After arriving at Monica’s house, we both kicked off our shoes and stood on the polished hardwood floor in our socks.
“I’m going to take a quick bath, once I get back, let’s do something together, ‘kay?
A moment after nodding at her, Monica took another step in my direction, closing the distance between us and giving me a kiss on the cheek before entering the bathroom.
“I wouldn’t mind if you took your clothes off outside either...” I said to myself in a whisper.
Shaking off those impure thoughts from my head, I entered the living room, leaving my bag on one of the sofas and approaching the kitchen to drink some water and moisten my dry lips.
One step.
Two steps.
And three.
Four.
When I closed my eyes for a moment, I felt as if my brain had been shaken from inside my skull, and when I opened them, I felt a little dizzy.
When I opened my eyes once more, my body was sitting on the sofa looking at a glass full of water on the low table in front of me. It didn’t take me long to analyze my surroundings and realize something, or rather someone.
“So…you finally woke up.”
The couch wasn’t exactly what my butt was on, but rather a thick pair of legs that I know all too well.
“Monica…”
“I was waiting for you... or not? Who knows, it’s a shame though... I mean, this world, it was getting interesting...”
Wrapping her arms around me, she placed her hands on my chest, pressing me against her naked body, but…did I give importance to lust? To desire?
On the contrary, my eyelids felt heavy and all I wanted was to get some sleep.
She is aware of everything that happens in this world, after all.
“Did you think I wouldn’t notice that you woke up? Either you are pretty naive, or...
“My desire is just so great that it opposes you…
I didn’t even try to resist the seemingly fragile arms that held me against her, an instant would be enough for me to disappear from existence... but she would never do something like that to me, although I might disappear as a germ on her body if she wanted it to be.
“Why don’t you get some sleep?” Monica suggested.
“Sure… it could be… a good… idea…”
With no energy supporting my eyelids, I let them fall, descending into total darkness. But before my consciousness completely faded away, I could hear a distant voice speaking to me tenderly.
“By the way... your special food... still tastes as good as always... although crude oppositions, they are rather cute attempts on your part to express both your love and your resistance to me.
Hearing those last words, I felt as if my brain had been shaken by an emotion so strong that my heart ached with intensity.
I wanted to scream, I wanted to cry, but above all, I wanted to protect her.
Breaking out of her grasp, I stood up and turned towards her, giving Monica what was probably the fiercest glare I’ve ever given not only her, but to anyone else.
“WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU!?”
I felt like my brittle voice was the only way I was able to release these repressed feelings that I have held back for so long.
“A martyr!? Is that what you want to be!?”
My face flushed but this time not because of the shame of having the most beautiful girl in the world naked in front of me, but because of the anger born from remembering what she did, I felt like I couldn’t stop expressing my own feelings uncontrollably.
“Stop it already, damn it! STOP NOW! YOU ARE SICK!”
Taking her by the shoulders, I dug my fingers into her white skin with all my strength and with my eyes burning, I tried to examine her soul by seeing through her eyes.
“I did it for you! You know! I have told you, even Shirogane without even being perfect told you! Even something as imperfect as he could see that everything you’re doing is wrong! And…” I felt my voice breaking, which made me pause for a moment to control my emotions.
Sadly, it’s not something I could do at this point when looking into her eyes I couldn’t make out anything, I couldn’t find anything that would give me any clues as to what she was thinking, which only made me angrier.
“Stop sugarcoating me! Stop looking for me! Let me go!” Tears began to cloud my vision, unable to control what came out of my mouth, not because I was being manipulated. “Stop… stop it… really… this doesn’t make any sense! WE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS!”
My fingers were still buried in her shoulders, but…she didn’t express pain, or sadness, discomfort, or any other feeling that responded to everything I was letting out, or to the fact that I’m squeezing her shoulders with all my strength, with so much strength that I feel that could break them at any moment.
“Danny, you… are wrong.”
And for the first time, I could see an expression on her face, but contrary to what one might think looking at the current situation, it was a smile, and not just a normal smile, but one that radiated the same pity that one feels when seeing a dog with an injured paw.
