The cold, moist air of dawn bristled upon Natalia's face, gently mixing with the tears streaming down her cheeks and shining a crimson hue that cut sharply across her paled features. She held her hands together in front of her as if in prayer, even if her eyes and her mouth refused to follow in their gesture. Her mind was adrift in a sea of silent recollection, trying to make sense out of a distant, cold past, a bloodied present, and an empty future.
"It means nothing to me anymore, mama," she finally whispered to the stone in front of her. "Nothing."
She longed to hear an answer, any answer, but ten years of silence, she knew, would not be broken now or ever. She looked with wide, sad eyes upon the grave of her dead mother and noticed it had somehow survived the debacle. It was as if it were left for her to think about, to beckon her towards her own willing fate alongside her and those that she'd known all her life.
She kept her eyes on the stone, her nose desperately trying to ignore the growing stench around her. Her hands still clasped together, beginning to tremble slightly, the blood trickling down them registered on the corner of her eye. As the silent drop fell upon the ground beneath her, she could swear she heard it, drip, as it hit. She didn't know if she imagined it, but the absence of any other sound, save that of the wind rustling gently across burnt houses, debris, and withered trees, meant that any sound, even the sound of blood dripping onto the ground, was that much more noticeable.
Her hands clenched tighter. Her nails began to cut into her flesh. Her blood began to slowly mix with his. And her eyes remained unmoved. They looked upon the tombstone and wondered why it had survived.
"Natalia?"
She looked at him and instantly banned emotion from her face, expression from her mind. To think that four years of spurning and mockery hadn't dissuaded him in the least from his single-minded intent. He was making it more and more difficult for her. Didn't he know it? Maybe he did. Maybe that's why he persisted despite her hostility. Because he knew she was going to crack at any given moment.
"What?"
He fumbled a bit, catching his breath after his little run across the field of corn, regrouping after her undeniable reproach. For a second, he regretted his decision to come after her; a second after that, after having looked into those large brown eyes of her, he knew again why he had come.
"Where are you going?" he finally stammered out. If only she'd do something other than just look at him like that.
"Where I'm going," she replied, emotionless and cold.
He could feel her eyes searing through him again, but felt it too early to give up.
"I haven't seen you in a while. Just wanted to know if you were all right."
He hadn't believed that she could muster a colder look in her eyes. He was wrong.
"Soledad's Monster is doing well and fine," she said, "so I thank you for your concern. If you'll excuse me now."
"Natalia," he said, his voice betraying strange mixtures of pain and puzzle, passion and fear.
"What?" was the icy response.
This time, he didn't say the first thing that came to mind. He had already blown it. He should know better by now that small talk would get him nowhere; it hadn't gotten him anywhere in the past four years. To deal with Natalia, one had to employ alternate methods of communication.
And as far as he knew, no one had as yet been able to develop them.
"It's time you stopped this already," he finally said, surprising himself with the authority he had voiced. Part of him still yearned to be with her, to know the real her, and part of him just downright started to hate her. That balance of love and hatred was finally producing results.
"Stopped what?"
"That spiteful moping of yours," he said, his fists clenching instinctively. She noticed it.
"I suppose it's my latest transgression?" she replied slyly. "Another in my long line of monsterly deeds?"
"That's not what I meant," he closed his eyes and concentrated. "It's just that you've made yourself so distant, so cold to everyone. Even to those of us who care about you."
The sound of her mocking laugh seemed to drown every other sound out, and he felt it like a cascade of ice water down his spine. He wanted so much to touch her, to at least hold her hand and try and make her understand. But he felt himself approaching the brink of an emotional precipice upon which he knew he'd lingered for as long as he'd started caring for her. He felt he'd been hanging on, keeping a shaky grip upon an imagined cliff so as to not fall down that precipice. And now, Natalia's laugh looked to jar his fingers off one by one and force the fall.
"Oh please," she finally said with biting cynicism. "About the only thing any of you has cared to do for me was make my life miserable. What's the matter? You're scared of me or something? You think I joined the Order to get back at you all? Or maybe you're all just writhing under the pain of regret and thinking that by being nice to me now you'll feel relieved? Please."
"I wonder if you even believe yourself," he said through clenched teeth, his hands starting to tremble more noticeably. "I wonder if you're not just putting on this big self-pitying act to make yourself feel better about the fact that you've become a real monster. Because, Natalia, you've become what you never were, even when we were all scared of you years ago. It's like you never forgave us for making the mistakes that children do, and now that spite has turned you into something ugly and horrible."
She pushed her braided hair back and looked away. "Well then," she began, the calm cynicism in her voice conflicting with her body language, "let's make this all better then. Let's do now what you all wanted to do back then. By the looks of it, you're more than ready. And willing. I won't stop you, you know."
His eyes narrowed in confusion. "What? What are you talking about?"
She turned back to him and smiled her sinister smile. "Come now, Des. You know what I'm talking about. Look at your hands."
Only then did he notice his hands grinding harder and harder against themselves, the act of clenching itself becoming the consummation of silent thoughts and wishes. His face flared up in embarrassment. And anger. She noticed it.
"It would be the appropriate thing to do," she continued spitefully as she began to walk around him slowly, menacingly. "To kill the monster, but for real this time. Come on, Des, I'll even help you. Do you want my sword and make it quick and painless, or would you like to strangle me to death and make me feel it longer? How will we do it, dear Des, how will it make a better story? Stabbed or strangled?"
"Natalia," he could only muster a trembling whisper.
"Isn't it what everyone wants?" she continued walking circles around him. "To kill the Monster? Isn't that what they've wanted since we were little? And isn't that what you had in mind when you started pretending to care for me? What, did you guys draw straws or something? Did the task befall you?"
He walked away, trying the best he could to hide his tears. He disappeared behind the rows of corn, and soon all that was left of him was the sound of the corn stalks rustling with his movement across them. Rather dignified, she thought. Knew when to leave.
And when she was certain he was far away from her, well beyond sight and hearing, she couldn't help but to kneel down upon the ground and desperately try to wrestle control over emotions now threatening to burst out. She put her arms around herself, rocked herself back and forth, and tried to enter deep meditation so as to forget the whole incident and her behavior. But meditation was impossible, for even as her mind raced with a variety of mental exercises, her mouth was voicing, over and over again, "I'm sorry, Deseo."
It was an odd smell. Burnt grass, wet grass, the humidity and moisture of dawn, the blood covering the ground, the ravaged bodies lying beneath the red sky. She tried her best to ignore it. If she thought about it too much, she was sure she'd gag, and she couldn't do such a disgusting thing in front of mother.
