Chapter 14: Chapter Thirteen - "X(G)OX(G)O"

"Ludy," my grandmother said.

"No!" I snap. "You can help, no?" I tell my mother—no fuck her, the lady with my name.

"If you rule these areas, help us take him to the other side! I've done this! I deserve nothing!"

"Mam! They're coming!" a youth then says.

A youth then fucking says!

"Zero is coming!" another youth then says, this one with a ponytail hanging under her party cap—whatever fucking party she belonged to.

Here you are missing shit again, I think. When you walked and looked out the window, where was Zero to be seen; why didn't you see him?

The thing about this medical center that I notice now that I didn't notice getting here—probably because I was freaking out about Moritz—is that the medical center is empty, it is not full of anyone, it is as if it was rented out specifically for Moritz.

"Ludy! Get in the room with your aunt" my mother says.

But when did we suddenly become a family?

To have an aunt now?

To have a mother?

A fucking mother! That's a mother fucker!

"Mom, take her!"

"No! We need to take Moritz," I say.

"Get in the fucking room!" my mother fights, along with my grandmother, while screams are heard outside, like hyenas howling at the moon, preparing themselves for their feast, their prey-hunt.

After the howls, you heard gunshots. Even from the room I was forced into, I could hear it all perfectly.

And so could Luviel:

"Hear that?" she asked. "It's your uncle coming to get me the fuck out and kill you and your mother."

A snot came out of her nose after that comment, like the fallacious pig I was now seeing her as; or like the one she had become in my eyes.

"So...did mum really never tell you about what the fuck was going on or what the fuck might happen if you cross over?" Luviel asks, chewing the bud of her fag like it was the nicotine gum she needed.

Past the windows, and past the view of the whole delta surrounding us, the sun was greeting us once again—and probably surprised it was doing so to begin with; surprised we weren't as dead as can be; surprised we weren't blasted, heated to the dirt.

"Do you think I'd be here if she would have?" I reply.

"I don't know. Would you have?" Luviel laughs.

And that makes me ask myself the same question: would it have changed anything; would knowing what would have gone down not made me not have come down here in the first place?

"I don't think it would have," Luviel says, replying for both herself and my shy, muted self.

Because it wouldn't have changed anything—knowing wouldn't have changed a thing.

"Ludy, put this on!" my grandmother yells, barging into the room, holding up a vest, forgetting we were already wearing vests.

"You put it on," I tell her.

And she does.

"Get under the table," my grandmother advises.

"Yeah, because that's going to save us," Luviel laughs.

*************

The first snap goes off outside, still far from us, but coming from inside, closer to us.

Three snaps.

Snap! Snap! Snap!

Like a dance-clap—except this one was taking a life, instead of lifting one.

I can't just stay in here; I can't just let them die out there.

I run out and leave Luviel screaming to herself—she was actually screaming at me, but when I ran away, she had nobody to scream with, or to, so she ended up staying and screaming to herself. The screams are condescending tones only meant to shoot out like a bullet, with the same intention as a bullet. For that reason, and plenty more, I ignore Luviel and only focus on Moritz. My grandmother is somewhere in the background as well. But she doesn't stay with Luviel. She comes after me.

"Ludy! Stop," she shouts, her fingers trying to snatch at my sweater and the vest and the bloody overalls, and the bits of hair that were everywhere, and other people's kids blood all over me—kids just like me.

My arms went up in motion and rhythm like someone who has figured out their perfect running and jogging pace. And I reach him like nothing. The bullets around me are like the mosquitos that sting as well, but leaving smaller wounds. If one pokes me, if one stings me, well, that was what life intended. I'm too far to keep running. I'm too far in to not stand tall.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

That is Moritz' soundtrack at the moment.

In reality, if you were here, it'd probably sound something more like...

...beep clap beep clap beep clap...

...but you're not here, I am; all I am right now is Moritz' hand. Thus, you are too.

It's the second time we meet like this, Moritz and I. But without the beeps in the background. The first time was at the desert-like planes where he tried to run away.

"There she fucking is!" a voice says.

Then the clap comes over the snaps in the background, increasing with volume as it was released from whatever product it was first induced into.

It's Zero! The man that left Moritz like this the first time they met—except last time he was just down on the ground, still with a fighting chance.

"In here!" a youth screams running in, pointing at Zero.

But Zero snaps back faster, and puts one right in-between the youths' eyes.

God-fucking-dammit! It's the tenth or more youth I see go down. How many will I have to take? How many will I have to see before I am taken?

Fully dressed in the feeling of fawn towards Zero, I pull away from him.

"Let her go!" my grandmother screams.

I won't let Zero touch her—even if he is her son, as she says.

"Let go of me you, bitch!" Zero says, slapping back at my grandmother, sending her back and over the chairs as he did with Moritz in Black Catz, or as he had done before with the youth soldiers.

Is our moment of Beatification finally coming?

I swing at Zero for swinging at my grandmother, but my arm is caught in his arm. He grips it.

"What do you know?" he asks, showing me his teeth.

Another youth runs into the room and is met by another one of Zero's stings, but not in between his eyes, but rather, in between her breasts, taking her down immediately, and transferring her over, instantly.

Following that youth, another one entered. They came like dominions, or like stacks of paper—post-its—stuck together, one by one, one after the other, one by one taking Zero's snap as they came, one by one transferring to the other side as they came in.

Snap!

Went one youth; off he went with his stories; his life; his memories.

Snap!

Went another youth; with her stories; her memories; her life.

It was like this for about twenty or more youths.

