76°00’S 53°43’E – Nuevo Trujillo, Spanish Antarctic Colonies

  21.05.2024- 16:00 UTC +3.00

  I was left alone in the common room, under Salva’s orders. He had said I would feel sicker as time passed, but seeing as I did not, I assumed he had lied to get the rest of the Unit to leave me alone.

  So, I sat next to the window and basked in the sky. The kitchen had a big tea table leaning against the window, and I used it to stand on it and lean against the thick-glassed window. Feeling it against my skin, it did not feel cold. And the night sky had a unique allure.

  We did get some nights during the winter months – but this was different. It was deep and primal. The stars were different. I did not know what to make of it.

  “It feels unholy, doesn’t it?” Cecilia’s voice startled me. She had just entered the room. “Sorry, I knocked, and you did not answer. I just meant to check in.”

  “That’s fine,” I said. She stepped into the room and came closer. She was wearing a jumper and a jacket on top, gloves on her hands, and her hair was gathered into a tight knot on her head.

  “Aren’t you cold?” She asked. I was wearing only a T-shirt. I had removed my jacket earlier, as it felt too much inside the room. Apparently, it was just me.

  I nodded negatively. She came near. As I leaned on the table and window, curling my feet, I couldn’t help again but notice how tall she was. There was a warm and safe feeling when she approached me. I tried not to blush.

  “Honestly, no. It does not feel unholy,” I said as I turned to the window again. “It feels like a big burden has been lifted. I am not sure how to describe this. It is a different night sky.”

  My eyes got lost in its vastness. The window had only a view to the North and there were no lights from the abandoned buildings of the district.

  “What do you believe this means?” She said and pointed slightly to the West.

  A wave of red light emanating from the horizon looked as if the sun was about to set; at the same time looking like anything but that. I had never seen this in the sky.

  “It looks pretty,” I said and blushed, “perhaps that’s just how the sky is supposed to look like.”

  “I was also thinking the same. What if the Trastamara domain is more than we thought it was, what if it is all a lie? The sun seems to be,” she said in a frown and curled her lips.

  “Cecilia,” I mustered my courage, “you don’t look like the rest.” She glared at me before I could explain. “You don’t look… weird. Why are you here? An Escapada?”

  “We are all weird,” she answered in a serious expression. I could not tell if she was offended by my question, or if she was saddened by it. “At one point or another, people decided not to let us be who we truly are. That was the same for me and my family.”

  “I miss my parents,” I admitted, “they would be clueless about Curses and all that… but somehow it feels like they would know how to get me out of this mess.”

  She did not react, and I saw her eyes tracking the skyline for those red lights again. They were indeed beautiful.

  “Do you miss them?” I asked more.

  “All the time. I wish they missed me, but they miss the old me,” she said.

  “I am sorry,” I responded. It sounded like a sore topic. Whatever led her to this rebellious group was not resolved.

  “Don’t worry. I have gotten used…” she said, trailing her sentence.

  I smiled. I could enjoy how calm she was.

  “I also feel like my parents wouldn’t like who I would want to be,” I admitted to her. I have never admitted that primal fear to anyone before, “I mean, that’s not what matters now does it?”

  She did not answer, and I turned to her, fearing I had overdone it with the sharing. It was not that. She stood calm and expressionless, but her eyes had turned back to her head, leaving only veiny white visible.

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  “Eh, Cecilia. Are you okay?” I asked, not knowing if this was normal. Earlier today she was introduced to me as a seer, but I had no idea what that meant. Was she having a similar experience to mine? “Cecilia?”

  Ignoring me, she turned her body first and head second and started walking fast toward the door. I got off the table and stood on the ground. For a good few seconds, I stood awkwardly walking and exiting the room.

  “What the hell?”

  I grabbed my jacket and started following her as she picked up the pace. “Wait! Cecilia?”

  I trailed behind her in the corridor with all the rooms. I figured we would soon bump into someone that would know what to do. I had so many questions. Was this normal for her Curse? Was she sleepwalking? Should I wake her up or see what she would do?

