Thirty five

It is not sand or not the normal sand, its color is gray and it is daytime; but there is a full moon instead of the sun.

The sea looks as blue as a starry sky at night. Just the fish in this sea are the stars. Some of them crash against Luz's feet.

They tickle her feet and she cannot suppress her laughter. At that moment she realizes that the air she breathes in is shaped like the legs of an octopus, which are pushed into her nostrils.

"The wind you breathe in will breathe you out..... I thought it was literal... all the air is composed of colorless octopuses."

Luz cannot put on any expression of fear or panic because the tickling gives her no respite whatsoever.

The sand under her arms and belly feels very warm but she finds it pleasant. Maybe it is already starting to make her delirious because she seems to see Margot with the tips of her hair merged with the crests of the waves of the sea. The abnormal and funny thing, quite apart from this, is that she is upside down and what moves her from one crest to another are just her locks of hair, now they are her legs on the water.

"Damn, what are you laughing at?"

Luz thought she would make fun of the paws inside her nostrils but she supposes only she herself can see them, thank hell.

"Yoo..o?"

Is all Luz manages to answer.

"Stop laughing or it will weigh you down."

As Luz can't stop laughing Margot walks thanks to her hair; through the ridges, until she reaches Luz's side.

"Laugh one more time now..."

Margot notices that Luz is laughing due to a pair of stars tickling her feet. She slaps them away from Luz and stops laughing.

"Your will is too weak, if it wasn't for me they would never let go of you. You already owe me two, missing the third and you'll be my crazy genius."

"Laughing isn't so bad, the bad thing will be when you get wrinkles because you're so mean."

Luz closes her eyes and wheezes, feeling for the first time the tiredness of her unexpected expedition.

As she wheezes, the octopus' legs enter even deeper into the depths of her nostrils. Then a strange acidic liquid seeps down her esophagus.

Margot forgets about her little revenge when she sees Luz vomiting on the sand. However, her black vomit splits into 4 small black spots that have the silhouette of a daisy.

"God, how disgusting, what did you do yesterday? You sure ate until you burst didn't you?"

Luz squints her eyes because having them fully open is for now a great effort for her. However, putting people in a bad mood that makes her prone to depression plan is something irresistible even for the stomach infection.

"Miam miam delicious!"

She flashes a bitter smile at Margot who is always looking to be proved right about everything; her character is so much like Bastian's and as far as she knows her brother feels the same way.

When she was still friends with Margot, she created a romantic story between the two of them on the premise that like poles do attract like poles. Of course, as always she had a star cliché and for her love story she chose that of the student and the teacher. It probably would never have crossed his mind if he hadn't watched a movie from the 80's with that cliché.

Her mother and she always watched movies that reminded women of the divine treasure of youth. When she saw that movie Luz had a little eye problem; but she never told her mother because she didn't want her to yell at her or anything like that.

The only one who could enjoy the movie was the mother, Luz watched something blurry; so she fell asleep on her mother's shoulder like a sweet little girl.

It was precisely because she did not see the movie that she wrote the story of the teacher and the student but with the personalities of Margot and Esteban respectively.

But the fact that she almost lost her sight for looking too long at the fire splashing from a device with which a man in the market was welding a metallic object... the fact that she is seen to have always disobeyed her mother is not why I am telling you about this almost tragic event, no.... ... in this instant in which she remembers her cliché story and the acid is disturbing her throat, Luz's sensitive memory comes to her; the skin of her neck is beginning to remember the warmth of her mother's hand on her neck and the kiss she gave her between her hair and her forehead.

But why does she remember now?

Why has her sensitive memory been awakened now?

Could it be because of that black vomit divided into four silhouettes in the shape of a Daisy flower?

Just a Daisy, both mother and daughter are reluctant about that flower because Daisy is the name of the sister who made Luz's father too unhappy.

Before these conclusions there is some acidity in her mouth after vomiting. However, when only her skin remembered her mother's caresses she felt relieved. She tries to concentrate on returning to the sensitive memory; but having Margot by her side makes it a little difficult.

"See, all for being an exaggerator and an indecisive. You must make up your mind mommy, either you surrender to the madness or this reality, either you live or you die, either you're a winner or a loser, either you're the popular one or the nerd, the long-suffering one or the one to suffer for...."

"Do you think by talking and talking the cretes will let your hair down, or do you do it because you want to scrub me even on your deathbed?"

The four silhouettes of the flower Margarita move away from Luz and are seen in the gray sand like the footprints of someone who has walked through the mud. The curious thing is that the black daisy-shaped footprints also pull her.

