Chapter II: An error says more than a thousand words.

The next morning at Emilio's family home, the sound of a whistling kettle puffed through the kitchen accompanied by the aroma of ground coffee and toasted bread. It is another Saturday like any other where Agata, Emilio's mother, repeats her routine as she has been doing for five years since she divorced her husband.

Attending a flower shop during the week, the woman who was already in her forties, took Saturday mornings calmly as if it were any day off. Overwhelmed by the feeling of loneliness and abandonment, in the few hours she had in the morning with her son, she tried to spend quality time listening to him, regardless of whether it might be adolescent trivialities.

- "Emilio, breakfast is already served. Get up and come eat in the kitchen with me" – Speaking with a pleasant but energetic tone from the railing of the stairs on the first floor, Agata wiped her hands with a towel while keeping her gaze in the direction of the corridor on the second floor.

With a bittersweet mood and a strong headache, Emilio raised his face from the bed with swollen eyelids from crying most of the night. When groping his hands to find his cell phone, the young man remembered that in a fit he had thrown it to the floor of his bedroom.

- "Damn, I have loaded the screen. I wonder if it still works" – Pressing the power button for a few seconds, the broken screen lit up for a few moments, revealing the low battery icon. Exhaling a little in frustration, Emilio took his phone's charger and plugged it in, leaving it on his desk to prepare to go downstairs with his mother.

- Good morning, you look as bad as if a car had hit you. Oh, true. If someone runs over you, according to you" – Sitting at the table drinking her cup of coffee, Agata made a scathing joke that made her son laugh. Like two peas in a pod, both his physical appearance and his sense of humor, which often got him into trouble, were aspects that Emilio had inherited from his mother.

In a way, the young man was grateful to be like his mother, since he thought to himself that otherwise, living together after divorce and custody would have been hell for her.

When Emilio was twelve years old, the TCG incident occurred within Agata's family. A nephew who had just passed puberty began to manifest the effects of the condition in his body, alarming the family to the point that they decided to isolate him as a practitioner from the world. When Emilio's mother found out about that situation, she tried by all means at her disposal to bring him home, but that caused her husband to fight with her due to the prejudice she had ingrained about the people who faced the TCG.

After a few months before that scenario in which he found himself plunged, Agata's relative decided to commit suicide by hanging himself from a coat rack in his room, tying the pieces of cloth from the torn sheets of his bed around his neck.

Powerless and unable to bear it, Agata turned her anger against her husband, demanding a divorce and with it custody of her son. Who, being the most precious thing for her, decided to raise him alone given the possibility that the same nightmare would repeat itself if he was left in the hands of his father.

- "Let's leave our jokes aside, Emilio you are no longer my little boy. You have almost become a man and soon you will go to university. In a year or two you'll be leaving home and living in the campus dorms, having a fantastic student life, and possibly meeting the love of your life. But while that time comes, you're still my biggest concern, son.

Trust me, I'm your mother. If something is happening to you, rest assured that I will be there to support you, my Emilio. Give your old lady a little more credit." - The rough touch of the palms of Agata's hands was felt on the skin of Emilio's hands, who was aware that that mistreated body had gone out of its way to raise him day and night as his greatest treasure. With a lump in his throat, the young man decided to tell his mother about the incident that occurred with Rubén, omitting the detail of the humiliation he suffered inside the store.

- "But this is unheard of! How can that boy be a complete jerk? Since they were children, I knew that he was a bully and I didn't want you to get together with him, but you were such a friend of Tomas and he is his brother" - Going back to take a sip of her coffee, Agata moved her feet impatiently trying to to calm down At the same time, Emilio asked him to please not say anything to anyone.

- "But how can you ask me to stay out of it?"

- "Mom, you said it yourself. In a year I'll finish high school and I won't have to see that jerk's face anymore. In his resume plans, he took college options that have nothing to do with the college I have in mind."

- "Then you will only endure in silence all year?"