  Indecisive as I was, I just walked next to her. Her eyes remained white, but she seemed to know where she had to go.

  We passed by an alit room, where I quickly caught a glimpse of Oriol reading a book.

  “Hey!” I yelled at him as we passed by and awkwardly smiled. “She is being funny!”

  Oriol jumped up towards the side of his door swearing, and pushed onto something. An intense noise flooded the corridor as a siren went off. Various overhead lights, clearly tampered with, changed to a flashing red. I stopped walking as I covered my ears, unsure of what was even happening.

  “Oriol what…” I tried to yell, but he was already running toward Cecilia. He jumped and tackled her.

  People started exiting their rooms, and I could see how all of them were strapping vests on them, or unsheathing weaponry from firearms to blades.

  I raised my hands up. This was it: the Escapadas had realized I was not sold to their cause, and Oriol sounded the alarm.

  No. That thought was stupid. As Oriol held Cecilia down, she fought back, still in the same trance that she had started with. Oriol pulled a rope and tried to tie her hands, but him being three-quarters of her size did not help. I considered trying to help, but I was not even sure what I would have to do to help. I was even scrawnier than Oriol.

  “Someone! Warn Hani!” He yelled at the top of his lungs while struggling to keep Cecilia restrained.

  “What should I tell her?” I said to him, ready to run.

  “No!” He yelled. “No! You have to stay close!”

  I could see the fear in his eyes. Was that fear towards me?

  A woman and a man paired up and ran to the lift, presumably to bring Hanying. Others stormed the corridor, room by room, and even examined the windows of the building. The lights were still flashing red, although the siren had stopped.

  “What is happening?” I asked Oriol, who had now restrained Cecilia’s hands and struggled to keep her pinned.

  “It’s her Curse. We are in deadly danger,” he said, weirdly emphasizing the word deadly.

  “What?” I shrieked in a tone higher than I was proud to admit. “Is she going to explode?”

  “Fuck man, what? No. She is a seer, we told you. Her body can see her death. She is trying to run away from it. Something is going to happen.”

  I looked around, as people ran in every direction, and yelled commands. No one was paying attention to the three of us, but I could also not understand what the potential threat was.

  Cecilia sprung up tossing Oriol to the side with brute force. He tumbled back and held her tight with the rope, like a leash.

  “Should we run away? What do we do?” I asked, unsure of what deadly danger Cecilia had foreseen.

  “No, there is nowhere…” Oriol yelled to me.

  “Yes. We have to run,” Hanying’s voice interrupted him as she came near. Cecilia calmed her rageful push to run, but still stayed at the edge of her rope, pulling Oriol.

  Oriol’s expression revealed he understood even less than I did. The two men from before who looked like brothers ran and helped Oriol with Cecilia. The bulkier one grabbed her tight.

  Hanying walked near Cecilia, her presence unnaturally calming her. She raised her hand, holding a key. She dangled it in front of Cecilia’s face and then put it in her hands. Cecilia held it tight.

  Hanying turned to me and spoke in Mandarin: “You have to follow her at all times, no matter what, do you understand?”

  “Follow her where?”

  “Do you understand?” She insisted.

  I nodded.

  “Unleash her. Now. We have to run with her,” Hanying said. Nobody questioned her or asked what she said to me. The moment she was released, Cecilia started running and everyone ran with her, and I could only follow.

  As the pace picked up, I could sense the tension in the air. Even Hanying looked worried. Only maybe one of the two brothers appeared calm. Oriol said nothing, but I could see he had now taken one of his gloves off, ready to ward us – from what, it was still unclear. As we ran in silence, a terrifying sound emerged and ran with us. It started like a sob but became a cry, a sound that made my heart sink as it echoed in the empty corridor we were running in.

  It was Cecilia. She was crying, whimpering, and wailing as she ran, unable to communicate otherwise.

  My muscles stiffened as I wondered whose death she was experiencing.