Part 10: The sentenced word

The human influence that I told you was starting with my tail, although it has not gone to collapse my whole ghostly body, the musical spectrum must be permeated with this influence and perhaps it has passed on to that invisible thing that is promoting a great weight in the whole mental world of Light.

That thing that weighs was, so to speak, the weight that weighs me down; but with which I have beaten my infernal destiny. When I blew up one point of the traces left by your "self-hug", because your transparency is acidic, this invisible weight that I have mentioned was enough for me to break the links that held together the bright points that made up the traces of your "self-hug".

Then these expanded and some of them "migrated" to the fusion between the breaths of the lives of my neurons and the musical spectrum of the editor. The latter being the area that trapped them in their eighties tunes. The important thing for me was that thanks to the dots of the tracks of your "self-embrace" spread, the links of any acid are weak in the mind of excessively sweet of a teenager, and created the so-called "Echo armored".

This is a recent creation of the mainly escapist intentions of the current reader, the current readings produce a sweet mental echo, an illusion that fills you with energy instantly and makes you remember moments you have never lived; but the innocence you have left gives you some faith that it could happen. It is bringing together the present with a desired future and a past that warms that spectrally sweet desire.

If this story had focused more on the characters and less on me and Luz, I would have foreseen the "Armored Echo"; but as it is not the case, I could never have imagined that with just your pink foreboding, the feeling that this is real despite being labeled as fiction; and that of the editor would be enough to sustain me, just for a couple of days, in the middle of the interior of one of the points of the prints in question (yes, in this story there are many prints in the argumentative palestra).

Although, you know, maybe I had my own pink presentiments; and I say that because maybe unconsciously my neurons had already planned this path that would connect us (at least I did with you, I don't know if it's reciprocal, I'm not the popular guy). I suspect it because before Lucifer caught me I was scrutinizing human life without any particular pretense. None, my mind was just getting used to your influence.

Is there something clairvoyant about the mind?

Although Luz didn't know the world and was the typical "booger-eating" loner of the school, she knew them all too well, a spy without wanting to be one. But this involuntary ability has made her more attentive to everything that exists, including her own mind. If this had not been the case, the chances are that THE BURNING DESCRIPTION OF NECROMANCY would have been useless.

Let's say I'm in the preamble of the body of this description, I'm a few minutes away from ending "the relaxation". However, before I get started with it, I want to appeal to your patience and let me finish with the explanation of the previous part....

What am I talking about?

If anyway since Luz was held by The Dark Hand I am narrating a new version of the story of number 13, only now I can say it with peace of mind because the "Armored Echo" protects you too from the necromancy that this narration gives off. Believe me that Lucifer's fire has nothing to do with Necromancy and; if you know how to use its real value, you can mislead our dear god of the Underworld, or so say the other animals fond of the occult arts.

I want to apologize for having had all the intention in the world to make you feel a sour illusion with so much confusion; I needed it so that your transparency would also go down that thread and allow me to continue in "floating foot".

With nothing more to add to the preamble I will continue with the explanations that lead me to number 13:

When the echo sounded I knew it would evoke a memory about life that I have been ignoring; what I didn't know was that Luz would hear it too. Somehow magically the inanimate tongues of flame generated a connection between my mind and Luz's imagination and gave words to the echo, the lyrics of the zombie fairy's song.

I used Luz's words to sing and the dots that had migrated came together again and formed each their own line of radiance, just as they lay upon your soul, as marks of light.

It is now where I find myself, inside your imagination. The song I think is the least important thing, the important thing is what it is made of: an evaded path, different in each soul, but united by the same reasons.

Is it pure coincidence that his imagination has been activated by you?

His imagination has locked me in with the inanimate tongues of fire like walls that delimit a small space.

Why is a narrow space that of her imagination?

Anyway, I'm here with the lines and I've been using them to draw out the flames. I just need to talk to you for that, that's the condition of his mind.

And maybe you feel a little cheated, because of what I promised a few minutes ago, the ones you've taken to read these paragraphs, and I haven't delivered.

Have you not heard that promises are made to be broken?

That is a phrase indigenous to your species and, based on that, I know that the echo brought me and can sustain me for only a minute and I needed to prepare myself psychologically for what I am about to narrate, it is about "a link of my evaded path".