"I couldn't see, mama," she spoke to the tombstone, her hands finally unclenching and feeling the indentations of her mother's engraved name. Her index finger traced lovingly along the L, feeling gently around the U, continuing through the C, the I, and the A, her lips silently whispering each letter and ending with their final pronunciation: Lucia. To have light. She who has light. Her mother had always been the guiding light in her life, her one refuge from the scorn of the village children. It was to her mother's arm that she would run towards after the mockeries at school, even after her mother explained to her that children were only being children, and that they didn't mean it.
"But they called me..."
"Children say things that they don't mean, Natalia," her mother gently interrupted as she brushed her daughter's long, black hair. "You have to learn to understand that."
"But how, mama?"
Lucia sighed, not with frustration, but with the silent understanding of one who knew that her daughter was both wrong and right. She'd wanted to tell Natalia about her grandmother, about how she herself had the gift, and how it had helped, and hurt, her when she was alive. But Natalia was too young to understand. Still suffocating beneath the idea that she was a monster, that knowledge might go either way. She could feel relieved, knowing she wasn't the only one, and maybe she'd come to terms with her abilities. But she could also sink deeper into despair, seeing herself as the continuation of a family curse. Natalia was still too young-barely ten years old-to know everything. Maybe once she was out of primary schooling.
"Just remember," she began anew, "that we all go through that process of growing up. We all say mean things as children because we don't know any better. As we grow older, we begin to understand that we were wrong, and we start treating people differently. Give it some time, honey, and you'll see that they'll start being nice to you soon enough."
"I hate them," she said with a maliciousness too pronounced for her ten years. "I wish I could kill them."
"Natalia!" Lucia stopped brushing and scolded her daughter. "Don't you ever say or even think that!"
"But..."
"But nothing! What is the one difference between what they do to you and what you want to do to them?"
Natalia thought hard but could not come up with an answer. Her brown eyes looked up to her mother, pleading for resolution.
"Theirs are words, Natalia," her mother explained. "Words are just that. They aren't things that can hurt or harm you. They can bother you, but they can never really hurt you. What you want to do is hurt people for real. And when you do that, then you become a monster for real!"
"I don't want to be called a monster anymore," Natalia began to cry softly. "I'm not a monster!"
"Then never think what you've thought ever again," Lucia continued to brush her hair. "I promise you that if you stop thinking things like that, they'll be quicker to stop calling you that. If you feel you need to fight someone, use words instead. Words can't really hurt, but you can use them to defend yourself all the same. Learn how to use words, Natalia."
Natalia let her mother's words sink in as the brush continued to run through her hair. As her small head was pulled gently back and forth with each stroke, she began thinking about Deseo and his group of friends. They followed her halfway home that day, throwing insult after insult at her. She threw a rock at him, hit him, and he ran away crying. Big baby. Nothing but a bully. She held another rock in her hand and threatened to nail whomever said another bad thing to her. Haley looked to provoke her, but she turned to face him. Then Razcal, that boy who lived up to his name so well, tried to get around her, but again she was too quick. She stood there, rock in hand, and held all of them in check, even as the last traces of Deseo's wailing floated over them. They all went home after that. How, then, were words better weapons? Rocks hurt them in a way she liked. Besides, how would she know what words to say?
She opened her mouth to speak, but her mother was finishing brushing her hair and braiding it for bed. "Such beautiful hair," she said quietly. "Whenever you think you're a monster, just think of how beautiful your long black hair is. Monsters don't have hair like that, you know?"
"I know, mama."
"You know what?"
"That monsters don't have hair like that."
Lucia sighed, the throbbing pain in her head suddenly returning, "I wish you would never cut your hair. How I wish you would let me brush it for you always."
"But mama," Natalia said, confusion creeping into her voice. "You will, right?"
"My little girl," Lucia closed her eyes, the pain growing more intense. "Of course I will. I just hope you won't want to cut it some day and not let me play with it again."
"I won't."
"You must think I'm silly."
"No mama," Natalia looked up at her mother, wondered why her mother was making faces as if she were in pain, wondering why it looked like her eyes were crying, and wondered if her mother would let her stay home from school in the morning.
Natalia's hands undid her two braids, her long black hair flowing freely in the soft, moist breeze for the first time in a long while. She did so from time to time, and each time reliving the strange, floating-like sensation she felt whenever her long hair fell unconstrained. She closed her eyes-too much red in sight, both in the sky and on the ground-and indulged herself in the sensation; she knew she'd probably not feel it again for a long, long time. For the slightest of moments, she was compelled to forget her situation, to forget the carnage lying all around her, and enjoy, if only for a second, the fresh feel of the morning air against her.
She opened her eyes. No. She would not indulge herself, now or ever again. Everyone had died because she hadn't been quicker. Her village now stood as a reminder of that failure, of the suffering brought upon her people because she hadn't been there for them. Years of Shamanist and sword-fighting training should have been put to better use. Instead, she had been away when it happened. And for that, she could not allow herself to live.
"Mama, forgive me," she whispered as she lifted herself from her knees, her weakness in spirit and body making them buckle slightly as she did.
Her right hand grabbed the hilt of her sword and drew it. Doing her best to avert her eyes from the ravaged bodies lying no more than two meters from her, she turned the sword's point and pressed it against her chest. To kneel back down now, rest the hilt upon her mother's tombstone, and run herself through. Yes. It would be fitting that her blood immolate her mother's remains. Mother and daughter reunited in the most gruesome of rituals.
She could feel the sharpness of her sword pressed against her skin, the cotton tunic she was wearing doing nothing to blunt its feel. She closed her eyes.
"Natalia? What are you doing?"
Sweating, panting, her eyes full of unconfined rage, she turned to look at Deseo as he came in through the woods to her little practice spot. She was instantly angry; she'd chosen this spot because it was isolated, and she could do as she pleased here without anyone butting in and making comments.
"What does it look like I'm doing?" she snarled as she rested upon the hilt of her sword. Breathing heavily, she eyed Deseo carefully as he got closer to her.
"I thought you were just into sorcery. Why are you practicing with a sword?"
"Oh," she snapped back, "so you don't think I can do both? Why? Because I'm a girl? A monster?"
"That's not what I meant," he fumbled as he stared at her directly.
"Then shut up," she said as she lifted her sword again and began a new series of swings in front of her. The swoosh of the small blade cutting through the air seemed to buzz around and between the two of them.
Deseo waited for her to stop before speaking again. Somehow, it didn't seem the smartest thing to do to talk to her in the middle of all that swishing and swooshing.
"So you're birthday's coming up next week, right?" he asked sheepishly.
She shrugged. "Like I care."
"Well, it's your fifteenth birthday. It's the special one."
"For who?"
"For every girl," he replied, his smile broadening slightly.
