LUCEM
XLVIII Chapter

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I dream even when I wake up, dream of red lips and slender fingers, dream of the body of a girl in my arms, dream of eyes, hundreds of eyes, I dream of air and anger and death.

I dreamt of Maria's dream. "Marya!?"

He'shere.

He became silent as soon as he settled here, in my mind. He's quiet, back off. Hiding from me, from the world. I felt heavy with his presence but he didn't speak, he just rotted, his mind decayed slowly, leaving compost behind him. Then it was seen back in my arms.

"Mary, what is all this?" My toot.

Mary turned her face to the other side. I called her back, her name, again, Maria. Back asking.

She just hid her face in my chest. Refusing all my touches, refusing to answer my questions.

I'm heavy with it, heavy with his rejection. I am unable to bear this burden, no matter how hard I try, I am incapable, incompatible. I'm not enough to hold our minds together. The power of Mary's dreams is too great. I was drowning in it, I was drowning in it, I gasped as my head hit the wall of the room again. This mattress is too attached to the wall.

I pulled air into my lungs, begged for my eyes to open and they laughed. The eyes laughed at the lungs that were panting because of the pain that bounced into my spine.

I'm thinking back. "Marya?"

"Mars," calls from Maria's voice. He guided me, moving the joints in my body. He wanted us to take a walk through a park.

This park is beautiful and vast. "Where are we?"

Mary went back to silence, becoming heavy and cold.

There was a boy.

Not one of the ordinary boys. This is a new boy, a boy I've never met before. I walked closer. He made a slow step back. I stood quietly beside him.

I know, just by standing next to her, she was terrified. We were standing in a large and spacious garden filled with trees. We stared at the white birds, the birds with yellow stripes and crowns on their heads. The boy looked at the birds as if he had never seen anything like them. He looked at everyone in surprise. Or scared. Or worried. It made me realize that she didn't know how to hide her emotions.

Every time I looked at him, he sighed. Every time I see him, he's gone a red. Whenever his mother talked to him, he stuttered. "His mother!!?"

A woman in graceful-looking clothes stood beside the child.

"What do you think?" His mother asked me. He tried to whisper, but the garden was so big that his voice became even more fluid than it should be.

His mother tilted her head towards the boy. Studying him. "Your age.., six years now?" But he did not wait for the boy to answer. The mother just shook her head and sighed. "Is it really that long?"

I looked at the boy. I glanced at him, at the boy standing beside me, and saw him stiffen. Tears ran down her eyes, and it was painful to see. That's very painful.

"I hate Mr. Grimo so much. I don't know why Mom likes it. I don't know why anyone would like it. That master is a terrible person, and he hurts Jonathan all the time." His words shed tears.

Now that I think about it, there's something about this kid that reminds me of Maria. Something about his eyes.

"Hey," I whispered, and turned to face him.

"Hey," I tried again. “I Mars. What's yourname?"

The boy looked up, then. His eyes were deep brown. He's the saddest boy I've ever met, and it makes me sad just by looking at him.

"I'm A-Adam" he said slowly. Her eyes are red.

I took his little hand. Smiled at him. “We'll be friends, okay? Don't worry about the Master. No one will like him if he's mean to all of us. I promise.” I raised two fingers.

Adam laughed, but his eyes were still red. His hand trembled in my hand, but he did not let go.

"I don't know" he whispered. “I just know he's so mean to me and Jhonatan.”

I squeezed his hand. "Don't worry," I said. "I'll protect you."

Adam smiled at me then. A real smile. But when we finally looked up, raising our heads, the Master was staring at us.

He looks angry.

There was an insect buzzing inside me, a collection of sounds that consumed the mind, devouring the conversation.

Insects are annoying, they're scrambling to make a noise, a shitty sound in me, in my head.

"We are flies!! Gathering, crowding, bulging eyes and fragile bones fluttering nervously towards an imagined destiny. We threw our bodies into tempting windows, longing for the promised world on the other side. Day after day we dragged the injured wings, eyes, and organs around the same four walls, open or closed, the exit eluded us.

We hope to be saved by a gentle breeze, hoping to get a chance to see the sun."

"Tens of years passed. Centuries piled together.

Our bruised bodies were still sliding through the air. We keep throwing ourselves at promises. There is madness in repetition, in repetition, in repetition that underscores our lives. It was only in the desperate moments before death that we realized that the window in which we were banging our bodies turned out to be just a mirror."

"Stop..stop...stop." I plead softly. Their voices hurt my hearing, hurt? What's wrong with my feelings? What hurt him?

A moment of silence came, silent all the voices. The insects shrink, their wings don't flap anymore. Slowly they stopped buzzing, stopped mumbling, stopped talking. The room became quiet. But my feelings are not improving. The insects have disappeared. And I'm lonely. I forfeit.

"Mary?... Maria!?"

Where's Maria?

I opened my arms.

I checked left and right.

Downstairs? Up top? Mary can't be there. But I checked for nothing.

"Marsa..."

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