“Good idea, my love. I’m not thinking clearly lately. Tell me, how can I help you?” Omar added.

On the other side of the door, they began to call his name—the man they were looking for.

‘Ohhh’ Rebeka clicked her tongue.

“Our friends seem to be getting impatient,” he shouted. “Didn’t you hear how they were fucking me!!!? Don’t bother anymore and go away.”

Omar looked at his girl and cocked his head. He didn’t think the guy in the hallway was going to leave for something as lame as that excuse.

‘Okay...’, Rebeka thought, still excited. ‘It’s a shame to let his semen escape from my loins, but I have no choice but to get up and get to work.’

As if using a sanitary towel, Rebeka put toilet paper over her intimate part before using her pants, which she had just found on the floor next to other clothes. Although the garment was in the middle of a small lake of blood, miraculously it had not stained. The pants looked like a survivor—a castaway floating adrift on a boat.

“What a disgusting smell! How many liters of blood would this disgusting man have to cover almost the whole room?” asked Rebeka, somewhat annoyed by the inconvenience the red liquid brought. “Love, try to find something to cover us—a sheet or something. Wipe at least the blood off your face while I look for something to wipe my feet and figure out what to do to get out of this situation.”

After throwing what was on top of the bed to create a path to walk on, Rebeka made her way to the kitchen, walking on the tips of her toes. She turned on the water faucet and washed her face, chest, and feet, which made it easier to take out some glass she had wedged in and could feel with her fingers. ‘My heart is still beating so fast; I feel no pain, and this all feels like a dream. What a weird feeling. If Omar hasn’t said anything, it’s because maybe he feels the same way I do. It’s crazy that I had sex next to a dead body, in front of a camera and an open window. It’s crazy that I could kill someone and feel that way, say what I said, and have done what I did. I can’t think about it; I just have to get away.’

As soon as Rebeka finished cleaning herself, as much as she could, she asked Omar if he had found anything and asked him to throw the shoes she had brought along with the socks.

After fastening her shoelaces, she took a deep breath in and then out. ‘This feeling of euphoria is wearing off. My wounds hurt already; I may still have glass in my feet, but walking is not a problem.’

Seeing that she could walk with her shoes on over the broken glass and blood, Rebeka didn’t have to follow the pillowy path she had made. With an idea in mind, she grabbed the electric burner before heading back to the room.

“Omar, help me flip the bed mattress over on top of him.”

The guy lay there motionless, his brains scattered on the floor, his head split open, and his neck deformed. Seeing such a scene shocked Rebeka, who quickly turned her head away and tried not to look at the place.

Between them, they turned over the mattress, which they let fall on the corpse.

 The guys who were in the hallway knocked on the door again and threatened to open it by force since they were calling someone who, being dead, did not respond to the answer.

“Aww. What impatient people!” complained Rebeka, after plugging the electric stove into the nearest outlet she could find.

The knocks on the door turned into kicks that sounded with a resounding force, to the point that Omar had a fit of rage, with which he kicked the glass separating the bathroom from the bedroom and broke it into pieces.

After ignoring the erratic behavior of her beloved, Rebeka began to look for her cell phone and, slyly, after closing her laptop, threw it into the bathtub water. She left the bathroom with the other things gathered inside her backpack and stopped to see if the resistance of the electric burner she had placed against the mattress caused the fire she was looking for.

A little smoke appeared above the mattress, then a slight fire, which, without much delay, began to grow and transform into a rising black cloud.

 Pleased with her achievement, Rebeka wrapped herself in the clean sheets her boyfriend had found and, together with him, went in the direction of the balcony, broke through the broken glass, and made contact with the outside world.

“So that’s how you got up here,” she mentioned, happy for her beloved’s achievement. ”

“Buildings need one of these machines to clean the windows; today is my lucky day, to tell you the truth,” said Omar, who, in a fearless and reckless way, jumped to the hanging box and, extending his hands, said, “Come on, jump. It will be all right; I will be with you.”