"Right, but us monsters don't really care about fifteenth birthdays."
Now it broadened completely. "Natalia," he began anew, "I was hoping you'd let us throw you a small party. Nothing too big, but something nice."
Her mouth curled up into a cynical smile. "Who is 'us?' Not your cronies, right?"
She was right, he knew, to feel offended at the notion. He. Haley. Razcal. Milo. The whole lot of them had levied the bulk of mockery at her during primary school, and even his own sixteen years allowed him to see the dark irony of it. But he knew that they'd all grown up. They'd all repented for mistakes committed in the past, as all children naturally do at some point, and now they simply wanted to embrace Natalia as a friend, even if it was late in coming.
"Well yeah, plus Miranda and Delia and my parents. It's just that..."
"Look, Des," she said, her hand lifting as if to swat him away, "let's not go nuts here, okay? Since when did you start becoming all nice to me and stuff?"
"You really hold a grudge, don't you?" he asked, trying his best to ignore her spite. "Aren't you ever going to forgive us for being so mean to you back then?"
She thought hard about what he said. If he only knew she'd wanted to forgive everyone, to feel for once that she belonged to the village as a member and not an outcast. If he knew that she wanted nothing more than to be able to laugh and smile without the hatred and the cynicism, to be able to talk to them without the complete elimination of basic emotions, to simply be a normal girl for the first time in her life. But as she felt the cold steel of her sword's hilt in her hands, she was reminded of everything they had done to shape the way she was now. The mockery that made her feel like an insignificant insect, the rage that drove her towards learning Shamanism and swordsmanship so that she could prove to them she was better and stronger than them all, the silent torment her dreams had put her through but for which she could find no support amongst any of them. Especially after her mother died. Yes, she wanted to forgive, but her very being was a perpetual reminder of the very reasons why she could not.
"Don't think I can," she finally answered. "So you don't have to pretend to like me anymore."
"I'm not pretending, Natalia."
She looked at him. Her eyes locked onto him not with rage but with a sadness that, as repressed as it was, threatened to burst through and reveal their keeper's darkest secrets.
"That's awfully nice of you to say," her mouth voiced with icy calm. "but I can't."
"Why not?" he pleaded, wishing to understand the mixed signals he knew he was getting.
"Because," she barely whispered before falling silent again.
She turned away from him and began another series of swipes with her sword. This time, she grunted louder and louder with each swing. The ferocity with which she was striking seemed almost unnatural.
"Natalia," he said softly, "I'm sorry for everything I did to you as a kid."
She ignored him, or at least she seemed to be. But he could tell that something was happening. Her swings were becoming even fiercer, and her grunts were becoming yells.
"It's just that, well," he fumbled for the right words, "you've become so beautiful and strong, and I can't stop thinking about you. I can't stop thinking about that beautiful hair of yours and how you wear it down all the time. I can't stop thinking about how you pretend to be so cold with everyone because you're really hurting inside. I can't stop thinking about the hand I played in it all. And I can't stop thinking that I can help you, if only you'd let me in."
"Help me?" she said as she rested against her sword again. Somehow, the sadness had faded away, and cynicism slowly made its return. "Are you nuts?"
"No, I'm just..."
"Tell me," she cut him off, a strange smile forming on her face. "You like my hair?"
"I love your hair," he said, thinking for a second that he had finally broken through.
"The way I wear it down?"
"Yes."
"So tell me," she continued, "who do you think has worn her hair the ugliest?"
"What does that have to do with anything?"
Her look froze him. "Just tell me."
He thought for a few seconds, then looked up when the right image presented itself. "Remember when Teresa wore her hair in two braids in primary school? Remember how we kind of poked fun at her too?"
Her smile became even more pronounced. "Ah yes, I remember."
He allowed himself to smile, thinking that the question was harmless enough, thinking that, maybe, that simple compliment on her looks had broken through sheets of ice. He thought so even more when Natalia spoke again.
"I'll speak to you later," she told him, a strange look in her eyes. "I'll answer you then about the party you want to throw me."
Now he was excited, and he could barely contain it. He suddenly didn't care that he must have looked goofy and stupid smiling as he was in front of her. He had seen a glimpse of humanity in her, and that was enough for him. He knew she'd come around sooner or later.
"I'll be near the zocalo before dinnertime," he blurted out. "Can I see you then?"
She marveled at his choice of words. "Yes, you'll see me then."
She couldn't help but to gasp out loud.
She opened her eyes in shock
It was unbearable.
The images were too scary. She couldn't understand them.
Children have enough problems coping with imaginary demons and monsters. They'd all gone through those monsters under the bed, and the monsters in the closet, and the monsters that came to their windows at night. But they were imaginary monsters, and all it took was for mom or dad to come and the monsters would all go away.
But Natalia's monsters were different. They weren't childhood monsters in the strictest sense. Rather, they were the strange dreams she'd have of people and places unfamiliar to her. She'd dream she was flying over cities, and mountains, over castles and houses, over mountains and rivers, and seeing different people do different things. She never understood why she had the same kind of dreams every night. And sometimes she didn't mind it; the sensation of flying was exhilarating at times.
But sometimes, she'd see other things. Sometimes she'd see people hurt each other. Sometimes, she'd see children crying over sleeping parents. Sometimes, she'd see groups of men attack defenseless people and hurt them very badly. She would try to shout for them to stop, but they couldn't hear her. She'd simply float over it all and be a silent, powerless spectator to the worst of humanity's crimes and sorrows.
Sometimes, she'd find herself flying, bodiless, through places even she knew didn't exist. Flying through thick blue mists that almost seemed like oceans in the sky. Flying through fields of red and purple and yellow and countless other colors that swirled around her minuscule presence as if swallowing her up completely. Flying through forests and mountains that suddenly began to shake and fall apart as if they were painted images on a breaking glass in front of her. One time, she saw her entire village crumble as if made of powder and dissolve into a mass of incongruent shapes and colors.
And sometimes, she'd see other things. Dark skies. Black mountains. Lakes of fire that almost looked black. And she'd see monsters. Real monsters. Not the monsters under the bed or in the closet, but real, living monsters, looking at her and snarling at her as she intruded upon their world. She could never understand it. But it scared her. She would wake up and not be able to go back to sleep. And in this fashion, Natalia slept broken hours for much of her first seven years of life.
But one day, she fell asleep under a tree. She hadn't slept well that night and so dozed off under the soft shade of the tree on that quiet Saturday afternoon. Even in the day, however, she could still have the dreams. She dreamt the monsters again. Dreamt she entered their world again and that she was being chased by them, even if she didn't have a body. Woke up trembling, her eyes open wide in terror. She felt like crying. Wondered why she had such horrible nightmares, when she was only seven years old. She didn't hear of the other kids having the same problems.
