Chapter fifteen

Following his father's advice, Mohamed looked for ways to get closer to Ndeye all evening without success until he finally fell into the arms of Morpheus without expecting it in his office. It was with a start that he awoke at dawn, his body aching from the uncomfortable position in which he had fallen asleep. He got up anyway and after stretching for a long time, went to the balcony to enjoy the sunrise he loved so much, a symbol of a new day and therefore of a new beginning. A new start was exactly what he needed with his Luna.

But how could he do it?

It was then that he noticed that the photos that Aziz had sent him and that he had taken to give the elders concrete evidence to justify his attack, were flying away in the wind. So he went back inside and as he picked them up one by one so as not to lose them, one of the photos caught his eye. It was that of the girl Aziz had had to look after and whom he had told him was nicknamed 'the little kitten'. She was lying in the same position as Ndeye the day before with the same hair length and color, the same physique, the same face. There was no doubt that they were the same person. The little kitten'', the person because of whom the intervention had taken place earlier was none other than his soul mate. He sat down while continuing to contemplate the photo on which a detail hardly perceptible at first attracted his attention. Her face showed fear and pain that nothing seemed to be able to take away, but also her hands were crossed over her chest as if to protect herself from any external attack.

The most honest and safe way to approach her came then to him. Without further ado, he went to perform his morning ritual before going to Ndeye's room. This time he did not try to enter and just listened for movement inside, a sign that Ndeye was awake. He sat down with his back to the door.

_ Good morning, my Luna. I know you're here, wide awake, but don't worry, I have no intention of coming in. I just want you to take the time to listen to me without running away.

He waited a moment without an answer before speaking again.

_ I know you're still afraid of me and you're probably wondering what I want to talk to you about. I just want to tell you a story, a rather special one. It all started on my tenth birthday, Tuesday, December 31, 2565. It was evening and I was about to cut my birthday cake when I suddenly felt myself getting lashes. However, of all the people around me, no one was holding anything very dangerous, let alone a whip pointed in my direction. I thought it was strange and then refrained from saying anything about it, taking it upon myself not to spoil the mood. After a few minutes, which seemed very long, the feeling of being hit disappeared. Only, against all odds, I began to feel deep pain and suffering. A part of me that seemed to be both my own and foreign had just been broken. It was a very unpleasant experience that I decided not to tell anyone about, blaming it on the changes that had taken place in my body shortly before my birthday. Only, the next day, the same sensations as the day before came back, but more intense, the day after that, the day after that..... And so on, for five years, I had to feel the same sensations and sometimes more. This was accompanied by the gradual but slow destruction of that part of me that was both my own and foreign to me, until all that remained was a shell empty of almost everything except pain, sadness but also, surprisingly, a small spark of hope. On the day that this extreme had been reached, I finally spoke about everything to my father who, contrary to my expectations, was not as disoriented as I had expected. After listening to me, he made me understand that everything I had felt for five years was due to the soul mate connection. Although I was the next highest Alpha at the time, this bond was ten times more intense than all the other Alphas and fifteen times more intense than the other wolves. Everything I felt was therefore my own in that way it was my soul mate who was enduring it, in this case, you. We were able to understand that you were human and that you were caught in the web of one of us who was messing with everything we have been working on for centuries, the peace and harmony between our two species. It was then that I became interested in my father's interventions with the cooperation of the continental Alphas to stop these degrading practices, which I had previously been disinterested in. My involvement in this struggle against those we consider monsters and not our own was my way of making amends to you for not being able to get out of the hell you were living in by freeing many of your fellow human beings from ours. It was even during one of these interventions that Amadou met Ma'Fatou, his soul mate two years ago. For my part, I continued to feel you at a standstill for five more years until everything changed almost four weeks ago, more exactly twenty-five days, that is to say on Sunday 31 December 2575, ten years to the day since your suffering and mine began. I was not thinking of celebrating my birthday and was instead chatting with Ibrahima, the Alpha of Africa, whom one of you had called upon when something strange and unique happened. We were chatting when I started to transform into a wolf and within a minute became me again after we had felt you being tortured for almost half an hour. Neither I nor my wolf had any control over us and over this strange episode of transformations-returns to the initial state which had lasted a little more than an hour before stopping. After that, I felt the almost empty shell that you had become like a mirror broken into a thousand pieces. Your suffering and pain had increased tenfold. The little spark of hope that had been shining in you despite everything had been extinguished and replaced by immense fear. That evening, some of my best fighters were sent as spies to Senegal. Their leader was even the one who treated you after what had happened to you. It was also because of the pity and sympathy he felt for you that he sent us the evidence of Khadim's evil deeds that we needed to intervene three days earlier than expected. The photos and videos taken were enough to make me decide to intervene the very next day, an intervention thanks to which I found you, my soul mate, my Luna. After we came here, you were taken care of by Ma'Fatou, who could do nothing to stop you from getting a little closer to death. When she came to warn me about this and presented me with the only option left to keep you alive, which was to give you my blood, my sister and I knew about your rape. Don't worry, you didn't become one of us because my blood was only used to heal you. One last thing, I didn't notice it very early on, but you were in one of the photos Aziz sent me, asleep and in almost the same position as I found you the last time I came to your room. I realized this morning and realized one thing on the way here, that the transformation-return episode that my wolf and I had undergone had been going on all through your rape. I'm sorry to remind you of this. This story I just told you isn't over yet, but I didn't do it so that you would forget all your fears and jump into my arms so that we could become the perfect couple that everyone dreams of seeing us be. No. I told you this because I want you to know that those ten years of hell you were forced to endure in the shadows, you didn't endure them alone. I endured them with you every year, every month, every week, every day, every hour, every minute, and every single second. I have told you this because I want you to give me a chance to approach you whether it be as your brother, friend, confidant, or soul mate. A chance to help you not to forget your past, which is impossible for you as much as for me, but to accept it so that you can move on. A chance to prove to you that I am not a monster like that Khadim or his cursed henchmen. A chance to prove to you that you will never, ever disgust me even though you may have lost your innocence in his arms in a nightmarish way. A chance to prove to you that you are in no way responsible for your disastrous past. A chance to prove to yourself that you have the right to happiness and to give it to yourself. A chance to protect you as you deserve and more. A chance to help you look in the mirror again and accept your reflection as a fighter with your past, your wounds, your scars, your fears, your hopes, your qualities, your faults but above all you, Ndeye Ngoye Dieng. A chance above all to prove my love for you and my will to write the continuation of the unfinished story I just told you, hand in hand, looking towards a better future, our future, my Luna.