She pulls herself out of the embrace of the large arms tattooed with mystical symbols, slowly and gently, so as not to wake him. She knows that he finds it so hard to close his eyes from being so protective, just for them.

In the room, a hundred small human creatures are relaxed and clustered around him. Their rhythmic breaths blend into a single lament that lulls the Great Tattooed into a restless sleep.
She straddles the sleeping bodies, some of whom seem to feel her touch as she passes, but none of them have the strength to open their eyes. Normal, the Great Tattooed has given them this strange Blue Powder that numbs their bodies and makes them dream of tender forgotten colours, of unattainable images of the past. These dreams are similar to the images he draws for them, with great talent, on these white squares and after he collects and keeps them jealously in these black and rigid cases.
In her dreams, there are flowers, thousands of flowers, bees of all kinds and races, honey and wax, and many secrets that she does not understand. But she is amazed by her own dreams. She never tires of contemplating them. It is as if she were there. How beautiful and intriguing they are.
When she wakes up, however, the dreams fade away, leaving her with only a mirage. 

But for a while now she has not been dreaming. She misses it, but she has other plans. For some time now, she has been acting at the Grand Tattooed. She blows the Powder gently to the ground, instead of letting it melt on her tongue. She found it very difficult at first. Her head, her mind were searching for the effect and the missing dreams. It was visible, the Tattooed was concerned. He thought she looked a little peevish.

Since then, he often holds her in his arms at rest time. He watches over her in particular, keeping all the other little humans close to him, at the maximum distance from his big arms, or not too far away so that, with one stride, he is close to his mentee who needs his presence.

She has been patient. She learned to do without the Powder. So she understood the effects it has on their bodies. Yes, the oblivion of the present and the dream of the past. But also the hope of a future. A non-stop sleep, which lasts so long. Longer than it should be.

She watches them all for a moment : they are sleeping, innocent and happy. The Blue Powder seems to nourish their resting bodies, to heal them, to prevent their organs from decaying and even to stop their growth. They have been there for so long, it seems to her. And yet the smallest of them are still babies that the older ones hold in their arms. Yes, this Powder does have a mysterious effect on their bodies. She can see it in the thinness of her own limbs since she has been abstaining from it, in her fatigue and in her reflexes, which are getting weaker, period after period.  

She won't be able to do without it for long. The Grand Tattooed will surely realise his ploy very soon. For several periods, when she remains awake while the Tattooed has also fallen asleep, for a shorter cycle than they have, she recognises him, she escapes from his arms but stays close to them and observes the place. There are many heterogeneous objects that she doesn't know. There are also all these images that he protects as much as they do, like a treasure, a legacy.

They are in a vast rectangular room, with no openings to the outside - windows - and no door either. The walls are grey, uniform, like the floor. There is one place with a single seat looking towards the wall, waiting for images to appear. Yes, images on a wall, that tells her something. She sat on the big seat but nothing happened. It is very large and can support the Tattooed body's, build very comfortably. But the Tattooed does not use it when resting, he prefers to lie on the floor with all of them.
Along the walls, lots of objects but also boxes, piles of boxes. Each one is very heavy, at least for her. They form a palisade well attached to the ground by metal wires. There are several walls of these boxes that run the length of the huge room where they are. Like... grocery store aisles... She has never been able to see the contents. But each one has a label where letters and words are clearly displayed. However, she can't...read...yes that's the right word. To go around just one of these line of boxes, it takes her as long as the Tattooed is asleep while they sleep. She experienced it once. It was just enough time to reach the comfort of her arms and close her eyes. He didn't notice. He set her down beside one of the sleepers and then got up.

She knows now that he doesn't sleep as much as they do. He gets up and goes to the cubes or to the seat. He tidies up, he checks, he notes in large white papers. Sometimes she can see the light in front of the seat, but it's too far away for her to see properly. It's so big... Besides... she should take her seat again.

But first, she must see it again. 

She trots with difficulty towards the end of an alley where a lot of strange objects are piled up. One of them fascinated her and she wants to see it again.

At the other end of the room, at the very end, there it is : placed on top of other mysterious stuff, dark and translucent at the same time. It is a sphere with a straight base. It seems light but, given its size, to her it must be heavy. 

Last time she didn't dare touch it, but this time she reaches out her fingers towards it.

She moves back with fright, her eyes dazzled and attacked : the ball emits a bright light and turns slowly on itself. Between her closed eyelids, she tries a look while lowering gently her hands which protect her from this light.

How beautiful it is!

In fact the ball is covered with drawings in colors - blue, green, brown, black, white... yes colors - which come and go with the rotation of the sphere. She falls in contemplation in front of this beauty.

