The blue box part 7: The Hunger — What Comes Next Will Shock You. VIDEO

Hunger The silence lengthens like a thread of blood in water. The room is frozen in the instant after the revelation. Obsidius has his purple eye clenched in his fist, his knuckles white. Lila looks at him with her one eye open, and for the first time since she appeared in the sanctuary, her face has lost all certainty. Kym remains in the doorway, the gun pointed at the void between the three of them, as if the gun had ceased to have a clear target. Then the membrane pulsates. It is not the normal pulse that Obsidius has become accustomed to in the last few hours. It's another rhythm. Slower. 

Deeper. Like a heartbeat that comes from far away, across a distance that is not measured in meters. Kilometers. Years. Something that beats from a place where time does not flow the same. Lila remains still. His eye opens slowly, the pupil dilating until it covers almost the entire iris. "No," he says in a whisper. -That? —Obsidius asks. Lila doesn't respond. He's looking at something neither of us can see. His right hand slowly rises towards his empty socket, as if he wanted to cover it, as if he wanted to protect something that is no longer there. The fingers tremble before touching the silk patch. “Lila,” Kym says from the door, her voice having lost all harshness. What is happening? “He found us,” says Lila. His voice is flat, mechanical, as if he were speaking from the bottom of a well. I have crossed the broken bridge. It's not complete, but it's here. I didn't know I could go that far. I didn't know I remembered this place. -Who? —Obsidius asks, although he already knows. —The Hunger. The room temperature drops. It's not a sensation. Obsidius sees his own breath condense in front of his mouth. The sanctuary lights flash once and go out. The only light left is the faint purple glow of the eye in her hand, and the reddish glow of the Scorpion under Kym's skin. The shadows in the corners begin to move. Not in one direction. They twist around themselves, as if someone were stirring them from the other side of the world. The membrane pulses again, and this time Obsidius feels something else. At pressure. So if someone was pushing from inside his skull, from behind his left eye. The pressure builds until you feel like your eye is going to pop out of its socket. —What are you doing? His voice trembles. 

A hand instinctively goes up to his face, so if he can stop whatever is happening inside his head. “Looking for an entrance,” Lila says. The membrane is not just my anchor. It is a scar in reality. A poorly closed seam between your world and the spaces in between. Hunger can use that seam if he knows where to push. "But the membrane is in my eye," says Obsidius. How are you going to... He doesn't finish the sentence. Because he hears a voice that doesn't come out of the air. It comes from inside his head. Directly behind his left eye, where the membrane pulses to the rhythm of that foreign heartbeat. He doesn't use words. Use images. Use sensations. Like a dream that doesn't belong to you but that you are dreaming anyway. 

Like a caress inside your skull. Obsidius sees a black ocean. An ocean without surface, without waves, without bottom. A liquid void that extends infinitely in all directions. There is no up or down. There is no light. Only a darkness so dense that it weighs on the consciousness like an inverted mountain. And in that ocean, something moves. It has no form. It doesn't have a name. It is just a consciousness so vast that the concept of an individual does not fit into it. It is a hunger that is not physical. It is prior to the body, prior to life. It is the pure desire to go through, to touch, to consume. But not bodies. Not souls. Realities. Entire worlds. 

Complete universes that he has devoured one after another for a time that cannot be measured because for Hunger, time does not exist. Obsidius sees worlds fading. See entire civilizations being absorbed by that darkness without leaving a trace. He sees Lila's world before the bridge was broken — the purple crystals fading one after another as the Famine approached. He sees the inhabitants of that world running towards the dimensional bridges, trying to escape. See the majority not doing it. And then Hunger sees him. It's not a meeting. It is a recognition. An immense presence that turns its attention towards the tiny point of consciousness that is Obsidius. And when he looks at it, he feels like he's being measured. 

Heavy. Evaluated. You are small, says Hunger without words. But you have something I want. Obsidius opens his mouth to scream. No air comes out. —Get him away! —Kym shouts. But he's not yelling at Lila. He is screaming into the air, into nothingness, into the presence that fills the room like invisible smoke. The Scorpion under Kym's skin begins to glow. The light passes through his shirt, casting the shadow of the symbol against the wall. Kym doubles over, one hand on her forearm, the other still clutching the gun. “I know him,” Kym says, panting. The Scorpion's light flickers like a heartbeat, and something Obsidius has never seen appears in his eyes: terror. I know him from before. From when I wasn't Kym. From my other life. Of the life I had before my reflection was torn out. “Shut up,” says Lila. 

Don't give him any more information. Hunger learns from what you say. Every word of yours is a thread that can follow. But Kym won't shut up. The light of the Scorpion intensifies, and with it comes fragments of memory. Visions that are not hers but that flow through the symbol under her skin: an endless hallway, doors that open into the void, a faceless woman walking towards a light that does not exist. “I know what he wants,” Kym continues, ignoring her. The gun in his hand shakes, but he doesn't point it at anyone. It points at the ground, as if Kym had forgotten she had it. He wants the eye. Not to complete you, Lila. To open a permanent door. 