Which was why she decided to go looking for them. Anyone of her classmates. They'd be in the zocalo now, she knew, probably playing as they always did on Saturday afternoons. She wanted to talk to someone, and she felt that, for once, she ought to talk to one of the kids, because maybe they'd know things her mother didn't. And she was sure that, if she approached them now, they'd take pity on her for a change and not make fun of her.
Only by the time she saw them, and they saw her, she realized her mistake. Instantly, the whole crowd of them began to jeer at her, their parents keeping silent instead of telling them to stop being so mean and rude. Natalia stopped in her tracks as several of the kids came closer to her. It was the bully kid, Deseo, and his three friends. They were making funnier faces than the rest, yelling at her more loudly than the rest. She tried to speak.
"I want to talk to you. Can't I talk to you?"
"We don't talk with monsters," Deseo sneered at her, "so go home to that witch mother of yours and leave us normal kids alone!"
"But I had bad dreams! I want to know if you have bad dreams too!"
"What did you dream?" Miranda asked as she too got near, her mouth curled up in a cruel, mocking smile.
"Yes, what did you dream?" another asked, and then another, and then another, before virtually every kid there was mimicking the question and weaving their voices together.
"I dream of monsters, real monsters," she tried to say, her voice shaking as the tears started to come. "I can't sleep at night anymore. I'm scared."
She looked over at the parents, who in turn looked away. She could see their mouths move as they whispered to one another. She couldn't hear what they said, but the coldness with which they abandoned her to their sneering children made her feel tiny and insignificant. And their children were pressing ahead.
"Of course you dream of monsters," the boy Haley said. "Because you are a monster!"
"That's right, she's a monster," another girl chimed in. "A monster just like her whole monster family!"
"Yeah, monster, why are you scared of your dreams? You're dreaming about your family, right?"
Natalia shook her head violently, unable to speak anymore. Her feet began to move backwards as the kids continued to close in on her, but three of them noticed it and immediately moved to cut her off. Now she was surrounded by them. She spun around to see nothing but a sea of jeering, cruel faces and pointing fingers. She tried to move away, but they'd only move with her and keep her at the center.
"Stop it!" she finally managed between tears.
"I say we kill the monster!" she heard Deseo's voice boom out.
"Yeah!" Razcal jumped in. "You know what kills monsters, don't you?"
She shook her head again, her eyes pleading for what she knew would not come.
"That's right! Water kills monsters!"
"Yeah!!"
"Let's take her to the lake again!"
"Yes!! The monster must die!"
She felt an unbearable pain in her chest, because she had come to them thinking that, for once, they'd leave her alone, and instead they used her own misery against her. She wanted to scream out loudly, loud enough to deafen them all. She wanted to cry herself to death, because even death would probably be kinder than this torment. She wanted to go flailing at them all, kicking and punching and doing whatever harm she could before they overpowered her, because the pain and the anger she now felt could no longer be contained by simple tears and whimpers.
And it was at that moment, when her emotions seemed on the verge of completely overwhelming her young mind, that something inexplicably snapped. The tears and sobs stopped with a suddenness that seemed unnatural.
She didn't even cry anymore. As several hands took hold of her and dragged her to the small lake next to the village, Natalia felt herself go limp, bodily and emotionally. She couldn't understand this strange, new sensation. The last three times they'd done this to her, she had bawled her eyes out and pleaded to the very end, only to be thrown into and emerge from the lake drenched and crying and cursing them all. This time, however, it was like she couldn't feel anything at all.
And she almost found herself liking it. Because it didn't hurt as much. Because, for once, she noticed that the kids seemed more angry than happy, as if she was ruining the fun for them. Certainly, she'd made a spectacle of herself in the past; no wonder they enjoyed making fun of her. But now, it was completely different. Now, as they yelled louder, pulled harder, and pinched harder, it was as if they were trying to make her cry louder and harder, only to find that she wasn't crying at all anymore.
Those actually paying close attention to her might have even noticed the semblance of a smile breaking out across her face. Certainly, the parents, pretending not to notice anything, noticed something odd about the child as she looked back at them with an expression that seemed downright frightening, more so because she was only seven. They continued to whisper among themselves, the word 'monster' repeatedly sprinkled throughout their secret dialogue.
And later, when Natalia returned home, drenched from head to toe, she went straight to her bedroom. She had remained silent the whole time--coming out of the lake, meeting the silent sneers of the gathered kids, and heading home-- and didn't even bother going to her mother as she had done before.
She spent the entire night thinking about what had happened, wondering if, perhaps, she could find a way to turn off her feelings for good so that they could never hurt her again.
She pounded her fist into the ground. The pain was unbearable.
It was all too much to take in all at once. Even she wasn't that strong.
She came as promised. Walking silently across the dirt roads that were, by now, growing empty as most everyone headed off for their respective homes. There was one person sitting there under a tree in the village's center, anxiously waiting for her to arrive.
But as the soft shadows of dusk began to silhouette Natalia's soft features as she approached the zocalo, Deseo's smile broadened and his heart sank heavily into the recesses of total depression.
It was Natalia's hair. She had fixed it into two long braids that rested towards the back of her head. The beauty with which her hair had lain loose that morning now seemed like a memory, bitter and frustrated and distant.
And she was smiling at him. Only it wasn't anything even resembling a warm, even friendly, smile. It was that sinister smile of hers again.
"Natalia," he muttered as she stood next to him. He stared at her in shock. It wasn't that she looked ugly; far from it, he thought the braids actually accentuated her beauty in a way her other style never did. It was the gesture. It was the fact that she had done it for the exclusive purpose of spurning him, mocking him, telling him to go to hell. He felt slightly angered, but more than anything else, he felt overwhelmingly depressed that his feelings would be so trampled.
"Please tell your friends not to bother themselves with the party," she said with that same icy calm of hers. "Oh, and I think you should drop that whole 'let's be nice to Natalia' bit because it's really quite pathetic."
Before he could utter another word, she turned away from him and headed home. Instantly, she regretted everything. She knew she was, at this point, becoming a monster for real, but the die had been cast, and she knew there was no going back now. She wanted to turn around, look at Deseo sit there in his stupor and misery, and apologize to him for everything she'd done. She could see that his feelings for her were sincere. She knew that it wasn't that he was simply overwhelmed by a guilty conscience and wanted to alleviate its burden. No. He seemed to genuinely care for her, though how he had spawned those feelings for her was quite beyond her comprehension. She wanted so much to take his hand and accept his belated friendship, because life without her mother, her one true friend, had become unbearable. She wanted to apologize to him. But she couldn't. She had acquired the strength to wield a sword with no small skill and had recently achieved the ability to harness and focus her Astral powers to cast the most powerful of Shamanist attacks, the Ra-Tilt, but she did not have the strength to apologize for her wrongs. And she realized it.
