-Listen carefully.- The boy's voice barely managed to raise his throat. -The Companions never presage anything good, you know? They are abominable creatures, grotesque beings who feed on the pain of people like a tick does with the blood of an animal.
The mere memory of my ex-wife lying on the couch, watching television as that thing clung to her neck, made me nauseous.
"-In all the years I've been here I've only seen a few, and always from afar. I had been in the doorway for only a couple of months when I saw the first. It stalked a woman who was having breakfast in a coffee shop. The woman calmly took a few toasts with a coffee, read the newspaper and turn the pages, as if there was nothing beyond her table ... But she was wrong. A Companion was staring at her. I was sitting in front of her ... Oh God, I still remember! It was big as a tree and it opened and closed the mouth, tasting the moment. Even though I kept all the time away, I heard the sound of his teeth clinking ... It was a metallic sound, like the one produced by two iron hammers ...
Ivan turned his eyes to the top of one of the buildings.
-The woman lifted her coffee cup, but it barely touched her lips, the Companion, so, suddenly, it rushed over her and ...
The child was speechless. A shadow fell over his face.
"-He took her, you know? The woman fell back to the ground, lifeless, and the Companion disappeared.
That story left me speechless.
"-But you say that was very large," - I protested, in a vehement act of cynicism, -"that of my ex-wife and my daughter were smaller. - "Although not Lorena’s ...".
"-I told you they are like parasites."- Ivan denied gravely. -They are beings who smell of suffering and feed on it. Each day that they pass by their guest they become bigger and bigger ... And when they have sucked the necessary, they finish with them.
Ivan turned and started to walk.
-What can I do?- I asked him, raising my voice.
-I have already told you! Nothing! You can not do anything!
He disappeared down the street.
I never saw him again.
CHAPTER 10
-Back View-
Several days after my meeting with Ivan, I made the decision to return to my apartment. The reasons that led me to undo my steps and to get away from my ex-wife and daughter were varied. In the first place, I did not want to see them again, because every time I did, I was gripped by impotence. On the two occasions I visited Natalia, the thing (I continued calling them that despite knowing her name) was still holding her. The second time I dropped by the house, I found Natalia washing the dishes. Luna was still on her cushion, her muzzle buried between her legs. The thing had grown, or so it seemed to me, and like the first time, it grabbed her neck. I noticed Natalia's clumsy movements, the slowness with which she dried the cutlery, the way she dragged her feet from one side of the kitchen to the other ...
"As if she could barely weigh herself ..."
The third (and last) time I saw her, the thing had grown considerably. It was no longer an intuition, but something obvious. Natalia was lying on the bed, face down, and the thing was almost as big as her. It exerted a clear pressure on her neck, as if it had no other intention than to break it. I tried to remove it from the top of her, but I barely touched it, I burned my hands.
-You can not do anything!- I remembered Ivan's last words.
As for my daughter ... I just did not drop down Desperation Avenue. I did not want to see her again. The mere thought of her, her bruised arms, the rubber band that would be oppressing her circulation in the forearm, the pallor of her face ... It was something that surpassed me. In addition, her Companion was much bigger than Natalia’s ...
- If my ex-wife’s has grown so much in such a short time ... How will Lorena be?
I pushed the thought from my mind, watching the burns of my hands . « You can not do anything".
The second reason I decided to go back to my divorced apartment was that I might find there some book, paper, invoice ... anything that bore my name. "Only then can I remember it." After much thought, I hesitated between Enrique and Esteban.
But the two previous ones were baladís reasons, because the true reason of my return route resided in the Companions. Ivan told me that they were parasites, feeding on the pain and suffering of his host.
Therefore, if a person does not suffer, if a person is happy, those things will not be able to continue feeding, they will not be able to grow and they will have no choice but to leave to his guest.
I hoped to find in my apartment, perhaps in some old photo album, some memory that would help me to fade the shadows of the life of Lorena, and especially of Natalia, who seemed to be in perennial sadness.
