The pain. I am trying to ignore it as hard as I can, but my body will only focus on it. The fear and impotence I feel towards the Demon talking with the Prince is enough, but I also have to feel it from the Cat in my spine. Every time the Demon opens his mouth, the Cat shivers, it feels like a bullet in all of my vertebrae. And the heat and fucking smell of the river are getting to me. I am trying so hard to not fucking choke with my vomit.

The pain has gone so far that I can't even listen to my thoughts. The countdown from above has fallen, and so have I.

-Hey! Wake up! -That voice... Not this again. Once I open my eyes, I'll see the face of Exekiel staring at me. Everyone is staring at me. 

If I open my eyes, the face of Exekiel will change, the place will get corrupted like an Angel, and the environment will change. Everything changes. 

-What is he doing? -... And Felix... 

Just hearing his voice wants me to throw up and... But their voices... They are far away. It must be a trick. I won't open my eyes. I don't want to see it again. I am not going to.

I am not even awake, but the pain is still here, making me turn around and roll myself, even when I have things to distract myself from... I prefer to die in pain instead of hearing them.

-Come on now, Kitt! We are going to be late! -I won't look. I won't look. 

The more I press my ears, the closer they get. An impulse, which I didn't try to refute against, made me push my head against the white floor again and again. My heart, my ears, my brain the sound of the voices is going to them. -Shut up. -I mumble in despair as the Cat keeps flinching in fear or in anything. The more and more I beg and whisper, the steps get louder and more of them keep appearing, and the sounds intensify along the long and loud echo. 

-Kitt? -Exekiel... -Why won't you listen? 

-It is fine, is not like he has ever heard, hasn't he, Exekiel?. -Felix said. 

Finally, I raise my head and see both of them with the faces I saw at last. With the nose broken and the eyes out of his basins, Exekiel glares at me. And Felix, the back of his head is bleeding and skin is falling off it after his head got pulled out of the freezing wood that attached to him every time I raised his head just to push it down again.

 The three of us are surrounded by white that could blind someone. My eyes close by themselves, I cannot confirm if it is from their gaze or the blinding lights. 

1... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6...

-Enough with the crying already. 

-Why are you doing this to me...? - I whimper out loud, trying to rip my ears off.

-That's what I asked you that time. -Don't open your eyes. -Yet, you answered? Did you stop to think about what you did? 

 Exekiel... if I could go back in time...

-We hope this is all we have to say. But there will never be enough time for us to continue.

They are... gone...? 

 45... 68... 160...

 I finally open my eyes, I look around, seeing nothing but red, as if someone were pressing their fingers against my eyes... This... is the forest. My wounds burn like the rain that imitates the alcohol. 

-You are finally awake. -Akira says calmly while moving off so I can sit up. What is happening? Before I could focus my eyes on his, his head exploded in hundreds of parts, and his corpse fell on top of me. The cave in front of me starts to shake, tentacles start to pop out along screams, those Cats... 

-Urgh! -I get grabbed from the throat by some piece of flesh. Many eyes start to drag themselves out of the cave, and a lizard, almost like a dragon, peeks out, standing in front of me. Even though there is enough light, I cannot see the rest of it that remains inside the cave, as if there lies a deep darkness. 

 I wish I could see it, it doesn't matter if it's destroying my organs with its grip, all my brain can think of is that darkness, what is inside. Even after closing my eyes, I can feel it, I am inside of it, inside that cave. Walking across the flesh that now I understand, is from all I have hurt. This demon, squeezing my body and soul, has always been inside. And I have faked I have not known, all the guilt that I soon could have felt on my life was replaced with the coldness of the snow all around me, excused with the promise of seeing the sun without the grey clouds. 

780... 1309... 5653... 

 I am dry. Even though my eyes are lying and got lost in the snow, I still see it. Even though my guts have exploded out of my skin, even though my lungs and heart have exploded, I still breathe and live. Everywhere I look, that lizard is in front of me. That flesh, which patrons I have memorized, those piercing thin eyes that are looking at me, but at the same time at hundreds of others, those things, those things that I... I feel horrified. 

 Its mouth moves, its fangs are long enough to perform its jaws, but somehow the don't. I can see, how its talking, and I know what it's saying, but I don't want to hear it. And I will not say it. I will not apologize. I never will-

 What the fuck happened...? I try standing up, and as I look around, there is a figure in the distance, I know, in fact, I should not get closer to it, so I walk away. It is a place that feels empty, but at the same time, it isn't. Before I realized I stepped over an edge, I couldn't get a hold of it by the sudden weight of the armor, and fell into the ceiling, the walls, and the ground, I... can't tell.

-ARGH! AHHH! -I wake up by the pain once again, I drag myself to the lake and began vomiting into the bloody lake that just make me keep going. 

-Oh my! -The same horrific voice said, I hear along the heavy steps of the Demon getting closer to me. It seems like the potion I told you to buy wasn't very effective, dear! 

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  1.- Dinner