After seeing the blanket of clouds that separated the sky in two, more than six hundred meters above the ground, Rebeka looked at her boy and, with a pang of remorse in her stomach, thought:

‘That’s much easier said than done. The wind is intimidating and the height terrifying, so much so that it makes me feel insignificant. I have my stomach churning from the reality I am seeing. Jumping and dying becomes the least of my worries right now... Dying....’

 Rebeka stood on the balcony, whose smoke and burning smell were already intensifying to the point of becoming unbearable.

With the sheet covering her like a cloak, her breasts exposed, a pair of pants, and a pair of shoes, she looked up at the stars that made up the sky, the clouds passing below, and Omar’s arms. Between the room of the building, the sky, and her beloved, the brunette stood on the railing with her eyes closed.

The girl held tightly to the sheets that covered her, then took a leap of faith into the open hands of Omar, who was eagerly waiting for her. The boy embraced his girlfriend with all his strength; she was all he had, and if by any chance he lost her, he would not be able to forgive himself. Without allowing the black, toxic smoke that was beginning to billow from the balcony to affect them, Omar operated the controls of the cabin to bring it down, even if it was shuddering.

After climbing down the machine used by the window cleaning services personnel, Rebeka kissed her beloved’s lips with desire and prevented him from controlling the device. In a way, if having sex had made her forget that she had killed someone, kissing would have made her let go of the idea of the idea that she could die.

 ‘If being free is making the decision to create life, so is letting go of life at will’ Rebeka said to herself as she looked at her beloved. ‘My stomach compresses more. Living on fantasies is not good; even if we can escape, reality awaits us. What remains of our future is cruel, my beloved. From being the daughter of a murderer to being accused of murder and having a child, What awaits me is not life, but, as selfish as I am, I made you promise not to leave me.’

The wind beat against the windows of the building, and to the girl’s ears came whispers of words that sounded as cold as they were tentative. After continuing their downward path until the clouds covered everything, the gusts of wind took to the sky the words they brought, as if they were silent along with the young people who passed through the floating cotton giants. Before Rebeka’s eyes, the lights of civilization appeared, along with the sound of the authorities’ vehicles. 

‘In case everything still goes well and we survive, I would have to be a fugitive, and from uniforms, unfortunately, you don’t get very far. Omar, look at me. As innocent as I am, I would end up going to jail for a long time. Don’t keep quiet, and try to read my mind! This is the moment, maybe the only chance.’

With her hands, Rebeka squeezed her beloved’s back.

‘Omar, the wind is calling me now. Just as I came into the world, I can leave... If you don’t want to let me go, come with me. Is there anything more romantic than dying together? I want to tell you this, Omar. I want to talk to you and tell you about my suicide plans, but... it is not my desire to convince you as I always do. If I go on living, I will end up being like my father, the one I hated so much for being what he was. Now I understand that many times, behind a murderer, there is a motive to kill. With my body stained with blood, I realize... As they say, we do not learn from other people’s experiences. After so much time, a saying as old as that still has an effect.’

In the passionate kiss between the two bodies, Omar opened his eyes and saw tears on his beloved’s face, which made him ask:

“Are you okay, my love?”

‘No’ thought Rebeka, who answered with a contradictory smile. ‘Maybe, just maybe, at this moment I regret it because you don’t realize it, Omar!’

"Yes,” she replied, contradicting his thoughts. “Oh?!” After looking up, she decided to change the topic of the conversation. “The flames can come out of the window. They look magnificent, despite being covered by clouds.”

After reaching further down the middle of the building, the wind caressed Rebeka’s face one last time before it stopped blowing. Instead, Omar’s hands held her tightly.

“Rebeka, I won’t leave you,” he cried with a bitter smile.

Rebeka closed her eyes tightly to stop crying, but she couldn’t. The sound of fire alarms echoed inside the building, along with the sirens of the cars of the authorities and the entities fighting the fire.

Like ants, through the only entrance that had now become an exit, the people inside the building ran in panic.

