The rest of the week was a total nightmare. Wherever he went, wherever he looked, Roberto
met one of those creatures. He couldn't get used to seeing them. They didn't make a sound and
they appeared out of nowhere, and sometimes, when he stared at them, they would stare back
at him with those empty, eyeless spaces. No one else seemed to pay any attention to them, so
Roberto concluded that, indeed, only he could see them. He must have been hallucinating, but
even though he went to the doctor for checkups several times, they kept telling him that there
was nothing wrong with him. Even so, they told him to go to a psychologist, who prescribed
some pills that only managed to make him vomit, give him severe headaches, and spend a lot of
money.
He no longer knew what to think. He was sure he was imagining things, but the fact that he
didn't know why worried him. But if the doctors found nothing wrong with him either, what
then? Was he really crazy? Roberto had heard that “crazy” people don't feel like they are. Would
that be his case? He didn't think so, but then again, he wasn't sure. Besides, losing his head from
a simple blow —"simple”, even though it had left him in the hospital for weeks— didn't seem
credible to him. Finally, he came to wonder if he might be seeing ghosts or spirits. It was a way
of explaining why no one else saw them, as well as their wandering attitude and why the medicine
didn't work. Maybe they were mourning souls? However, that didn't explain the rest of their
behavior. Even so, the mere fact of thinking that they could be entities from the afterlife was
enough to make him shudder and stop thinking about the matter, so he didn’t attend his second
appointment with the psychologist.
In short, when the following Monday arrived, Roberto was a tangle of stress and nerves. He
barely made it to school on time, had dark circles under his eyes, and felt physically and mentally
exhausted. He looked sick, as if he’d been let out of the hospital before he fully recovered, but
the truth was that he’d barely gotten any rest in the past week. On top of that, those creatures
were also at school, so he had to control his nerves every time he saw one. This didn't work out
for him at all, and he quickly realized that the others, both teachers and students, were beginning
to look at him strangely. However, they were all very nice, believing that his behavior was due
to the accident he had suffered.
He spent the entire working day like that. The only good thing about that was that his students
were calmer and more obedient than usual. When classes ended, Roberto took his time to collect
all his things, and he walked dragging his feet and with his eyes low on his way to the
management office, hoping to sign his time out and not have any more problems, for that day
at least. He was on the second floor, and the sun was shining through the hall windows that
faced the entrance and the street. If he hadn't been in such a situation, Roberto would have
thought it was a good day.
<<What am I doing?>> he thought. <<If I keep acting like this, rumors will really start saying that
I'm crazy. It's not like I can deny them, though… I need to find a way to make them go away, and fast.>> He
sighed. <<I want to go back to my ordinary life…>>
Then, he bumped into someone in the hallway.
“Sorry, I didn't notice…!” he started to apologize immediately, when he realized that it was a
student: Joel Bautista. The boy simply returned his gaze, not saying a word. It seemed that he
was contemplating something through the window when Roberto bumped into him. “Joel?
Classes already ended a while ago. What are you still doing here?” he asked.
Joel looked away, to the window, outside.
“I was just leaving,” he replied monotonously.
<<Ah, there's that nonchalant attitude again>>, Roberto thought. Was there any way to make
that boy act a little more cheerful? He never seemed to be interested in anything. He wondered
if he could help him, but he didn't know what exactly he could help him with, or if he would
even want his help. He then noticed how Joel kept his eyes fixed on some point, in the distance.
“Is something there?” He tried to sound friendly and turned his eyes too. And he saw
something that terrified him.
It was one of those creatures. But until then, Roberto had never seen one like that.
It was huge. About ten meters long, and a height of at least five or six, which exceeded the
height of the school fence. It had a lanky, snake-like build, and it moved slowly and with a part
of its body raised, resembling a king cobra, which gave it its enormous height. Two thick, long
arms reached the ground and were being dragged, and the huge skull on its head had crooked
bull-like horns, plus two giant tusks. Unlike the other beings he’d seen before, this one did have
a lower jaw, also full of sharp teeth that protruded out at a 45° angle. Through the eye holes and
the corners of the jaw dripped the black liquid of which its hideous body was made.
“AHHHHH!” Roberto yelled as soon as he saw that thing. He took several steps back from
the window, his eyes widening and, terrified, he turned his hands into fists and brought them
close to his stomach out of reflex.
Joel just watched him.
“Professor?” he spoke to him, arching an eyebrow. Roberto realized the scene he had just
made.
“No, um, it's… well, uh…” He desperately tried to find an excuse, but it was useless. His
mind was completely blank thanks to the shock he’d just received. He stammered nervously,
trying not to appear any more abnormal than he already was.
<<Damn, damn, damn! What I do?! What do I say?! Dammit! With this, strange rumors will surely begin
to circulate about me... What will I do if I get fired for thinking I'm crazy?>> Roberto was panicking.
“Are you okay?” Joel asked again. Roberto, for his part, could not get the excuse he was
looking for.
“A-a bug!” he suddenly yelled.
“What?”
“There was a bug… Yes, that!” He composed himself and tried to act natural. “A huge bug
suddenly appeared at the window and scared me.” He laughed nervously. Joel turned to the
window but couldn't see any bugs. Roberto sighed, as if he had just saved his skin from mortal
danger. Although it was likely that a rumor that he was afraid of bugs would start and he could
imagine some of his students playing pranks on him about it.
Joel, however, said nothing: no funny comment, no mocking look, nothing. He just stared
out the window. Roberto also looked back and saw that the creature was still out there. It moved
really slow, as if possessed by some strange heaviness or as if it was too lazy to carry its enormous
body. He felt chills run through his body again, but this time he stopped himself from screaming
or reacting.
“Professor,” Joel finally said.
“Yeah?” He thought it was the first time Joel took initiative to speak to him. The boy paused,
not taking his eyes off the window.
“Can I… ask you a weird question?”
“Yes…?”
Then Joel held up a hand. He pointed out the window, right at the spot where the creature
that had scared him earlier was.
“Can you see that?”
Roberto looked from him to where he was pointing, and back to him.
Was Joel saying… that he could see it? He wasn't talking about something else, was he? Maybe he was pointing to something else. Maybe he meant a different thing. But Roberto didn't know what else it could be. Then he looked
at Joel with wide eyes, his jaw on the floor, and the feeling that he had stumbled upon something
very big on accident.
“Can you, too?”
***
Read the full novel for free at:
https://mary-keeps-writing.neocities.org/
Comments (0)
See all