In the corner of the room where Luviel is still letting me have it, the blinking light is also still letting me have itâthe same blinking light that was once waiting for my mother in the corner of the room, is, perhaps, now waiting on me.
"Fuck you all!" I say to it, right at the blinking, red light. "We're not following anyone!"
I wonder how many people are behind that lens? Not literally, but physically somewhere else, somewhere to wherever the picture being memorized by the lens is going, is lasering toâwherever it's being projected, directed and sent.
I know the Catz are one of the directors, the receivers. And probably the state too. And some of the Party.
But who else?
"Everyone fucking down!" said the first state.
Then the next statement came from the bullet that went straight into the ceiling, then onto the air, then onto the sky, then probably not, onto the galaxy, but rather, back on the ground, where we'll probably end up too.
Wellâwe know one of the receivers is the state from the way the camera lens is looking at me, by the color it blinks. State always uses red and blue.
Then the voiceâthe state voiceârepeated its last cry:
"Everyone fucking down!"
And the bullet repeated the last cry too, telling us what its rightful owner so-desperately wanted us to know.
CLAP!
My grandmother was the first to fall.
I thought it was just the shock at first. And it should have been. But her heart had other plans.
"Mom!" the lady with my nameâmy motherâlater yelled after all these years, after all this time my grandmother and I had spent alone and wishing she would have cried out that word even if it was just for a day, as long it was scream at a moment like this, when it's too late to do anything at all...to save each other in any way.
"Mom!" she repeated.
And so did the head of state:
"Don't fucking mom, mam!" the state declared...war.
One of the bullets busts and comes down on a window, bringing in some of the dusty, white gravel that covered the whole delta around us.
"Nobody fucking move!" yelled the state man. He was a large fellow. A little overweight. And he sported the biggest and thickest mustache I ever did lay my pupils on. His stache was garnished with grey, whitish brushes, like his hair, whichever remained under his red and blue cap. I remember the same cap on Henry. This sergeant's ears are also huge. Could they be to not miss anything? To hear everything? Perhaps that's how--and only howâhe heard all of this commotion.
Behind the sergeant, a hard-jawed, thin-faced, green-eyed, strict-haircut man stood tall and confident. His hair was parted at the edge of his right side, then it curled back just as his hairline curled into one part, but was not receding whatsoever, or hiding. His neck looked strong as well, and his shoulders looked sturdy, able to carry anything or anyone. His body even fits perfectly into his uniform. Not too big, not too thin. Something about the boy caught my attention. It made me feel weak at the knees.
My fear is kicking in.
We are all at attendance.
*******
"We've been waiting long-fucking enough," said Luviel. "Look at what she did," she then cried, kneeling to Zero.
The sergeant was peering at my mother and I, his weapon drawn, ready to put one right through us.
"Sir, we need to get them out of here before her party shows," the boy with his thick jaw-lines said, looking at both my mother and I.
Luviel's mask was still on.
So was Noe's.
El Santo's eyes were scared this time.
"The Catz are coming," he told the sergeantâNoeâI mean.
Then you did see them coming. From the hallway, the one where all the shit has already gone down, you could see the Catz that Noe talked about, coming. In patches, in every other seat, that same trail my mother left behind when she first made her way to usâwhere Oso and Congo tricked her too, and Luviel and Zero tooâis now making its way to us again. There are lights going in circles with that alarm ambulances and cops had on the other side of the Wall. I haven't heard them hereânot since Henry.
"Told ya!" said Noe, pointing for the sergeant.
There was the delta and it was now covered in dust, trails, lights, sound, shooting.
My mother began to stand up.
Luviel was on the ground with Zero.
I looked over at Moritz.
Then that boy behind the sergeant, whom was also looking at me.
My grandmother is down.
Her eyes are still open, I can see that from here, but it gets ever-more clear, upon running up to her. She greeted me with the same look I usually saw. Except, unlike the last times, this time, there was no soul behind the eyes.
Moritz was long gone. The bullet took him long before taking my grandmother.
But there are no holes on my grandmotherânone that I see when I reach her. She is unlike Moritz, and when I reached him.
I turn her overâslowly, because I really shouldn't. But I still move her around. I was begging for her life even when it was far, far away from this universe.
I then hear the sergeant. His screams move deep into my ears.
The screams continue as I continue to check on my grandmother. And still, no holes.
"Get up!" the sergeant yells.
"Get up!"
But I didn't get up. He can shoot me for all I careâthen maybe I'll go to the place where my grandmother is being taken care of, the same one where Moritz is resting, playing, sprinting as far away from here as he can, maybe in a field, or at his home with his loved ones.
Wired, wired-around, I ask my grandmother: what's wrong?
Sheâmy grandmotherâgrips my hands. She grips my wrists. She then grabs my face.
"What is it?" I keep saying, in a drone-like manner, like I'm lost in thought and can't think of anything else to say, or question, but "what's wrong?"âthat question will never fix anything.
My grandmother looks at me, deeply. With this view, I can almost read her pupils. I can almost hear what she's saying.
"Your nex-" she stutters, out of breath. "Your next-," she breathes againâor tries toâstill gripping me.