I do not know how long I've been walking. Maybe three days ... maybe four ... I did not care. Since I saw the way my little girl was mistreated, injecting those drugs, many things stopped caring.
When I entered my apartment, I was not overcome by nostalgia or any sense of longing or melancholy. I knew that this was my floor because of a photograph of Luna that had been framed on the shelf of a shelf, but, other than that, I did not find any other clue. There was nothing he could recognize as his own: a gray and gaudy couch, an old-fashioned television, a dirty frying pan over the sink, a pointless pencil next to a blank page ... Everything was so apathetic, so cold, Showcase of a real estate ghost.
I rummaged through the drawers, between the sheets of the bed, between the dishes, among the books "I do not remember reading them," even in the garbage bag. I scanned every corner, but found nothing. Not a letter, not a photograph ... not a mirror.
"Like I've never seen myself."
I sat in a corner of the almost empty living room, saying goodbye to the few hopes I had for remembering my name and for helping my family.
"I lived my last years running away from me," I realized, "running away from my past, from my wife, from my daughter ... from everything I ever loved. Up to that point I hated myself!
I was in great pain. I raised the palms of my hands and checked that the burns caused by the thing began to spread through my arms. The pain became unbearably intense.
"Every time I have less," I said.
I wanted to cry ... and I cried. Maybe it was the first time in my life that I did it, because once I started, I could not suppress my tears. I cried for my daughter and for my wife, and then I cried for me. «Not a mirror». It was there, wrapped in the darkness of the living room when I opened my eyes.
"I did not die in the park because of a cerebral aneurysm ... I had been dead for many years ... I died the day I left home, when I stopped talking to my daughter, when I ignored them." .
I stood up, screaming in pain. Every movement I made seemed to tear me from the inside. With a superhuman effort, I lifted my shirt. My chest was red, spattered with bloody pustules. I had only touched Natalia's Companion, I barely touched it, but the burns spread throughout my body.
I left the apartment.
I had little time left.
One day ... Two at the most ...
CHAPTER 11
-Iron against Iron-
I went back to my old duplex and headed for the bedroom. It was two o'clock in the morning, which is why I assumed my ex-wife would be asleep. But I was wrong. As I walked through the door, I found the bed empty. The sheets and pillow were lying on the floor.
-Where is she?
I made my way downstairs to the living room, where I might have fallen asleep watching TV, but I stopped by the railing. Sounds from the bathroom betrayed her presence.
The door was closed and, despite invading her privacy, I went through it without hesitation. Natalia contemplated her reflection in the mirror, barely the shadow of the beautiful woman she was. "Just the ghost of the woman I once loved."
The thing had grown in an implausible way. It was wide as a rock and tall as ....
-... -... as a tree -I remembered Ivan's description of the Companion who stalked the woman in the cafeteria, before ending it.
<
br /> The thing kept his gaze fixed on the back of my ex-wife, and it opened and closed its mouth anxiously. The sound of its teeth banging reminded me of ....
- ... two iron hammers.
My wife raised her hand to the medicine cabinet. "No no no...". She picked up a glass jar. I knew it very well. It was sleeping pills. Natalia had been taking them for many years, she had never been able to fall asleep without its help. She opened the palm of her left hand and dropped a pill.
"-Maybe the doctor has increased the dose," -I told myself, remembering that before we got divorced, she only had half before sleep.
Natalia looked at the pill and then dropped another. The thing seemed to enjoy it; The sound of the clattering of its teeth grew louder. "Iron against iron."
One pill I thought much, but two, I saw it excessive. It was a very strong medication. The doctor made that very clear to us when he prescribed them to her.
Natalia threw another one, and another ... and another ... She emptied the boat. Even with the hollow of her hand, there were so many pills that formed a mountain and slipped through her fingers.
"She's going to commit suicide." My fears had come true.