 ‘Ahh, it wasn’t a good idea to come to this place. But what’s the point in regretting it? My beloved’s gaze looks like that of a small child, someone confused because he doesn’t know what he’s saying. I get a lump in my throat, but, once again, I am faced with the same question. Why go on living? No matter how much I ask myself again, I don’t have an answer. Try as I might to be grateful for what I have, I can’t find reasons. I can’t keep quiet. I have to say it; I have to speak up and be honest.”

Shouts could be heard in the distance, leading the crowd among the red, white, blue, and yellow lights that invaded the site.

"Omar,” said Rebeka. “So... why don’t you join me on one last trip? Let’s leave this life together.”

Despite having him in her arms, Rebeka was able to press the appropriate button to stop the descent of the elevator they were riding in.

“We are still at a good height; we just have to jump, and gravity will solve our problems.”

 Omar bit his lips so as not to cry, and without wiping the bitter smile from his face, he looked and hugged his beloved more tightly to continue the descent of the small elevator. He seemed to be looking for what to say—a way to justify so many promises that had remained unfulfilled.

“Everything is going well, my love... I promise to go to the hospital. We can turn ourselves in and say that everything that happened was self-defense. I really love you, and I’m not going to let you go. You asked me up there; we promised with our bodies,” the boy assured. “Besides, I’m afraid that there is nothing beyond death. Let’s spend a little more time together; let’s see your father one last time; let’s say goodbye to our friends; let’s do those things we have left to do together, please.”

Omar’s words made Rebeka’s facial expressions change. In a way, they saved her, since she had him and didn’t need anything else.

‘With plans to live, who thinks about wanting to die, don’t you? It’s a bit chaotic, but he’s all I have; he has me. I love him, and he loves me. Despite everything, no matter how low I fall in this society, he’s all I need to live.’

After thinking about it, Rebeka expressed, “Thank you for cheering me up—the light of my eyes. Now that the blood is running cold, it’s like it’s not me. The churning in my stomach is killing me, and I can’t stop thinking about the face of that guy I killed.”

“It was a traumatic experience, my love; it’s normal to feel that way,” Omar told her.

“You!” A shout caught Rebeka and Omar’s attention, for from the ground, a uniformed man was shouting and signaling. “Get down quickly!”

Before the eyes of a person who cared about the safety of others, the small elevator continued to descend until it stopped on the ground, next to an area with warnings and appropriate security.

“Everything okay!” the uniformed man asked, keeping his distance and ducking his head. Without giving time to let the boys give an answer, the individual continued. “Evacuate the area! It is dangerous to be near the building.”

The man covering his face looked familiar to Rebeka, who, being treated as a victim affected by the fire, did not think much of it and focused on following the evacuation instructions, using the route indicated to them.

After passing through the crowd on the main street, the girl covered herself with a sheet and her beloved, and they set out to get beyond the danger zone in the most discreet way possible. They dodged the other people because their garments had blood on them. Rebeka was naked, and any hint of being involved in the fire could bring them unnecessary trouble.

‘That that uniformed guy didn’t ask anything, that’s impossible,’ thought Rebeka, who thought it was too good a situation to be true. ‘That guy looked familiar—his stature, his chin, his voice—and he just let us go just like that. Could it be that sadness is eating me up inside? It’s squeezing my heart and my stomach too. Even if it doesn’t show, we are still covered by the smell of blood, so much so that it would be wiser to walk home before using any transportation.’

With each passing second, the adrenaline of the moment left, and Rebeka became even more aware of everything that had happened. She even began to have problems walking because of the wounds on her feet, and she tried to lessen the pain with a characteristic limp. She could not stop looking at the ground, and although at first, she labeled her boyfriend as paranoid, no matter how many questions she asked herself to dissociate her mind, she felt regretful and afraid, without understanding or knowing what to do. Added to the fact that she had no one to protect her.

After squeezing the hand of his beloved, Omar felt in control of the situation. He walked ahead with his chest upright and the defiant look of one who had made the best decisions about where to go. Until suddenly, he felt his girl stop.

