That night, hundreds of lightning bolts split the sky in half. Gray clouds spread across the entire sky, attacking the soldiers and boys in training of the ZQ, with its heavy rain. From the window of Ellie’s room, my roommate and acquaintance, one could have a wide view of the courtyard where the training was taking place. I was certain she had noticed, if only she had taken a peek, that I had sneaked out and returned inside the base only after a few hours, and soaked with water, to boot.

I turned between my fingers a wrinkled sheet of white paper, with a streak of ink that had stained my hands under the door. I knew her schedule by heart. And indeed, I was not mistaken. After a few minutes, I noticed how the note had been pulled away and probably read, so much so that the door handle turned and I hurried inside before someone could notice my absence. When I closed the door behind me, Ellie’s slender shoulders almost hit me right away; she was wearing a white sweater, with blue sleeves and her usual skinny jeans and converse. She walked slowly along her bed, exactly under mine. She had an injured arm and was pressing cotton on a cut at the level of the still incomplete tattoo. I watched her for a moment. I threw the backpack on the floor and cautiously approached her only after taking off my jacket. Her eyes scrutinized me for an instant with a grimace on her face, as if to belittle her problem. Undeterred, however, I bent down on my knees, right at the height of her bed. I took her arm between my fingers and while tracing its contours with disinfectant, my fingers followed the lines of the tattoo, until they reached what seemed to be the beginning of a burn. It was completely healed, so I discarded the hypothesis that it had been done recently. I saw her looking at me attentively, with a vivid concern on her face. I looked at her out of the corner of my eye, then took the other medical tools. Her voice suddenly woke me up from my thoughts:

«Leave it, it’s stupid.» She said, trying to cover up what I had so hard managed to get out of her lips as if in a sort of confession. But I took her arm between my fingers, continuing to treat her. The wound seemed much deeper than that.

«It’s not stupid. It’s just bad luck.» My voice sounded softer than it should have, so much so that I drew from her a grimace of displeasure. Did she think that what I was saying was something to laugh at? I saw in her irises all her disapproval.

«Luck doesn’t exist.»

The burn covered what was an old bite of at least a few years and while I was treating her, I felt her breath slowly relax, as if my silence comforted her in the darkness of the dormitory, with the wind beating on the glass and the rain covering everything.

«At fourteen, I was bitten by a runner. In a shopping mall beyond the quarantine zone. I thought it was... a good idea. Probably if I hadn’t...» Her voice broke in the silence of the night. Every time I looked at the incriminated spot, it was as if she woke up from a sort of trance. A remote corner of her mind still remembered that moment as if it were vivid and imprinted in her memories. I finished treating her and she slowly pulled down the shirt over her arm, lifting myself from the ground and turning my back to put everything back in the case.

«...If I hadn’t gone out that night, this wouldn’t have happened. Not always is it our fault what happens.» I said, finally turning towards her, who brought her arm onto her thighs while holding her wrist between her fingers, and I slowly took off my shirt, throwing it on the bed next to hers, right above her head. Ellie looked at me from below as if I had gone mad. And I fed on the surprise I managed to instill in others. I then lay down next to her, keeping myself on my elbows with skin shivering at every gust of wind that passed through the gaps of the windows and that slowly spread throughout my body. I swore I saw her looking at my chest sideways, intent.

«That burn doesn’t exist to remind you of what happened that night. But to remind you who you are.»