Capítulo 1: I'll be called Adam
The regular sound of machines punctuated the room, their cold hum echoing in the air laden with the clean smell of a hospital.
Windows welcomed sunlight, warming the unwelcoming room slightly.
It was the only sound to accompany Gabriel's last moments, as he lay in the hospital bed at the center of the room.
His eyelids half-closed, his breathing difficult and his body exhausted by a long battle against illness.
He'd finally gotten used to the gentle melody of the machines and to this solitude.
But he wanted to stop fighting, having no hope left in this life.
His parents had died in a car accident, hit by a drunk truck driver celebrating his birthday alone on the road.
They'd simply gone to a restaurant to celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary-who'd have thought it was going to be their last?
It was like the sky was falling for him and his sister.
Shortly afterwards, he stopped his studies and started working to take care of his sister and ensure that she would have a future of her own.
Time passed, and despite the absence of their parents, the brotherhood kept them on their feet.
Never before had he felt so close to his sister.
They both knew that for the rest of their lives, the only person who would always be by his side was the other.
They had sold the house and started renting an apartment to save money.
The apartment was ideally located for her sister's school, enabling her to get up later than before and come home earlier.
Little by little, the two of them began to smile again.
Until one day, he received a call.
The call that shattered his world.
"Hello, is this Gabriel Lefevre?
"Yes, who is this?"
"We're the police. We're calling to say that your sister has unfortunately passed away. The incident is still under investigation."
His sister had been killed.
Killed by a man who, not accepting his sister's refusals, stabbed her savagely on the way home from school.
Later, the man was examined and found to have mental problems, but he was also the son of a rich and powerful family.
As a result, he was exonerated from any legal proceedings, and merely obliged to undergo regular treatment at a psychiatric hospital.
A hospital which, shortly after the incident, was bought by his family.
When he learned of this, he was obviously angry and began to carefully plot his revenge.
In any case, he had nothing left to lose.
Until one day, he suffered a heart attack.
Luckily, the heart attack occurred in the street, and thanks to the quick reactions of passers-by, he was quickly rushed to the nearest hospital.
Shortly after the incident, a doctor entered his room and told him he had advanced cancer.
His already crumbling world exploded that day.
Gabriel felt like sighing as he recalled the tragic events that followed one after the other.
But with his oxygen mask and his lack of strength, he couldn't even make that simple gesture.
Gabriel had never imagined himself ending up like this.
He had always believed that, despite the difficult life he had led, someone would be there, at least at the end, to accompany him.
But no one came.
He still remembered the faces that had left his life, one by one, until all that was left was himself, struggling, clinging to his own existence as one clings to the edge of a cliff.
As he felt his breath grow fainter and fainter, a gentle torpor settled over him.
He was ready to leave, in a way he'd never thought possible.
Everything was becoming a blur, and fatigue was getting the better of him.
He closed his eyes one last time, listening to his own heart slow down.
The cold lights of the hospital room cast pale reflections on Gabriel's body, lying motionless.
The light from the machines drew shadows on his emaciated face, his closed eyes, and his chest, which rose faintly in rhythm with the artificial breath of the machines around him.
In the heavy silence, the beeping of the machines seemed to hammer out the relentless countdown to his final moments.
A nurse entered the room to check his vital signs. She knew Gabriel well, this silent, solitary patient who struggled day after day, clinging to a strength few would have suspected.
But that evening, he seemed particularly fragile, as if he'd already slipped into another world, suspended somewhere between here and elsewhere.
She watched as the monitor followed his heartbeat: the lines flattened, the beeps spaced out.
"Mr. Lefevre?" she murmured as she approached, hoping for even the slightest reaction.
But Gabriel didn't move, his lips slightly parted, his eyelids quivering in the soft darkness of the room.
The nurse felt her heart clench.
She gently pressed the call button to alert the doctor on duty, while placing a light hand on Gabriel's shoulder, as if to offer him, in his last moments, a fragment of human warmth.
The doctor came running, accompanied by another nurse.
In an instant, they were all bent over him, scanning the monitor where the line of beats was weakening, intermittently interrupting.
"We're losing his heart rhythm... get the defibrillator ready," ordered the doctor, although he knew there was little hope.
They tried to resuscitate him.
Electric shocks, fast and precise movements, silence between the spaced beeps.
The medical staff concentrated, their faces tense, refusing to give up, refusing to see the line stabilize into a straight, unbroken signal.
But with each attempt, silence took over again, and Gabriel's heart seemed determined to let go, determined to leave this world.
Finally, after several minutes of effort, the doctor stepped back, exchanging grave glances with the nurses around him.
The monitor line now remained perfectly straight, a deafening silence filling the room.
One of the nurses placed a light hand on the sheet.
"Farewell, Gabriel." and covered him gently, as a sign of respect, in silence.
They left the room one by one, leaving Gabriel in a final moment of calm, his body resting in quietude.
But somewhere, far from this cold room, his soul was already making a fresh start.
A strange sensation crept over him, as if the whole world had changed in the blink of an eye.
He inhaled sharply, a sharp, different air. His eyes opened to a soft light, warming the room with a familiar yet unfamiliar clarity.
The texture of the sheets beneath his fingers was different, and his body felt lighter, younger.
Gabriel felt his heart beating furiously, this time not from exhaustion, but from confusion.
He rose, to his surprise, surprisingly easily from the bed, and looked around at his surroundings.
Everything around him seemed new.
There was a desk cluttered with books, a movie poster hanging on the wall, a duffel bag sitting next to the door.
A teenager's bedroom somewhere, yet it seemed strangely intimate, as if he'd spent years here.
Before he could comprehend what had just happened, he heard a soft, familiar voice call out to him impatiently:
"Adam! Come downstairs, breakfast is ready!"
Adam? His mind reeled.
Who was Adam? Why was this warm, feminine voice calling him that?
But more than anything, he realized something even more incredible:
It seemed to be calling him.
She called him "Adam", but in a way that made him feel like he was someone, expected, loved.
So from now on, his name would be Adam.
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