After standing in place, Rebeka opened her mouth and, taking care not to dirty her boy, vomited what little food she had left in her stomach. 

‘I’ll be the paranoid one now’ thought Rebeka, who didn’t know how to identify between a guilty conscience and the guilt of having killed someone. ‘But, for some reason, I feel like someone is following us... When did the streets become an alley without light?

After taking advantage of wiping herself while bent over discreetly, the brunette looked back, and in the depths of the street, the shadow of a person could be seen sticking his body against the wall so as to hide his presence. The subject was easy to identify, even in the dark, because of the uniform he was wearing; it was the same one who had spoken to her in the elevator and showed her the evacuation route. The one who went to her house and questioned her regarding the missing cell phones, ‘Why would he follow us?” wondered Rebeka, who said to her beloved:   

“Omar, we have a problem.”

Agitated, without stopping to wipe her face or lift her head off the floor, Rebeka heard a dry sound, which for some reason brought back very bad memories, as she had heard it before. One of those moments was when Omar fell backwards and hit his head; the other was a few minutes ago, with the sound the axe made when it hit the man’s head. It was the same dull sound of a skull cracking, which she heard again between the walls of a dead end.

Rebeka didn’t have to raise her eyes. Though she kept staring at the ground with her eyes wide open, after reliving the sensations of a post-traumatic event, she saw Omar’s slumped body fall before her feet.

The hurried footsteps of some men could be heard making their presence known, but none belonged to the authorities, and the guy who was watching her from afar stayed in his place.

“O... mar...” Without even having time to say more or raise her gaze, a dark bag covered Rebeka’s head. The edge of the nylon reached up to her neck, and after being pulled tight by the subject twice her size, it did the work of a noose that strangled her.

 Rebeka moved her hands from one side to the other, making frantic spasms with her nails, trying to scratch someone’s face in order to defend herself, while at the same time trying to relieve the pressure that the bag exerted on her neck. Forced to stand up, she could not even touch the face of her aggressor, and without thinking twice, she was ready to dig her nails into the eyes of the person who was choking her.

Unable to breathe because of the pressure on her neck and the plastic bag that closed on her face every time she expanded her agitated lungs, Rebeka felt the full and complete force of a heavyweight boxer’s punch. The solid knuckles, like hammers, made her crash into the guy behind her and feel her face crack in several places it had not; her nose was displaced, and one of her front teeth had been dislodged, to the point where she could spit it out if she had the chance.

With the metallic taste of blood flooding her palate, on the verge of losing consciousness, and with no sense of direction, Rebeka tried to call out to her beloved, just to see if he was all right, but she couldn’t. She could not. For her, it was impossible for her white knight to remain without doing anything, although the last thing she remembered was seeing him on the ground with his head split and his eyes open, but without seeing anything.

Stunned by the blow, panicked by the tooth she almost swallowed, dazed by the pain, and unable to breathe, Rebeka felt her ability to move vanish. Between lucid intervals, she distinguished voices speaking. Her hands and legs were tied, someone carried her, and she was thrown to the pavement in a crowded place, to the point that in her fall she hit her head on something hard, perhaps an iron. A subject hit her again for no apparent reason, and another one trampled her.

“If she’s not complaining, it’s because she’s still unconscious,” someone said.

‘A vehicle... I’m being kidnapped.’ Rebeka came to that conclusion when she heard the distinct sound of a sliding door closing and the car starting to move.

“Inject her with the drug; anyway, I don’t want any casualties if the authorities stop us.”

‘Omar, Omar, Omar, Omar,’ Rebeka called out to her boyfriend in her thoughts, as she could not speak.

“Whoa! Whoa! Watch out for the merchandise. With that amount of dope, you should see if she still breathes once in a while.”

“Don’t worry, that dose is based on her weight. Besides, not breathing will only cause brain damage, and our boss expressed no objection to that.”

“This is the easiest job of our lives.”