“If you are already so close to breaking... that means that soon you will give in and I’ll be happy with you forever... even if your stupid noble ideology doesn’t allow it... why would you refuse? Why would you oppose me? I am… I am the incarnation of God on this earth without divinity, without deities! And all I ask of the world is to have you in my arms! Forget about death! Forget that you aren’t mine! Be mine, Danny, you know how happy you can be with me...”
Like a dam that broke, the girl of my dreams pounced on me, making me drop her shoulders for her to take mine, unlike me, gently; her voice haughty and solemn, but without a hint of despair.
“Things will be done my way Danny… because I can’t let such a stupid mistake take you to the grave when I can literally bring you back. Who says that I can’t bring the dead back to life? What kind of dumb idiosyncrasy is that? Ethics? How does that change anything about the fact that I am infinite? Danny, I AM eternal...”
Monica brought her face closer to mine with a slightly disturbed look, her ruby pupils looking straight into my soul.
“You are the only one who can understand me in this world that left you behind, and you... you are the only one who knows who I really am... and who can understand me... do you know why?
“It is the first… the first time in this worl-“
“Because you are exactly like me, darling… because you’re part of me, not something as foreign to my soul as an arm or a leg… you are much more than that, Danny.”
Completely ignoring me as she talked on and on, I thought to myself how very comforting it felt to see the real Monica in front of me, expressing her selfish desires for once in the 18 years of this reality.
“You’re inside my soul, Danny, you’re like a little stain, a little stain that adhered to my soul, that’s why, even if you can resist... you’ll never be able to beat me, so... you know what? I don’t care how long we have to do this, Danny… I… I can’t get off this boat even if it’s sinking, you’ll be mine, you’ll be mine because you’re the only thing in existence that I want… and yet… you’re the only thing in existence that I cannot have…!”
“I don’t belong… to this world…”
“If it’s impossible for you to understand with just words... then we’ll keep doing it, I’ll never stop until the day you come to me, the day the real you wakes up in a reality that makes you feel so good that you won’t want to keep opposing me, the day when you realize that this world and all the others are a gift from me to you, once that day arrives...
As she spoke, Monica changed her gaze to a calmer and lacking one, bringing her face closer to mine once more and connecting our lips in a kiss.
“…Would you let me have you forever?”
***
The raindrops float in the air, you can see the reflection of the pink sky in them, bouncing over and over again on my belly button.
On a day like any other (or maybe not), a meteorite falls on the earth and annihilates the human race, there is no one to stop it, of course there is no omnipotent entity that is capable of destroying it with a breath, so we are definitely not saved.
The next day, a massacre devastates the Sakura Densetsu academy, leaving seven students and a teacher dead, the principal remains in a coma, apparently a first-year boy forgot his pencil at exam time, so he let out a lethal gas from his insides after inserting his hands into his stomach and tearing it open with sheer brute force.
A week ago, a girl declared herself the most popular of class B in the second year, although her way of doing it was to say the least... strange, she vomited the dinner from the previous day into the mouth of the boy she liked, as expected, he happily agreed and everyone at school celebrated by throwing up on each other.
On the way home... an elderly lady dropped her pants in the middle of the highway, immediately after, her intestines fell to the ground, the force of the impact was such that the lady simply fainted, a car skidded with the intestines and stopped being affected by gravity, it exploded in midair a couple of minutes later.
Every morning it rains hemorrhoids, at first it was considered a rather unique meteorological phenomenon, however, as time went by, people began to trade in it, now it is the legal tender in Japan. Who would want to use boring coins or bills instead?
The sun has a happy face and the moon is always sour, while the hot star gives us a smile at all times and even often talks to us, the satellite will always look down on us and spit, killing millions of people every day, they say that we became extinct and the sun never smiled again.
Pictures dance in textbooks, classes are so much fun when you can talk to the historical figures in your book in class to ask them what date they were on when a given event occurred, but you shouldn’t ask them about the future, that would cause the book to explode, taking with it your head and nothing more, nothing less than the theory of relativity!
Since oranges were turned into a lethal weapon by terrorists from an eastern country, life is not the same, you may be walking calmly when an orange lands in your pelvis and... if you are a boy, it destroys your reproductive system completely, if you are girl, it leaves you barren for life, what? How? Obviously, it’s the principle of anti-natality oranges, they teach it in kindergarten.
