The deal with the devil, Professor Whiterabbit, paid off, sort of. Eske now had a room, with no windows, of course. But in the concentration camp, compared to his previous situation, it wasn''t that bad.


    Of course, it wasn''t really a room but more of a clean white cell with a strong smell of bleach and eugenol. The three meals a day were included, and he could even shower with generic laundry soap once a day. Looking back to the last years in Neuengamme Camp, he almost felt he was living the big life until the experiments started.


    There were rumours around the camp that human experimentation was being performed on large numbers of prisoners, even children, but mostly Jews from across Europe. Prisoners were forced into participating, and there was no real consent. Typically, the experiments resulted in death, trauma, illness, shortening of life, disfigurement, or permanent disability. True medical carnage. That Eske would not be able to describe until this day. However, he had the notion that Professor Whiterabbit was being very considerate with his first examination.


    Every morning, Professor Whiterabbit would perform a complete examination of blood, urine, and all kinds of tests implicating fluids. Also, Ecke''s heart rate, temperature, respiration and others like Electroconvulsive therapy just to stimulate his young, strong mind, as per the professor''s words. ‘It doesn''t feel so bad, does it?’


    The last one must have been his favourite. Eske would be closed inside an empty white room. No windows, no desk, chair, or bed, nothing. Only white light cancelling any type of shadow. The exaggerated brightness would burn his yellowish eyes, and the pitless silence would turn into screeching tinnitus.


    Eske never knew how long he was incarcerated in that room. Sometimes minutes, hours, maybe days. He had no idea. He couldn''t understand the objective of this exercise. There was no sound, nothing he could distract his mind with, only his heartbeat, his throat swallowing saliva or the faint blink of his eyes. His mind was drowned in deep sensory deprivation and complete isolation. He was abandoned by himself.


    Eske would begin not to feel himself as if he was once more deprived of his name and story. Who was he before the war? Would he lose his notion of self and personal identity? But it didn''t make sense to Eske. He was here because he was the boy who could hear numbers. Where are the numbers? There was nothing. Just emptiness. As if zeros were floating behind an invisible veil.


    For now.


    <blockquote>


    Wake up, child


    Pay attention


    </blockquote>


    It took at least a year for him to hear the first number. A sound, a zero decibels. A cute silence crawling on the empty walls. It lasted only for a second but was all Eske needed to understand.


    <blockquote>


    Come on, wake up


    Wake up, love


    </blockquote>


    Everything was made of numbers!


    The beginning of all is unity. Unity is a cause of indefinite duality as a matter. Both unity and endless duality are sources of the numbers. One, two, three and others, each makes a dot or more.Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.


    The points are proceeding from numbers. Then the lines, from the points. From the lines, we go to plane figures. triangle, square, pentagons, and hexagons, like stars turning into nova. And from the plane are volumetric figures. From them, we find acceptable volumetric solids, in which we find the four elements. Those are, at first sight, fire, water, earth, and air. Mixing their atoms, those elements that are moving and changing constantly. They give rise to the universe, inspired, intelligent, and spherical, a burning delight source of life, our sun. Sprouting life, the flesh of the ego. And the ego finds refuge in a conscience brain, made of points, lines, shapes and volumetry. Everything is made of numbers. What would happen if a boy could hear numbers? All the numbers!


    <blockquote>


    We should make the night


    But see your little lights alive


    </blockquote>


    The answer is simple, an orchestra played by the universe itself.


    Suddenly the room was no longer silent or even white. An aberration of colours, equations, and long infinite numbers ran in front of Eske''s eyes. He heard whispers, callings, and sounds he had never heard before. Resolution of equations impossible to resolve. Complex web lines looked like a three-dimensional map he couldn''t understand. It was the loudest orchestra he had ever heard in his life.


    He found himself lost among numbers. Numbers that were written in different languages and other unknown ones. He saw familiar symbols, but they meant something else, something not unveiled yet. All these numbers were connected through the same string. So many numbers. Professor Whiterabbit had given him the key to unlocking the mystery of the cosmos infinity.


    The answer to everything. And it was magnificent.


    In this hurricane of colours, music, voices and knowledge, Eske, with only 16 years, understood this knowledge was too dangerous to be in the hands of his fascist captors. He didn’t trust anyone, not even Whiterabbit.


    In the following days, weeks, perhaps even months, the morning examination routine became harder and harder for Eske to pretend he hadn''t heard something. The professor must have started to suspect his behaviour, and his perks were reduced to one meal a day, no more soap and longer sessions of Electroconvulsive therapy that would curl the hair on his arms.


    He would return to his room with his head burned on his temples and a pounding headache. He started to become exhausted with no way to silence the numbers. He felt utterly overwhelmed and ready to crack at any second until one day, he looked at his numbers.


    The one tattoed on his arms as if a toddler drew those and heard a voice. Her voice was louder than any other number and would silence them softly.


    <blockquote>


    ''1944.''


    </blockquote>


    Her voice was smooth, with a slight tone of sleepiness. Eske liked it. But she didn’t make any sense.


    <blockquote>


    ''The first nine decimal digits of PI.''


    </blockquote>


    She was saying random things.


    <blockquote>


    ''Otto.''


    </blockquote>


    ''What?''; he mumbled, looking closer at his arm.


    <blockquote>


    ''We don''t have a cat because you are scared of cats.''


    </blockquote>


    ''I''m not scared of cats!''; he didn''t realise he was talking alone to his arm.


    <blockquote>


    ''The end of the world!''


    </blockquote>


    Eske lay down over his pillow and kept staring at his arm, hearing the voice saying arbitrary little things. But something always came back, something she would repeat over and over again: ''The end of the world.''


    Strangely he found it relaxing hearing her voicing that until his eyes were heavier than all the answers and all the reasons of the universe.