turned to look at Peter, the acrid smell and fumes wafting through the shop giving him a headache. Peter stretched his limbs again, transforming into a black rabbit with soft fur and eyes that were incredibly bright and lively for a rabbit.

  “Come on, buddy, don't be a rabbit,” Peter laughed, ending the insult with a squeak.

  For a moment, the only sound in the shop was the liquid inside the ampoules simmering slowly, then Peter burst out laughing: “Come on, man, I was joking,” said Peter the rabbit. "It's not that they put the dying there... it's that they put the impossible cases there. No, okay, I'm joking again. It's just that they're putting the ones they think have been infected by the Nothing for one reason or another in there... and that's where you come in, to give us a little help."

  Nico frowned, looking first at the rabbit, then at the pharmacist, and said:

  “You work with Peter?”

  The woman waved her shawls in the air: “Yes, my dear. I'm a pharmacist who loves to experiment with new things, and Peter helps me when I need something more specific. You won't believe it, but despite his many jokes, Peter is an excellent scholar and a hard worker.

  We've been working side by side for years.”

  “Years?” asked Nico. “Peter seems young enough. Has he been working here with you since he was a child?”

  The rabbit laughed in a mixture of laughter and squeak.

  “I'm much older than I look, my friend. It's just that I enjoy myself. I have a very old mind, even though my body always looks young. But if you prefer a bearded grandfather, I'll oblige you right away.”

  Nico shook his head and Peter laughed.

  “Luckily you refused, because I don't actually know how to do that...”

  The rabbit laughed again and leapt to the ground, transforming back into a black cat.

  “I'm not one of those mutants who can change human form. I can only change animal form, and the fact that I don't age is related to the fact that I believe that, for my race, time passes more slowly than for you humans... even though I haven't met many like me.”

  Nico shook his head and waved his hand in the air. He didn't want to hear anything about it, partly because ninety percent of what Peter was saying was probably pure lies. He looked at the woman and said,

  “Let's get to the point. What do you need from me?”

  “Well, my dear,” the woman began with her aspirated vowels, “we would like something from you that Peter was supposed to take from the Dark Tower, but he failed to retrieve it because, apparently, catnip was more appealing than his mission.” She said this theatrically, aspirating her vowels in a cacophonous laugh, then continued: “We need some of the liquid you carry with you.”

  “You mean my blood?” Nico asked hesitantly.

  The woman burst out laughing, waving her shawls around her in a series of theatrical gestures.

  “No, my dear. If I needed blood, I could get plenty... but that's not what we're looking for. We need a few vials of the Nothingness you carry inside you.”

  Nico was sitting at the table in the back room of the pharmacist's shop while the woman was boiling a glass syringe with a sharp needle on a rusty stove, very similar to the one he remembered seeing when the surgeons-healers of the Black Tower operated on him, despite the anesthesia and drowsiness.

  Nico looked around the small, simply furnished room: a table with three mismatched chairs, one of which was made of straw and had a broken seat, a wooden table cluttered with books and other knick-knacks, such as old dirty ampoules, corks, and a few dried herbs. The floor was also covered in places with old dust, dust bunnies, and something dry that resembled the dried flowers found in tea or chamomile bags.

  The rest of the room was no better, either in terms of cleanliness or tidiness. On various surfaces, including a sideboard, were piles of books, ampoules, and other things that probably belonged in a pharmacist's laboratory, but everything was kept in a disorderly manner.

  In one corner, he saw a spiral staircase that probably led to the upper floor of the house.

  Peter wasn't there. Since they had come to the conclusion that the help had been mutual, they had made a new agreement: Nico had offered to get some ampoules of the oily liquid, which the woman had called Oleum. Peter, in return, since he knew the city better than Nico, had agreed to go and look for Leo, Kiah, and the others.

  When Nico lifted his shirt, he was dismayed to see that the black veins had spread again along the wound, running down his side and back up along his ribs.

  In fact, when he tried to remember the whole Erebos story that Nadia had told him, the memory was there, but full of gaps.

  The woman, seeing all the objects cluttering the table, on which Nico avoided even resting his hands, busily threw everything off the table with a clatter of breaking test tubes and books crashing to the floor.

