Chapter 3: The Memory Within

Abneron surrounded him like a gentle fog, weightless and calm, wrapping around Abner Campenciño as if it had been waiting for this moment all along. The containment alarms didn’t go off. The cameras didn’t flicker. The system didn’t detect a breach.

Because, in some strange way, there was no breach.

Abner closed his eyes—and immediately, something shifted.

In the darkness behind his eyelids, images appeared. But they weren’t memories. Not his, at least.

A woman in ancient garb knelt over a fire. A boy coughed violently on a bed of straw while she placed her hand over his chest. A glowing mist—identical to Abneron—emerged from a carved crystal in her hand, entering the boy’s body.

He stilled. Then breathed.

The woman wept.

The scene melted into another—this time, an older civilization, all obsidian and bronze. A dying king was surrounded by robed figures, each holding a vial of the gas. But when they forced it into his lungs, Abneron recoiled violently. The king collapsed, and the vials shattered.

It does not obey force. It honors connection.

The voice didn’t come from outside—it echoed inside Abner’s mind. Not in words, but in meaning.

Then came another memory.

A ruined temple. A war. Thousands fallen to a plague eerily like The Withering. One figure—hooded, thin, barefoot—walked into the field of the dead. With him, the mist followed. It touched some. Passed over others. And slowly, color returned to the chosen few.

Abneron chooses based on intention. Not command.

The memories stopped.

Abner’s eyes flew open.

Helena stood frozen behind the glass, watching in disbelief. Her mouth moved, but he couldn’t hear. Then—

Fwoosh.

Abneron withdrew like a breath taken back into the chamber. The door resealed itself with a soft hiss. The lights flickered.

He gasped and stumbled, holding the table for balance.

The first thing he noticed: the pain in his chest—gone.

The heaviness in his limbs—gone.

The slight tremble in his fingers he’d chalked up to stress—gone.

“Abner!” Helena burst into the room. “Are you okay?! What just happened?”

He looked at her with wonder. “It showed me… memories. Not mine. Its own. Like it’s been waiting for someone to understand. Someone to listen.”

Helena’s expression changed from concern to awe. “What did it show you?”

“That it doesn’t cure everything,” he said quietly. “It cures when the connection is real. Not just chemically. But emotionally. Spiritually, even.”

He looked at the chamber. Abneron glowed faintly, almost... patiently.

“It doesn’t heal when you force it. Only when you ask.”

Later that week, Abner conducted a test unlike any before.

A child from a Withering ward—Elijah, age seven—was brought in with his parents’ consent. He was strapped to a ventilator. Skin grayed. Lungs rattled with every shallow breath.

But instead of using machinery or filters, Abner knelt beside the boy, took his hand, and spoke gently to him. “I don’t know if you can hear me, but I’m here with you. Not to fix you… but to walk with you.”

Abneron was released into the chamber.

For a moment, it hovered still.

Then, it drifted toward Elijah. Swirled gently around him. And slowly—glow.

Color returned to the boy’s lips.

His breathing steadied.

His eyes opened.

Tears filled the parents’ eyes.

The whole room fell silent.

Abner didn’t speak. He just smiled.

The cure wasn’t just about molecules. It was about presence. Honesty. Vulnerability.

This revelation changed everything.

And not everyone liked that.

The corporations who had patents on synthetic medications were furious. Governments accused Abner of playing god. The World Health Consortium demanded protocols, blueprints, synthetic replications.

But Abner refused to release Abneron for mass production.

“Because you can’t bottle connection,” he told them. “And you can’t program compassion.”

But while some plotted, others watched in silent awe.

And somewhere—hidden beneath the ice, sealed in that ancient vault—Abneron pulsed brighter than ever.

Waiting for the next soul it would choose to heal.

End of Chapter 3

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