In her angry mind, she had gone past the point of no return. It was simply too late for her to assume a normal life around those that had made it so abnormal in the first place. However lonely and sad she secretly felt, she also knew that she could not, just like that, turn off her resentment for their years of cruelty. Not just like that. Over time, hopefully. But Deseo mustn't expect miracles. She had plenty of hurt to have to deal with first.
She had wanted to cut off her long hair when Deseo commented upon it, but images of her mother and the way she used to brush it came flooding back to fight off that one, impulsive thought. No, she wouldn't cut it, just as she'd promised her. But she needed to make herself ugly, to make her isolation from the world around her complete, emotionally, spiritually, and bodily. And Deseo had fallen into her trap when he revealed to her his dislike for braids.
She reached the door of her small home, went in, and quickly shut it behind her. She stood there against the back of the door for what seemed like hours, the dark emptiness of her motherless home suddenly seeming more pronounced than it had ever been.
The blade of her sword never even pierced her flesh, but it may as well have. The torrent of pain, anguish, and shame that Natalia felt overwhelming her threw her to the ground after she screamed out loud and tossed her sword aside. She had humiliated the memory of her mother with that one act of cowardice, that one momentary thought of ending it all right then and there through her own suicide. And now, as she sobbed uncontrollably at the foot of her mother's grave, her clothes becoming stained with the pool of blood next to her, Natalia struggled to regain control of herself. To think she'd become the expert at if over the past thirteen years.
That was precisely the problem. Too much containment. Too many years of keeping her rage and agony inside of her and performing, unto others, the role of cold-hearted bitch. Too many years of keeping a fierce grip over her emotions, commanding over them like a tyrant over deprived masses, just asking for them to revolt and overwhelm her when she least expected it. As they did now. The control she'd honed like a natural instinct now crumpled helplessly alongside her on the blood-stained ground.
She opened her eyes and tried to look at the sky, her tears blurring her vision beyond repair. She concentrated upon the crimson darkness and its reminder of what had transpired. She tried desperately to force herself to think, rationalize, why it was that the sky was now red. And why it was that her entire village was lying dead around her. But she couldn't control her sobs. The bitter memory of her compounded failures to save them brought on a new torrent of agony, remorse, and shame.
Piedad's Guild was uncooperative. Full of selfishness and condescending. They had their own problems, they said, and couldn't spare anyone. Not for a little village no one even cared about.
The City of Amistad. Natalia stood before the council of the Feathered Serpent Order, the Order she'd joined as a seventeen year old sorceress and as the lone representative of Soledad. She felt the cold, hard stares of the elders as they discussed Soledad's fate amongst themselves, and prayed to her Maker that they would be more understanding than Amistad's sister city of Piedad. She folded her arms, her body charged with nervous energy as she awaited their decision.
Finally they spoke.
They had problems of their own. Didn't you notice how the city was preparing for its own attack? Didn't you notice how people are leaving, others boarding up, everyone moving with an urgency never before seen?
"Of course I noticed it," she tried to be polite, "but all I ask is that you lend us five sorcerers. Between the six of us, we could make a stand."
"Over three thousand sorcerers couldn't do anything at New Sairaag. What makes you so confident?"
For once, her powers of self-control came in handy. "I'm not here to discuss past tactical blunders. We're running out of time. Piedad wouldn't help, so now I ask you, my patron Order, to help us. Five sorcerers won't mean much to you, but they'd be everything to us."
"You didn't answer our question."
"Because I've already spent the past hour pleading my case, and because to answer the question would be to expose the incompetence with which our leaders have waged this war."
"Do you question the authority of the Order?"
"Not the authority," she retreated slightly, her arms unfolding again. "I've been in this Order for three years and respect it well. But we can't wage war based upon the mistakes of the past. If I could have five sorcerers..."
"Natalia Stillrage, you are assuming a position that is not yours to occupy."
Her head shook slightly in confusion. "Sir?"
"Being in the Order for three years does not give you authority or knowledge over it. Being twenty years old, our youngest member by a full fifteen years, hardly gives you authority over anything. Were you another Lina Inverse, your presumptuous behavior would have excuse, but you are not. So know your place and speak accordingly."
The mention of that name sent a chill through her. But she couldn't indulge in that now. She fought off the remembrance of her dreams and pushed the images of Lina Inverse back into their dark recesses.
"I don't presume to speak over the Order," she offered, "but I can't understand your reluctance to listen to me or help me. My village lies defenseless as we speak. I myself can only do so much for them. Five additional sorcerers, dividing the duties of attack and defense between them, would provide significant resistance, at least enough to buy my people time to evacuate completely."
"So you pretend to sacrifice them?"
"Of course not, but if it need be...."
"Your proposition makes no sense."
And it was over. Almost an hour of rational explanations and requests had been to no avail. Self-control gave way to pure unmitigated anger.
"Damn it, nothing ever makes sense to you people! All this time you're just sitting there spouting procedural nonsense and you dare say that I don't make sense?"
"Natalia Stillrage, you will..."
"I will nothing!" she said, slamming her fist down on the table in front of her. "I've asked for the most meager of reinforcements. I've asked for five sorcerers to defend five hundred. And all you can do is sit there, smug and stupid, and tell me that you can't? You ask me to believe that those five sorcerers will make all the difference here, when you've already amassed over fifty sorcerers and two thousand warriors? Sweet Maker, how can you be so damn selfish? You, my patron Order?"
And she noticed it. Ten sets of eyes instantly looking down at her with anger, insult, and scorn. In one instant, ten sets of eyes all bespoke a single unified thought. She knew she had lost.
"Natalia Stillrage, you are hereby dismissed from this hall and from the Feathered Serpent Order. Your insubordination will not be tolerated within our Order, which dictates the principles of duty, self-control, and honor above all others."
Now Natalia fell silent. Anger gave way to another feeling. Not sadness. Not depression. Disillusionment. She looked down, breathed deep, and faced the council of elders once again.
"Two things," she said softly. "You've shown me two things right now."
"You are to leave this room immediately..."
She lifted her left hand to silence them, the emptiness she felt not even letting her realize, and appreciate, the fact that her gesture had succeeded.
"You've shown me that, in the end, you don't care about anyone but yourselves. That you're willing to sacrifice all five hundred of my people because you're running around like chickens without heads trying to figure out what to do with what you have."
She began removing her right wrist guard as she breathed deep again.