Breaking my promises makes the tips of the lines emit more black light, so much so that they appear in the titles of the chapters that the editor uploads on the internet.

I'm not talking about the colon, they are the round tips of the two ropes that bind Lucifer and allowed me to understand the human language in the beginning. Plus they provided me with some necessary knowledge so that even though I was a newbie and this a loaded story, I didn't spoil their plans with my "pre kindergarten" narration.

I talk about the points that divide a chapter into smaller parts. I need that black light, I always knew I was going to need it and; it's a big plus that Lucifer gets hurt by the light from the laptops or that the editor's thoughts are toxic to her (yes, it's too ironic).

Only with the black light would she be able to see my shadow in the scene where she considered me a vampire hunter. Since I am in her imagination and her mind is ruled and guided by this gift, so to speak. If she manages to be aware that I am more than a voice in her head, if she sees me in the present as a vampire hunter; then I will get everything that comes with it, among the good and bad things. Without risk nothing is achieved.

And what greater achievement than to get rid of Lucifer?

And mind you, I only name him that way because that's how your kind have named him. This little name is what makes this text toxic for the lord of darkness. However, I never exaggerate with the poison because it can fall on me too.

I just need the fire to reflect me in its present, at least as a shadow... just be the shadow.

Do you realize how humiliating that is?

Me always struggling to be recognized and I have to admit this. This is why I have a tendency to break promises, with this Luz will also not remember that I am the same cat she knew in her childhood.

Breaking promises gives a bad aura to any being existing in this dimension. If Luz would try to go beyond my shadow, to discover my identity, it will hurt her and she is not one to endure that kind of pain.

You know, I have no doubt that I already possess enough black spots to cover my shame. Believe me when I tell you that the worst poison for a cat is shame. I wish I could find out where it comes from and annihilate it.

And if I've made certain spoilers now it's because, while it can ruin the mystery of a story, it's also the path I've been avoiding. It's like when they ask you about your life and, if you dare, you tell a painful part about your life; but from a distorted view. Talk about an important fact of history, but from a different and manipulated perspective.

Spoilers fuel my shadow in the fire and reinforce your non-identification. In the face of the need for spoilers it becomes imperative to admit that I did not know how to conduct this story nor could I avoid requiring to confuse you.

And with this statement I have sacrificed to the shadows my conscience; because this is guided, according to the mind of our protagonist, by the reality of those who have used their gifts for his good or for others and himself, both at the same time.

Only the humble can see that they need to learn more, so I have to admit my mistake regarding the narration. Yes I have done it before, but without the traces of your self-embrace.

Just the colon written by the editor in the body of this chapter is something like the two pupils that Luz and I will share in a few moments (it is not for nothing that the colon is after the number 13). The encounter between her mind and her reality is given by the power of the self-embrace that has spread throughout her consciousness, she is addicted to feeling the self-embrace.

To promote the growth of the pupils I have to focus on the protagonist's reality amidst the darkness of the forest; the pupils grow when there is less light.

Self-hugging is similarly along the same lines. The writer, me and you are connected by this darkness that hides from us the words needed to thread the words I am already using with the words that begin the narrative of what follows after the last real event, the last memory I told you about Luz.

I knew that if I did not continue the narration of the fact in question as soon as the colon appeared in the body of this chapter; it might delay, in this or any other way, the narration more than is convenient for me. Nevertheless, I wanted to trust that the power of self-embrace could give me more time. I simply do not want to know more than I already knew about myself. If I narrate that fact there is no going back and if I don't there is no going forward.

My indecision pushed my neurons farther away than usual and now I am left with only neuroglias, like all animals.

If you consider yourself better, you are proud and if you are the same, you are a conformist; let the animal that invented the concepts make up its mind, right?

What animal taught these words to me?

I know that neuroglias are something like human bones, but these bones make up the figure of the animal that taught me these ideas. I need my neurons to find again the ilation and coherence in my words. Only then will I be able to retell the event in question.

In spite of everything, thanks to the self-embrace I can handle the tongues of flame that imprison me. I try to move so that this "fire capsule" starts to move forward.

Since imagination has nothing to do with neurons, I can make use of it and imagine that I am playing a giant piano with my paws. Which emits such a melody that even the grumpiest dwarf would shake "his boat".

