Black Catz

Chapter Thirteen - "X(G)OX(G)O"

"Ludy," my grandmother said.

"No!" I snap. "You can help, no?" I tell my mother—no fuck her, the lady with my name.

"If you rule these areas, help us take him to the other side! I've done this! I deserve nothing!"

"Mam! They're coming!" a youth then says.

A youth then fucking says!

"Zero is coming!" another youth then says, this one with a ponytail hanging under her party cap—whatever fucking party she belonged to.

Here you are missing shit again, I think. When you walked and looked out the window, where was Zero to be seen; why didn't you see him?

The thing about this medical center that I notice now that I didn't notice getting here—probably because I was freaking out about Moritz—is that the medical center is empty, it is not full of anyone, it is as if it was rented out specifically for Moritz.

"Ludy! Get in the room with your aunt" my mother says.

But when did we suddenly become a family?

To have an aunt now?

To have a mother?

A fucking mother! That's a mother fucker!

"Mom, take her!"

"No! We need to take Moritz," I say.

"Get in the fucking room!" my mother fights, along with my grandmother, while screams are heard outside, like hyenas howling at the moon, preparing themselves for their feast, their prey-hunt.

After the howls, you heard gunshots. Even from the room I was forced into, I could hear it all perfectly.

And so could Luviel:

"Hear that?" she asked. "It's your uncle coming to get me the fuck out and kill you and your mother."

A snot came out of her nose after that comment, like the fallacious pig I was now seeing her as; or like the one she had become in my eyes.

"So...did mum really never tell you about what the fuck was going on or what the fuck might happen if you cross over?" Luviel asks, chewing the bud of her fag like it was the nicotine gum she needed.

Past the windows, and past the view of the whole delta surrounding us, the sun was greeting us once again—and probably surprised it was doing so to begin with; surprised we weren't as dead as can be; surprised we weren't blasted, heated to the dirt.

"Do you think I'd be here if she would have?" I reply.

"I don't know. Would you have?" Luviel laughs.

And that makes me ask myself the same question: would it have changed anything; would knowing what would have gone down not made me not have come down here in the first place?

"I don't think it would have," Luviel says, replying for both herself and my shy, muted self.

Because it wouldn't have changed anything—knowing wouldn't have changed a thing.

"Ludy, put this on!" my grandmother yells, barging into the room, holding up a vest, forgetting we were already wearing vests.

"You put it on," I tell her.

And she does.

"Get under the table," my grandmother advises.

"Yeah, because that's going to save us," Luviel laughs.