"But you've also shown me that, in the end, you're not the order I sought after all. I came to you three years ago because I needed order in my life. I needed a sense of belonging, of duty, of service to something because I couldn't serve those around me. And for the past three years, you've done just that; restored order from chaos. But now, I see that I made a false idol out of you. You accuse me of abandoning the principles of duty and honor, but you say this at the same time you are sentencing five hundred people to their deaths. Where is the honor there? Is that not in itself an act of disgrace negating everything for which we stand? To think that you worry more now about something like insubordination when my village lies defenseless and vulnerable. I am disillusioned, great elders. I feel as if I've lost a parent again."
She tossed the wrist guard at the floor in front of them.
"The Feathered Serpent Order represents, for me, the epitome of nobility, duty, and order. I will continue to hold true to those principles, because they are worthy to live by even if I'm no longer part of the Order. What I leave today is not, however, the Feathered Serpent Order. What you've made it, what you've corrupted it into, well, that's what I'm being expelled from. There, then, lying in front of you, is the fallen symbol of your corruption. This," she said as she lifted her left wrist guard, "for me represents the Order and its principles as I knew it, and its the Order from which you will never be able to expel me."
She turned away from the council before anyone could say another word to her. Closing the doors of the Order's meeting hall behind her forever, Natalia felt disillusion finally mixing with an overwhelming sadness. She felt herself growing weak, tired, alone once again. She felt herself suddenly missing her mother in a way she hadn't in years. She needed someone to lean on for support right now, because for the first time in her life, she felt completely helpless and vulnerable to everything around her. Only there was no one. No one. She had made sure of that through years of vindictive spite. And now, she regretted it more than she'd ever regretted it before.
She began to walk through the busy streets of Amistad, aimlessly wandering and walking past the frantic bustle of a city bracing itself for the unimaginable. She heard snippets of conversation here and there, conversations about the fall of nearby cities and armies, about how darker the red skies seemed to be turning with each passing day, about how Monsters had been spotted not more than twenty kilometers away, and about how the defense was preparing itself to meet the threat. She felt herself almost gliding past it all, like wandering through the Astral Plane again, only this time, the heaviness of her feet, her shoulder guards, and her soul weighed her down completely. She closed her eyes, accidentally bumping into a woman leading two small children, and wished she could just lie down and sleep. Or die. She felt that emotionally exhausted. She felt that she could just lie down, right there in the middle of a frantic street, and just die.
She forced herself to lean against the wall of the nearest building. She had become weak and pale, her grief affecting her not just psychologically but physiologically. She kept her eyes closed, only listening to the mad bustle of everyone and everything passing by her like she wasn't even there. The sudden urge to cry made her realize that she was losing it again, but she didn't even care anymore. Nothing mattered anymore, it seemed.
But things mattered very much seconds later when a general alarm was raised amongst the people. Runners from Piedad had come through. Runners carrying information about new Monster attacks.
And Natalia's eyes widened in horror as the words began repeating themselves in the nervous voices of the people around her.
Piedad and Soledad were under attack.
As if propelled by unseen hands, Natalia broke into a frantic run. She ran through the crowds, streets, woods, and fires on her way home. Only home was a day away. In her maddened rush home, she didn't even think of it. She could think of nothing other than getting home. When she awoke after collapsing from having been running frantically for over six hours, she began to run again. And so made it to Soledad in about half the time it would normally take a person to get there.
Natalia hadn't known, however, that the runners' information was inaccurate. That they said Piedad and Soledad were both under attack, when in fact only Piedad was being attacked.
Because the Monsters had already wiped out Soledad. Even as she entered the city gates of Amistad after having been spurned by Piedad, five hundred people were being butchered in her village. And only now had news gotten through of Soledad's destruction.
So by the time Natalia got back home, the corpses of everyone she'd ever known lay festering and rotting beneath the crimson skies of the apocalypse.
She had failed. That was all there was to it.
No one had counted on her, but she had taken it upon herself anyway to save the village she had known as home. To save the only people she really knew in the entire world. Even if she'd become the monster, the worst possible version of herself.
She finally stopped crying. Finally wrestled some control over her emotions. She got up from the ground, trying her best to ignore the damp feel of blood on her clothes, and rose to her feet again. She walked towards her sword, picked it up, and placed it back in her sheath. She turned back to her mother's grave and closed her eyes.
"Goodbye, mama. Forgive me for what I now have to do."
She opened her eyes again. The image of the red-haired woman flashed across her mind; her fists instinctively clenched themselves tightly, her mouth curled furiously into an expression of mad rage.
More blood had to be shed. And for the first time, she'd have to be the one to commit the act.
The fires were now out, even if the few houses still partially standing emitted soft vapors of black smoke. By the looks and smell of things, the Monsters had been here days, not hours, ago.
By the looks of it, no one had survived.
Natalia wandered around the carnage, her faculties useless to her, her mouth and eyes open in shock and horror at the ghastly sight. She couldn't feel pain. She couldn't feel tired. She couldn't feel nauseous, even at the sight of half-bodies and bloody chunks strewn all over what used to be the quietest village in the province. She could feel nothing; there were no human emotions designed to respond to a sight like this.
She went home, her mind ceasing to rationalize and think clearly. Only there wasn't a home left. Her little house she'd known all her life lay now as a pile of black ashes upon the ground. Everything in it gone. Home. Possessions. Memories.
Memories.
Something finally snapped. Her eyes awoke with new thoughts as her legs began to carry her to a spot not too far from here. Towards the single spot, other than home, that now mattered anything to her.
Sidestepping corpses and debris, Natalia ran there. To Deseo's house. Or what was left of it. It had, miraculously enough, remained standing. At least two of its walls were, covered black with ash and standing vigilant over the rest of the decimated structure. Some of his things had likewise survived, even if there was nothing recognizable lying among the debris.
But he was nowhere to be seen.
She tore herself away from his house and began to search. She searched amongst the corpses, looking for one in particular. More than once, she gasped in spite of herself when she recognized the face lying dead on the ground. Like when she saw Haley and what was left of his upper body. Like when she saw Razcal, his brown eyes closed and tranquil, and his hand rested, clutching at the gaping hole in his chest. Like when she saw Teresa, her long brown hair crusted with the dried blood that had spilt from her cracked skull. Natalia wasn't able to keep her tears in check. Even she wasn't that strong.
And then she found him. Deseo. Lying in a pool of blood in what remained of the zocalo. Like so many, he died clutching at his chest, the large entry wound revealing a gore that bore itself instantly into Natalia's mind, and which she knew she'd see every night thereafter when she closed her eyes. She grabbed the sides of her head and furiously shook herself. No, she didn't want to remember him that way. Not that way. Because he'd done so much else for her. So many other ways in which to remember him.