The thing was closer to her. It laid its huge hands (CLAWS!) around her shoulders, just as a father would do when he encouraged his daughter to ride a bicycle. Natalia turned on the tap and a stream of water began to fall.
Ignoring the burns that were already reaching my knees, I jumped on the thing. The impact was terrible and we both fell to the ground. The Companion was on top of me. I remember it weighed like a concrete block. I could not move it, despite my efforts to get it out of me. The feel of its skin pierced my clothes and burned my skin.
I began to beat it, as tears streamed down my cheeks. The pain I felt was unbearable. The first blow was considerable, the second was weaker, and when I lifted my arm for the third time, it was suspended before its face. The forces left me. I could smell the scent of my scorched flesh. I raised my hand a little more and placed it on its face, howling in pain. Its skin was as hard as an insect's exoskeleton.
The Companion opened its mouth.
-She's mine! - it told me. The mist of his breath was suspended between its face and mine, like a hideous green curtain.
What happened next I can not remember, but somehow I managed to insert the index finger of my left hand into one of its eyes. The thing howled in pain. It started to hit me, but before it got any more impulse, I pierced its other eye. The Companion put its hands to its face (if it could be considered as such) and drew from one wall to the other in the tiny bathroom. It raised its claws to the front, scratching the air and tearing the silence with those screams.
"It can not see me!"
I headed for the bathtub and ran for the Companion. This time, I fell on it. The thing struck my side like with clubs, but I felt nothing. I grabbed the lower jaw with my right hand and the upper one with my left. Its teeth pierced my skin, releasing a viscous liquid. I threw it with all my might.
I do not know what happened to the Companion's mind before it died. Perhaps a mixture of astonishment and hatred, more of this latter judging by the way the empty sockets of its eyes struck me.
I jerked its jaw. There was a click, a dry sound and then ...
Silence.
I stepped away from the companion. I took off my clothes and blew out my skin, striking me hard.
My ex-wife was still in the same place. With eyes fixed on the mound of sleeping pills, and with running water running.
She lifted the hand that contained the pills but, instead of taking them to her mouth, threw them through the toilet.
When she pulled the chain, I thought I was reborn.
CHAPTER 12
-Letter C-
I paraded down the Avenue Despair to the limit of my strength. It had been several hours since I'd killed the Companion, and the burns that had already spread to my neck. I could barely move. Every movement, even a simple blink, seemed to tear me apart. I felt my face, depositing the tips of my fingers with extreme delicacy on my skin. His touch was hard as cement. Lots of lumps made me throb in pain.
-"Lorena...,"- I thought. And even the thought seemed to require a great effort.
Even so, the corners of my lips twitched in a kind of half-smile. I have saved Natalia and killed its Companion. I expected to do the same with my daughter.
When the Dulcinea building nailed the gaps of its facade to me, I would not be bullied. I did not have to look away, like the other time, but I could meet his gaze. I watched the debris that was piled up around him-hardly any amorphous shadows in the darkness of the night. The wasteland was lost beyond the horizon, like a black and infinite sea.
I walked. At every step the pain seemed to grow. But I walked. I crossed the main threshold and went up the steps to the fifth floor, staring at the hypodermic scattered here and there, the blood-stained stains of a wall, the broken roof fragments, the skeleton of a rusty bicycle, The pieces of broken glass, the used condoms, the dar ...
I felt a shiver.
I stopped.
It could be him?
-No, it is not possible . – But I knew it was.-. It will be another similar ...
There, on the third floor landing, was a gigantic teddy bear. He was torn apart and his limbs lay on different steps. I recognized him when I saw his head. I bent down to caress her, but my hands went through her. "She did not remember." The filling was flowing through the opening of the neck that had once been attached to her body.
-Daddy. – In some corner of my mind I heard the voice of a seven-year-old Lorena. She was lying down, clothed to her chin. Her eyes looked at me with emotion, in ecstasy-. ¿May I sleep with Patoso Bear?
