Deep Secrets

Chapter seven

7

At 7:30 p.m. the town's streets were usually completely empty and dark, the only thing that avoided a full darkness were the few street lights kept on, but this time a big crowd was walking down main street holding torches, the warm light coming from that crowd looked like a ball of fire crossing the valley, and was lightning up as it was passing by. Not the town was devoted to mother, and Layma was totally fine with that, because almost the 90 percent of the population was part of that cult to her. So as the people with torches were passing by some of the houses of the nonbelievers, nothing happened. Every one was having a common dinner in family.

Paul was one of those nonbelievers, and didn't noticed what was coming to his house, he was in the kitchen reading the book he bought the day before, and enjoying a nice meal he made himself with the food he got from the nice grocery store were he had found that copy he was liking so far.

While he was washing dishes, (a chore he learned to do very young, because his mother's accident) something crashed through the window in the living room, and Paul dropped in the sink the plate he was holding, fortunelly he didn't broke it.

"Shit," he said alarmed. "What the hell's going on?" He asked himself while he was going to se what just had happened. And that was the worst mistake he had done in his entire life.

Paul knelt down to have a better look of what came through the window, and it was a big rock lying on the floor. With the rock on his right hand and getting back to his feet, something hit him extremely hard on his left shoulder, the pain was so hard that he felled down back to the floor dropping the stone. He put his other hand on the source of pain and blood was coming from there.

He tried to stand up and he barely did it, so he thought it was a good idea to run upstairs. While he was on the stairs, fear invaded his mind and soul, but he had to keep going. His head was feeling heavy and his knees weak, but he managed to go to his room. He closed the door and dropped him self to the floor, his back was against the wall next to the door. There he looked at his wound, and it was bad, his left arm was completely useless with a big whole on his shoulder, whatever had hit him, (however, he corrected himself) wanted to harm him. Paul's breathing was fast and short, he was sacred to his bones and his arm was hurting him. He was feeling a burning hot blade inside his flesh.

He heard lots of people coming in his home, he thought he was getting crazy, because in first place, who would shot him? And in second hand, why are people coming in his house. His heart was pumping blood like it had never done before; Paul could fell the blood pressure all over his body except in his left hand. He knew he was going to bleed out to death if he didn't do something about it. The footsteps were getting closer, he knew then he wasn't creating that, because the floor was trembling and he could feel in through his bones.

Paul looked through the window and saw a ghostly face there, his breath stop for a couple of seconds, (the sense of lavender was heavy and powerful, that he could smell it anyways) and his ears were trembling because of his heart pumping like a train, it was her mother, he clearly saw her face. Then she turned as if the lake was calling her. The lake, Paul had totally forgotten about it. He stood up and went through the window to see his mother better, while he was getting closer, the image of her was getting sharp, and it was hideous, her eyes were displaced and her nose crooked. I did it to her; Paul thought it with tears on his eyes.

"I'm sorry mom," Paul tried to say it clearly, but his weeping didn't let him. He sounded like a little kid. "I didn't meant to hurt you, i just wanted to be finished."

Lou's death was fast, but painful especially for her. One day Paul came home after a long day at work and went to her room, she was lying in her bed, as she had been doing for more than twenty years. "Hey, Paul," she said slowly with her body stiff, but her eyes looking at him. "How was your day?" She coughed pretty hard.

He hated to see her mom like that, "hey, mom, i saw rose downstairs, I told her she could leave," he said tired. "Fine, but I'm exhausted, I had to..." her mother started to caught once again, but harder.

"Sorry," she apologized. "i think i might need to get this water out of my lungs again." Paul didn't say anything to that, just looked at her. His mother was a beautiful woman, but that day she looked ten times older, and that made him sad. He knew she didn't had much time left, and that made even sadder. If she hadn't had the accident, she would have a healthy life upon, or at least is was Paul used to and wanted to think. "Keep going, I want to know how was your day."

"Don't worry, mom, just relax and sleep, i can talk with you tomorrow." Actually it was getting late, and he wanted some sleep. He gave her the good night and went to his room.

In the middle of the night he woke up to the sound of her mother coughing, this was the loudest and most horrible time she had coughed, so he ran to her room to see what was going on, and saw something he will never forget. As she was coughing, blood was splashing from her mouth. The amount of blood was so much that she started to choke. At that moment, Paul knew what he had to do in order to finish with her pain. He took a pillow from the couch, (the one he had put there to be confortable while he talked with his mom, or for when the nurse was in the house) and placed it against her immobile face, while she was choking and he was placing the pillow, Lou's eyes were fixed on her son's eyes. Paul could bear it anymore, so place the pillow to cover the whole face. And that was the last time he had seen her mother's gray eyes: full of desperation and fear. While he was finishing with his mother's pain, his eyes were covered with tears; his heart was breaking in millions of pieces. Once he couldn't hear her cough neither her choking, he threw the pillow to the floor and he rested his head over her mother's now inert body. Soreness filled his body, mind and soul, but for some reason, his shoulders felt lighter. Later on the week, the medical examination declared the cause of death was caused by suffocation with her blood, but Paul knew he was the real cause.

While he was looking through the window, he remembered all that, and himself reflecting on it showed his face sweaty, his lips were cracked and bleeding and her eyes with tears but it wasn't the only thing he saw, the door behind him was getting open and people with white cloaks were getting in there.

Paul didn't expected to see that amount of people neither their clothing, with his arm injured and his soul broken, he stood there looking how his room was getting full of unfamiliar faces, and not knowing what the fuck was going on, he lost the count at 10 people, those weird guys were getting every time even closer at him as a new one entered the room, then a face he actually knew showed up, it was jerry's, and he was staring at Paul's eye, that only made him more confused.

"What the fuck is going on here, jerry?" Paul asked jerry while he was holding his useless left arm all covered on blood.

Jerry didn't answered, but instead a man in blue hood started talking while he was coming through, "we are here because mother commanded us." His voice was deep and grave, his presence was powerful and dark, the other people around him were minimized except by Jerry Ritter, they both shared something in common Paul couldn't understand what and why. "Paul greed, you have committed the most dishonorable, filthy and unspeakable act of human nature, you have insulted mother, and in order to purify again this holy land and save us all, you must give your body and soul to her, to the greatest and most beautiful woman."

Paul was speechless, he didn't understand what in god's name he was talking about, the only thing he understood, was that he was about to die in a horrible and extraordinary way. He didn't tried to fight, he wouldn't be able to, a single man versus a crowd was obvious the result, so when he dropped to his knees, his left arm felt like a rube band dancing freely, his whole body felt like floating. He looked to the crowd that remanded immobile, a tall and big guy approached to him holding a rifle, he shoot me, he thought. The big guy hit him with the rifle's butt, and everything was dark.