thirty three

How could she recognize her invisible friend?

Because the little voice told her. She now has no doubt that without the little voice she would lose her mind.

As she turns around she sees Veronica transform into a wolf woman and flees like the roadrunner from the coyote. Well, Luz doesn't even reach a tenth of the speed of one of these swift birds. It's best not to say anything negative outright because it gets too "sensitive" (more sensitive is my skin to water).

Incredible as it may seem, there is something in Luz's favor that the wolf woman does not have: initiative.

Although Luz runs, she soon realizes that the she-wolf is not chasing her. So she stops and backs away with some disappointment from the adrenaline rush down to the grass. There is something that attracts her to danger, in the bad guys.... or bad girls?

"You're not going to chase me."

"No, how do you think, that would be feeding your fake ego and you don't want that."

Luz opens her eyes wide and thinks that Veronica is the perfect friend for her, apparently they are interested in the same things or could it be that she gets excited too fast for the present?

Precisely because Veronica is perfect she doesn't exist; but Luz can ignore it if she really notices that a friendship can emerge.

Luz scrutinizes her as she gets closer to the she-wolf. Her fur is made of the dark green grass of the lawn. She has dark glasses covering her eyes and her ears are shaped like eight-pointed stars.

"Why did you just transform into a werewolf woman then? The sun just seems to want to go down, and the moon is yet to come"

Although the sun is not so bright either; Luz considers that there is now a little more of a yellow luminosity that contrasts with the pale sky.

"And how do you know there's no moon?"

Luz shakes her head and laughs at the same time because, let's be frank, does it seem illogical to her?

She scrutinizes around the landscape and observes that they are all in pairs, each talking to a different supernatural being.

Everything has such a positive and cheerful vibe that she thinks she is really inside one of her dreams.

"It's not nighttime"

"When you get sick and you're in a hospital bed is there any difference to your body if it's day or night?

Because there is sun it is day and because there is moon or stars it is night?"

For Luz, Veronica's dialogues are music to her ears; the fact that someone else thinks like her makes her feel young and not tired at all. Luz is encouraged to try to catch one of the pigeons made from the leaves of a tree or, better yet, its red worm-rider.

"Why don't you try again?"

Her cheeks droop and her look would sadden anyone; dark circles peek out from under her eyes and little wrinkles over the area where her wolf nose was a few seconds ago.

"When I get half wolf in me I have to stand still here because I'm tied to this damn grass."Luz understands that if her fur is made of the green grass in this area; then the she-wolf would be where this same grass was lying motionless.

Somehow Luz feels identified with her situation because the she-wolf always sees the same thing as she does at home or at school; because, as if she were immobile, she is forbidden to go anywhere else without her mother. She says it is only to protect her from how dazzling the distractions of the world can be for a little girl who seeks intense feelings, whether for good or for bad.

"I... can I help you?"

Luz tries to pat the grass that forms the half-wolf's fur with a caress; but at the slightest touch her stomach begins to rumble as one would hear the city track with heavy traffic.

She has never gone out without her mother and they have never gone beyond town; but Luz has always wanted her mother to break the rules at least once in her life. Both of them only know about the city through the TV and the father's cell phone when he is very absent-minded because of some soccer game or who knows what things, right?

"First you have to eat a little or not, but to choose you have to have options first."

Veronica gets on all fours and howls, raising her eyes to the sky. She opens her mouth and Luz sees that she has no teeth, only brown seeds hanging in their place.

Luz hears a thumping and descending sound; so she turns on her back and watches as the power of Veronica's howl causes the trees meters away from both of them to come closer.

A thundering noise, which might as well have been from her stomach, lashes the ears of all the students. However, that does not happen with Luz.

Both potential friends are covered by the coconut and banana trees that were previously five meters away.

Luz scrutinizes the circumstances of the others. Some have killed their supernatural beings or so it seems by their bloody hands, others are flying through the air, some of those who sang with roosters; now they are mounted on roosters of considerable size, the same ones that also transform each of their respective riders in the melodies of their crowing.

What is the form of a melody?

Therein lies the detail because, just like Veronica's nose, the riders vanish as if by the work of a magician or a nightmare. It can be said that their ashes are whistles that lie in the background. They are the kind of whistles that little boys make when they see something really attractive or someone irrevocably sexy.

Did something sexy happen as the trees approached?

Something so sensual that it provokes whistling sounds similar to the voice of sirens?

Did it happen so fast that no one noticed?

Luz realizes that fantasy can snatch possibly interesting moments from her; to give her certainly impressive moments.

But her ramblings come to an end when she notices that one of the riders who vanishes into thin air is Esteban. No eh, his eyes are not pleading or anything; rather, there is an overflow of joy, indeed, he dances with great ease as he disappears without leaving more than a whistle.

