…

Zyra grew up in a family full of people, a space where everyone seemed to instinctively form into groups. Their homes were crowded yet somehow warm, places where the smell of food mixed with the sound of laughter or arguments from the adjacent rooms. She loved hiding under the table, a place she saw as a capsule of safety. Sometimes, she would transform her refuge into a cozy sleeping pod, curling up with a thin blanket, feeling the cold wood above her head, and watching the shadows play on the floor. There, under the table, it felt as though the outside world couldn’t reach her.

As a child, family vacations were her favorite moments. She loved getting lost in the woods or fields, gathering wildflowers, and creating the most beautiful bouquets she could imagine. It was a gift she would proudly offer to her mother. She wanted to do the same for her stepfather, whom she adored, but this was not allowed. She always felt there was an invisible wall between her and him, a wall her mother seemed determined to maintain.

Zyra’s mother and stepfather often had heated arguments, sharp words that echoed through the house. While there were times she retreated under the table to avoid them, she couldn’t ignore the harsh phrases flung carelessly. One of them, which stayed with her for years, was: “Go back to your Oyx, be their slave!” At the time, she didn’t understand what those words meant, but later, as the puzzle pieces began to fall into place, everything started to make sense.

The house where Zyra grew up was a place where technological evolution was constant. New gadgets always appeared, and the family seemed to embrace them enthusiastically. Much later, Zyra realized she had been living in a family of smugglers, people who brought in products the rest of the world could barely comprehend. When she was left home alone, which happened often, a screen was always left on, playing the same content in a four-hour loop. Zyra devoured the images and stories unfolding before her eyes, building a complex inner world based on fragments of incomplete information.

(TBC)