In God We Trust [SPORADIC UPDATES]

DIEZ

chapter ten ✗ alucina

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SWEAT BEADING, SHAKING hands, distorted vision.

A voice bounced around the room, echoing my ears, yet too blurry for me to depict any actual words or sentences. English sounded like jibberish as my head spins and my palms started to become clammy as my dilated pupils shot around the room. As if there's a film over my eyes, abstract dark shadows and shapes dart my perception, none of which are bright and colourful like an LSD trip is meant to be.

"Veronica!"

My ribs tightened against my racing heart and my arms felt like heavy weights attached to my even heavier body.

"Veronica, are you seeing this shit?" I barely made out the sound of Alessandro's voice through my heavy breathing.

My hands were coated in blood. My lashes fanned across my cheeks as I blinked, and in an instant, I was teleported back to when Mateo shot the Alexei. "No," I whispered. I was reliving it as Mateo raised the gun to Alexei's forehead, the acid trip distorting my brain. I watched through a tearful gaze as Alexei struggled, and in one moment, he pulled the trigger.

I was covered in crimson.

Drowning in it.

The shadows were laughing at me and Mateo was smiling as Alexei's head slumped back. I felt the warm, coppery liquid staining my lips. Leeching into my clothes. The guards were unbothered as Mateo left me alone in the office to stare at the corpse. With his mess. He ripped a soul from a body without a second thought, without hesitation, without any delay, he ended a life. My heart was then slamming against the taut skin of my chest.

I blinked once. Twice. Thrice. On the third time, I was back in the kitchen with Alessandro, but my hands are still smeared with red. "Alessandro," My voice sounded unfamiliar to my own ears and I feel disembodied. Like I was watching from the third point of view while also watching through my two eyes.

"Shit is so trippy right now," I heard him mumble.

I began to vigorously rub my hands on my pants to get rid of the blood, but yet, it remained. Somehow a cross between maroon and sin-red, it stained my cuticles, my palms, the lines on the back of my fingers, the creases in my palms, and lastly, the pores in my skin. I couldn't escape it; I was surrounded by it. It coloured my very vision, it clogged my lungs, it weighed down my stomach and imbrued my flesh.

"Veronica, relax!" Alessandro's words were slurred. The heat in the room rose as he inched towards me, stumbling on thin air. He took my tear-stained face into his hands and smiled as if we were on cloud nine. "Life is beautiful," he laughed, "Jesus. I'm fucking great right now. Aren't you? You're great." In his drug-altered state, he presses a warm kiss to my cheek, "you're so fucking gorgeous. I wish Mateo would've kidnapped someone ugly, it'd be a lot easier."