"What?" I ask, perplexed.
In the background, everything is still dying. I am dead, as I've said before.
**********
My mother puts her hands on my shoulders. I don't look back because I don't want to miss my grandmother, like I missed Moritz.
Even though I feel eyes burning my backâI keep my eyes on my grandmother.
My mother shrugs me once again. "Ludy," she says. Maybe not noticing that I was still saying goodbye, for the second time today, because of things we both caused, which then ended this way.
Before my mother can shrug again, she is silenced:
"All of you! Up!" the sergeant ironically says before he knocks my mother to the ground with his gun. "Up!"
After the statement, or demand from the sergeant, came the hands I knew so well: old, crumbled, wrinkled...but now, too, weak.
"Grandma!" I scream. "Grandma!"
Her hands begin to slip away. Away from me.
Even this feeling, to hold her, to even say nothing, feels better than the nothing I was robbed of with Moritz, because of Zero, even if it is for a little while, for the simple goodbye, the simple option, and opportunity, to say goodbye.
Have I done my job if I can say I've helped another person do theirs; helped them move on?
My grandmother's hands fully slip. And my mother is on the ground. To my surprise, I'm not far gone before them.
"Grandma!" I scream again. "Grandma!"
Her eyes roll to white. They roll to their end.
I no longer have my grandmother's hands, as I am picked up by the hair.
"Get the fuck up! Get the fuck up!"
As I'm being yanked up, the freckles on the hands of the mother that raised me, get further and further, looking now more like stars than giant chocolate chip cookies. I remember my grandmother always pointing at her freckles as a sign of her oldness, her years, then she'd point at the bigger spots and how some bits were darkerâeven in the spotsâthan other bits.
"They're my chocolate chip cookies," she would say, whenever she actually wanted to treat herself but couldn't. Therefore, she'd do so mentally.
Those trails outside, past the window, get thicker and closer.
"They just wanted me to give myself upâand if that's what you still wantâthen I'll do it," my mother gives in with her hands on her head, and her eyes down on me and my grandmotherâor better yet: her dead mother.
"All arms off or heads will be blown," the intercom outside on one of the Party vehicles yells out as they make their way to us.
"I'll go with you," my mother says.
And gone, my grandmother is. Gone without me, her granddaughter, or my mother, her daughter.
"Sirâit seems like the Catz are coming," said one of the sergeant's youths.
"Yeahâduh, I just said that," Noe reminds, and admits.
The sergeant looks annoyed.
And on the floor, my grandmother's arm begins to spread out even more as she slid deeper into the floor. It was that loose feeling Moritz got before he left meâI felt it in both of their hands.
"I can take her, sir," said the thick-jawed boy I noticed on my way into the pull of the sergeant.
"You're not taking her anywhere."
"When do the Catz get here?" Noe asked.
"The Catz aren't supposed to come," yelled the sergeant, turning away from me, both pistol and hand and instead at El Santo.
I felt the first flick even when he wasn't holding meâthe sergeant.
Like I felt it with Zero, when I did it, when I pulled it, I felt it when the Sergeant pulled me.
***********
Noe's insides spread fast.
The youth that had told the sergeant about the Catz fell back, in a spook.
Then the thick-jaws leaped forward to cover me--but why? Why was he covering me?
My mother falls back too.
The lights above, in the ceiling, flickered. The bullets crackled and shattered a lot more than just skulls. Intertwining wires also hung from the bullets that didn't hit skin.
"Stay down," said the boy, pushing his palm onto my chest, downward, then, on his side, I saw a knife holderâa nice knife holder too; it was made of leather; it was brown; it was big.
His handâthe other one that wasn't pushing me downâthen reached for that knife holder. The leather shined under the lights.
As the boy's hand reached the knife holder, his palm opened up. His hand grabbed the knife. The palm clenched down when the knife core touched his skin. His arm pulled back, his palm now fully clenched and holding on, and when he pulled back, the knife came out of the nice leather holder, with its blade shining, too, like the holder it was being pulled out of.
"What are you doing?" my mother yelled before I could.
When my mother yelled, the boy wasn't clenching onto me anymore.
Luviel was looking at all of us. But she was too fucked to do anything.
And with Noe's brains all over me, she knew better than to make any sudden movements.
It was clear at this point, that none of our faith and futures were certain.
We all have that same shook look on our faces. You knowâthose eyes that say "I've seen a lot; I know a lot; I lost my benevolenceâa lot of it, if not most of itâa long time ago."
I tumble and trip when my balance is interrupted by hands, as it has been every second since meeting the Catz. On a chair, at least those in this room, there is enough space to safely land or hold onto while catching yourself before hitting the ground; the seat of the chair has enough space to do this. So I take it and land on it. I don't fall to the ground, but instead, to the chair.
Behind me, as it has been since my body was let goâor my arm to be preciseâthe boy solder, the one with the same cap as the sergeant and Henry, the one with thick jaw-lines, punches right into the sergeant's ribcage. As he does, the second he does, the sergeant takes a long, deep breath in.
"Why?" he whizzes, in breaks, puffing and huffing, grasping at the last strings of oxygen around him.
The boy punches into the sergeant's rib cage again.