  “Sorry for the mess, dear,” said the woman, theatrical with her aspirated vowels. “It's just that when Peter's away, I... you see... I'm a bit messy: I think of something, I do it, then I think of something else and I do that, and things just stay there, a bit piled up, a bit messy. But it's nothing, you see? Everything will be sorted out, let's hurry up, don't worry.”

  Having said that, she took an incredibly white cloth from a low cupboard and laid it on half of the table. Then she took a pair of steel tongs out of the drawer, grabbed the syringe from the boiling water, first the glass part, then the plunger, and finally the needle, laying everything on the cloth to dry. Nico watched the wet patches slowly spread, imagining the needle stuck in the flesh and the liquid sucked out, thinking that it would probably be a good solution to improve the condition of his brain, which he now imagined as a nice piece of Swiss Emmental cheese.

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  The woman took off the three shawls resting on her shoulders, one on top of the other, despite the heat, and threw them on the floor to one side. Then, incredibly thin without all those layers, she rolled up the sleeves of her robe to her elbows, took a white porcelain basin from the drawer, filled it with hot water, added room temperature water, and immersed her hands in the steaming water, washing them up to her elbows with hard soap.

  He hadn't even finished drying his hands when he looked around, noticed the table in the corner, probably the operating table, and waved his hands in the air: “Oh, I'm sorry, dear, could you do this job? My hands are clean now: throw that stuff wherever you like and clean it up with something, take something,” he said, pointing to the pile of shawls on the floor. “Come on, clean the operating table and let's get started right away.”

  Nico looked around, then grabbed a white cloth from the still-open drawer, dipped it in boiling water, and wrung it out. He did as the woman had done: with energetic hands, he threw the flood of books, ampoules, and odds and ends cluttering the operating table onto the floor and elbowed his way over to give it a good clean. He definitely wanted to avoid getting an infection in that place.

  Once that was done, he lay down, lifting his white shirt.

  He waited, lying down, staring at a crack in the low ceiling, while he heard Clarissa fiddling with the glass syringe. The woman approached, staring at the needle, her face serious. Then, just as she was about to insert it into Nico's scar, the door of Clarissa's shop flew open, banging against the doorframe, and a familiar voice, Leo's, exclaimed, “Nico? Man, what happened to you?”

  Another voice, filled with anxiety, that of Kiah, added: “This is unheard of. As soon as I log off, I'm going to find out who the producers of this game are. It's not possible to lock a character in hospital for so long. Realism is one thing, but this is too much.”

  Gareth's voice, with a simple clearing of his throat, silenced Leo and Kiah, while Peter said, "Don't be fooled, sweet lady, by the poverty and disorder of this dive. My colleague is a sloppy woman, albeit a very capable one. I own much more in this city and, to be honest, I am the deputy mayor. Yes, so young, right?"

  Nico blurted out mockingly, a smile on his lips: “Whatever that madman told you, don't listen to him.”

  “Hey, buddy,” Leo exclaimed, “so it's true, you're here!”

  “Please stay in the shop,” said Clarissa in a theatrical tone with her aspirated vowels. “We're operating here,” she added, turning and walking towards the door.

  “Operating?” exclaimed Kiah. “But wasn't it resolved?”

  “But what's resolved?” Peter began to say. “I'm sorry to give you such bad news, but...”

  Peter's voice trailed off when Clarissa closed the door with her elbow, turning Peter's words outside the room into a muffled mumble.

  “What are you doing, closing the door?” asked Nico. “He'll make up all sorts of things and only make matters worse.”

  Clarissa laughed with her usual cacophonous tone of aspirated vowels, while outside a chaos of overlapping voices exploded.

  “Don't worry. Sooner or later they'll realize he's lying. I can't believe anything he says anymore.”

  Then she looked up, staring at an indeterminate point. “Although the catnip story is quite believable...” Her gaze shifted to Nico. “Don't you think, dear?”

  Nico sighed. “Let's drop it.”

  Clarissa nodded. “Excellent choice, dear,” then bent down, needle in hand, near the

  scar.

  Nico felt the tip approaching and held his breath, his attention shifting away from the rest of the room and what was happening outside, focusing entirely on that spot.