She fell to her knees beside him. She was shaking violently, the years of repressed emotion now bursting past every one of her defenses and finally erupting in a scream loud enough to be heard kilometers away. And when everything gave way to emotion, Natalia bent down and hugged Deseo's corpse, whispering heart-wrenched apologies and three words that, she knew, she had felt all along and which Deseo would have wanted to hear in life.
Dawn came and found Natalia still clinging to the corpse of the man she now knew had always been her closest friend.
They wouldn't return. No matter what she did. She lit several fires. She yelled out. She fired spells into the air. She cursed every one of them out loud until her throat hurt.
But the Monsters never returned to Soledad.
Vengeance would need to be consummated elsewhere.
Natalia spent the next week gathering up the corpses and body parts, her emotions shutting off again as she proceeded with her grim work. She placed them together in the zocalo, the village's center which had always been the place of reunion and festivity every first Sunday of the month. Once that was done, she searched through what was left of the village for supplies, especially clothes. Her outfit, originally blue and white, was now mostly dark red. Fortunately, she found enough. Several shirts, some fitting her better than others. Three pairs of pants, two skirts. Three pairs of boots, of which only one actually fit her. Another single boot. Some food, but she knew where to find more. Three empty bottles, a couple of utensils, several splintered wooden cups and plates. Everything smelled like smoke. But that was the last of her concerns now. She was also aware of one grim fact: within two weeks, it would be safe enough to travel back to Piedad and Amistad and salvage supplies from there.
In Deseo's house, she found something very special. At first, she hadn't noticed them because they lay beneath a mound of charred debris and looked like little more than blackened chunks of cement from the fallen roof. She couldn't explain it even as she felt herself compelled to examine the debris closer, but it was almost as she instinctively realized that the things lying beneath the rubble were not debris as well. Removing the blackened remains of Deseo's home, Natalia's eyes widened when she saw them. Shoulder guards, or what was left of them. One was crushed beyond repair. The other looked salvageable, even if she'd need to do some major patchwork on it. And then, judging by their design-gold-trimmed on the edges with a large, yellow jewel laced with jade bordering on the top of each guard-she realized that he had probably bought them for her. She confirmed it when, trying on the one guard still intact, she realized it fit her perfectly, as if made for her shoulder and her shoulder only. For the longest moment, she wondered when he might have had them made. Recently, maybe to surprise her or to save for her next birthday, only two months away? Or long ago, the gift never made because of her cold, spiteful attitude? She couldn't know. But she found herself holding onto the guard as if it were the most special treasure she'd ever find in her life.
That evening, she bathed herself in the nearby lake and put on one of her salvaged outfits, having thrown her blood-encrusted blue outfit into the fire she had started in the village center. She almost felt alive again, her skin clean and bloodless again after over seven days of gory work. As she knelt down to braid her hair, she looked over at her pile of gathered supplies and thought again about the Oscura Mountains. Yes, she'd go there. The caverns along the base of the mountains made the perfect hideaway. No place else could afford her better chances of survival.
Because she needed to survive. She knew now that survival didn't mean chasing after the Monsters to pick what would be the most one-sided fight in history. She knew that to avenge her people, she'd have to do much more than just kill a handful of monsters before being killed herself. No. She had to stop the whole thing, once and for all. And she knew there was only one way to do it.
She had to kill Lina Inverse.
Her hands worked her hair more briskly as she thought of the woman in her dreams. The woman whom her dreams were somehow warning her was the very cause of the apocalypse. She didn't understand it. She didn't know if she was being impulsive and irrational. But she knew that to do nothing was just as pointless. If she was right, then killing Lina Inverse would stem the Monsters' advance and save what was left of humanity.
Her hands stopped in their work, her eyes closing in frustration. Astral wandering was a wonderful gift, but it was also a very erratic and imprecise one. She could control it partially, but most of the time, she was essentially taken to wherever a higher force wanted to take her. She hadn't, for instance, been able to foresee the destruction of Soledad even as it happened. And she could see images and visions of Lina Inverse, but she couldn't tell where she was, where she was going, or where she'd be. She had no way of finding her short of actually searching for her. While that proposition sounded logical enough, she knew two things. One: randomly searching and hunting down Lina Inverse would leave her out in the open, and it would be a safe bet to assume that the Monsters would find Natalia before she herself found Lina. Two: her dreams warned her of Lina, and also showed her that, sooner or later, the two would come face to face. On more than one occasion, she'd dreamt that Lina came into her former home, acting all friendly and cheery, only to pull out her sword and run Natalia through with it. While she wasn't sure whether to take the meaning of the dream at face value, her past experiences with prophetic dreams told her that part of it was true. More than likely, she and Lina would meet some day.
She finished braiding her hair and returned to the village. She needed to check up on her little fire.
That night, Natalia stood silent before the flames that now consumed the bodies of her people, watching the fiery consummation of her week long work. She watched as the flames danced wild and high, the bonfire burning through fabric, skin, flesh, and bone, slowly reducing Soledad's five hundred inhabitants into a mound of scattering ashes. Her face bore the stoic expression that had characterized her for over ten years, only this time it wasn't in scorn or disdain of those burning before her. It was in reverence, in silent respect to her fallen family. For they had been her family; that much she realized now. It was almost too tragic to appreciate the dark reality of the situation, that as a girl she'd seen this image and had not understood its real meaning.
"Mama," she whispered in between tears, her emotions still unable to cope with the loss of her mother. It had been five days now, and still, Natalia remained slumped next to her mother's empty bed as if trying to will her back into existence by doing so.
Ten years of life would not normally provide one with the maturity necessary to size up the situation, but the life forced onto Natalia had taught her self-reliance for over three years now, and so she weighed the events at hand with a rationalization advanced far beyond her ten years.
She had no family left, that much she knew. She had no other place to go to; Soledad would remain her home. She'd be able to provide for herself; her mother had taught her most everything necessary towards those ends. And she'd find a way to make her way in life. For months now she had entertained the notion of learning sorcery, and she knew that there was nothing left for her now but to pursue that path. She realized that a very lonely life awaited her, but she also knew that it had been lonely from the start: her strange powers had made her and her mother the village outcasts for as long as she could remember.
As she sat there hunched over her mother's bed, the dark silence of the room was broken by the sound of a large rock shattering through the closest window. Natalia startled and jumped up from her spot. Her faculties still affected by her mourning, she couldn't think clearly as to what had happened. Why had the window broken like that? She looked down onto the ground and made out the profile of a large rock silhouetted against the soft moonlight. She looked back up and out the window, and it was then that she heard them. Deseo and his friends again. One of them, probably Deseo himself, had thrown the rock.
"One witch down, one witch to go!" he yelled out, prompting the others to laugh out loud.