“Yes, thanks to that guy who used the elevator to clean the glass we left installed, we didn’t have to get our hands dirty or mug any cab drivers. I was worried about how we were going to get into that building or her house without leaving much evidence.”

“The authorities surprised me for a moment. I thought they were going to take them into custody when they got off the elevator.”

“I think someone died up there. She has blood on her shoes, and the guy who was with her was not in good condition. Speaking of which, I think you killed him.”

 “Yes. Did you see it? I hit him with all my might, to be honest with you. If he didn’t lose his life, at least I erased all the ideas from his hard drive.”

Under the effect of the drug that had been administered to him, Rebeka stopped listening to the conversation going on around him and what was happening.

‘Oh, Omar, it can’t be true; you promised you were never going to leave me. The world is spinning. I can’t breathe properly. At least, I hope you’re all right.’

‘There are worse things than death...’ thought Rebeka, with no gleam in her eye. ‘Now, I’m floating in the air, a rope holding me still, face down. I can’t do anything; just breathe. My tongue was cut out, as were my hands and feet. I have one eye, one lung, one kidney, and half of my liver left. I was like this when I woke up and heard them talking. It could have been worse; at least I went through the operations while unconscious. Now, all that’s left is the pain of loss.’

Rebeka’s face was bandaged; her arms reached to her elbows and her legs to her knees; she was tied at the torso by a rope that suspended her from the ground.

‘I don’t know how much time has passed already. Hanging, not even able to make contact with the ground.’

Rebeka began to hum as she bobbed her head; in that way, a slight draft caressed her naked body, and it felt good.

‘It will probably be quite a while before someone comes back to clean me or feed me; not that I can chew or swallow, I understand they feed me through my stomach and hydrate me with intravenous fluids. I have wires on my back, so I can’t rip off what I’m wearing. The last time I tried that, something nasty happened. That person beat me nearly unconscious and then, with a rough rag, wiped me down as if I had little patience or was in a hurry. Giving me electroshocks in my head was the punishment. I have an eight-centimeter hole in my skull to monitor my brain activity. He says, I came back to consciousness when they were drilling the hole. I must think as much as I can, not to lose the answers. Remember everything; if I get out of this, they’ll pay for it, I swear.’

Rebeka had plenty of time to think, and there was no one in the place to disturb her. The room consisted of a ceiling, solid walls, and no windows, and apart from the wires hanging from the ceiling, it was empty. But there came a time when, after so much thinking, her mind began to fill in the gaps. From time to time, she could smell the glorious aroma of baking bread, her mother’s voice, her father’s laughter, her boyfriend’s compliments, and her friends’ joking jokes.

In front of her loved ones, she was naked, but she felt no shame. Although she could not speak, move her body, or lift her head, among the illusions of the delirious world, she felt comfortable and only regretted not having her arms to hug those she loved or feet to walk in the direction where she was called.

  Rocking and humming, she remained immersed in a half-sleep, from which she woke up again and again. But every time she did, she saw everything dark and felt pain, and it was like a nightmare. Eventually, sleeping became living, and living became sleeping. While awake, she considered everything a bad dream, in which she was preoccupied with a confused reality devoid of hope, which forced her to cooperate with whatever was asked of her at the moment, in which she needed to lose her fear in order to remain calm. While sleeping, she returned to the paradise of a perfect life.

  Behind the panes of glass, subjects passed by with slats and sheets to fill. From time to time, they entered the room and looked with serious expressions at the numbers and the development of the experiment. Although changes were not found right away, these individuals could perceive a considerable speed in the wound healing process.

"Tomorrow, they can let it walk on the floor. If the wounds reopen, abort the procedure.”

The words of one individual caused Rebeka to awaken from her slumber, prompting her to ask herself.

‘If tomorrow is tomorrow, then is today today? In this nightmare, the days are passing.’

Rebeka heard the group of individuals leave, along with the sound of a door being closed. Alone once again, as the hours passed, she drifted back into her reality, where she had no reason to cry, regret, or wonder why on earth something like that could happen to her.

