The Vampire Head Is Dead (Part 7)

IN THE UNDERGROUND

Traa... Traa...

I can't take it anymore and I leave the basement. It's freezing down there. If I stayed a minute longer I would die of cold. No longer caring whether I would die out here at the hands of who knows who in pain or also frozen in pain. Even bundled up, the clothes didn't fight the cold. And it couldn't, in fact. That's the truth. It's cold out here too, but fresh air from the night, though, this helps to maintain my calamitous situation. Diogenes's order for me to hide caused me to be saved and whatever attacked us is gone and I wasn't a victim of them. I start to get better from the shaking and, with difficulty, I get up and I'm going to do the obvious, as well as, cheer for it, look for someone. I walk through the empty halls that frighten me.

"Holy Mary!" I find myself, unfortunately, with a horrific and appalling scene. It seems that the whole fraternity is here, but not as I remember it... And I can see everything... As if it were now... To celebrate in a happy atmosphere, welcoming people from the community and tourists, or even, passers-by, for the festivities with the beautiful and harmonious decoration, full of ribbons and balloons. I try to fight against my mind and make this memory prevail, but I can't. The horror is undeniable. I enter this river of blood and I turn over the bodies placing my hand on their necks looking for a sign of life to which I also call for others in a very loud voice. No response comes back. No sound returns. At the same time, I play the sad and difficult role of recognizing bodies, my brothers! Who would have carried out this slaughter? Who would have committed this barbarity? And, for what reason? Or rather, what would have done that? I change who for what, because people wouldn't do that. But rather, monsters! What would have motivated these savages to kill innocent people? Religious who did no harm to anyone. I finish not only examining, but also, recognizing the bodies, but still I haven't found my savior...

I spot some bodies to the left of the courtyard, and also, I see, dead ones. I go to the right and also the same thing. Unfortunately. The attack was fierce and the intention was to kill everyone. The assassins were indeed angry with the monks, and perhaps, they were looking for revenge. But what would the monks have done to anger these monsters in such way that they would want revenge? Such a thought is inconceivable, even more so, to find an answer to such a question. I really don't understand. Foolish to me. This is me in vast ignorance looking for unworkable answers advised by doubt. It really is foolish to think so. Nowadays anything already generates discussion and fight. And for an unfortunate outcome to happen, killing your brother is just one step away. Unfortunately, my hunch is that people only tend to get worse. Where will humanity go? I don't even want to think. I go back to the sad and undeserved reality in which I am plunged and desolate and I see the destroyed main gate. It looks like an angry and crazed crowd has invaded here. The more confused I become. And worse, there was no one left to explain what happened to me. Or if I just found a clue that was… No. No. I'm not good at this. I'm not even a good physiognomist, let alone an investigator. I could find more than one clue and they still wouldn't mean anything to me.

"Wait a second!" I still haven't found Diogenes! I hope he's the survivor. In the midst of this chaos in which good men, angels on Earth, in fact, violently lost their lives, this thought, this hope comes to cherish me. Unless he was taken prisoner. At the same moment another unfriendly thought comes to desolate me again and worry me to the extreme. It may even be true, as he's very intelligent and wise. That would be a more fitting fate than death, however, there are elders. They are wiser.

"THE ELDERS!" I scream loudly and a little hopeful, because I still haven't found them either. The loss was enormous, irreparable, but I'll cling to that hope that was born. Although small and, at the moment, unfounded, because if they are wiser, the most convenient fate is for them to be taken as prisoners. There are so many conjectures that I'm going crazy! If I don't go crazy now, I won't go crazy anymore! I am sad. Deeply saddened and mourning those who were brutally and prematurely gone, but I must also be grateful to those who remained. I hope someone stayed. I'm not being ungrateful to think like this, because lives are worth more than objects or places, but without them, I don't know what will become of the monastery. It's time to continue with my search and this time go around the whole place...

After a while going around the place, such as: the rooms, the dining hall, the terrace and even the pantry, and unfortunately, they are empty, a terrifying silence that is even gloomy, setting in a contrast to normal days, even though all religious, sometimes, a relaxed atmosphere was constant. Which makes me miss it. Suddenly, I remember the basement where the prayer rooms are located and I run there hopefully...

They are empty too. Back gardens are missing. A feeling stronger and bigger than hope grows inside me. It would be silly if I thought I didn't know why. Since I came in here, even without having heard that call that not only Diogenes speaks, at least he says it to my face, but the others too, however to these, they only do it in whispers. I've been paying a lot of attention to him and he especially reminds me a lot of my father who died when I was a child, with only five years old. If I could make a request to God, just one, I would ask that no child before the age of ten, or rather, before the age of twelve, lose their father or mother, or even both. It is greatly missed. Not just to teach us what is right or wrong, because we learn this throughout life, one way or another, in an easy or difficult way, swallowing something sweet or bitter, but I really think it is in presence. Knowing there's someone there. It changes everything. It makes a tremendous difference. I think that growing up alone, maturing in a forced way when we should be in the fantasy world, experiencing all its fullness, but anyway... I think we end up becoming rustic, brutish, insensitive, with feelings not kept, but hidden from everything and everyone in a locked chest. That's if we're not empty inside, where feelings drained without us even seeing it.

"Diogenes!" I arrive at the garden and I recognize him from the back. Suddenly, I stop. I know the reason. I'm afraid he's dead too. Everyone was killed, why wouldn't he be?