- "I have done it for the last five years, mother. One more year won't make a difference, I assure you" - With a muffled tone of voice, Emilio looked into the eyes of Agata, who slightly inclined her head to support her forehead against her son's hands, letting her quality tears roll down. the young man's touch.

- Don't worry mom, everything will be fine" – Gently kissing her head, Emilio got up from the chair and hugged his mother, feeling that warm fragrance of flowers emanating from her trembling body.

After noon, Emilio put on his tennis shoes and a light jacket. Taking his backpack, he checked the cell phone once more and saw that the battery was still not fully charged. Deciding with this to take it to the repair shop that was located a few meters from the bus stop of the commercial plaza.

- "Mom, I'm going out for a while. I'll be back before eight, I'll take my cell phone to be repaired so don't worry if I don't answer your calls"

- "Try to come directly home when you finish, I don't want any more unnecessary worries please"

- "Yes mom, I'll be back soon" - Going out into the street, Emilio took an old mp3 player that he kept in his room and put on his headphones to listen to some music while jogging on his way to the bus stops. During his journey, the intense glow of the turrets of an ambulance caught his attention, contemplating how that vehicle traveled at high speed as if it were going to attend to an emergency.

Without giving it more importance, the young man removed his headphones upon reaching the bus stop, boarding a unit that had recently arrived bound for the mall. Traffic was moving slow, even for a weekend. That was like torture for the young man who leaned his head against the window trying to get some sleep, while the unit took him to his destination.

With the accumulated fatigue of the night, Emilio was plunged into a deep sleep that was so realistic to the sensations he was experiencing in his body. Walking through the corridors of the high school, the classrooms remained empty without a single soul wandering through them. That didn't seem strange to him since it was a Saturday, even the sports clubs only used the fields and the gymnasium on the east concourse. While the main buildings were deserted, hardly visited by the janitors in the hours close to sunset.

Trying to retrace his steps, Emilio felt a touch on his shoulder that made him turn in the direction of what seemed to be his classroom. With no one behind him, the young man felt a slight tingling in his chest due to fear, but his curiosity prompted him to walk until he reached the door. And just as he opened the sliding doors wide, a familiar silhouette appeared before his eyes sitting calmly at the foot of the window ledge.

- "Tomas, what are you doing here?"

- "I wanted to ask you the same thing. This is not a place where you should be yet."

- "What are you talking about old man? It is true that there are no classes on Saturdays, but even I can come to school if I want. We both study here"

- "Oh, so this is how you can see it?" – Getting up recklessly, Tomas stood on the edge of the window, staring into the eyes of Emilio, who tried to run to catch up with him, but his feet seemed glued to the floor.

- "Tomas, are you insane? Get out of there old man, whatever you are going through I assure you that we can overcome it together. Aren't we friends?" – A slightly drawn smile on Tomas's lips contrasted with the melancholic expression of his eyes. At the same time, he turned his face towards the sky as if looking for an answer.

- "I see, I found out too late old man. I knew that you could never leave me. Seriously, I didn't know what to do at the time. Please, don't blame yourself" – As if his heart had been released from heavy shackles and chains, Tomas looked at his friend one last time and threw himself into the void before Emilio's horrified gaze.

- "You drink!" – Waking up from that dream screaming on the bus, the young man received strange looks from the passengers, who believed that the boy was sick because the sweat bathed his body.

The tingling that he felt in his chest during the dream remained present in Emilio's body , who put his hands to it with heavy breathing, as if experiencing an anxiety attack.

- "Hey kid, are you alright?" – By mere reflex, Emilio hit the hand of an old man who came to check it, causing people to murmur maliciously about him.

- "I'm fine"

- "You're sure? You really don't seem to be at all. Are you taking your medication?"

- "What are you talking about old man?"

- "I'm sorry, I thought you had that TCG they talk about a lot on the news and I worried about you" - Like a bucket of ice water falling on his body, the old man's words echoed in Emilio's ears; who, aware of the initial symptoms of the disorder, hastily asked for the stop and got off the bus running towards the marginal areas of the city.