After a while, the ball stops spinning and the luminescence goes out. She finds herself alone in the dark at the end of this alley. With a decided gesture, she touches again the marvelous object. Her gesture immediately reactivates the mechanism...
Time passes.

"Little Bee, I suspected you were sneaking out during rests..."

The voice is low and carries softly in the depths of her ear, without really making a sound. She turns around. The Great Tattooed is there. He seems even bigger, stronger and more threatening in the light of the sphere than in the constant darkness of the room, quietly tucking them in constantly.
His long arms are crossed in an attitude of reproach and his eyes so large, normally so blue and tender, are dark and tormented as if clouds occupied all their surface. As a little one, she is looking at him with a little fear but her dark eyes are still full of pride for her discovery. After a pause and a few deep breaths, she dares to explain :

— Look, Tattooed! I found a very beautiful object of light!

The Tattooed sits down cross-legged and invites the little one to come into his arms. She recognizes the warmth and protection that she had been missing since the beginning of her escapade.

"Yes, it's very beautiful, Little Bee!" admits the Tattooed, his eyes regaining their peacefulness and softness.

— What is it? asks the little one with her little finger stretched towards the sphere.

The Tattooed hesitates to answer. Since all these periods of rest, these revolutions around this star, it is the first time that one of his pupils dares to defy the discipline installed from the beginning. He feels very proud of her. She represents the dynamism and the avant-gardism of her species. Not staying on the spot, moving forward, daring, challenging, discovering, understanding, learning, imagining, dreaming, starting over, insisting, being bold... so many qualities that define this species of which he is one of the protectors.

"This is your real world, Little Bee" says the rumbling voice of the Tattooed.

— Ah yes! And why are we here then? And where is this world?

The Big Tattooed's arms turn her towards him and he immerses his eyes in hers so that he can better communicate the images he wants to transmit to the child.

"Here is this world... it is around us, outside this safeguard room."

In the child's head, wonderful landscapes of a world of greenery, water and light, filled with life of all kinds, slowly scroll by. In the eyes of the child, who is receiving the brain waves of the Tattooed, her admiration and unspeakable joy at all this beauty shine through.

"This is your planet, Little Bee. I am not from here, as you can imagine, I am not of the same origin as you. My world was very beautiful but we did not know how to take care of it. My ancestors realized it too late unfortunately. My great-grandparents left our dying planet to walk the stars and decided to help the dying worlds."

The little one sees in front of her eyes images of the original world that is dying and then of huge ships that leave to travel between the stars. Yes, I remember the stars in the sky.

"More than 500 revolutions ago of your planet around your star, we detected that its perdition was imminent and some of us chose to help your species."

She then sees small rectangular ships being launched to the planet... her planet, which is not as blue as it used to be, to offer to preserve specimens of flora, fauna, artifacts, photos, evidence of its natural and human history. The Tattooed people went to meet the humans. The welcome was nuanced according to the populations, the history, the beliefs and the past. The gigantism of the Tattooed, their appearance and their superior technology impress and frighten. They were attacked, they were blamed for not being able to save all the humans. But it was too late, they explained. 

We must now think differently, in the long term... very long term. This is how the Tattooed can help the planet and its future. For this past/present, they didn't have the capacity.

"Ships like this one, where we are, are everywhere on the surface of your planet. In each of them, an Tattoed, as you have called us, has the care of a hundred or little human children, as well as a reserve of certain animal and plant species. In our ship, these are, among others, the vegetable species, those that will allow the soil to be replenished so that it can give us food."

She sees the children rescued from the rubble, from hospitals, from orphanages, but also those who are voluntarily handed over by their parents. All ages, but always young. They are handed over into the protective hands of a Grand Tattooed. He then locks himself up with them in his ship.

"You see, my Little Bee, you have been with me all this time. You are very young, and you will remain so as long as you take the Blue Powder at every rest period. It maintains your body, heals it and prevents it from aging. When the time comes, we will go out together and take possession of your world again."

The little girl's mind returns to the present. After shaking gently her head to remove her ideas, she puts her two small dark hands on the large blue-green cheeks of the Great Tattooed. She observes the circonvolutions, the drawings, the arabesques that cover his skin. No, they are not tattoos.
That's how he is. It's my Tattooed !

He has been taking care of her for so long. Lock with them in a ship for a while. And now that he's explained his origin, her story, she's even more grateful.

— So you don't have your own world anymore? And yours is far away?

A soft purr emanated from the Great Tattooed's chest, a sign of his emotion, of his amusement at her eloquence, but also a sign of tenderness towards his little pupil.