A bridge that can never be broken. So that this world is yours too. —And what would happen if I succeeded? Kym looks at him. For the first time since he burst into the room, his gaze is free of anger. It has something worse: resignation. "Everything would disappear," he says. Not like when you die. Like when you never existed. And you wouldn't even know it. There would be no one to remember it. Because Hunger does not devour bodies. Devour the possibility that you ever existed. The silence that follows is heavier than any words. The purple eye in Obsidius's hand grows hot until it hurts. So much light emanates from it that the room seems to be under an otherworldly sun. "If Hunger gets the eye," Lila says, "he won't just enter this world." Will replace it. He will make it part of himself. As it is done with other worlds. With other towns. Those who did not escape in time. —Like yours? But his silence is an answer. The pressure on Obsidius's head increases. Images of the black ocean become sharper. It's no longer just an ocean. It's an eye. 

An infinite black eye that looks at him from the other side of the membrane. "Give me my eye back," Lila says. Now. It's the only way to close the passage. When the eye is in place, the membrane will seal and the Hunger will lose this direction. "If I give you my eye back," says Obsidius, "I'll vanish." You said the part of me that is from your world would fall apart. "Yes," says Lila. But Hunger will not enter. —Don't pay attention to him! The Scorpion on his arm burns so bright that the room seems to be on fire. She is using you. He's been using you since you were seven. He doesn't know what will really happen if you give him the eye back. 

Nobody has done it before. —And what do you know? —Lila asks, facing Kym. “I know what I saw that night,” Kym says. The night of the tooth. The night you chose Obsidius. It was there. I saw you do it. And I saw what you left behind. “Shut up,” Lila says, and for the first time her voice sounds threatening. “I saw the boy,” Kym continues. I saw how you found it. I saw how you offered him a way out. But I also saw what happened before you arrived. What someone else did to him. And that's why I know that Hunger doesn't just haunt you. It also chases him. Obsidius looks at Kym. Then he looks at Lila. —What did you see? -ask. Nobody answers. The pressure in his head intensifies. The membrane pulses so hard that he can feel it moving under his eyelid, like a worm trying to crawl out. Hunger is pushing. And Obsidius has the eye in his hand. You can return it to Lila and fade away. You can put it away and let the Hunger come in. Or she can do what Lila told her in the first vision: look through him once more and see the truth they are both hiding from her. But the next time he looks, Lila warned him, he'll have to choose. And the time to choose is running out. The ground shakes. The walls of the sanctuary crack. 

Not physically — they are cracks in reality, black lines that cut the air like scars. Hunger is coming. Obsidius closes his eyes. Open your fist. The purple eye rests in his palm, warm, alive, waiting. "You have to decide now," says Lila. "If you give it to them," Kym says, "you're lost forever." Obsidius looks at the eye. Then he looks at Kym. "No," he says. I'm not going to return it. I'm not going to let Hunger enter. And I'm not going to sit here waiting for someone else to decide for me. —So what are you going to do? —Kym asks. Obsidius closes his eyes for a moment. He feels the membrane pulsate under his eyelid. He feels the hot purple eye in his hand. Feel the presence of Hunger pressing against the edges of reality, looking for a crack to slip through. Open your eyes. —I'm going to do the only thing I can do. Raise the purple eye. "Obsidius, no," says Lila. If you look again unprepared, Hunger can... "Maybe," he interrupts her. Enter? It's already coming in. Use me? He's already using me. You've been using me for twenty years, Lila. Kym has been hiding the truth from me for twenty years. Hunger has been devouring worlds for a thousand years. It's time for someone to look at the truth in the face. And he brings the purple eye closer to his left eye. 

The membrane opens. The world is turned apart once again. "I'm going to see what happened that night," Obsidius says as the purple light surrounds him. I'm going to see who I was before Lila found me. I'm going to see what Kym saw. And when I come back, I'll choose. Kym screams his name. Lila extends a hand that can't touch him. The Scorpion under Kym's skin burns so bright that it casts moving shadows on the cracked walls. But Obsidius is no longer in the room. It's falling through the purple eye. Not into Lila's world. Further back. Towards the memory that has been blocked since I was seven years old. Into the hallway with faded rose wallpaper. Towards the metal bed. Towards the blue box. Towards the tooth. 

Towards the truth that everyone has hidden from him. Hunger follows him. He can't help it. The membrane is a door, and he has just thrown it wide open. Lila looks at the spot where Obsidius disappeared. His face is pale, but there is something in his eyes that he hasn't shown before: fear. "He's going to see it," Kym says. You're going to see what happened. "I know," Lila says. —And when he sees it, he's going to hate you. Just look at the purple eye floating in the air where Obsidius used to be, shining with a light that is no longer what it used to be. Hunger is near. And the truth is about to be revealed.