In contrast to the bustling center of the city, where commercial activity unfolded with a multicolored hue from the various consumers who visited the squares; the slums gave off a gloomy tone, that just stepping foot in them was enough to tell you were in another world.

Full of narrow alleys, buildings with boarded up windows and threatening graffiti on their walls; The place gave off an unsettling stale aroma of damp and rubbish. Covering his nose with the sleeve of his jacket, Emilio hurried through the streets looking for the address of the broker he had previously contacted online.

- "Hey brat, this place is not a place where children like you should be. Go suck your mother's tits and finish growing." – A dark-haired and corpulent man stood in the way of the young man, who, frightened by the height and complexion of the person in front of him, felt how his legs stopped responding due to fear. But bigger than the fear she felt before that intimidating man, was the situation her body was going through. To the point that I burst into a scream recriminating him.

- "And who are you supposed to be to get into my business? I've come looking for Hugo, if you're not him, then get out of the way and let me meet us" - Emilio's face had marked signs of fatigue, while his breathing was agitated as the accumulated sweat had already soaked through complete his jacket.

- "What the fuck?" – Before the incredulous look of the thug, Emilio's body collapsed on the street. As her eyes closed for the second time, losing herself again in the darkness of her thoughts.

- "So, are you telling me that this kid stood up to you, Marcos? You have to admit that the fragile little princess has guts"

- "Stop your car Hugo . Are you not insinuating to me that you are really going to sell that drug to the brat? You saw what happened to the last poor bastard who consumed it, he literally ended up lying in a pool of his own blood."

- "Are you scared big guy? I remind you that this shit has the same chemical composition as the garbage I developed for the government just before they kicked me out. There is no difference between this crap and what the black government companies sell, just because they hide the side effects with the purchased media." – Recovering consciousness upon hearing that heated discussion, Emilio woke up on a sofa in what seemed to be a deteriorated room in the abandoned buildings. Looking around carefully, as soon as he fully recovered his senses, he could feel the intravenous that had been placed with a mixture of painkillers and antipyretics.

- "If I were you I wouldn't take that thing off my arm until the dropper runs out. Of course, unless you want to roll over in pain on the floor due to your GTC symptoms" - Leaning on the door frame, watching him while he puffed on his cigarette, Hugo approached the young man, taking a worn-out chair to sit in front of him. to him while tilting his back slightly to see it more carefully.

- "It may not seem like it, but I am a fully certified doctor, sweetness. Just pretend you don't see my scruffy appearance and just focus on my voice.

- "Are you Hugo?"

- "At your service. Are you Emi? From your nickname in the chat and from your appearance, I thought you were a girl. But I was able to see the equipment you have in the middle of your legs when I did the routine check-up" - Raising the sheet that covered his legs, Emilio blushed when he saw that he was still wearing his pants, causing Hugo to burst out laughing, clapping his hands while puffing smoke from his cigarette.

- "Calm down child, just check your identity card to confirm your gender. Even a clandestine doctor like me has scruples with his patients" – With the enraged expression in his eyes, Emilio got up from the sofa and felt dizzy that made him lose his balance, being taken in Hugo's arms. Who sat him down again while scolding him for his reckless behavior.

- "I told you that you are going through early symptoms of GTC idiot, you can not move so hastily unless you want to smash your head on the ground"

- "So how long should I wait? Do I need to go home?"

- "Calm down brat, I estimate that in an hour the drugs will take effect in your body and will help you with your symptoms. By the way, while you were sleeping I took your savings card and charged me for the treatment"

- "Unfortunate!"

- "Oh come on, what did you expect? Nothing is free in this world. Also, don't get mad, I already have your pills ready to suppress the effects of the TCG" - Taking a bottle out of his robe, Hugo showed that valuable object directly to the boy's face, who threw his hand trying to get it while the doctor removed it out of your reach.

- "Give me that. I've already paid for it."

- "Sure princess. I practically emptied your account balance and this is yours by right; but I am also a responsible doctor, so I have to tell you a few things" – Putting out his cigarette in the ashtray, Hugo got up from his chair and walked to an ancient bookcase that was already falling apart due to the rotten wood.