"My world is here now, mine is you and all the other little ones that have been entrusted to me. When the time comes, I will go out with you and we will join all the others. There will be Tattooed ones, but also a multitude of children to repopulate this planet. Together we will bring it back to life and a new civilisation can be born. And this time we will not forget the mistakes of the past. We will pass on to you the wisdom of your ancestors."

The eyes of the little one explore the soft bluish gaze, the toothless mouth that expresses for her her joy with a clumsy smile.

— You make us sleep while waiting, but you don't sleep as much, she remarks with a sadness in her eyes. You explained to us that life has an end when Little Lizard closed his eyes forever. Will you still be here when we get out?

A wave of compassion envelops the child at the memory of the little boy who died of an unknown cause many sleep periods ago. The Tattooed sighs then hugs her.

"Don't worry, I'll be there! Tattooed people have a very, very long life compared to your natural species. The Powder has always been naturally in us, it is our source of longevity that we share with the species we help."

The little one's eyes settled on the ball of light and, with a quick touch of her little hand, she reactivated it.

— So, we will find our life on a world like this one? Will it be soon?

"It will happen faster if you respect the Rest periods. So come back with the others, my little one."

— Can I bring it with us to show the others at our next awakening?

The Tattooed's eyes drifted to the blue lights of the virtual planet right in front of him.

"Yes, you can bring it my Little Bee. This planet is so beautiful. A Miracle in the Cosmos."

— What do you mean by "a Miracle"?

"Few worlds have so many wonders and such beautiful cohesion in balance. So, yes, a wonderful Miracle."

— But what happened to it?

"Hmmm. I'll explain in the right moment. Now you need to go rest."

The Great Tattooed avoided the question of how this world disappeared. He knows the answer but this is not the time , nor the moment. Already, his Little Bee knows much more than the others. She will be a great leader, a pioneer in the new world they will found with her.

His large hand goes along her neck, where the organ of longevity, the Burstwe, as it is called, has an excretory gland. He takes a pinch of Blue Powder and hands it to his little mentee.

"I'm watching you now. You take the whole Powder."

The little one's dark hand takes the bluish Powder and quietly chews it. She finds there the sensation of thirst, she was thirsty, but also of satiety, she was hungry. In addition, she comes to transmit the need for a good dose of sleep, because that's how the Tattooed wanted it.

"I don't want you to get tired of wandering around during the rests. I promise you that I will tell you about your world and what it will be like when you next wake up. I have to, anyway, because it is slowly getting ready to receive you again. Already some of the Tattooed have released seeds, grains and sprouts of plants that will colonize the land. In a few rests, we too will be able to release Bees and other pollinators with cross-pollinating plants."

— Bees? remarked the little one's already sleepy voice. Like me?

"And yes, you are the Little Bee. You have within you the entire knowledge of these beings on your planet as well as the plants that need them for their life cycle. You are, each one of you, a resource of knowledge that has been instilled in you so that it is not lost. You will be the experts at the time of our exit."

— Little Bee... Is this my knowledge? Is it important? asks the little girl as she finishes the Blue Powder that has already made her eyelids droop over her eyes.

"Very important, my child," answers the Great Tattooed, taking the ball and the child in his huge arms.

With his slow and measured step, very gently not to wake up his little wonder, he returns to the sleeping area of the ship.There he finds all his little people sleeping in bliss. He puts the little girl asleep next to them and places the globe on a box not far away. He still admires its contours and colors, before the light goes out by itself, at the end of its cycle. 

The Tattooed's eyes acclimatize to the darkness of the ship, another marvel of the Powder's effect. Before moving away from the children, he makes sure there are no other walkers during this rest period.

Then he goes to the large seat in front of the wall, passes his hand over a camouflaged switch that reacts to his touch. The wall comes to life and the image of hundreds of Tattooed appears.There follows a long speech between them in an unknown language or in all the known dialects of this planet. But finally, they resort to the common language that they have chosen to use with all the children in order to have a uniqueness, whether it is in speech or in thoughts.

"Is your mentee back in the fold?" laughs one of them.

"Yes, she is very curious and intelligent" murmurs the Bee Tattooed in a soft whisper.

"She will be an important part of the future of this world," admits another.

"We must begin to reactivate their knowledge."

"You're right, from the next awakening, we will awaken them slowly."

"Are they ready you think?"

"Yes, they are." confirms the Bee Tattooed. "The miracle can begin, our species has come for this moment."

A soft rumble is emitted by all the Tattooed Ones. They are in communion and are preparing to give back the knowledge to the human species of this new Earth, this second chance.

"Their ancestors put all their hopes in them and in us. 

This is the moment.

Everything begins.

Homo verus miraculum "