  “So, dear, what damage does the Nothing cause?” Clarissa asked, murmuring with her usual aspirated vowels.

  “What?!” Nico asked uncertainly.

  “The Nothing, I said. I was wondering: what damage is it causing to you?”

  When the needle touched his skin, he felt a cold pressure followed by a pinch.

  “My memory is in pieces...” Nico said through clenched teeth.

  He felt a dull ache, like an invasion.

  He inhaled slowly, following the crack in the ceiling with his eyes, and continued: “I'm missing pieces, I remember things... but I'm missing moments, hours... it's strange.”

  He bit his lower lip as he felt a pulling sensation, as if something were detaching itself from him internally, then murmured faintly, avoiding moving too much:

  “It's not coming out, is it? They had difficulty... the healing surgeons, I mean.”

  Clarissa shook her head slowly, her face concentrated, her eyes like huge spheres behind her thick glasses: “It's okay, dear. In fact, we're almost done.”

  “When they removed some of the fluid, though... I felt better... at least for a while,” Nico said, resuming the conversation.

  Clarissa nodded, and Nico felt that cold sensation slip away from his body, while something wet and damp with a pungent smell moistened the area around the puncture.

  “Hold it down, dear,” said Clarissa, leaving Nico to hold the cloth, probably soaked in some kind of disinfectant, against the area where Clarissa had been working.

  The woman rose from her bent position, staring at the black liquid inside the glass syringe. Nico shuddered at the sight of the oily substance glistening like obsidian, but this time it did not move unless prompted by Clarissa, unlike in the operating room with the healing surgeons.

  Then Clarissa, with the syringe still full, began pacing back and forth across the room, muttering, “Where are they? Where are they? Where...”

  “What are you looking for?” asked Nico.

  “Some ampoules. I always have some lying around, but today I can't find any. There's never anything around here when you need it.”

  Nico frowned. Now he could hear the muttering in the next room again, muffled by the closed door, louder than before. Then the door flew open, while Clarissa continued to move around the room like a crazed cricket.

  Kiah's face, with huge dark eyes wide with fear, marked by slight dark circles and surrounded by thick curls exploding in all directions, stared at him from the doorway. Nico smiled sadly, as the euphoria of seeing his friends again mingled with shame for the chaos that had ensued and fear of what they would say once they knew how it had gone.

  Leo's face appeared next to Kiah's, with a crooked smile on his freckled face and his dirty blond hair tousled. Nico raised an arm in greeting and murmured, with a smile that seemed unconvincing, “I'm fine.”

  Clarissa, who was still twirling around the room with the syringe in her hands, only then noticed Leo and Kiah at the door. Staring at them with her enormous eyes filtered by thick glasses, she murmured to Kiah, “Come, dear, give me a hand. I'm looking for some vials.

  Oh, for all the chamomile flowers, where could they be?”

  Kiah entered hesitantly. She stared at the syringe filled with black liquid that the pharmacist was holding with the needle pointing upwards. Then her gaze slid over the chaos of the room: she raised her eyebrows, looked around, and went to the cupboard. She took out five vials, removed the caps, and placed them one by one on the table in the center.

  "Oh, thank you, dear. Be ready to close them again: he might be a little rebellious."

  Nico, sensing the tension of the moment, sat up.

  Clarissa inserted the needle into the first vial. The liquid flowed slowly, even though Nico could see that Clarissa's hand was stiff and tense; perhaps the liquid had become thick.

  He dropped a small amount and quickly pulled out the needle, saying dramatically, “Now.”

  Kiah snapped the cap between his thumb and forefinger, just in time. As he pushed it deeper, the liquid inside the vial hit the glass, causing the vial to rattle.

  Nico noticed at that moment that the room was more crowded: Leo, Nadia, Gareth, and Peter were watching the operation with reverential respect, in silent silence.

  Shortly after, Nico was sitting on one of the mismatched chairs, his back slightly bent and his hands resting on his thighs; in front of him, on the table, were the five vials. The black liquid inside them twisted, banging against the glass with small, sharp blows that produced an eerie clinking sound, as if reacting to their presence. Nico couldn't take his eyes off the gruesome sight, knowing that part of that substance, the Oleum, was still inside him.

