Saturday, April 24, 1937.

2047 Hours. 

Underground Tunnels. 

There is a level of doom that brings about an utter calmness. It is beyond resignation, even crossing into the realm of acceptance, that your life is going to end right there and then. The die had been cast, and I drew the losing number. 

What could I do but surrender? 

"So much for the element of surprise," joked Torito, but nobody seemed to react. We were surrounded by all sides. Nowhere to go; nowhere to hide. 

Camarada must have heard something move behind him because he quickly turned around and shot the beast blocking the tunnel behind us right in the eye. The blessed bullets were extremely effective as the beast dropped to the floor with no further sound. 

But just as the beast dropped, a new one took its place. It stood above the other without moving. 

"What the hell?" asked Camarada while pushing against the priest, but nobody answered. 

Only the voice inside my head dared to break the sacred silence. 

"Surrender."

My arms went almost limp from fright. I felt every ounce of energy leave my body just to be replaced by a sepulchral cold. My body wanted to obey the voice. It wanted to be free. It wanted to be one with the beast. 

I wanted an exit. No more pain. No more anxiety. I didn't want to be alive anymore. Every fiber of my being yearned from the freedom that the beast promised. Let the beast fill every hole of my damaged soul with his unending love. I would've dropped the coffin right there and there were it not for another voice speaking me from the back of my head. 

"You did this to me, so you fucking owe me."

It was Lula. Sweet Lula. Tender Lula. 

I didn't live for my sake anymore. My life was not to give to the beast. My life belonged to her, and to her service I surrendered it. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't muster the strength to even try. I made a promise which I intended to follow, whichever the consequences would be. 

That is the worth of a man. If I had to sacrifice my life for her to live, so be it. To die for the greater good is the best way to die. 

But, yet again, we were surrounded. 

"Any brilliant ideas, father?" asked Camarada, not without a hint of malice behind them. 

"One," said the priest. He rose his shining hand above him while grabbing his forearm with his other hand. "Close your eyes."

"What?" said Torito. 

We didn't close our eyes in time. 

The light became incandescent. It was unnatural and hellish. It wasn't an excess of light--it was deeper than that. Every shred of darkness, even the shadows beneath us, were stripped away by the light. My eyes burned with the images of angels and crosses. 

Every sin I ever committed were laid bare by the light and flashed before my eyes in a matter of seconds. Then, they fade to black. 

I was standing in a black void while stark naked. I wasn't cold, nor warm. I couldn't feel my arms, or legs, or even my own skin. I looked at me from beyond myself. Only a bed stood in the middle of the void with a similarly naked person writhing in pain as soft moans and scream filled what the darkness couldn't. 

I saw as my body moved on my own towards the bed. The mass of naked tissue formed a body. It was Camarada, then Torito. It was Tuerto, and it was Lula. Maggots crawled from their eyes and their moans mingled in a cacophony of pain and ecstasy. My hands touched the bedpost which made the wriggling mass to stop. Four voices chimed their sentence in unison, with their four voices being distinct from each other. 

"You have neither cold or hot and as such you are to be spat from the mouth of the Lord."

I was thrown away from the void only to land back in the cave just in time to see the beasts being pulled back into the tunnels as if blown away by a gust of wind. It was as sudden as it was quick, but each beast was washed away by the light. 

And then there was darkness. My eyes were temporarily blinded by the light which made them hard to adjust to the darkness once it disappeared. But my hearing worked just fine enough to hear the priest fall down next to me while screaming his lungs out. 

"Run, now!" yelled Father Maximino. "Father, have mercy!"

I felt the coffin being pulled, and me along with it. My legs were too weak and my eyes too damaged to pull any sort of opposition and followed behind Torito. 

I could only hear the shuffling sounds of boots scraping against the cobblestone and my own ragged breath. My heart pumped wildly as my mind yelled at me to keep moving. I didn't have time to try and assimilate what happened. Even now I couldn't make heads or tails of what Father Maximino made me go through. All I wanted was to obey the command and run as far as possible. 

It didn't occur to me that there were only two sets of footsteps moving in the tunnel.

The more we walked, the more my eyes adjusted to the eternal darkness that permeated my surroundings. 

"Where are we going?" I asked Torito.

"Forwards," he answered. 

"And where is that?" 

"In front of us!" he answered yet again. 

I looked behind us, and aside from the darkness, nobody followed us. And nobody in front. 

"Which tunnel did you take?" I asked. 

"I don't know!"

"What? There were two tunnels. Which one did you take?" 

"The one on the right!" said Torito as we picked up speed. 

"Your right, or my right?" I asked. "You had your back to the tunnels!" 

Torito didn't say anything for a long time. It wasn't until we left the tunnels and reached a round room with old roots hanging from the ceiling that my question was answered. 

"God damn you!" I yelled. "You took us to the wrong path!"

"Oh, I'm sorry for saving you ass," said Torito as he dropped the coffin on the wooden table in the middle of the room. "At least I didn't freeze on the spot with my mouth open to attract flies."

I was going to yell something back to him, but now that my eyes were mostly accustomed to the darkness I was able to see Torito's face. There were tears flowing down his reddened face. 

He caught me staring at him and tried to hide his face, but it was too late. 

"Torito? Are you okay?" I asked. I didn't know then what I knew now, and the fresh memory of his scars was still imprinted on my mind. 

"I'm fine," he said as he tried to clean his tears. 

I would have let him alone at any other time, but this was anything but any other time. I needed him in top shape. 

"Tell me what's wrong," I asked again.

I took two tentative steps towards him before having to dodge one of his punches. 

"Don't come near me!" he yelled. "Don't you dare touch me!" 

I stepped back enough for his fist not to reach me if he tried to swing his bloody fist at me again. He still kept his fist balled and ready to swing at me, but his expression was pained instead of mad. Our eyes locked in a staredown that lasted for more than a minute. His eyes were sad, almost melancholy melancholic. I think it was less a confrontation and more trying to look for sympathy in my eyes--a bit of sanity he could latch on to not to break down. 

But he did just so.

He dropped to the ground and placed his back against the stone table as he curled up in safety. No scream or whimper came from him. 

I knelt next to him to try and nudge him to his senses, careful not to be within striking distance. "Torito, we need to move."

And nothing. 

"We can't stay here; the monsters are going to get us any second now." 

And nothing yet again.

"Don't do this to me now," I pleaded. "Stand up, please."

It only made him curl tighter. 

"Fine, be like that," I said. I wasn't going to stand there like a target and hope for the beasts to find me. I had to get to Camarada and Father Maximino. 

There were only two problems with my plan. One, I couldn't carry the coffin by myself, and second, I didn't have the map to know where I was going. And I had to admit that I forgot which tunnel we came from.

Whether I like it or not, I was stuck with Torito until the bitter end.