The Chronicles of the Returned: The Book of Telamon

"I do my thing and you do your thing. I am not in this world to live up to your expectations, and you are not in this world to live up to mine. You are you and I am I, and if by chance we find each other, then it is beautiful. If not, it can't be helped,"

"Gestalt Prayer" Fritz Perls 1969

They met once a week, in the old house on Rio Piccolo. It smelled of old paper and rust, and the windows trembled with the breath of the distant rain. It had been Calchas's idea — to gather those who had seen too much, lost too much, killed too much, and who still woke up screaming. The group had no name. But sometimes, he called it the theater of the mad mind.

That day, the room was quieter than usual. Nine chairs formed a circle. Eight were occupied: six men and two women. Veterans, ex-spies, border nurses, and human trafficking survivors — each carried the weight of their ghosts. Calchos sat on the ninth chair. His body slightly leaned forward, hands clasped in a gesture of trained patience. His eyes were tired, not from lack of sleep, but from the habit of witnessing pain.

"So," he asked in a calm voice, "who wants to start today?" Silence. No one ever wanted to start. Starting meant re-entering the theater. Reliving the worst night of one's life — not just remembering it, but reactivating it, recreating it, with the others. It meant walking backward into hell, with no guarantee of return. Some called it healing. Others, possession. Because in that room, when the doors opened, the daimons entered. The monsters, the Erinyes, the Moirai, the twisted gods of wrath and destiny. They danced in broken minds, twisting like smoke around bodies and screams. It was not therapy. It was invocation.

"Why don't you start, big brother?" a young woman on the left asked. Her voice was uncertain, gentle. She was new. "You've never done it. It might... help you." Someone shifted uncomfortably. Two men looked at him with clenched jaws and ancient pain. Calchas sighed. "Let him choose," he said calmly. "This is still a free country, isn't it?"

But the old veteran slowly began to move. He scratched his chest, touched the long scar on his knee. His breathing slowed. His gaze fixed in the void. "Alright," he murmured. "Alright... let's do it. But I need someone to be him." The others looked at each other. Calchas leaned forward. "Him?" The veteran nodded. His voice hoarse. "Not someone like him. Someone who is him. While we play dice on the sand." He looked around, his eyes alight with an ancient fire. "I need someone deceptive. A snake. One who changes shape and voice... who slips in and out of time." He closed his eyes, reconstructing the form in memory. "Short. Broad shoulders. Big arms. Black, curly hair. And a dark bird that follows him everywhere." Silence. "You others... be the flocks. The sheep going to slaughter."

Calchas closed his eyes. He inhaled deeply. Then again. "I'll do it," he said. "I'll be him." He pointed to the others. "You — the sheep. Now, brother..." His voice softened. "Breathe with me. Inhale — one, two, three, four... hold... exhale. Again. Again. Again."

Outside, the rain had begun. A slow drum on the windows. Ritual. Hollow. Inside, something changed. "I don't remember much," the veteran said. "But my father's voice... I heard it. He told me to honor the kingdom. That's where it all began." His face changed. Something behind his eyes went out. "Then... blood." He said it with a strange solemnity. "A young woman... sacrificed on the marble. Her blood dripped into the earth's shell.

Another woman... pregnant. The sea began to scream.

They tied her to a fig tree. A fig tree.

Five men dragged her in the dust.

She cried until she had no more tears.

Blonde. Green eyes. She carried life. Him. They threw her to the ground like meat. The sheep gathered. They smelled of plague. Of death. They laughed. They opened her belly. I saw it. The blood. The fetus. The sheep... dragged it.

They licked it. They walked over it. In front of her. And then they took her. One after another.

The last one was drunk. He had a knife. She tried to fight.

He cut her throat. Blood. Her blood. The child's blood. Everywhere."

The veteran's fists clenched. His breathing became fierce. "I wanted to kill them all. One after another..." "Stop!" Calchas shouted, springing to his feet. The others moved. They grabbed him. They removed his hands from the necks of the two men beside him. Someone screamed. Someone cried. The veteran collapsed, trembling. Silence returned. But it wasn't peace. Only breathing. And the rain.

Calchas massaged his temples. Even his breathing now echoed in the room.

"Alright," he whispered. "Obviously... we can't go into this. Not here."

He looked at the others. The young woman. The two who were about to be strangled. He looked at the veteran, trembling, in tears. And in his mind — like an ancient echo — he saw that tree again. The fig tree. And he understood that something, within himself, had broken.