My grandmother, during all of this, was hiding under the table, shocked, looking at nothing, stuck in shock and frozen in fear.

After a few more youths, my mother finally walked in, gun raised.

"Easy, sis," said Zero.

Does Zero know too, I think.

Zero mentioned my mother as his sister with his gun raised, like my mother had hers raised. But Zero had me by the hair.

My grandmother was still crumbled in a corner.

With a fist full of my hair, and his barrel aimed at my mother's face, Zero played my mom good and forced her to put her weapon down—or maybe it was that she did it all alone, all by herself

"Let's go take Luviel out," Zero tells my mother, who now has her arms raised towards the sky, weaponless.

And then I hear that fearful one, long beep I was fearing to hear...from Moritz.

************

The first boy I skipped over was missing an eye. One of the bullets had gone straight through his socket.

The next girl I avoided with my shoes was one that was cut in half. She wasn't really cut in half—like her body wasn't severed in two, but she was fucked up in half of a way where you wouldn't recognize her if you knew her. Zero's bullets, along with whatever she took before getting here, rearranged her look—her "God-given look".

Although, to tell you the truth: I don't know how much about God I would buy right now, seeing all I have seen.

The beep then came back.

For whatever reason, my mind must have thought that looking down at a more horrid scene might help it forget the one that would destroy it: Moritz, Moritz, Moritz.

Under the table Moritz is laying on, a few more youths lay stacked on their backs.

"Whatta-ya want to say? Say it fast," says Zero.

He hadn't managed to make the bullets stop, but the bullets behind him weren't aggressively trying to make their way into this room anymore. It's as if the bullets now worked for Zero again.

Luviel, in the other room, must have gotten word of this new-ruling with bullets, because she stopped her demanding shouts aimed for a rescue.

On Zero's other hand, the one carried by a youth that he has employed, trembled my grandmother, lost in the vision of hopelessness and acceptance that nothing you can do can and will better your situation.

"Listen, divine—if you're going to say goodbye, you gotta say goodbye now. These goodbyes don't really matter, after all, remember? They're goodbyes for more goodbyes."

In my gut, the words and thought kill him were screaming out at me, trying to demand me. But now was not the time. I would only lose my grandmother as well.

"It's not a goodbye if I know I'll see him again," I let out, in a volume where only Moritz and I are connected, hearing, understanding. I know where he is now and that's all that matters. He is in me now. His strength, his vengeance, is now mine.

"I've said my goodbyes," I tell Zero.

"We didn't hear you," he says.

"Do you need to control the goodbyes like you control the deaths?" I ask him, finding the question in a part of myself I had not met yet.

"Whoa. Okay—sorry," laughs Zero, forming an oval-like shape with his fingers over his right eye—it's a gesture created by a popular TV show—that existed only back in the day—which means sorry for your exclusivity...; all in a sarcastic way of appreciation, of course.

Before Zero can rule another thing and take me out of this room, or when he could decide to do so, I take a note I had written for Moritz when I thought I'd never see him again, and I place it in his pocket for safe, traveling keepings. The note, after all, was meant only for his eyes. So if he does read it, I know he'll tell me about it soon. And I trust that he will—both read it and tell, tell me about it.

***************

Walking into the hall again, looking back at Moritz, looking out the windows into the delta's surrounding us—plain as always, dry as always, hot as always, burning like the sun, killing us all, burning 'till we roast—it all made me think that maybe I am where I belong.

What do they call these moments?

Ah, an epiphany!

A personal awareness—that is what I'm feeling right now; that's what I have; walking into the hall, looking at my grandmother, seeing my mother being dragged by the hair as I was, with men's fingers pulling at them—at our split ends as they always did, until we had to fight them off—I think of all this as a personal-awareness public relations campaign for the world telling me...

...You are where you need to be.

All of this will haunt you...

...if you make it out alive.

Zero shook off his gun. "Family reunion, again?" he asked, cleaning the fuming barrel, with rising smoke that mirrored the victims it took under Moritz' spell.

I look up thinking he's looking and talking at me, but he is not, he is, instead, looking at Luviel—looking at her with a smile that says "I know it all."

There will be a family reunion, indeed.

The youth holding onto my grandmother, the one ripping at her hair in order to drag her wherever he wants, slaps her vision into place—to where Zero and Luviel are—while she's looking back at Moritz with that same helpless expression that I was, the one that said "we're all messed up and shit out of luck."

It's like, without the plastic bands, we still are being held back by these human-fetters that are Luviel, Zero and their following, obedient youths—some are probably Catz, still.

"Divine!" I then hear.

Moritz?

No, it can't be.

****************************************

Santo—that is a luchador my uncle had over his beer fridge. That's what the sign said. Something about buying two twenty-four packs for the price of one ...and a half—and the offer was marketed by that luchador of Mexico—el Santo; I know this because under his figure holding up a twenty-four pack of beer, the words EL SANTO were written to announce to anyone whom might not know—like myself—who this luchador was; I also know another thing: that mask is coming towards me.

****************************************

But it can't be the actual Santo. Or is it?

The mask is silver. It is silver with gold edgings where the eyes and nose holes are. Then around the eyes, there's lines moving upwards like sunshine rays moving away from the pupils looking through it.

Within the holes of the mask, eyes I recognized scram my name, almost imitating the form spam scram one's name when attempting to reach out to someone with nonsense, pointless information which will never be useful to the recipient...therefore, the name spam on the subject line.

What is this subject, on this side of the Wall? Better yet: who is the subject line?

"Divine!"