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📸https://muryou-aigazou.com/es
It was one of those dark, moonless nights, just a lot of wind and storm. The air pushed the raindrops against the sanatorium windows as if the night water wanted to leave the clouds and enter as well. There was a certain heaviness in the air, like evaporated heavy metal. Angel was looking through his mother's notebook, a notebook that only contained red crayon scribbles and disjointed words, almost at random and without a fixed direction across the pages. Some pages were stained from the coffee from breakfast and even had some food scraps stuck to them. Angel remembered very little of his mother, only the visits to the sanatorium with his father, and the hours in the garden where she would stare at him expressionlessly. Afterward, without his father, Angel came to the sanatorium several times only to receive the same look, until he fell into a coma. With the coma, the visits dried up, and the few memories of his mother slipped through his fingers and of his mother. He didn't mention her, and sometimes even forgot about her, until the sanatorium called to ask him to collect his belongings. Only one thing caught Angel's attention among the scribbles in his notebook. On one page, his name was written in all capital letters, and next to it, on the next page, in the same handwriting and capital letters, was Aaron, Angel, and Aaron, one on each page. Although he had never met an Aaron, that name began to spin around in his head until it made him dizzy.
"What are you doing here?" he heard a voice. Behind him was a man, a man his same age, his same height, with the same jaw, and the same red hair. The only thing that differentiated them were their eyes. Angel had green eyes, the other man had brown, and since their eyes were also different, their gazes were different.
"I came to see my mother," the man replied, with a calmness that chilled to the core.
"What are you doing here?" Angel said again, but this time with a broken voice.
The man approached almost face to face, with the look of someone who had known him all his life.
"Don't you recognize me, Angel?" he said.
A chill ran down Angel's spine, a sharp pain stabbed in his chest, and his vision began to blur. The face so close to his, looking into his eyes, was his own, but with marks of a life he hadn't lived.
"I'm Aaron," the man said. "Your brother."
Angel jumped back, moving away from the man immediately. He always believed, and even remembers his father confirming several times before he died that he was an only child, that the birth had been difficult because his mother, in her attempt to conceive, had lost several pregnancies. But after many attempts, he arrived.
"That's not possible," Angel said.
"What are you doing here?" Aaron replied, a sad smile forming on his face. "Are you seeking truths? Are you running away from them?" "I don't remember you," Angel said.
"Nor do you remember how you got that scar on your arm? It's big," Aaron said.
"I've had it forever, I don't remember... I only remember the pain," Angel replied.
Aaron turned around. "Thanks to that scar, they discovered it. It was in me. I had it. I was sick like Mom. I was cursed and I could hurt you. It wasn't my intention, I couldn't control myself. I only know that I was here since that day, in these walls. Then Mom arrived, but she was more of a danger to herself than to others."
Angel realized everything. In her head, the words from her mother's diary made sense again. The scribbles were shapes. She remembered the wound and how it had appeared on her arm. She remembered her brother Aaron.
The bedroom door slammed shut.
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📸https://muryou-aigazou.com/es
Era una de esas noches oscuras sin luna solo mucho aire y tormenta, el aire empujaba las gotas de lluvia contra las ventanas del sanatorio como si el agua de la noche quería dejar las nubes para ingresar también. Había cierta pesadez en el aire como de metal pesado evaporado. Angel se encontraba ojeando el cuaderno de su madre, un cuaderno que solo contenía garabatos en crayón rojo y palabras inconexas casi al azar y sin una dirección fija a través de las páginas, algunas páginas estaban manchadas del café del desayuno e incluso tenían pegado algunos restos de comida. Angel recordaba muy poco de su madre, solo las visitas al sanatorio con su padre, y las horas en el jardín donde ella lo miraba inexpresivamente. Después ya sin su padre Angel vino varias veces al sanatorio solo para recibir la misma mirada, hasta que llegó en coma, y con el coma las visitas se agotaron y los pocos recuerdos de su madre se escaparon entre sus dedos y de su madre, y sin mencionarla y a veces hasta olvidándola estuvo hasta que llamaron del sanatorio para que recogiera sus pertenencias. Solo algo le llamo la atención a Angel entre sus los garabatos del cuaderno había algo que perturbaba su mente en una página su nombre escrito en completas mayúsculas y al lado en la página consecutiva y con la misma caligrafía y mayúsculas estaba escrito Aaron, Angel y Aaron uno en cada página, aunque el nunca había conocido a ningún Aaron ese nombre le comenzó a dar vueltas dentro de la cabeza hasta que lo mareó.
-¿Qué haces aquí? -escuchó una voz, a sus espaldas había un hombre, un hombre que tenía su misma edad, su misma estatura, su misma mandíbula, y su mismo cabello rojo, lo único que lo diferenciaban eran sus ojos, Angel tenía los ojos verdes, el otro hombre café, y como los ojos también eran distintas las miradas.
-Vine a ver a mi madre -respondió el hombre, con una tranquilidad que helaba hasta la médula.
-¿Qué estás haciendo aquí? -Volvió a decir Angel pero esta vez con una voz entrecortada.
El hombre se acerco casi rostro a rostro, con una mirada de quien te ha conocido toda la vida.
-¿No me reconoces, Angel? -le dijo
Un escalofrío recorrió la columna de Angel, un dolor agudo se clavó en su pecho y la vista se le comenzó a nublar. El rostro que estaba tan cerca del suyo, que lo miraba a los ojos era el suyo, pero con marcas de una vida que no había vivido.
-Soy Aaron -dijo el hombre- Tu hermano
Angel dio un salto atrás alejándose del hombre inmediatamente. Siempre creyó e incluso recuerda que su padre le confirmó varias veces antes de morir que era hijo único, que el parto había sido difícil porque su madre en busca de concebir había perdido varios embarazos. Pero después de muchos intentos él llegó.
-Eso no es posible -dijo Angel
-¿Qué estás haciendo aquí? - fue la respuesta de Aaron, que dibujaba en su rostro una triste sonrisa- ¿Buscas verdades? ¿Escapas de ellas?
-No te recuerdo -dijo Angel
-Tampoco recuerdas como te hiciste esa cicatriz en el brazo, es grande -dijo Aaron
-La tengo desde siempre no recuerdo...solo recuerdo el dolor -respondió Angel
Aaron se giró: Gracias a esa cicatriz lo descubrieron, estaba en mí, yo lo tenía, yo estaba enfermo como mamá, yo estaba maldito y te podía hacer daño, no era mi intención, no me controlaba, solo se que estuve aquí desde aquel día en estas paredes, después llegó mamá, pero ya era un peligro más para ella misma que para los demás.
Angel se dio cuenta de todo, en su cabeza las palabras del diario de su madre recobraron sentido, los garabatos eran formas, recordó la herida y como apareció en su brazo, recordó a su hermano Aaron.
La puerta de la habitación se cerró de un golpe.
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