The piano is the only human instrument I have learned to play, so that's why I imagine myself playing it. That's a very boring story, believe me, it's not worth it.

As my capsule moves, with the rhythm of a turtle, I imagine; but I also scan the atmosphere of Luz's mind through the open spaces between the tongues of flame.

I manage to visualize that the recent merger has made certain changes: The orange color of the sky has intensified, there is no longer any trace of cloud, and what I have been waiting for, thin, deep green stalks.

THE POWER OF INTELLIGENT MUSIC

I look a few meters away at the castle that the demon burned; it is already looking as crumbling as I had previously imagined. It is just this image that persuades my mind to stop imagining myself playing the piano. This is undoubtedly a test for my power of decision, maybe my ancestors already want to give me another chance.

I cannot imagine anything that does not incite the colors of happiness and ecstasy. Fusion has "enacted" this law or rule, whatever you want to call it, inside Luz's mind.

Part of the central tower and one of the balconies have been destroyed. I remember what the castle looked like and it is evident that its destruction process is just beginning to become real (within the parameters of his mind). Otherwise, by now the balcony and tower would have been rebuilt.

Dealing better with the matter that affects me directly, I concentrate on imagining the fingers of my paws gliding over the piano clone with agility and dexterity. I concentrate so hard on this that I even feel that I am really an expert at playing the piano.

Already with the stage well registered, or at least I know what I need to know about it, I can dive in by the skill of my paws on the piano.

In a few seconds I observe a yellow mass that colors everything around me, including the tongues of flame that make up my small prison.

The only thing it does not touch is my shadow. Of the latter I have no idea, but I have no idea what this mass of gold or intense yellow could be. I mean, it appears when there is an urgent need, is this pure chance? It is clear to me that it has been lurking in some hidden corner of Luz's mind. It has waited for the precise moment to take advantage of the moment of greatest desperation of its prey and sink its teeth into it.

I... I... I... I bit my children's bodies when they were on the edge of their misguided lives; but it's not the same because my teeth are special.

Words enclose everything they name and also the one who utters them; when my teeth tear the body apart, they can no longer say a word. I free them from being rats, from their role of being despised and eating leftovers, which they are according to the human being.

The blood that gushes from their bodies and stains everything it touches are the different paths they can take to lead them to the same paradise: my belly.

You know that in my belly is their purgatory, but it is not only necessary for me to free them. The rats must prove that they want another chance and that is why they take on different tests before reaching my belly. Remember that purgatory comes from the word purge.... RED IS A COLOR THAT INVITES YOU TO MOVE.

Anyway, I just don't want you to compare me.

Back to the subject, I think this yellow mass is that heavy, invisible force that Luz seemed to be obsessed with. Well, I've left it out in many paragraphs because it could pass for filler. She kept repeating this thought: "It is this force that lifts me up and pulls me, I am not like that, I don't want to stay here... this time lift me up, I don't want to die in this game..."

What's more, I hear the vibrations, the chords that want to transform the fusion or the pure that remains of the musical spectrum. I don't know, but with the vibrations I already confirmed that it is the famous invisible force.

But why, now that I use my imagination, can I see its color?

Perhaps because it is very likely that the imagination comes more from the need that comes with fear than from any other sensation. Luz has always been afraid, but now she is having several quite understandable panic attacks.

In itself, the greatest fear is not the product of a concrete fact, or at least not in her case, it is generated by an accumulation of the sensation of feeling harmless.

When fear invades the senses are on red alert, alert, but has your consciousness become half paralyzed?

"You don't understand that being here, you can only be from here."

Margot and her group of annoying girls were coming after Luz. They were all on their bikes, pedaling as fast as possible to catch up to Luz's. None of them were over 14 years old, but if we counted all the times they felt helpless we would never finish counting.

"You haven't made a fool of yourself, why did you recite that poem in Spanish? You made a fool of the school!"

Shouts one of Margot's many friends, Luz couldn't tell the difference between them if she didn't see them. They always spoke when all or most of them reached a consensus that benefited only Margot.

For the semi-final round Luz was supposed to do a debate on abortion. She was going to be the party in favor and the counterpart, which was a pale-skinned, foreign girl, was going to be against.

She had advanced very fast in the competition and the director had entrusted her to go all the way to the final to win. Besides, this could help her get a full scholarship to her dream college.

