Chapter twenty eight

Luz decides to leave the approach of the protagonist of a romance novel. Now she sets out to understand Alexis' mechanical art. To what extent her ideas have influenced the creation of this camp's technology.

She believes completely in Alexis' intelligence. At school they always said he was a child prodigy and because of that; even though he was shy, he was always the most popular kid.

Even if he had nothing to do with all this technology, if he has only repaired robots like Barbie as a hairdresser, it doesn't matter because he doesn't know any other means by which to understand modernity.

Luz hears a tiny voice that is barely audible, as if it were the voice of someone desperately trying to speak in the water. However, inevitably, only a couple of almost inaudible humming sounds echo; but at the same time unrestrained and with apparent desire to end any sound inside Luz's head that is not her own.

All that distortion inside her mind is broken when she hears Bastian's voice.

"You already think the end of the world is going to wait for your saintly patience like my mom."

At her brother's scolding and reproachful tone, Luz falls to the ground and feels disoriented; as if for a second she has forgotten the reason why the rocks are shaking. Perhaps being on her knees and at the foot of the colossal statue of the wolf made of leaves helps to intensify her daze.

On impact with the ground, she hears the sound of the rebound of that transparent liquid so indispensable in this land; as if it had fallen on a puddle of water and not on the grass.

Moreover, on the grass she observes a rectangular bag made of the above-mentioned transparent liquid. In short, if this little voice cannot speak with words, it will speak with images.

However, it only shows these visions to Luz's subconscious. She does not know why she senses that the grass under the legs of the wolf statue hides something that can help her.

She had had certain crises before, but never before had she had a presentiment that caused her so much anxiety.

While Luz digs to remove some soil, "an unforgettable forgetfulness", to call it somehow, comes to her tactile memory.

Luz needs to find something, but the stones have already begun to move around the three children. Simultaneously, out of nowhere, a mob invades the area shouting, crying and handing out expletives left and right.

Even with all the noise in the background, after digging deep enough according to her, Luz puts her ear to the hole she has just made around the back leg of the wolf statue.

For Luz, unlike taste, tactile, visible or olfactory; sound is the only thing that can make her soul dance, persuade her consciousness to react to reality.

"If something exists in this world it must make even the slightest noise. If that pygmy melody were to address me... what wouldn't I do?"

That sentence is the only clue her unconscious reveals to her about her mechanical memory, the one that made her forget the three little boys a few meters back or so someone who just met her would say. Nevertheless, Luz looks up and observes the wolf's belly. As she guessed without knowing it, there lies the solution.

"Wolf what are you doing?"

It turns out that in the belly of the wolf statue there is a sound receiver that is only activated by the password. This receiver is activated by the question "wolf what are you doing?".

The receiver, which looks like a metal grill, asks Luz to answer the question because that is the password.

The fact that she only has 20 seconds makes Luz go into a phlegmatic and insidious ecstasy.

She observes from a distance how the stones finish petrifying the three innocent children and two of them were her brothers.

The rocks first ran all over their bodies like a plague; like a soap to spread the disease that left them like statues to which they have only chiseled the contours. The bottom, the content of the stone is empty and Luz is shocked without being able to believe it.

Naturally, in the face of the misfortunes in her family, the only heroine of the story is her mother because Luz only serves to see from an intricate approach to family problems.

"Why do you think your sister likes, those you know, toads or why has your brother changed so much?"

That's the reason her mother was so worried and I'm sure she's worse now. Her three children are far away from her who is "mama hen".

"Yes, Bastian used to be a sweet little chick and now he's chicken wick."

Her mom laughed at her daughter's ovurrent comparison.

Jhon wick is a movie with a lot of black humor and sarcasm about a former hitman who returns to the wilderness to avenge the death of his dog.

Luz's whole family lives obsessed with that movie, especially the father.

"And your sister?"

"She's too much for any wolf prince. What could teenage wolves do with a girl who has you for a mother?"

"What wolves always do, watch and smile, cry and hear. In short, give hot chocolate."

Even if the little voice in Luz's head had literally left her static, the wolf statue wasn't going to let Luz get up one more time anyway.

The wolf statue is made with such programming that whoever activates its audio receiver would be considered by the statue as its offspring... poor Luz but she deserves it.

Look at that paralyzing you watching three children being turned into statues with only the silhouette made... how good is her brain to create excuses for her.

Yes, yes, I am the narrator not the criticizer and I apologize for that but you have to understand me.

Well, uh... Luz is sure that the little voice in her head reminded her of the last dialogue with her mother because there is the key to find the password.

She only has 10 seconds left and she is going to start analyzing?

Since she wants to ignore the fact that there is a force field holding her under the wolf's belly... at least her neurons will get some exercise.

"Observe?

But I didn't just... I just froze... it's me..."