  Leo stood a little further back, arms crossed, staring at the ampoules with a tense expression. Kiah sat with her elbows on the table and her face in her hands, following every movement of the Nothing. Gareth stood silently to one side, his eyes tied by an invisible thread to the figure of Nadia, who stood in a corner with her arms crossed and a waxy, frowning face.

  Clarissa, near the rusty stove, was making tea, once again wrapped in shawls.

  Peter sat on the edge of a sideboard in his black cat form. His tail dangled and moved slowly, in time with his voice.

  “At first, I thought you were just a bunch of poor people who, like so many others, turn to the services of the Dark Tower,” he was saying. “Then I heard this guy,” he added, lifting a paw toward Leo, “yelling like a madman outside the Tower with that guy... what's his name... Malco, I think. He was screaming like a man possessed.”

  Leo frowned, but he was hiding a smile.

  “Where did you put my friend?”, “Give us back my friend”, “This tall, this fat, this hairy”... and so on, howling. Even the guards arrived.

  Nico was only half listening. Peter's words reached him as if filtered, while his attention kept returning to the ampoules. With each drop of liquid, the lump in his throat tightened a little more.

  “Then I saw the girl,” Peter continued, pointing to Nadia. "She was standing apart, all covered up in her cloak in this heat. I thought she was ashamed of that guy's scene. ‘But she's so pretty,’ I thought. I almost wanted to get her out of trouble."

  Nadia gave a sad smile, while Gareth glared at the cat.

  "I crept up quietly, as only a cat can do, and rubbed against her a little. This one,“ he said, pointing at Gareth with his paw, ”tried to kick me away. But I'm heroic: I resisted and pestered the sweet girl until she listened to me. As soon as she bent down to pet me, I whispered, ‘I know where your friend is.’ And they, BAM, followed me right away. I was clever, wasn't I?"

  Nico swallowed. Despite Peter's lively voice, the air in the room was heavy. He could feel the others' eyes on him, even though no one was speaking.

  Clarissa placed the cups on the table, and the scent of tea spread through the room, partially covering the acrid smell of the workshop-laboratory.

  Nadia reached across the table. Nico thought she was going to take a cup, but the girl stretched out a finger and touched the glass surface of an ampoule. The black liquid crashed against the glass and clinked loudly.

  Nico stiffened in his chair and Nadia recoiled.

  “Why didn't you stay in the Tower? They should have cured you. You can't live with the Nothingness devouring your memory,” Nadia blurted out imperiously, like the princess she was.

  Nico shook his head. “They locked me up in there.”

  “To cure you,” Nadia replied irritably, her arms crossed.

  “To study it,” Clarissa interjected in a flat, hoarse voice, devoid of her usual aspirated vowels, before taking a sip of tea.

  Peter, from the sideboard, added: “We've been in this city for years. Rarely do people who go in there come out on their own two feet.

  Except for those with broken legs: they do let them out. But those who go in with strange diseases, deformities, or ailments are locked up in there, waiting to find a cure. And in the meantime, they experiment on those poor souls.” Silence fell over the room, broken only by the clinking of the ampoules on the table, then Peter continued: “They say that's how science progresses, but personally, I think it's barbaric.”

  Leo shook his head, frowning. “I feel sorry for the poor people locked up in there, but what can we do... We have to think about Nico.

  He's alive and he managed to escape from those madmen, but now what do we do? He can't be cured. He's doomed...”

  Nico spoke softly: "When they sucked the fluid out, I felt better for a while. Maybe if we do this operation every day..."

  Clarissa shook her head: “You can't let them poke you every day, dear. It's torture, and it doesn't solve the problem. What the Nothing has taken is now his.”

  Then, looking at him with her huge chameleon eyes behind her thick glasses, she said, with aspirated vowels and a theatrical voice: “Your parameters need to be reset to a previous version, before the Nothing's wound infected you.” She paused for a moment, staring at them all from behind her thick glasses, then murmured softly: “You need the Archivist.”

  [AUTHOR'S NOTE]

  Log updated: Readers are invited to provide comments and evaluate the behavior of subject N_01.

  [LOG_026] will be released on Monday ET.

  The continuity of the story depends on your increased support.

  To keep the narrative flow active, please follow.

  Log closed: The system observes.