She could get a career and help her family, plus she would no longer have the burden of being the older sister. Maybe if she won and her sister respected her more. Her father would be happy, although Luz wondered if it would be for the sake of her being a professional or because she would be less of a burden on his pocket.

What no one knew was that the very morning of the contest; while waiting for her mother to finish attending to her father, there was going to be an unexpected visitor.

That day was a holiday, but that was not going to delay the contest. Luz was determined to win, even if neither the principal nor the school deserved any effort.

The important thing was to get out of that town, first her and then her family. She could not be blinded, Luz did not have time to be immature. She could not think of revenge against all those who had hurt her and not because she did not feel like giving them more than just a spoonful of their own poison.

Luz didn't need to be at the table to know that her mother was suffering to prepare whatever her father felt like.

Not that the preparation of a humita or oatmeal with milk and cereal is a complicated breakfast; but, even though she didn't have to go to work, Luz imagined her father's stern look over every dish her mother served her. For her father there was a measure for everything, if there is no control everything is chaos. And it certainly was, when he was leaving.

Not that the father did much to reprimand. For Luz and for her mother just a look was enough. Even, in the case of her mother, a look was not even necessary.

"Then we will never go to the movies, your father is not going to give us, I don't want to ask him, why should I ask him if I already know what he is going to tell me. I want to go to the movies, but I'm afraid to ask him. Imagine that for a birthday wish he cuts our fruit money."

That was the frequent type of conversations shared by Luz and her mother, whom she considered her only and eternal human friend.

It was evident that the father would have special demands with the breakfast; because the day before he came early for dinner with the family.

Not even the one called "ILLUMINATE" by his companions could anticipate his arrival. When he arrived home the father scrutinized the scene unfolding in the kitchen, Esteban was throwing plates and cutlery around, as well as shouting a string of rude things at his mother and Flavia.

"... you have to listen to me because when daddy is not around I am the man of the house. Without my electromagnetic wave pickup, my father wouldn't even have internet on his cell phone. Without my ingenuity there wouldn't even be a blender, I doubt that dad would buy another one in which you can make your delicious juices, mother (this last word takes a long time to pronounce on purpose). And you, little sister, next time find someone else to knock on the door of your worst is nothing".

At that moment, Luz went downstairs to get a glass of water and Esteban looked at her in a contemptuous way. At that moment she knows that she has come at a bad time, the worst thing is that she herself knew that she should not go downstairs. It was impossible for her not to hear the screams of the three of them from her room. However, she didn't feel good being oblivious to the chaos, not anymore.

"The girl in the argument has decided to grace us with her presence, please, if it's not too much trouble (Luz hated her sarcastic tone), can you explain to my mother that being a teenager is just as hard for women as it is for men. That's always your argument when it comes to destroying your teeth, smelling like manure or complaining until we're all sick of it. This house has ears in the walls, even though your voice is already a speaker". He shakes his head in mock exasperation, while sipping a glass of orange that his mother has prepared for him.

"Look, can't we be even, tomorrow..."

"Your silly contest doesn't matter to me, who cared if my feelings were being ground down by my own sister?"

The father was not long in coming just as Flavia and Esteban came to blows. The father slapped them both and the two were so quiet that at dinner Luz wasn't sure if they would ever utter a word again. Luz saw some relief in her mother's eyes when the father entered the house.

"It's not just about money and basic needs, how could she alone control us?

How could I control myself without feeling reality crush my feelings? Why do I have to be so itchy about lost causes?

I have to win that contest, I have to get out of here or I'm going to go crazy...if she dreamed it it will come true, I know it."

That thought ruined the air she breathed, for a moment she felt bad to breathe without really appreciating it. Luz was about to close the door apologizing to the air and oxygen; but some original converse did not allow it.

"Have you ever been in love?"

Luz didn't expect that question, the expression in his gaze was not that of someone who was thinking about that kind of thing. There was a struggle in his eyes and in her heart as well. Something told her that he was trying to imitate the look of someone in love.

No, she couldn't doubt what she thought of him, they had known each other for five years. Although that's not very long, her parents were about to celebrate 30 years of living together and her mother herself once told her: "Nobody would talk to me and he would open his wallet in my face. It's not that I was with your father because of that, but it influenced something. I don't even know how I survived the hunger and everything that comes with being an orphan."