If it weren’t because she still had the privilege of dreaming of her beloved and believing that he was out there waiting for her arrival or looking for her, Rebeka would rather die than stop consciously breathing. As she lay awake, she felt enormous desires to be with him—to go out, to fight, to defend herself, or even to beg the kidnappers for a chance to see Omar one last time and to know that he was okay.

After she stopped being suspended by the rope that tied her around her waist, Rebeka touched the ground for the first time in a long time. She didn’t do it directly with her absent hands or legs, but fell onto a rag. She wasn’t too curious about what it felt like to move around the place like a dog. In a way, getting up on her four limbs was painful for her, as the operations were not yet fully healed.

 Rebeka’s new limbs did not bleed, and although they hurt, the other wounds were almost completely healed.

When she was awake and the subjects with serious faces and white uniforms came, Rebeka could not find out about the investigations since, as she could not speak, no one, not even the gentlest soul in the facility, would be able to answer her question. So, when the subjects came into the room to touch her with sharp objects and give her strange food, she had to be content with listening from time to time and trying to find meaning in the sighs, the looks, and the faces they made because they didn’t even speak.

Later, when she had gotten used to crawling, although she didn’t do it quite right, she would go to the door along with the blanket she had on the floor, just to lie there and maybe be able to hear something.

“We haven’t tested the immortality factors yet, but the regeneration is two percent faster than that of an average human,” said someone who was apparently reading the tablet outside the door. That happened when Rebeka showed that her wounds stopped bleeding, while, in the opposite case, when she was injected with diseases, little by little, she heard more often one and the same phrase, which sounded disappointed: ‘Inconclusive results.’

‘I keep coughing, my body gets hot, I have chills, and I keep dropping snot. I also feel sick to my stomach. But in this dream world, when I walk with my limbs absent, it doesn’t hurt like before. Maybe I’m losing sensation?’ Rebeka thought,, cringing and shivering from the fever she felt.

Successively, and with eyes full of happy tears, she returned to her reality. The one where her boyfriend was telling her, ‘Don’t worry, love, I’m here. I promised never to leave you, didn’t I?’ In the dream, she devoured and savored the food her beloved mother had so eagerly prepared. After eating to her heart’s content, she would run to her room to lie lazily on the bed among all her dolls, read books, and watch her boy play on the computer.

After returning to her nightmare, a product of the minor choking attacks brought on by her medical condition, Rebeka did not even deign to open her remaining eye. She heard the sound of a bucket being opened with a plastic lid and its contents pouring over her, even though she was cold. Unable to move, she felt her blanket being stripped from her.

  Sick, burning with fever, and being tormented by chills, weakness, and fatigue between unconscious intervals, Rebeka listened to some comments coming from those who came to watch. On the verge of death, she heard voices again and again, saw colored lights, and stopped feeling. She heard discussions about what the next experiment would be and how the test subject should behave, and they said, “Experimental subject with electrodes on the brain, regained consciousness, and in her own way, asked on her knees to end her life. The procedure lasted a quarter of an hour, death was clinically confirmed, and her flesh still does not decompose, although the metabolism stopped working. The cells of her body are not being replaced and are still not decomposing, despite the fact that several organs are missing. She is expected to return to life in three days.”

‘Continue in this nightmare?’ wondered Rebeka tearfully after hearing the subjects leave. ‘No thanks; I’ve had enough.’

 The lights and the lack of sensation were the only pleasing things Rebeka felt. She believed that dying in her nightmare would result in being left with nothing in her reality. But her worries disappeared when her family did everything they could to make her forget about the nightmare she had woken up with. After all, the business they had was going well; almost overnight, the customers were increasing to smell how soe was cooked. The house had been expanded, two cute little dogs were also part of the family, and making money wasn’t the only thing they had to worry about. The business was closing for a month, so they could all pack their bags and go on a trip they had, naturally, been looking forward to for a long time. With her beloved by her side, friends, and family, she was going to see the world. People treated her well, and she didn’t mind giving everything she had to some homeless people. The good times came again and again, with more joy than before. Trips into space, landings on the moon, and seeing the Earth from another perspective. In his world, Rebeka discovered a great passion for music. Playing the violin for the first time made her feel fulfilled, especially when she started playing it in concerts. Her music was moving, and people kept thanking her for her talent.