"What was that thought, Antony?" Fear and confusion get in the way of my reasoning. Would I be that lucky? I mean, who I like and identify with the most would have survived this genocide? I want to go there, but I don't either. Fear takes hold of me and paralyzes me. I know that moments like this are required by life, but when they actually arrive, we don't believe they are real and then we also ask ourselves, why me? Well, I'm the person of the time! Oddly or not, I don't feel sorry for him. To which he too is not included in my grief. Was it hope personally coming to let me know he was alive? Or would something stronger also come to me personally, like love? A love that was so much in me and I couldn't give it to my father and now it no longer wants to be hidden from the world, kept in the dark, deep down, and wants to go out to meet someone in specific. It just makes things worse and makes me want even more not to go there. A new chance arises, belatedly, to deliver my son's love and the possibility of not succeeding again is present and terrifies me. I am haunted by ghosts from the past. I was already stopped, without the courage to go there, now then, I am petrified. A thought crosses my mind, unavoidable even I guess, but I'm afraid it's true. Everyone I love or start to like, or even worse, just because they are around me, death comes to embrace them and take them away from me. Was I cursed? If this is really true and everything points to it, why didn't I find out about it sooner? I would have avoided the deaths by running away. Going to live in a forest, in a dense forest, on a mountain, in a cave, or even, the most indicated, on a desert island. Just by being deserted I would be saving many lives. Innocent lives. Lives that I value, but that because of me could not follow their paths.

"What is that?" A vision comes to take all the weight off my shoulders and comfort, as well as, gladden my heart and soul. Was I going crazy? Seeing things I wish were true! Was my mind being my most cruel and mocking enemy by aligning itself with falsehood in a sordid collusion? My eyes are betrayed as openly as a married person betraying their spouse in their own home.

"No, no, it was true!" Lighter than ever, I run rush towards Diogenes! He moved his leg. Now, without any fear, I approach him...

"Diogenes! Diogenes! You are alive, my dear! How this gladdens and comforts me. You don't know how." He just groans. The pain must be unbearable. I pick him up and I lift him up a bit and I adjust his head in case he's trying to talk, as his body is turned and his talking would be difficult, but this is not the case. He's actually moaning in pain. I had seen it before, but now, looking closer, four deep cuts are showing like claws. Did an animal attack him? It would then have been a flock to cause so many deaths! A bear, perhaps? He's the only one I can think of right now looking at those long, deep wounds.

"An... An... Anto..." Seeing his difficulty in pronouncing a word and seeing what word that would be, I immediately launch myself saying:

"Yes! It's me! Please don't say anything! Don't strain! Everything is fine! The danger is past! You are safe now!" Confirmed that it's me, soon he calms down. I think that more than wanting to call me, it was knowing if everything was in fact okay, then, the calm settles and his features change even more, ignoring even the pain to which he sighs and falls. Soon I put my fingers on his neck...

"Oh... He didn't die!" But rather, relieved, it pass out. I pick him up, since he only has me and I put him on my shoulder, giving priority to not touching his wounds, which are serious and need to be treated immediately. I believe that whoever committed this atrocity is already far away and they won't come back certain that they killed everyone. Certain that they accomplished their mission. I improvise a room close to the exit to facilitate my coming and going after placing it under a mattress, albeit on the floor. I open the windows to let in air and let the room ventilated, airy, fresh. When I was a child my mother taught me all about plants. Even though I needed to use the book where she wrote everything down more than lessons from her personally. Not only herbs for spices, but also medicinal plants and I run to our plantation to harvest sphagnum, a moss used to heal wounds.

After a while I come back and he's in the same position. I put my hand in front of his nose...

"He breathes!" I make a paste and I put it on the wound. Whether asleep or unconscious, I'm not sure, he moves. Spasms of the body that feel the wound being touched. I pass the next one more lightly. If he was awake he would say: ouch! And I would say: sorry! By the way, what kind of wound is this? It's scary just looking at it! Can imagine what he must not be feeling? It could only have been an animal and for me it was the bear!

"I'll take care of you! You'll be healed!" I say softly in his ear. Finished the task of passing the medicine, now I glue leaves...

I go back and I let the tea smoke up his nose. This infusion is powerful and the only thing that doesn't wake up is a dead person when he moves, then he wakes up opening and closing his eyes...

"I'm a... I'm a... A... I aban... I aban..." Calm down, Diogenes! I say softly as he seems to recognize my voice and shuts up. It's the first time he's spoken after passing out. He couldn't formulate a whole sentence and the spoken words were half. Certainly, a delirium! An instant reaction of the body due to tea. I didn't even pay attention to what was said. Or rather, what was tried to be said. For me it is an immeasurable happiness that he's alive. I couldn't bear to relive my childhood past again. Losing my house, my home, the people I love the most and having to wander into the unknown again would be very difficult for me. In fact, impossible. I would sit here with nothing to think about and nothing to do... Although I am older, no longer a child when it all happened, a teenager, but internally I feel like a helpless and frightened child. I'll focus on his care. This will be my role for now...

I pat his head. Some will certainly say that I transferred the figure of my dead father to him, that I want to cover the sun with a sieve, what if it is? If there's truth to my way of looking at this moment and I'm taking him as my father? Without his consent. Maybe it's really crazy, but deep down I don't think so. I don't know how to explain it or even the name of this feeling, but more and more I follow this path, I think... No, I think not, I feel it's right.