ALL NOVEL 8. The Assault
The feelings of my stomach had already stopped but I was still feeling unable to move, it's as if a heavy weight was placed on my being. Maybe the idea of having to see the imbecile of Caruncle go deeper and deeper in a situation that would take a lot to take himself out of was much to bear, I thought in Felicity and in Evelyn and how maybe I could go spend some time with them instead of seeing this pathetic tragedy to occur, but no, I stayed, because I didn’t have the energy to move. He was still looking over the road, still absorbed in his thoughts. He had barely looked at the woman at his side since they started traveling.
A few hours after the sun was setting down, they stopped at a cheap inn. He requested a room for two and went upstairs. Lila turned around to face the window, the moonlight was creeping through it, but it wasn’t bothering any of us, neither them nor me, if anything, it felt as if it was giving us more company than what we could give each other. He was hugging her from behind, trying to fall asleep.
“Caruncle?” She whispered.
“Yes?”
“Are you sure this is the right decision?”
“What do you mean?”
“Us, leaving everything behind, are you sure we made the right choice? I feel that we will be found, that we might have to go back, there is always this voice inside my head that tells me I should stop, and I don’t really know what to do.”
Caruncle felt a knot form in his stomach.
“I thought this is what you wanted,” he said in a rather bitter way.
“What I want is to be happy! Will leaving things behind help us be happy?”
“I don’t know, I was just doing what you told me.”
“Caruncle? I… just…”
“What is it?”
“Did you even think this through?”
“I– well, I can’t think things over, it will just make me feel more worried and more panicked, I don’t want that, I want some peace, I know that you want some peace too. I thought you were in this with me.”
“Caruncle…”
“I have some money saved, it should be fine,” Caruncle thought about what he had learned in the history books of this world back in the library of Pisces.
“What are we going to do once we leave the country? Do you have a plan?”
“I do.”
He thought that if they could reach the frontiers before they were found out or the war took over the country, they would be out of danger and then they would travel to the other side of the continent to a small country called Acquavella. They would buy a small house in a little village that was around a lake. There had to be a man close to his 80s that took care of the shop with his wife, but she had died recently and Caruncle knew the man would die in a couple of months too due to old age. If they could meet with the old man, they could buy the shop and he would tell Lila to cook for the people in the town so they could sustain each other. It would be a relatively easy life, for him, of course, he didn’t know how to cook, the useless brat, and still, the trip would be very long.
“Caruncle?”
“Yes?” He sounded annoyed, I wanted to tell him that he was being careless and stupid, that he was making a terrible mistake and that if he went on further he would end up dying in the middle of the road. He barely left his home while he grew up, and now he wanted to travel through the continent with a woman that was as fragile as he was? Fucking please. He felt guilty, the anxiety was eating him inside. I almost felt he could hear me. I really hoped he could, because I wanted to tell him how much of an idiot he was to his face.
“Would you touch me?”
“I’m already hugging you.”
“No, please, touch me.”
“We aren’t married yet,” he took his arms off her and turned around, he started hugging his pillow instead, it was as if she had suddenly turned into hot coal.
“Caruncle, please…”
I saw a demon creeping into the room from the underworld and below the bed. It threatened him with getting closer. His heartbeat was starting to accelerate, he was starting to feel ill and his stomach was starting to revolt. The demon crept inside him, making him feel even more disgusted. He felt anger, he wanted to cry and was trying to hold back his tears. He was deforming in a veiny mess that wasn’t human anymore.
“What the fuck is going through your head, Caruncle?” I asked with a perplexed grimace on my face. I wanted to laugh, but I only felt sorry.
“Please, give me some time.” He told her in a whisper.
“Time, time for what?”
“I’m not in the mood for things like this right now.”
“What does that even mean?”
“It means I’m sleepy, so good night.”
Lila turned around to see him with a frown in her face but didn’t say anything, she just raised her eyebrow and then went back with her face to the moon outside the window.
And Caruncle, oh poor, poor Caruncle, he hadn’t turned into an adult. Please, give him some time, at this rate it might take him the rest of his life, but hey, it is what it is. The otherworldly being stayed through the whole time, slowly distorting his body, stretching it and deforming it into weird forms and shapes. I took him out from his little cage where he kept sobbing and I started punching him, over and over again. He already looked so disgusting that it just made me puke. I said, "How can we go? Let’s make that face of yours match more what you are on the inside!”
In the middle of the nightly desert inside the dream vault, there was nobody who could come to his rescue, it was just me. I kept punching him over and over without letting him rest, the pale moonlight illuminating my fists and his deformed face as it got more and more swollen by my punches. When he awoke, he tried to recall what had happened. He couldn’t remember anything, but I had a smirk on my face.
