A Love In Dark Times

“We'd better leave things at this size, we can't lose focus on our mission. -Luisa formulates to them, brandishing the swor Darmela close to her, while the snail stretches out his eyes examining it:

“What a great sword, if I had that emerald I wouldn't hesitate to exchange it for such a valuable ornament.

Angie activates her magic pendulum to guide her to the emerald, which takes us back to the streets full of living people killed by drugs, although not everything is sadness and loneliness, we also see how some children play ball in the middle of the street.

“They are the children of s*x workers who sell their bodies in the surrounding area to pay for their expenses and the drug they consume. A boy in red shorts, a green T-shirt and a green beret is riding a bicycle around the block, he looks at ther and greets them, he approaches them, brandishing his hand, looking careless, he stumbles, Luis tries to stop him from hurting himself and he passes him.

That's Mateo, the boy with the bicycle, he's one of the many scares of this place, I don't know if it was a hallucination the came to life or the soul in pain of an addict who wants to relive his happiest moments, the time when he rode a bicycle. - Colino continues to explain.

They walk for hours, rainbows come out of the ground, flower petals rain down on their heads.

Wait, I don't remember when we used to feel this way, so happy. -Guio blabbers with a smile.

Yes, it's a relief that everything worked out for the best. -Angie laughs.

“It's so wonderful that I don't even remember how we defeated Mephistopheles. -jokes Luisa.

Wait, neither do I, I suspect we fell under an illusion or a drug from this snail. -Luis warns them.

-Be careful what you do! -a voice warns them.

-Who said that? -asks Luisa.

-Luisa unsheathes it and the blade opens like a mouth that keeps talking:

~children we are in a dream of Basuco, we are already lost, we failed the mission and now you will die because of them. They all drop to the ground clutching their stomachs and heads, very scared, trembling, turning their heads to both sides believing that they are being watched, that they are being followed, while their hearts beat fast, almost beating out of th chests.

Wait, my heart stopped. -Guio declares, clutching his chest with one hand.

We can't give up, we are the warriors of the light. -Luis gets back to his feet, combing the air out of his hair with a trembling hand.

-I can't hear a thing with this dick in my ears. -shouts Angie, fanning her ears with her hands.

-1, on the other hand, hear bee panels. -laughs Luis, with a stupid laugh.

Please fight against this area,” was the fright of the bicycle, “it happened to them what happened to most of them, they thought they would not be affected by entering here and they ended up locked up in this prison of sensations, many saic to themselves that it was just to try it and they stayed trying.

-How do we get out? I've heard that it's very difficult, that first we have to hit rock bottom. -opines the beautiful Luisa, looking at her sword vomiting clots, saying: “You're wrong:

you're wrong, the first step is to accept that you have a problem, it's that these substances make you feel very good, but they destroy you by controlling your existence, degrading you to something worse than those snails.

Ves it is true, we feel good locked up in our hallucinations, but we are letting them control us, itis not better to live in th false world that seems wonderful, it is better to live in the real world even if it has problems. -Luis speaks, sitting on the lotus to meditate.

“It's a good idea, with prayer and willpower, we'll make it, guys. -Angie followed him.

“Yes, let's give it a try. -And Luisa also sat down to imitate them, trying to harden her mind.

“It's not that way dear Luisa, relax, don't absorb, let yourself go, flood the environment with your mind, feel yourself breathing in the light and exhaling the bad. -Angie explains to her student.

One by one they come out of the trance, they find themselves lying in a pool of sewage in the middle of the street.

“What happened to us? -asks Luisa, rubbing her head, “I have a horrible migraine.

The snail must have bewitched us with one of its substances, what could be more dangerous, it would be better not to face it. -Luis helps Angie up, who is also on the floor clutching her head and says:

“Yes, this happened to us for wanting to get involved in something that is very difficult to change, we had to follow our mission, we have to save my mother and the others, by the way, I don't see Guio?

-He's nowhere to be found. -Luisa shouted back.

Guio was left in a hallucination where he lived in a house in the sky with his two wives Luisa and Buinizen. -A small snail babbles between drool bombs.

Behold, I suspect this boy was the bicycle scare. -Luis points to a young boy with a face full of pagamento, lying on a platform.

We should help him the same way he helped us. -Angie said trying to wake him up, “it's too late, hes dead,” she said as she moved him, discovering that he was stiff and could see that he was holding in his left hand a small bicycle just like tt one he was riding as a fright.

Let's look for the emerald, to destroy Mephistopheles, then we'll all come to rescue Guio. -Angie proposed to the others. You're wrong, we're not leaving anyone behind, look for the emerald with the pendulum and also for Guio, and while we’ at it let's kill as many snails as we can. -Luis ordered, spitting one of them, making its shell crackle, immediately they all metamorphose into humanoids with the head of a snail, starting a violent fight that leaves them submerged in snail's bel by breaking them into pieces.

There seem to be thousands of them, we should go” Angie says and the flowers appear again.

Don't breathe this air, that's what affected us. -Luisa shouts at them as she tears a sleeve of her robe to wear it as a mas Let's go this way. -Angie pulls them by the shirt, forcing them to run a few blocks further in, where they have to jump ove homeless people digging through tons of rubbish, finally entering an old house that looks like it's going to fall down just looking at it. The pendulum takes them well inside, down the stairs to a room with a red floor, the acid smell prevails in this environment that, as if it were a surrealist ornament, there is a kind of pool where some big glowing eyes look out. -What is that? -Luisa bawls, as the beast comes out of the water.

It is the mascot of this place, a crocodile, it is the best eater, it is fed with those who revolt,” says Colino, re-entering the scene.