She looks at the receiver and shouts with a smile that looks more like a pout, "I'm watching selfishness sightseeing to grab like a prostitute the courage of others."

Inside her head, beeps echo; while she sees on the once empty background of the new statues, drops of water scattering, wetting the rock as if they were the tears of her brothers, of the other boy. Everything was the proof of her shame and cowardice.

So many times the little voice has made her see different images between very colorful and very gloomy. After that last disappointment, the image of her dead came to her, floating on the same water that always drowns the little voice.

In tears he runs away from the wolf, in the midst of the present chaos: the rocks rise from the grass and, floating in the air, collide with each other generating a rain of stone fragments; other rocks petrify other teenagers unknown to Luz and the clouds blacken announcing a nearby storm.

Her consciousness is struggling to stay here, but already a part of it is remembering that last disappointment:

Now that her subconscious thinks better of it, the stone statues and the screams remind her of the night of the last day of September.

In the mind of this little girl was no longer just a fantasy, but an amalgam between fantasy and reality.

It was 9 p.m. and her mother had finished doing the chores from class but not arguing with Flavia.

"I just have to do my chores and that's it, so calm down."

Flavia was sitting on the couch, for a change (note my sarcasm), decorating her poster for the class she had the next day.

"I assure you that every girl your age, if she had a fish, wouldn't leave it unfed and without changing its water. Now it's gone and you don't seem to mind when you begged me to buy it for you. You don't deserve my continued attention to you what did I make of you?"

Flavia wouldn't get up from the couch that was in a still empty room. She was only encouraged to get up to record videos dancing very sensually for her Tiktok account.

"Stop lecturing me nothing else because nobody here does anything; I'm not the only one, besides I'm not the old woman in the trio of your nightmares."

Luz listened to the discussion behind the door. She knew Flavia was right, she was the oldest but also the worst of the inconsiderate trio. Her brothers only followed her example: laziness, selfishness and fear.

The only difference is that Luz is more subtle when it comes to bad behavior. Besides, the fact that her mother considers her "the least worst of the three" gave her some faith to believe that she could change. But in this argument with Flavia, unlike the previous times, she did not defend Luz.

"Luz, Esteban and you, the three of you are the same, the three of you want to see me in the ground just like my sisters want to see my father, but I have learned my lesson.

They are not going to cremate me like my father!"

Luz was so shocked that she did not hide. She wanted to talk to her mother but the fury in her eyes said it all but her voice could no longer be silent.

"Ma' I know Grandpa's death has made you sensitive but..."

"Shut up!

You are the worst of all because at least they are direct, you instead talk nice to me; but God only knows the string of things you want to spit in my face.

Always keep in mind that in life we all get what we deserve and the lazy and indifferent ones only get indifference and the leftovers of life!"

To Luz her words hurt more than a slap in the face would have.

Luz believed that her mother had enough excess faith in her to share a little with her soul.

The father was the first to stop having faith in Luz. What she felt in that instant was the same she felt when her father told her: "You are a beautiful daughter, don't doubt it, I am sure you are going to get a burn prospect. The only thing I ask of you is not to be as ungrateful as your mother. You know she goes on and on about how we need a door for the bathroom or other beds for you and your siblings.

Your uncles are very disunited but I have broken that chain. If we keep sleeping all together the union will be perennial. I will never leave your mother but I will not let her ruin this family.

Anyway, I know you have your moments of silliness like your mother but if you apologize I'll forgive you."

Her father's furrowed brows were already warning her that; even if he used orthodox language, he was very disappointed in her.

Luz to her father was only "hollow beauty", to her sister "a freak", to her brother "a total sourpuss" and to her mother "a clever hypocrite".

For Luz, death turns out to be the daughter product of the romance between reality and fiction because it paralyzes time and the heartbeats hit her chest like whips.

"A son knows that he is a son, a small existence, when the time of happiness is stopped by blows or.... no; to be more exact, by the onset of mind games."

With this thought, to Luz a small shower of stone fragments scratch her skin and hit her head lightly. However, she can't stand the physical pain and decides to die with a single blow. A quick death is what she aspires to.

"I'm not going to get in the way or disappoint anyone else. Without them I have no one to talk to me even to make me feel bad. I can't stand being so indifferent and I don't deserve to live without them."

He tries to pull one of the lumpier rocks hard against his head. But these roll away from her as the wolf statue howls as if for the last time.

She realizes that the wolf is protecting her and hates it because it is a machine.

"A lifeless, unfeeling machine, could death love me?"

She runs a smaller stone as if she sticks it in a dangerous area she knows she will die without delay.

However, as she picks up that small rock, Luz's hands begin to burn in a strange way and she even thinks she smells rotten but it comes not only from her stone but from all of them.

The little drowned voice whispers in the middle of the water:

"Just be a spectator....NO!.... start the clock... LET IT START!... has your heart's time come?"