  As if she had swallowed some salt water in the middle of the sea, Rebeka woke up in her nightmare, where everything was darkness, and she heard a voice asking her:

“Where do we start?”

Amidst the sounds of someone organizing, one by one, a group of objects, the person speaking to him said:

“By cleaning the skin.”

With a sponge and a bucket of water, Rebeka felt him wiping her body as she lay on the floor.

‘By what did he mean, aren’t they humans?' She wondered after feeling the result of urinating and defecating in the same place. ‘I have lost all the privileges of being a human being. Nothing I taste has any flavor, not even the ground. Without a tongue, everything is tasteless. In this nightmare, I have no tears remaining in my eyes, but I hear them.’

“The multi-organ dysfunction syndrome is severe; the calculations on how many cells remained intact after death were wrong once again.”

After listening to the subject talk, Rebeka learned a little more about what was going on with his body, which was not feeling very well. The individual often repeated his explanations to whoever followed him, as if he wanted to teach someone who was starting a new job, and because the listener did not seem to understand everything at the first time.

After pretending to be dead, Rebeka tried to feel less enthusiastic about what she was hearing. She was glad for the unexpected explanation of what was happening—of everything that had been done to her and the reasons for it. The truth was that, with that information, the nightmare she was living had good reasons. However, these arguments applied to her current condition and situation but did not answer something she had always wanted to know. How was... he... doing? 

 Once the subjects left, Rebeka remained lying down after understanding something that tore at her heart. She couldn’t sleep, which meant not being able to wake up from her nightmare. Unable to exist in two worlds at once, she wondered: how could she compensate by continuing to live, even though she knew she was another specimen of a human experiment to achieve immortality?

Motionless, trying not to breathe, she could not get out of the nightmare, which began to scare her. If she could not dream, go home, meet the people she loved, and look out the window into the distance, she felt that she would remember the things she had experienced less and less clearly. Her name, her family, her aspirations.

‘Who is he?’ She came to wonder. ‘Bad smell... liquids falling on the floor, an unstable stream of water. The sound is splashing sideways; I’m hanging. I can’t wake up; I can’t remember.’

Rebeka tried to speak, barely aware that there were people taking their time to watch her. They murmured in response but did not address the moans she made.

‘If I can’t wake up, I’d like to die. ‘I still have him. Who is he?’ wondered Rebeka.  ‘My beloved... What was your name? Who are you? Why can’t I speak? Why can’t I hate you?’

“Rebeka”

‘Om...ar?’

“What are you thinking?”

‘It was my mistake to demand so much of you and keep waiting for more. Truly, I was blissful and rich when I was with you. I want to rest eternally, so you don’t have to worry about coming back to me. Now, on the edge of oblivion and life, I understand that I have been a burden to you, something meaningless. You had a life, but I brought you here with me. Use this opportunity. Live on, for you and for me. Bury me in your memories.’

“If you stop believing in me, in you, in living, then what do you have left if you can’t die?”

‘My memories, my suffering.’

“It’s not your fault that life ended like this; you can’t give up hope. You can’t stop remembering that I was going to protect you no matter what. You can’t stop believing. We’re deep in this together, and it’s all good. My life wasn’t all right, and you saved me from it. Let me be the one to save you, to come and get you, Rebeka.”

‘O...mar...’

“Listen to the cry of silence; don’t think about the moment; let hell become your heaven. I have thought that maybe our lives will not return to what they used to be. It’s quite possible that we won’t even be able to experience the boredom of routine once again, Rebeka. Maybe it’s selfish of me, but I really want it to be you who comes to save me. So far away and so close, I don’t think it wouldn’t hurt if you got some rest. Be strong, my beloved queen.”