Rage instantly overtook grief. For the shortest of moments, Natalia was ready to go out and hit Deseo as hard as she possibly could, hoping that she'd end up breaking his nose and maybe make him fall backwards. Then she'd start kicking him as hard as she could, screaming at him with each blow, with each yelp, with each bit of blood that sprayed from his face as she continued to kick at it. And she'd kill him. She'd continue to kick him until his face was nothing but a bloody, unrecognizable pulp, and then she'd stop and look at his friends. And then, they'd know what a real monster was. And then she'd attack them. And then she'd do the same to each one of them. And then her classmates. And then their parents. She'd single-handedly kill them all off.
But those dark images disappeared as quickly as they had arisen, the silent memories of her mother's words coming back to drive them away. She couldn't disgrace her mother's memory. Not like that, not by indulging in such sadistic fantasies more appropriate for those of the Monster Race than for a ten-year old girl. She began to think about her mother, not with the sad mourning of the past five days, but with the tranquillity with which she had always thought of her. She started to think of her many conversations with her, about all the things she taught her about self-control, about maturity, about keeping one's head level in even the most provocative of situations. She thought of how her mother was always calm. Always. Even when she'd talk to the other parents about how their children were mistreating Natalia. Even when the more aggressive parents would threaten Lucia in ways even Natalia could understand and fear. She thought of how her mother's words would always bring her comfort, no matter how distraught she felt, how frightening she thought her life was. There was nothing her mother's words would could not assuage.
Her mother had been her guiding light, always, and she'd continue to be so now. She'd be her emotional compass, her single point of stability and order in a life otherwise devoid of it.
Natalia couldn't understand it, but simply thinking of her mother had brought peace back into her enraged mind. No longer did she think about going out and confronting Deseo, who was still outside and laughing away with his friends. No. Now, all she wanted to do was go out and simply look at them. Show them who the better person was.
She opened her front door and stepped outside. She had forgotten it was Sunday, the first of the month. Her mourning had made her oblivious to the festive air in the village as most of its people congregated around the zocalo, sharing food, drinks, and laughs with one another. Clearly, Lucia's death had not affected them in the least. And for a brief moment, Natalia felt her bitterness returning. But she fought it back down. She didn't want to let them see how she was hurting. Not anymore.
As she stared at Deseo and company, all of whom were now more reserved in their laughter as she did so, she began to feel herself growing weak. She couldn't understand it. Her knees buckled slightly, and her body suddenly felt as if it had no weight. Her eyes now changed in their expression from a look of iciness to a look of confusion: something was happening to her. She raised her hand in front of her, only she realized she had no hand. She lifted the other one. Nothing there.
Her breathing grew quick, heavy, and frightened. She whimpered to herself, the sudden terror of the situation overtaking her senses. She wanted to call out to Deseo and ask him to help her, but her fear was now compounded by the fact that Deseo, Haley, Razcal, Milo, everyone in the village, stood frozen and unmoving before her. Their expressions were fixed in silent, still laughs and suspended merriment, and before she could think of moving towards them and trying to wake them up, she realized her body was gone. Vanished without a trace.
Without warning, a furious flash of white light burst across the entire village, and she felt herself wincing at its intensity despite the fact that she now had no eyes either. Yet she could see. She could see as the white light faded and gave way to a dark red color now consuming her village. And as the blinding light finally faded away for good, leaving behind only the crimson darkness, Natalia noticed that the frozen villagers were no longer there. She looked towards her right, towards the center of the village, and saw them again.
Only they weren't laughing silently anymore. For a brief microsecond, the image of mounds of them lying dead and burning against the dark backdrop of the crimson skies bore itself into her sight. For a microsecond that seemed more like an eternity, Natalia felt a terror more pronounced than anything she had felt before, even in the worst of her dreams.
And then it was gone. Everything. Just like that.
"So what's you're problem, witch?" she heard Deseo's sneering voice.
Her weight was back, as was her body. She felt herself almost stumbling forward as if dizzy or confused or both. She couldn't understand what had just happened, but as her ears began to register the continued sounds of the merriment around her, and as her eyes now looked back up at Deseo and his friends, she knew it was over.
But the image had been too strong, too traumatic. Frightened out of her wits, she looked over at the zocalo where she had seen all of them dead and burning, and breathed heavily even as she saw the villagers continue in the festivities as if nothing had happened.
Nothing did happen. She knew it. Only something would happen.
"Well?" Deseo persisted, noticing the fear in Natalia and naively thinking his actions responsible for it.
She looked back at him but couldn't muster a word. She began to tremble, the gruesome juxtaposition of the bloody images and the life around her suddenly making it unclear which image was the real one. For even if her brief Astral shift had come to an end, the images she had seen continued to haunt her as if they were right there before her.
And it was that removal from her immediate reality that made it impossible for her to dodge the rock that Deseo had thrown at her. It smacked violently against her head and instantly threw her down onto the ground. She lay on the ground momentarily, feeling the pain and the trickle of blood now gliding down her forehead and down her left ear, but still unable to make total sense out of everything. Pain, however, was real enough, and through it she was eventually able to discern, once again, what was real and what was merely recollection.
The pain was real. The rock was real. The people around her were real.
And the way in which they simply ignored the blatant transgression was very real.
Infuriated once again, Natalia lifted herself from the ground and looked at all of them. Everyone within thirty meters of them and facing that direction could have seen the way Deseo had viciously attacked her. Everyone there could have done something to, if not prevent it, reprimand and punish him for it. Everyone there could have at least told them to be more respectful of the deceased and her orphaned daughter. Anyone there could have at least said something to her, maybe even given her a handkerchief with which to stop the bleeding.
But no one did anything. No one said anything. No one even looked at her.
The self-control she had enforced upon herself now gave way again to her original rage and bitterness. As if sensing it, Deseo and his companions ran away, laughing mischievously as they did so. Her mind, too overwhelmed with her recent loss, with the pain in her temple, and with the angry bitterness with which she now looked upon everyone there, did not even think to follow them. Instead, she simply turned around and went back into her house, deciding that even the strange and frightening visions of her dreams would make better company for her than her own people.
And as she lay awake in her bed that night, the image of the burning corpses consumed her thoughts, making her feel scared and sad despite her bitterness.
Because if this image was like the many others she had seen or dreamt, she knew that some day it would come true.
Natalia picked up the bundles of supplies next to her, looked at the roaring fire one last time, and turned to leave the dark ruins of Soledad. Her face remained unmoved as she made her way out of the one place on Earth she'd called home all her life, even if small trickles forced themselves past her eyes and down her cheeks.
Yes, she would live. She must live.
So that Lina Inverse would die.