The next day they continued traveling towards the frontier. As the car trundled along the winding road, the rain intensified, its relentless drumming on the roof blending with the rhythmic clatter of the wheels.
“We might need to wait a while somewhere, even with the car we might get wet if we keep going with this weather.”
“The car?”
“Yes, this I mean.”
“You mean the caleche?”
“Oh yeah, that, sorry, I don’t know where I got that word from.”
They both stopped below some huge trees entering the woods. The trees could have easily been 3 or 4 meters tall, just like the rest of the forest. There was a heavy breeze coming from inside it. Caruncle shifted uncomfortably on his seat, his eyes darting between the forest and the woman sitting opposite him. Her presence was more of a source of anxiety rather than comfort for him, but she was the one he had chosen, so he had better stick up for her. Lila seemed to sense his unease. She offered a tentative smile, but it did little to ease the knot in his stomach. He wanted to say something, anything, even if just to end the silence between them, but the words got caught in his throat.
They started to hear footsteps approaching. Their quick steps started to sound closer and closer in the middle of the rain. Caruncle and Lila exchanged worried glances as they turned around, when they saw a group of unkempt people at each side of them. I concluded that with how slow Caruncle had been going, they probably had been followed for a while already and that the group was just waiting for them to stop. Before the two could process what was happening, a rough-looking man pointed a revolver at them. Caruncle’s heart was about to explode.
“Out of the caleche,” the man barked. “Now!”
Lila gasped, clutching Caruncle’s arm. He felt a surging sense of inadequacy. They stepped out into the muddy road, the rain soaking through their clothes almost instantly. He looked at them and imagined he took the knife and attacked them, that he took their eyes out and tore their limbs to pieces. Still, he couldn’t move.
“Empty your pockets,” the second man demanded, shoving a sack towards them. “Let’s make this easy and we will be gone before you know it.”
Caruncle stood frozen in his place for a couple of seconds, but to him it felt like hours. When the second man yelled back at him, he finally reacted and he started fumbling with his bag, his hands shaking as he pulled out their meager possessions. He then also gave his small briefcase without saying a word.
“Caruncle? What are you doing?” Lila whispered at him with indignation. I chuckled.
“Don’t move! You are going to get ourselves killed!”
The pair of men laughed at them.
“Caruncle…” She started to cry as she saw the men take her bag in the carriage where she had all of her life savings and her clothes.The thieves took everything: their money, their papers, even Lila’s modest jewelry. When they were satisfied, one of them turned around but the other kept pointing the gun at them. Caruncle didn’t move a single muscle while everything happened, he didn’t struggle, he didn’t yell, he didn’t even dare to look at them with anger, he was just afraid, as if he had been frozen in time. Before he knew everything was over before it even started.
“Alright, well done you lovely birds,” the first man sneered. “Don’t try to follow us, it’s not going to end well.”
The group of men walked into the forest, leaving them alone without anything else in the middle of nowhere.
“Caruncle…”
“I had a gun! I swear I had a gun! But I didn’t have it ready, I just thought these people would only appear in the afternoon, I said… I said, let’s leave quickly in the morning. They usually drink a lot at night and since it's close to the weekend I said, they won’t get up until very late, but I fucked up! Now I can’t even–”
“Caruncle!” Lila yelled at him, she looked back at her and he saw her with a desperate look on her face. “What are we going to do now?”
Caruncle kept staring at her without saying a word. He fell on his knees and let the rain fall over him. He touched the damp grass at the side of the road, trying to ground himself, trying to convince himself that it had really happened, that yes, he indeed had fucked up. After 5 long minutes, Lila sat down back on the caleche. The reality of their situation sank in, the dream of escape slipping through their fingers like rainwater. Caruncle felt tears prickling at the corners of his eyes. He had failed to escape, because he was selfish and stupid.
Lila closed her eyes, a frown was now stuck on her face. I saw tears slowly coming out from her eyes.
I was tired of looking at both. I looked at the sky, but it was completely covered by clouds, the daylight was very pale and a blue hue covered the grass and the trees and the rain covered the whole forest in a transparent and icy layer. I was feeling very cold too. I placed over myself a lace-detailed blouse, an ankle-length skirt and some lace-up ankle boots, and a brown parasol.
Caruncle had stopped thinking, the only thing he was focusing on now was his heartbeat and his cold breath. He couldn’t escape, he didn’t have what it took, I knew it, he knew it, he was now just facing the facts. The fantasy was finally over. Now without any money or possessions to continue the trip, he would have to go back, like a dog with a tail on his knees. I laughed. It would be better for him if he continued along, even as a vagabond. I knew that the things that were waiting for him once he went back home were going to be so much worse.
End of Act I.