***

Damn it! It was the third time today that I passed out. A new record undoubtedly, but not very reassuring for my health. I struggled to emerge. My head hurt, my mouth as dry as the Sahara and my arms were aching badly. Nevertheless, I breathed more easily. My eyes had trouble focusing, only to open up to Jude's face, who was looking at me with a worried gaze. That was definitely weird! Maybe even totally creepy. I had to be at death's door for him to look at me like that.

- 'Welcome back,' he said in a soft and worried voice, as he tenderly stroked my hair with a calm and soothing gesture.

- 'Am I going to die?' I asked him weakly, disconcerted by his strange attitude.

- 'No, you silly girl!' he smiled nicely at me. 'What makes you think that?'

- 'No hurtful jokes or sarcastic remarks. I thought that my condition must be serious for such a radical change in behaviour!' I explained in a breathless voice, while struggling to get back on my feet.

I heard him laughing softly as I sat down. Once I was stable, I took the opportunity to examine my arms for the first time, and that was not good. Burns at various stages of healing spread from my fingertips to my elbow. It was ugly, but it could have been worse. It should have been worse, actually.

- 'How long did I remain unconscious?' I asked, while I turned around to look at him.

- 'Here, time is somewhat distorted, but I would say an hour or two.'

- 'I better understand your worried look.'

- 'No, that's not what I was worried about. In fact, you only really fainted for a few minutes. Then you went into a deep sleep, which is not unusual for an injured shape-shifter. On the other hand, burns generally take longer to heal. But the healing should be much faster than that,' he explained with a nod towards my arms.

- 'And you're worried because...' I started to wonder.

- 'It may mean that you have serious internal injuries that your body must treat first. Beyond a certain number of injuries, the accelerated healing capacity we have is no longer enough,' he said in a low voice.

I wasn't completely wrong in the end to ask if I was going to die.

- 'Could there be another possible hypothesis?' I asked, turning gently to face him.

- 'Your deficient genes... maybe?' he said mockingly, as he looked at me with a soft smile.

- 'Oh, that's it, your concussion is healed, you're back to your true nature!'

Even though he had said it in jest, his remark had brought up feelings that were anything but pleasant. He laughed softly and got up.

- 'And you, you are healed?' I asked him dryly.

- 'Of course!' he replied with a superior air.

Ah, it was official: the " asshole " was back. I shook my head resigned.

- 'What exactly happened?' he asked me, as he carefully inspected the rock slide that was now blocking the tunnel.

- 'I think that when it goes boom, it's called an explosion, isn't it?' I mocked him.

He didn't deign to answer my joke and turned around to give me a dirty look.

- 'I thought I felt a kind of resistance on my ankle and... a little metallic noise. But I'm not sure of anything.'

He frowned slightly and made a little annoyed noise with his tongue.

- 'That would mean that the gallery was trapped,' he thought aloud. 'But it doesn't make sense!'

- 'No, it does. If the people who kidnapped Martha were trying to stop us from following her trail.'

- 'And they would have set such a sophisticated trap in such a short time? Especially since they couldn't have known we were there unless they were spying on us. Which is unlikely, I would have noticed. No... That trap was already there, but the question is, why?'

- 'Your reasoning is flawed. Since Martha came from that tunnel, she should have set off that infamous trap,' I told him, bitterly.

- 'Not if she avoided it! In her reptilian form, she certainly went through without triggering it.'

I decided not to acknowledge the implicit accusation and focused on his reasoning.

- 'And what was she? A reptile, I know that,' I said before he had time to answer me. 'But of which species? Because I believe that snakes come in all sizes!' I concluded.

- 'A viper. Small and lively enough to crawl under the device.'

- 'Then why did we find her in human form?'

- 'She must have thought she was safe,' he said in a sinister tone. 'A mistake, obviously....'

He got up smoothly and headed towards the bottom of the cave, where we had arrived.

- 'We need to get out of here quickly. If we don't want to have the same welcoming committee as Martha.'

- 'You want... No! You want us to go through that endless tunnel again?' I shouted.

- 'Do you have another solution? Or would you rather wait for a slow and painful death in this unbreathable cave? That's your choice, after all.'

With these warm words, he crawled on all fours and began to enter the narrow tunnel for the second time.

- 'Are you coming or not?'

- 'As if I had a choice,' I grumbled.

Deep down, I was terrified. I had to muster all my will to make the journey the first time and I felt unable to repeat this deed. Wounded, thirsty and exhausted like I was. He must have come to the same conclusion, because he stopped and turned halfway to face me.

- 'It'll be easier this time.'

- 'Oh yeah?' I couldn't help but reply with a sceptical tone.

- 'Yes, because now you know there's an exit on the other side. So don't think and keep moving. Besides, it's our only way out.'

He turned around to enter the tunnel, before changing his mind. He stared at my hands for a few seconds and then stood up abruptly and went back to the rockslide. When he came back, he held my jacket in his hand, well, what was left of it, and tore it apart with his bare hands without any difficulty, to hand me two strips of cloth.

- 'Here! Wrap them around your hands and arms to protect them.'

I stared at him stupidly without reacting for a few seconds.

- 'They've suffered enough as it is, don't you think?'

I came back to my senses as I mechanically grabbed the improvised strips and began to protect my arms as best I could.

- 'Are you all just as strong or... is it just you?'

I had reluctantly refrained from asking him if it came from his animal form. As he didn't seem to want to talk about it voluntarily, I didn't dare ask the question. Maybe it wasn't right to ask?

- 'No. We all have more developed senses and strength than humans. This may vary from one individual to another, but to a small extent. I take it that you don't, do you? I had already figured out about your sight,t he said with a little laughter.

As I could not find anything witty, caustic or sarcastic to reply, I kept quiet. After a last amused look at me, he entered for good this time into this horrible tunnel where I had no choice but to follow him.

The nightmare started almost immediately. Because even if Jude's idea was sensible, we had been unable to fix the strips of fabric that began to fall apart very quickly and turn out to be more inconvenient than anything. After only a few metres, the tender scarred skin had already given way as easily as torn tissue paper, in contact with the hard, sharp stones scattered all over the ground.

The blood, I was losing at an increasingly alarming rate, made my skin slippery and made me fall more frequently. So frequently, that in the end, I no longer had the strength to get up. I was sweating profusely under the pain, my breathing was getting harder and harder and the minutes seemed to turn into hours. A terrible and sudden pain momentarily lifted me out of my torpor and I had the feeling of being brutally pulled by the hands. I didn't even remember leaving the tunnel. It was the feeling of fresh water on my lips that pulled me out of the trance in which I was in. I drank the water that was given to me. It had a taste of earth and mud, but I was so thirsty that it didn't matter.

- 'Come on, we have to get out of here,' Jude encouraged me in a worried voice. 'One last little effort.'

I started to stand up, but only managed to fall back heavily. He helped me, put my arm around his neck, and then we started to move with difficulty. Half conscious, I slowly realized that he was also carrying Martha's body on his other shoulder.

- 'I couldn't leave her there,' he told me when he saw my questioning gaze. 'When they found out we were on their trail, they would have disposed of the body. She is entitled to a funeral rite,' he continued in a cold and tired voice.

The end of the journey was foggy and I focused mainly on my breathing, which became increasingly difficult. I felt I was being brought into a building and laid down on a hard surface. I then felt a slight sting in my arm and finally sank into a drugged and welcome unconsciousness.