DEAREST

PART 3: IRREALITY, Ch. 8

8

I discover that she's got cut on her side, under the ribs. It's not deep, but still requires care.

We returned in silence to the villa, and for the first time tonight I lower my guard. I don't feel any kind of demonic presence, which means that we were right in our purpose. We've managed to break his weapon, which seems to have made him loose stability, and that will give us some time to think about what to do now.

We need to know what to plan for the next attack, but it's important that Luciana and I rest our bodies, so I heal her right away, cleaning her wound, and tying a bandage to stop the bleeding.

I tell her to call for me if she feels any pain, and I promise to see how she is in a few hours, as I leave her to take rest.

But it's not just that the reason why I left her be herself for a few hours. The image of her holding the body of her lover disappearing still haunts me. Even if she was no longer in the real world, Luciana still clung to her body, perhaps not with love, but with that care that comes from a deep attachment. Like when lovers of the past think things like, 'we are no longer together, but I will always love you,' things like that. I want her to feel everything she should feel, and in the right way, about what she couldn't do or understand while she was in the tower. Maybe she doesn't love her anymore, maybe she never really loved her and it was just an obsession, but even so, it's a matter that belongs to her. We react in such a mysterious way with in respect to some things, I think, and I don't want her, of all people, to neglect or ignore her own feelings.

So I leave her with her feelings, her memories and her thoughts, or simply with her bleeding wound and her tiredness, and I go to the library to wait until I have to see how she is doing again.

I'm exhausted.

I can feel it right away once I sit on the couch by the fireplace, and this tiredness it's even painful. My thoughts constantly change direction, vanish, disappear and forget, walking in the thick fog of fatigue.

Maybe it's already started, I tell myself.

I think about how my mother might feel every day since the war. Stupid woman, shortening her life with such carelessness. But I don't want her to die yet, not while I'm fighting. Deep down, I want to make her feel proud. It's the foolish dream of a daughter to her mother. Make her feel proud, while she's still alive. That way of dying, of exhaustion, for every experiment and spell, because war occupies too much of our lives to keep our bodies well. I'm still very impressed with how you can continue living like this, mother...

I wonder what you would think, Luciana, if I told you this secret. That I won't last long. What would you say.

I feel the terror of this hypothetical situation that dominates my mind while my consciousness fades, drifting away while I sleep, that I even feel a lump in my throat just before the blackout. I can feel it even while I'm being held by this heavy silk, and also while I feebly notice a blond head that comes silent, soft, to my lap.

It's in the middle of a vast and desolate ocean. So vast that it has no limits, and loses definition, losing itself in a pale white mist that moves and stretches to some distant place, perhaps to nowhere.

The silence is dense and overwhelming, and the sparkling ray of pale light that crosses in a straight line in the midst of waves delicately tinkling, almost static, is the reflection of something that is happening there in the sky, between the soft and spongy accumulation of clouds.

There's an angel falling. Their wings folded. Their resplendent platinum armor shines surrounded by the hazy white of their aura, and as they fall, they gain speed; their body upside down in a vertical line, the sparkle of their tears leaving a trail behind their body, a sight too sad to contemplate.

They are clutching something firmly against their chest.

The shock emits a roar, their body sinks into the sea, raising the waves, and the angel never rises to the surface.

The shock of those unrecognizable waters still persists, repeating itself infinitely in my ears, moving away towards nothingness.

It's stupid, I won't die yet, destiny has brought us together...

This phrase is going through my mind just before I wake up.

Then my hands dip into the strands of blond hair on the head resting on my knees, and I look at a pair of bright blue eyes that get into my head.

"Oh."

It's Luciana.

"I'm sorry I woke you up," she apologizes in a whisper.

I don't understand why she's here, and I'm about to express my doubt, when the answer jumps into my brain.

"Oh, what time is it?"

The angel is still falling in the middle of my mind when I ask this, and half-formed thoughts wander within me as I look around my surroundings.

"Ahh... the last time I checked, almost one in the morning."

I can see the miniature image of the falling angel, losing definition, in the same way that the spots fade after a moment of intense repetition after looking away from a light.

"I didn't want to wake you up," she says quietly and in a somewhat insecure tone, as if she fears her volume would be too loud for me. "I'm sorry. I just..."

But even if I'm a bit surprised to see her act differently from her usual serious self, oddly I don't care at all. Maybe it's because my mind is still dozing.

As the impression of the angel fades into nothingness, I remember a detail.

What were they holding?

I straighten in the couch, slowly, as Luciana stands up.

"How is your wound?"

"It's okay," she says. "It doesn't hurt at all. That ointment you put on is really working."

When I raise my eyes to her face after taking a look at her wound, I notice that there's something strange. Something missing. Her eyes at this moment seem calm, peaceful waters, and the glow I see in them is not what I expected to find.

I'm somehow happy to see that, but at the same time the I'm bewildered.

"This night was difficult for you," I say, with a hidden intention, "I think you should rest."

She nods, and we leave the library.

I'm still looking, investigating, deciphering every gesture after that. Maybe, as she said, she already cried all her tears. Two years were more than enough.