His brother is the last rider to disappear and the whistles begin to turn into rhythms similar to Disco music.

"No one on the back of a rooster or a hen will fall if you're an early riser."

Luz has too many questions but doesn't want to interrogate her friend. Although why, if Veronica is her imaginary friend, does Flavia know her or could it be that this conversation was also in her mind?

"Why?"

If Veronica offers to answer, why not kill part of the doubts she has right?

"Every living being controls what goes in and out of its organism, either by the external or internal part of our body... and I don't really have a body."

She must do something, not only for her brothers but also for her friend. She does not think it would be so complicated because everything she sees is part of her madness that she does not consider so serious. For Luz we are all crazy, the problem is that there are some who forget this detail or want to forget it. They do have a real problem: "Madness is born from the confusion between the consciousness and the subconscious, sometimes they are so similar that they look like identical twins".

What will Luz who guesses eat?

Veronica leads her among the trees; while Luz observes everyone very euphoric with their respective supernatural beings. If there were alcoholic beverages or drugs or something like that you could say that this would result in a fraternity party or a discotheque.

However, she almost forgets about the ones she saw wrapped in blood, they lie praying on their knees at the foot of a tree. They are wearing the same glasses as Veronica and in a game or dream or whatever this is all not a coincidence.

The simple fact that only a reflection of Veronica is what accompanies her through the trees. That the wind is precisely what forms the figure of the wolf woman walking on all fours; because Veronica herself cannot separate herself from the earth, it is so familiar to her, it could be a story that Luz herself wrote in a time she does not remember.

Ever since she saw Twilight she became obsessed with vampires and werewolves, it wouldn't be strange if she had written a fanfic or a spin-off. What would be weird would be if she remembers something from when she was less than 10 years old. Only her mother can answer that question for her and how many will Luz have to answer to calm the "mother hen" she has.

"Why the glasses?"

Veronica's reflection doesn't answer him and rather points to the coconut tree.

"Your stomach infection needs to be cured or it will be like a very nasty virus in the game."

"Did the people who made the game read my mind or something, without me noticing, right?"

"Something like that, that's the purpose of the teleportation chamber. The weird thing is that it must have also cured that bad bowel; maybe your excrement has an unexpected power but it doesn't want to deal with that on the air."

"What are you talking about?"

"You want to be guilty of the next bubonic plague? Just start climbing."

Luz looks up at the height of the coconut tree and part of her is excited and the other part finds herself wanting her mom to climb that tree for her.

"I can't."

"For now there's no danger of living like a hussy."

Luz doesn't understand what Veronica wants to tell her; but she doesn't plan to waste any more time because her stomach is rumbling like a pipe is trying to clean out the mold inside her, and it is.

We don't want to imagine what would happen if in a place that is not the right place the pipe is untied, hell help her.

She begins to climb and feels as if an invisible force is helping her to climb higher until what is in front of her transforms.

Suddenly everything around her changes, she finds herself at the top of a peak with pink earth and a cloudless sky. Right from that sky emerges a genie woman lying on her head with her tail attached to that same sky.

"To make this quick just shut up and listen ok?:

This is the story of a princess who could never, no matter how hard she tried for a thousand and one nights, be able to dance in stiletto heels and that's why she lost her kingdom."

"By not dancing in stilettos she lost her kingdom? That's not fair, heels hurt worse than the calluses that I get after wearing them".

Luz remembers when it was the dance of her last year in elementary school, when she was declared the most popular bullyng victim.

"Then you remember and you start whining, now shut up and listen:

the stilettos of the pair of shoes were the magic wands of an evil specter, with one dance the magic was going to unblock itself from the wickedness inherent in said wands. When the magic was free it could spread through the ancient castle.

That castle..."

"This has to do with the traffic in my large intestine doesn't it?"

"Do I speak Chinese?"

"Not even Chinese discipline could make my intestines stop their traffic until you finish telling me your tale, do you understand, if I cause a virus in the game they will give me yet another nickname and I will not tolerate it."

"What I will not tolerate is a presumptuous girl who..."

"What do all leaders have to talk like the discipline coordinator?"

"I think she wants her plumbing cleaned now."

Luz watches as her belly jiggles and a small tummy protrudes from under her blue polo shirt. The tummy splits in two and they look like two small adjacent mountains. They move like the wings of a butterfly and lift Luz into the air.

"A butterfly with oily skin, do you want to hear what consequences it brings?"

Luz begs to remove that skin butterfly when she puts it back on the ground. The genie undoubtedly enjoys revenge as Lucifer commands, without scruples.

"A skin butterfly.... better find out for yourself."

Then Luz ran out of light.