Taking a considerably thick folder, the man sat next to Emilio, showing him the contents so that he would have a clear picture regarding the drug he was about to take.

- "As you can see, these documents are classified by the government's department of health and epidemiology control. I was working on the development of this suppressive drug and was very proficient at my job. So much so that my superiors thought I was too good and fired me, accusing me of tampering with clinical trials.

Don't focus on the tables and graphs, that's pure rubbish that I don't expect you to understand. But I want you to focus on the photos of the test subjects from the clinical trials" – Like a horror movie, the people in the photos who had undergone use of the drug in its early stages underwent considerable alterations in their physiologies and many of them died in the process.

One by one the images that were recorded in the young man's retina, at times made him put his hands to his mouth trying to stop the involuntary reflex of wanting to vomit.

- "So this is what will happen to me if I take this drug?"

- "Yes and no, it all depends. What you're seeing are the flaws in the initial drug testing protocols. Hopefully I was able to isolate the harmful elements and I got a drug candidate that had a 98% effective rate"

- "So what happened to the other 2%?" – Taking another cigarette from his case, Hugo was silent briefly while he lit it. Looking up at the ceiling, slightly closing his eyes as he slapped the palms of his hands on his thighs.

- "Boy, those 2% looked almost the same as the poor bastards from the initial tests. So I'm telling you right here, are you going to try and take the icaro leap and risk such a pathetic ending? Or will you accept your condition and live with your body in a transition to womanhood? – Swallowing with trembling hands, Emilio took the bottle from Hugo, who looked away letting out a sigh of weariness while shaking his hair with his hand.

- "Okay, you made your decision you little jerk. Fly straight into the sun and I hope your false wings don't melt and you fall into the void" – Getting up annoyed from the sofa, Hugo hurried his steps towards his office and closed the door furiously.

- "Very well, walking snotty. I'll take you back to the street that connects with the decent part of this dump. I don't want some bloody bastard to assault or rape you on the way home" – Putting on a cap and lowering the visor a bit, Marcos took the keys to the building and led the boy as promised to a safe point. Just as he was about to say goodbye, Marcos grabbed Emilio's shoulder, pulling him a little until he placed his lips near his ear.

- "Listen carefully and keep this in mind. This crap can help you and it can also kill you; At the end of the day, it's your life, but at least I want to warn you something so you can avoid disaster.

All of the patients who experienced rejection in their bodies when given the drug said they had light nosebleeds. When they continued to take it, their blood vessels began to collapse and they bled to death.

If you start to bleed from your nose, even if it's a slight stain, stop this garbage immediately and think of your mother" - Keeping silent, Emilio only nodded his head to the words of Marcos, who gave him a slight push saying goodbye to him .

Checking his wristwatch, the young man saw that it was already close to eight o'clock at night. Hurrying to catch a bus that would take him to the station near his home.

- "Mom, I'm here." – Entering through the door of his house, Emilio realized that the lights were off, leaving an immense darkness that covered the corridors of his home. Walking slowly, the young man approached the room where the only light on in his home was located.

Sitting in complete silence with her head bowed, accompanied by a cup of coffee whose heat had already been extinguished, Agata had a look of suffering while tears flowed from her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.

- "Mother! What do you have? What is the matter with you?" – Raising her face revealing how red her eyes were, that mother took her son by the face and jumped up from the chair hugging him while continuing to cry bitterly.

- "Mom, why don't you answer me? You're starting to scare me."

- "Emilio, my child. It's your friend Thomas."

- "What about Tomas mom? Please tell me clearly what's going on with him."

- "Today at dawn Tomas committed suicide. He threw himself off a bridge and took his own life; your friend my child, he is dead" – Like a dagger that plunges into the heart without warning, the news about the death of his best friend shook every fiber of Emilio's being, who collapsed on his knees crying. Remembering the dream he had during his ride on the bus.

Despite being a hot summer, the night air for Emilio became as cold as an iceberg. Being comforted by the warmth of his mother's body, clinging to her as he let the pain of losing his friend well up in his heart.