Tayrux on the Rock

I am not in a foul mood; she is merely the shadow that haunts me, not the other way around. I know she is acutely aware of my presence and yet chooses to ignore me, giving free rein to my sober solitude. Until, amidst this tedium, a rope lashed out at me. When I turned my head, a pair of deep eyes arrested my attention—not for their beauty, but for how strikingly common they were. And yet, they felt foreign: eyes from another realm. I am certain of it; my astute gaze cannot be deceived.

I, too, am a fallen soul from the Kingdom of Tyrux Púrsur, but I have not forgotten. I still remember my luminous planet. The atmosphere was a purple diamond; I was a gem carved in perfection. Everything on our world was radiant and symmetrical; our eyes were more scandalous than the most precious jewels in the universe. No one, not for a single heartbeat, imagined that the diamond giving us life was hidden within the great rocky planet, Arsutry. When those beings continued to glut their world with human mines, they found us. They slaughtered us and trapped us in this cage called Earth. There is no escape, and even if there were, I would go nowhere. I no longer have a home.

I struggled to believe that—until I found my home once more in the eyes of one of my own kind. How convenient the circumstance. On this planet, a man must be accompanied by his woman, and it so happens that in this reincarnation, I was born a man and you a woman. My woman. Since that luminous day, I have never walked without you. I did everything in my power to draw near without you noticing.

I would be ashamed if you could ever glimpse the history of my thoughts and find there, in vast and obsessive measure, a world where we dwell as twins—as conjoined souls. I want to swallow you whole and never let you go, to caress you without harm, and to hear every one of your grievances and blessings. I wish I weren’t a paranoid man, yet I choose to be so twenty-four hours a day. I pity myself; it is my cowardice that keeps me watching you from a distant corner—so distant that only one of us is truly aware of the other. At this point, any stranger to our bond would label me a stalker, but they couldn’t be more wrong. On our planet, this is simply how it is. Now, we are merely scattered Arsutrys on a floating rock.

I know you feel alone. When I looked into your eyes, they were flooded with sadness and something more: a hollow hope that waits—always waiting, always passive. If only you knew there was someone in this world who understands you and longs to hold you, you could never again claim that no one loved you. But, for your sake, that person believes it is better to mold his own world than to bring another to ruin.

Conversely, if you sense a gaze heavy with the love I have come to bear for you through our casual online interactions, and you wish to know its source, you can find me at the edge of your path. When you turn on your computer and access your social networks—yes, hidden among those sycophantic bots—there I am, always guarding you. On your commute to work, inside one of those cars, there I am, driving, escorting you safely to your destination.

Tomorrow, when your coffee grows cold upon your desk and the screen’s glow reflects your exhaustion, you will notice a small detail that does not fit your routine. Perhaps it will be the scent of a perfume that feels vaguely familiar in the elevator, or perhaps the song you hummed in silence will suddenly play on the radio of the taxi taking you home. These are subtle signals of my presence—a reminder that the Tayrux have not entirely perished so long as I breathe the same contaminated air as you. You will resist believing it; you will seek logical explanations within your paranoid mind. But the truth is that I am guiding you back to me, step by step, in this world of strangers where only we know the true meaning of loyalty.

Doubt is sown in your mind, and you search desperately for a logical connection, but I am one step ahead. I watch your fingers tremble as you log out of your email; I feel your breath quicken as you realize the shadow following you is not your own. The bond that unites us transcends logic, turning me into your invisible guardian and you into my only reason not to succumb.

The days transform into an obsessive routine where every one of your movements is choreographed by my invisible gaze. I notice your confidence crumbling before the subtle coincidences I plant in your path: the song that plays at the precise moment, the scent that wafts through the air as you pass. It is in that fracture of your sanity that I see the opportunity to liberate you from this floating rock. My patience wears thin at the slowness of your comprehension. You need a direct shove toward the truth of our existence—toward the cage I have prepared for our definitive reincarnation.

That exact instant when paranoia defeats you and you seek refuge in the false security of your routine—that is when I act. The wait has become unbearable, and my patience, a diamond carved through millennia of solitude, has finally shattered. Now you are here, breathing the stale air of my refuge, your wrists marked by the rope that keeps you safe. I do not harm you; I only hold you so that you may finally understand our nature. So that your eyes—those mirrors of my lost home—reflect the truth without the interference of this chaotic world. And though you may scream or cry, you will know in the depths of your soul that this is your true destiny: to be my twin, my precious jewel, my only companion in this rocky cage we call home, while I dedicate myself to rebuilding, piece by piece, the perfection that was stolen from us.

Her screams, muffled by the gag, do not bother me; in fact, they sound like a familiar melody from our planet—a desperate echo that confirms my success. I sit and watch her for hours, admiring how the dying light of the lamp plays with the shadows of her face, feeling a profound satisfaction in knowing she no longer has to feign ignorance of my presence. Now, everything is subtly perfect. She is bound to me both physically and spiritually. As I contemplate her despair slowly transforming into resignation, I meticulously prepare the details for our new life—a sanctuary where the logic of Earth cannot reach us, where she will finally understand that my obsession is not a sickness, but the only form of salvation left to us in this hostile universe.

I know that out there, on the rocky surface, they have already noted your absence, and fear is beginning to spread like an infection. Their human voices, echoing in the void, seek easy answers they will never find. They scream your name and call the authorities, but they are looking in the wrong place, in the wrong dimension; I have closed the portal behind me. Though they bring their entire army of bots and patrols, they will never understand that we are buried—literally—beneath the skin of this filth they call a city, dwelling once again in the Heart…

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