The rapprochement with Raku encouraged Xurde to go see Erendi. At night only the machines watched over them. As Erendi was a sleeping being for Xurde, their appearance seemed completely natural to them. They seemed to be resting peacefully. The slight movement of their breathing made Xurde visualize great expansive waves. The space of the bare room was filled with the curved directions that started from their solar plexus, on which Xurde placed their hands. The same soft blue force that they had delivered to Raku entered through Erendi's fasciae, comforting the tissues that had closed down since the accident. Xurde felt that, before their visit, their body systems communicated with each other. They felt the flow of blood increase in their arms and legs. Their skin woke up. From the plexus to Xurde's hands an amber ether returned, penetrated their arms and sank through their trachea and their esophagus, heating all their organs. They then placed one of their hands on their neck and the other under their navel. Strong elliptical currents were released throughout the trunk, both up and down and between the sternum and the spine. Violet lights pierced Xurde's bones through contact, entering the marrow of their vertebrae. Erendi's body heated up. The breathing varied slightly (though not enough to wake the machines). Xurde remained like that for a long time. They felt that the room was breathing their instead of breathing in the room. Space breathed into their body and sucked out their body with each breath. Erendi seemed to soften and swell, like the ground under their feet. And then, from the bottom of their body, from somewhere else without space, a dark force sprang up, paralyzing and adhering their hands to Erendi's body. A one–sided desire to possess them. The energy curves that filled the room quickened and tightened, they wanted to squeeze their neck and their sex. Erendi's eyes widened, the back of their neck contracted, and they caught Xurde's wrist in their fist in front of their face. Xurde did not yell because they did not have time to react. All the energy trails vanished, leaving only the tension in Erendi's arm like the lightning stars on the night of the party. Xurde's dead hand almost fell to the ground because its muscular system collapsed for an instant. Erendi's head and arm fell serenely back on the bed, as if nothing had happened. It had been a reflex reaction. Xurde was left in a panic, hardly able to hold on to their legs, with their pulse soaring and their pupils so dilated that it almost seemed to be daylight in the room. They could only hear their own breathing. Every step they took was on one of those non–existent steps in dreams, but they didn't fall. They instinctively went to their room and locked themselves in again as they had been doing for two nights.