The huge bear I have won at the fair was in the corner of her bedroom, watching us in silence.
-¡Of course you do!
My daughter's laughter as she watched me covered me with the huge teddy bear next to her echoed in my mind like the echo of a forgotten time.
Patoso Bear's face was now unrecognizable. He had lost his black bow tie and an empty basin presided over the place that had once occupied a dour eye. The other hung from a thin thread at the level of his muzzle.
I continued my march. One step, another, another ... another ... and another ... I came to the fifth floor and I stopped at the door of the apartment with the letter C. I had a broken breath and, even knowing that time was pressing me , I found myself without courage to go one step further. I was surrounded by a strange silence. I sharpened my ear, trying to catch some sound on the other side of the door, but I did not hear anything
. «The calm that precedes the storm ».
For some reason, that night, there, standing in front of the C-floor, I knew that if I went in, if I went through the door, I would not leave again.
I was not mistaken..
CHAPTER 13
-Final Chapter-
My daughter's apartment was empty. There were no young people on the ground, conversations were falling, or breaths were choppy like the other time. There was no one. I crept down the hallway into the living room. Everything was dirty and run down. Apparently, the party guests (or whatever they were) did not bother to pick up bottles of alcoholic beverages, empty food cans, or even their own clothes. I found a white T-shirt in the middle of the hall. It was very small and, judging from its flowery fringe, I assumed it would be of some girl.
I found my daughter in the living room. She was not on the sofa, but on the floor. She lay there, half-naked, with her long black hair spreading over the parquet. Her palms were open, as if she had tried to catch something before she died. "Her cell phone". Her cell phone was lying on the floor, barely half a meter from her.
I knew she was dead when I saw her eyes. She had them open, immobile and dull. But I also knew about her Companion: he had disappeared.
-They are like parasites . – I remembered the conversation with Ivan -. They are beings who smell the suffering and feed on it ... And when they
have sucked the necessary, they end up with their guest.
Undoubtedly, Lorena’s Companion was well fed .
-He did not lack food .
And with that thought I collapsed. I fell to the floor next to my daughter's corpse, caressing (yes, yes, CARESSING!) her hair.
-She’s dead –I thought-, that’s why I cannot touch her... She’s so dead as I am...
But in my imagination, I heard her breathing. I knew it was a bad play of my mind, just like when, as a child, I saw the abdomen of my dog Niebla, a miniature Schnauzer, rising and falling as the vet put it into a cardboard box.
I stroked her face. The mere fact of sliding my hands down her cheeks broke inside me.
-My poorLorena... ¡How much you have suffered!
Her face was emaciated; The skin, dirty and cracked. But she was just as beautiful as ever. This was something that nothing could take away from her.
Her right arm was pressed down by an elastic band and her veins zigzagged along her forearm like blue snakes. Next to her right hand, barely a few inches away, was a syringe. «Heroin overdose».
I imagined the thing biting the air, its teeth clashing in that horrible fanfare, reveling as my daughter injected the contents of the hypodermic into her bloodstream.
-I'm late ... Too late...
But my mind refused to admit her death. In my imagination, I felt the breath of my daughter caressing the back of my hand.
I looked at her and watched her lips ... They seemed more open than before ...
I wiped my tears and, with a clearer vision, I looked at her face.
-"Lorena!"- I began to scream. She was not dead ... Not yet. -¡Lorena, Lorena!
I shook her violently and her eyes moved a few millimeters, just enough to drive into mine.
-"Lorena, daughter, can you see me?" Can you hear me?
Her lips parted.
-Dad...
It was barely a whisper, but I did not need more.
-She is close to me –I thought. This alleviated and terrified me at one time -. She can see me and listened me..
- Do not go, daughter, hold on...
But I knew it would not last long. I felt her life slip by every second. I had to do something.
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