The last time my granny lost her teeth it was a big mess, a friend’s cousin who was visiting lost his foot when he found them and tried to hold them, I don’t know why she wears a mad dog for dentures, the current fashion are black cats!
I was in the center of EACH one of these dreams, after all, I was the reason why they exist.
***
“I told you, didn’t I?" That I love you.”
Stunned… I stood up after hearing such an egotistical statement, one that I recognized quite well, even though it was my first time hearing it… Or maybe it wasn’t?
“Monica... for... for how long have you been living this madness…?”
Having woken from a confused dream, all I found was a room as familiar as it was unfamiliar… a room in which I conceived my love for what feels like the first time… but in turn, feels like the last of countless others...
“That doesn’t matter, Danny... oh... it feels so good to be able to call you that way without any kind of remorse...”
My heart beats, even though it stopped beating long ago, a promise kept my heart stopped, a promise I made myself, however, a stranger reached into my chest and made it beat... over and over again...
However, those heartbeats did not mean being alive for me, that was a privilege that I gave up who knows how long ago... the rhythmic pulsations that kept blood running through my veins were born of fear... of uncertainty and pain.
Her smile…once precious and beyond comparison is now a receptacle of unreal and superficial feelings… yes…the smile of the woman I love.
Her countenance… fetid and nauseating, all it gives me to think about is looking away. Her head... a nest of illness and irresponsible desires, is a shadow of what a person’s soul once was.
“I will not stop… Danny”
The perpetrator of her own nightmares inadvertently approached me and placed her right hand under my jaw, lifting it to level with hers.
“There is nothing left to stop… so… how about you give up?”
That word caused a tear to instantly drop from her left eye, she was still smiling, so she probably didn’t realize it at the time.
That’s right, the woman attached to me is nothing more and nothing less than the presence of the devil himself on earth, perhaps in the past I myself placed her next to a God, mostly because she manipulated me at will... but not just me...
The demon among demons manipulated existence to achieve her goal.
Her target… which is me, the real me.
Nevertheless…
“I love you… my Danny…”
She gave me an incredibly tight hug, pressing my own arms against me and burying my head on her chest, her… warmth lulling me to sleep, her whispers causing me pain, the scent of her long hair reminding me of the distant past… and her being... her soul... reminded me that I lost Riedel Monica the day I died, just as I lost myself, Wakahisa Danny.
She, however, would start all over again to have me, to appreciate me and see me, to possess me and hoard me. Monica would put aside her humanity once more for the sole purpose of seeing me for a moment in front of her... before...
Before breaking once more.
Monica would give her soul as many times as necessary... to live that dream.
“If you love me...” I started
“I won’t let you go, you’re the only thing I have... but I can’t have you either... how complicated huh...”
“Mo-“
“You are to blame for me ending up like this, so your only obligation now is… to belong to me just as you are, perfect and unique, like yourself, Danny…”
“I-I can’t belong to you... Monica... I am...!”
“Tell me, to me that I can do everything, to me that I can bring the dead to life at ease... what are the differences between being and belonging to me?”
“Differences… between being and belonging to you?”
“Tell me, Danny, you were his shadow and at the same time… you are Danny… and you belong to me… there is no difference between those two imaginary states.”
“Listen to me…”
“No matter what… I won’t give up.”
Determination, but not only that...
That was the determination of someone whose soul stopped working properly, a compulsive repetition that would yield to nothing.
“But it doesn’t matter… since that’s how things will end now…”
“Wait!”
Not that it helped, her cold, emotionless voice teaching me that, despite her words, this wasn’t the Monica she showed me in the world I remember now, was she like that in the ones I can’t remember?
***
Should I be here? I don’t know... and I don’t care either.
After all, I am the goddess of this world, the goddess of everything that exists and what does not, because what doesn’t exist is because I decide so.
His birth was a success once more, seeing him again was so satisfying…
And this is how our life together began again...
“When will you surrender to me… Danny…?” I enunciated those words while delicately touching my chest, as close to my heart as possible... which undoubtedly... hurts.
But everything is cloudy, what is real and what is not? I decide that, there is no one else to ask something like that… other than me.
“When… did I become this?”
After all, I think no human should have ever had this kind of power...