"You're not going to leave me like this."

"What didn't your supernatural host explain to you that this world is based on our personalities?"

The black footprints walked at a snail's pace; so Margot holds Luz's legs with her hands because she doesn't plan to stay face down in the middle of the sea.

"I don't waste my time in ramblings about life, that's your thing; mine instead is to live life as God doesn't command it."

Every time Margot starts with the truncheons against God it is because she is really scared; but she is not one of those people who admits her fears in front of anyone, on the contrary, she is exaggeratedly bold in front of others.

"Don't start with your perorations, let go of me."

The truth is that Luz doesn't want to walk around in an unknown world by herself either and on top of that being dragged by some small footprints. However, she can't pass up the opportunity to make Margot beg her. Luz still has the open wound of her betrayal. Both Alexis and Margot not only stopped being her friends from one moment to the next; they also formed the ALL WITHOUT LOVE group and destroyed the self-esteem of half the student body.

"You can't leave me, you analyze me at once and get me out of this, you owe me."

Although on the other hand, Luz feels her belly is scraping because it rubs against the gray sand. It will probably hurt more when the footprints drag her all over the ground. But what does it matter if because of Margot the footprints, there is no other explanation, are causing some movements in her abdomen that looks like a bad imitation of Shakira's belly dance.

"I feel like a wrestling match is going on inside my stomach and I'm sure it's because of your bad vibes."

"Get a hold of yourself crazy..."

Margot sinks her big fingernail on Luz's heel, but next to the pains in her stomach it turns out to be nothing.

"Get yourself situated or you're going to stay upside down forever."

At the same time Luz answers her, she also puts her foot on her face and Margot immediately walks away.

"Even if I can't stand it my brother is right, my feet are powerful if they are too close to the target."

Luz manages to get rid of Margot but not of the pain because now she finds herself being dragged by the footprints, although at first glance it seems that it is the gray sand that slides her. Nevertheless, the black vomit must have split for a reason, right?

Luz takes great pleasure in hearing Margot shout her name angrily. The fact that things have changed has its cons but also its not inconsiderable pros... this would never have happened in real life.

The footprints lead her to a giant ball of toilet paper that has a few openings between strips.

"Luz? Luz are you? I'm smelling your smell when you don't bathe for pity and mommy gives you more juice."

There's a net underneath the giant paper ball and Luz doubts there are precisely butterflies down there.

There is nothing surrounding them but a few stone houses from Pleistocene times.

"Believe me I care less about that now."

Luz was more interested in getting her stomach pain to stop.

All he can think of is his mother's advice but he supposes it may be too late to listen to her.

"That's what you get for having a sweet tooth but you have to get me out of here or you'll be starving when we get out of this horrendous game.

What a way to waste time, huh?"

Luz just laughs bitterly as the pain has not erased her memory regarding her sister's attitude 365 days a year. For her and her mother Flavia is twice as unbearable as Luz and Esteban is following in her footsteps but she is still not over it and hopefully it will never happen.

"The donkey talking about ears"

"It's not funny, there's no time to joke, haven't you listened to your guide?

Those are just pure talk just like daddy because they talk but they don't even give you a hand."

Luz no longer pays attention to him because she wants to concentrate on her sensitive memory. She supposes that if the footprints have taken her to her sister first it is because she must get her out of the giant ball of paper, although she seems to see that Flavia also has some paper on her face.

"Do you have paper on your face?"

Flavia is silent making her confirmation evident. She knows her sister as well as she knows of the fingernail that she just got on "the finger eater" as Luz calls it.

There isn't a part of her sister's body that Luz hasn't noticed and Flavia loves to be seen as always beautiful and ready to be the best student. It can be said that she seeks pure perfection: beauty and intelligence in one girl.

It is for this reason that Flavia considers herself the best option than Margot to be the prom queen; not only for her dark complexion and green eyes, but also for having the best grades of her generation and being the most organized girl in everything she does.

Margot lacks Flavia's organization and nonchalance outside the house. However, Luz finds it strange that her sister has not given her orders because that has certainly rubbed off on her from Margot; but she certainly surpasses her by far.

Did someone deflate her queen of the nation complex?

To think that her father thought of calling her Reyna and Rey to Esteban.

He called Luz that because she did not look like him but like her mother and she is not a boy.

The Flavia that Luz knows would have already taken an imperative attitude... but, as some people say, queens also use toilet paper for the bathroom (note my sarcasm).

All this reminds her of something she wrote so long ago.... THE STORY OF THE PRINCESS WITH THE TOILET PAPER CROWN.

Did anyone think of Flavia?