"Huh!" the sergeant inhales. Or that's what it sounded like. A high one coming down low. It was a high wheeze.
"Fuck, you..." the sergeant uses as his last words land.
The trails outside the window don't stop at none of this.
They didn't stop with Noe, and his brains.
They didn't stop with Zero and his brains.
They didn't stop with the sergeant, most definitely, which means they're at the door.
"Xavier?" my mother asked.
"Mam," the boy with the thick jaw line exasperated, relieved. "I thought you wouldn't recognize me with this new army haircut this fucker made me get," he then went on to say, looking at the dying sergeant in his arms.
"But how did you find us?" my mother asks.
"The webcam, mam. It's been livestreaming this whole time, and since you guys were in your home."
"And them?" my mother asks, looking out the window. I supposed she was meaning the trails I was looking at before, and I guess the boy did too:
"They're here to get her," Xavier said, looking at me.
"But who are they?" my mother asked, even though I should be the one asking.
"They're from the other side. They've been seeing the livestream too. And they heard that she's from the other side, so the President from their Party sent for her. They're offering a hefty reward too, for our help."
There was a bit more peace now -- now knowing that the trails are coming to help, not kill.
But Luviel wasn't having that.
"No way am I letting you ruin this," Luviel interrupted, thrusting forward, her pink hair in sight, in the air, in all of its volume.
She leaped across the table, and although my mother tried to grab her first, the jaw-gifted soldier caught her firstâalthough, it was more of her knife than him that grabbed her.
"Mam I didn't mean too," he said, to my mother, his eyes wide open, scared. "I promise."
Luviel, on the other hand, couldn't say anything, but she had the boy's same freaked out, shivering, scared-out-of-their-sockets look, decorating their whole face, their whole image.
"Luviel!" my grandmother grabbed her, trying to pull her back.
I looked down at my grandmother, wanting to pull her back too. Wanting to take her back.
"Mam, I'm so sorry," the poor, beautiful boy said again, his dagger deep into my aunt's belly, forever robbing her of the chance to reproduce, to teach another life her rotten ways, to be a mother that perhaps nobody wanted her to be.
**********
Over my grandmother and Moritz, the Catz vests still hold tight, they still hang over them, protecting them, yet, failing to do that main job, of letting them split this insecure scene before their timeâin my eyesâwas due.
"Mamâthey are going to need an answer when they get to us," the boy said, slowly taking out his dagger and looking back at the patrols running towards the front doors.
The boy was steady and gentle.
My mother didn't let him go all the way. She halted his hand and took the dagger from him, pulling it out of her sister herself.
To think this look was not shown when Zero's brains landed over my brains makes me think that perhaps Luviel was more than Zero was to my mother.
"Ludy, get ready to leave," my mother told me, not even checking with the person that was leaving.
But what am I supposed to say when she's holding her dead sister in her arms, removing the giant weapon from her side.
How can I complain?
Out of nowhere, from somewhere, I have no fucking clue whereâit sounds like the corners, then the ceilingâa robotic-like voice, like the type you heard in those Alexa systems in people's homes from the other side of the Wall, beeps out a "police are now outside," message without anyone's request, while blinking a circular, moving yellow light in the whole hospital.
"What?" the thick-jawed boy confusingly says.
"I am no immigrant-loving bitch," then says the robotic voice.
What immigrant is she talking about?
Oh, gurl, come on? You really still in denial? My brain tells me. Even after all we've seen and heard? It then asks. All we've killed? And all we've lived?
"What are they here for?" my mother asks the boy.
His eyes are on me.
Something about his look reminds me of Moritz. So I look at Moritz.
His curls are still alive, still making me tingle, still making me flutter. The glasses on his side are cracked, now on a hospital floor rather than a night standâand covered in bodily fluids instead of coffee, or water, or dust.
Is that purrgatorial-ambience back over us; back to kill one or all of us?
Those same footsteps I first heard when Henry came alone and then left alone, begin to sound around us again, into the hospital. Now, if you still haven't picked up what sound I'm talking about is, then let me just quickly say that it's the one you hear from boots, or heelsâyou know, that wooden step made to give the person an extra minimal inch of height, and the sound it makes when the owner takes steps, one after the after, on a hard surface, like that of a hospital floor, or a fancy building, or over cobblestone, or stone, or rock, not gravel, to let whoever is around know they are coming. That is the thing about this delta and this place and everything here: everything comes silent; everything creeps up on youâeven death.
"Which one of you is Ludivina?" a voice calls once the room is reached, once the steps and the heels reach our door.
It's funny: how all these men, all these women, all these soldiers, wear the same type of hat but simply change it up with different uniformsâI mean, you wouldn't be able to tell any uniform apart if it weren't for the color. The only types you can tell apart are the uniforms that aren't uniformed, but which are formed by a side party, one that does not come from the government Party, or Police, or Patrols, but rather, from the civilians, the families that need protection but never get any because of corrupt officials and politiciansâI am talking about the Catz, and whoever Zero and Luviel belong toâor belonged to, and the plenty of more that were probably waiting for my mother to give up her post, which, by the looks of it, might still happen.
**************