Lesson 1 – In the Atic

Just a moment earlier, I had been floating in happy anticipation of the attic’s silence and airiness. The day was warm enough for me to spend a quiet afternoon there, watching dust particles shimmer and swirl in slender beams of light that had found their way through tiny cracks in the roof tiles. To linger, to daydream, immersed in the scent of herbs hanging in bundles from wooden beams at this time of year. And to read—just like Bastian—undisturbed, finally undisturbed.
Nothing could have prepared me for the moment when the abyss opened before me. Emptiness. A single step separated me from the fall. I froze, gripping the doorframe. But I had already plunged—without that step, without any fall at all. Something inside me had split open; I was being sucked in by my own shock. Darkness and coldness surged over me, enveloped me, dragged me downward in a spiraling descent. And suddenly, I saw her fear. Her pain. Her betrayal. The fear and the weight—everything I had spent years running from, never understanding her.