Alexis surprised her when he rested his fingers on her right cheek. He took Luz's tear with his index finger. For an instant they both abandoned their thoughts, good or bad, and melted into an embrace that, were it not for the sparks of the self-embrace, would not be the perfect hook that allows me to be able to move the (formerly invisible) yellow force as if it were soup in the pot.

What makes this hug different from any other is that it has no judgment whatsoever, at least for a second, and that to the yellow force is poison.

This force is master of itself when there is need, but without inculcated prejudices there is no need.

In the face of its weakness this force instead of attacking tries to move the cards to its side of the table.

While I can move the yellow sky of Luz's mind with the tongues of fire coated with the warmth of that embrace; this force, having its will practically paralyzed by the warmth of memory (cold interspersed with candor), tries to be like a kind of tricked mirror.

The tongues of flame have intertwined to draw the warmth of that embrace. Now the tongues look as if they were rows of ribbons, or at least, as if they were the silhouettes of these.

A pair of tongues of flame may be joined at one point by the warmth of memory; but that will not last. This is because both halves of the same ribbon have no filling, in other words, they are empty inside.

The pair of blanks on each ribbon is the only possibility to which this force can cling. Where there is nothing yet, "a whole" can be sown from scratch... a micro-universe.

I have my set of micro-cosmoses on the tips of tongues of flame: The sparks of your self-embrace. If only I could preserve them on the same lines they come from, if only I could preserve the ignored paths... but that is divine.

Now that I can move the yellow sky I can push my catlike shadow, reflected in the flames, a few big steps further into the fire.

The inside of Luz's fire, the reason she still breathes even though she doesn't know how to appreciate the air.

"Have you been in love?"

It made her nervous to be asked that question when it was just the two of them alone in Luz's basement, her parents in the living room and her siblings sprawled out on their beds with canchita serrana one and canchita POP CORN the other.

"You insist with that question, why would I answer it, you don't answer any of mine and look I have insisted."

Both were sitting on buckets turned upside down. Light filters through a small window and Luz doesn't know what else to do or say to the boy her mother has forbidden her to talk to.

"I, I wanted to apologize for the water thing... it wasn't you I wanted to soak... it's just that I've always seen things... as a child I saw it around you and it brought back horrible memories; although the most horrible thing is to think that your own blood... blood is worthless"

"Nothing if we see it from our doors for inside, with blood we can save the chain; well, I prefer to call it inheritance of necessity that everyone calls life... life doesn't matter, that ties us, it only serves for us to have the opportunity to live, living is the important thing don't you think?"

Alexis smiles in a way that she finds high voltage.

"What are you thinking?"

"That you want to ask me a lot of questions."

Alexis walks on all fours to Luz, who wants to stand up, but he gets up first and holds her by the shoulders.

"You're wrong, we're both crazy and that's why we love each other, it's not me you want me to want to know about you."

Far from seeing reproach or sadness, his eyes had a sparkle in them that reminded her of the first time she made him laugh.

"How can you know, how much of your share of the energy of living have you sacrificed to find out?

When you made me laugh in that bee costume and started dancing, even though everyone closed the circle, you were still dancing under the psychedelic lights and I didn't even know why I had gone? "

Luz stroked Alexis' cheek and he smiled like a cocky child. It was as if they were again the same dreamy girl and he, the same boy who called a friend asking the farthest and smallest star:

"Have you fallen in love?"

She didn't think about the answer, as she always did when she was with him.

"Yes, but I didn't know it, I wasn't afraid enough to lock the energy of living in that word."

They were both dancing in each other's arms, but this time prejudice was the order of the day in the form of words. However, these words had a mission with someone special. He had a mission with his sight and she had a mission with her heartbeat. He was at the mercy of the noun life and she at the mercy of the verb to live.

"The first word a child says is the first desire he fears to abandon...you are that desire so unbearable to my pride that it will not let him surrender; as long as I look at you I will not fear to desire again."

Luz could not believe those words and yet a part of her wanted to continue with the fire Alexis had stoked inside her.

"As long as I listen to you my heartbeat will travel beyond my chest and reach my soul, I will know what it is to live and not contemplate wisely."

Both were experts at igniting the other's ego, the two were one passion.

They both thought of the word that locked the energy of living, that cursed word that invented the noun life... you and I call it LOVE.