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Chico doesn’t bother with knocking on Arthur’s door. He simply swings it open and announces, quite plainly, “I think I’m being stalked?” And, after a beat of thought, adds on; “Dante said to talk to you.”
Arthur is halfway bent over his desk, a palm resting over a splayed array of open manila folders and blurry pictures.
He takes a deep breath in and exhales it slowly, bowing his head.
Chico can count how many times he’s talked to Arthur on one hand and he knows for certain that Arthur has been exasperated with him in every single one of them. It’s getting harder to tell if that’s his fault or the fault of his position.
Standing straight, he beckons him with a wave; “Come in. And shut the door.”
Chico steps in, dragging the door shut behind him, “I tried to talk to Dante first.” He says, words edging on a bit too defensive.
Apparently him and Lírio are Dante’s problem and his agents— And while Dante always combats this by asking him why they’re only his agents when they need something— Generally, issues pertaining to acclimation are to be directed to Dante first.
Arthur charitably ignores him, “You’re being stalked? By who? An occultist?” He does a quick scan of Chico’s form, as if eyeing up the probability that this is another long-winded joke.
Chico shrugs, “I dunno.”
”…You don’t know?”
“Christ, man— Aren’t you the main guy of the weird shit happens group?”
“Veríssimo of Ordem Realitas.” Arthur corrects with a grunt, “And I’m not. Just– You’re not giving me a lot to work with.”
Chico huffs, tucking his hands into his pockets, “That’s because I don’t know anything about it. If I knew I’d— Well, I’d try and stop being stalked. But I don’t even know that I’m being stalked, man, that’s the thing !”
Arthur’s face twists, shifting through several expressions before landing on plain confusion . “What ?”
Chico runs a hand down his face. Amusingly, his expression is very similar to Dante’s. On the other hand, it means right off the bat that Arthur will know as little about this as Dante did.
“Can I…?” His eyes flick between the desk and Arthur.
Wordless, Arthur gestures to the chair in front of him, reclining back into his own.
“Apparently I’ve been… calling people.” Chico huffs, dropping like a stone into the cushioned seat, “I’ve been calling Dante apparently every day this week. Like, at 2 AM!”
“Just Dante?”
“I think so,” Chico says, face furrowed, “I haven’t asked around.” It’s embarrassing enough to have someone sit him down to say he has to stop calling them– He hardly wants to air out that dirty laundry to other people if it’s not necessary.
Arthur weaves his fingers together in front of him, “Continue.”
“Usually he’s missed them because he’s sleeping, but he noticed a couple nights ago and stayed up to answer. A- Apparently,” And Chico stresses the word, puts the strain of his anxieties all on the bet that Dante is a filthy liar, “I told him someone was watching me.”
Arthur’s frown deepens, “Through your windows? A crack in the door—?”
Chico waves the notion off.
No, if only. Maybe he could’ve passed it off as an illusion that way, a bad dream. Sleep paralysis, maybe.
“Through the television screen. The radios, the phones— I don’t know. I don’t remember doing it, but I’d said the static on the screens were watching me. That it told me I was in danger.”
Dante had looked… uncertain, when he said it. Puzzled. Everything else he’d said to Chico came packaged with the careful cadence of a doctor, softened with bedside manner and a gentle pinch to his brow.
But Chico’s words—reflected through Dante’s recounting— distracted him. Like he’d chewed the memory over in his head until dawn. And if the dark circles under his eyes meant anything; He did.
“And it… it makes sense, you know?” Chico shifts uncomfortably, lowering his voice, “I’ve been feeling something when I wake up. Lírio has too. Eyes on the back of my neck, that weird… weird prickly feeling. Sometimes I wake up scared and I don’t know why , I just thought it was nightmares.”
Marcela had said that’d be normal for a while. While the Other Side could make him inhuman enough to walk again, talk again, after years of comatose stillness— It would never attend to his mind with anything other than pure vitriol.
So instead of puzzling out why he awoke in blankets of sweat and adrenaline, he would crawl into Lírio’s bed until they had no reason for Chico to sleep anywhere but.
Arthur reaches a hand out, eyes locked onto him, “Breathe. I believe you. I thought, maybe–” It drops back to the desk, drumming out a quick, nervous, beat, “It’s something I’ve encountered before. Dante was right to send you my way.”
Chico can hear the oncoming however before Arthur even mouths it; “It’s not the same, though, is it?”
He sighs. “No. It’s not. The closest experience to something like this would be the mission at TV Varminho, and that… Well, you’re familiar already.”
The clock hanging on the wall between them seems to tick at a volume louder than Chico’s own heart. He scrutinizes the lines of his palm, rubbing over them with a thumb, “You don’t think he’s back, do you?”
Arthur winces, “I don’t know. When things– monsters, the paranormal– die here, they only return back to the Other Side. If the membrane is thin enough, they can simply return once more. And that’s if they die .”
Apparently, in the many years since Os Quatro had been sealed away, Ordo Realitas has gotten no more information about that thing that attacked them, that took Guizo, then the four of them had discovered back in 1997.
(Chico had always wondered if his mentor’s ravings about splitting from his previous organization had been an exaggeration. Nowadays, he sometimes thinks Morato had been the smartest of them all to put as much distance between himself and the Order as humanly possible. Clearly information gathering had been much quicker that way.)
It hadn’t shown up since, according to Arthur’s records. But both Chico and Lírio were well acquainted with how it could change and cloak someone’s memory.
He thinks so, at least. Chico’s not… quite sure how he knows.
Maybe from… Ah, yes, because Alberta and Adágio. Right. He rubs his temple and smooths away the tick tick tick of a migraine building against his skull. Chico really isn’t getting enough sleep, it seems.
“Talk to Samuel,” Arthur says, brow furrowed in thought, “See if he can run some tests on your phone. It doesn’t sound too dissimilar to something the Host would pull, and that’s a far more well-known monster to us all. Maybe C.R.I.S can ping something from it.”
Chico nods, patting the imprint of his phone in his pocket, “Alright. I’ll give it a shot. Thank you.”
Arthur stands, and Chico rises in lockstep, “If anything else develops from this, let me know. If the phone calls get more frequent, if you start to see things– Tell me.”
“After I talk to Dante?” Chico asks.
“No.” Arthur says, tugging open a drawer to start shuffling his folders into, “From now on, you tell me about this first.”
Something deep in Chico’s stomach squirms unpleasantly. He supposes it really is that serious. He had wanted Arthur to hear him out, but–
“Right.” Chico mumbles, backing to the door, “I will.”
His palm is coated with a thin layer of sweat when he pulls the door shut behind him.
Samuel groans before Chico even finishes pulling out his phone.
“I already did a clean sweep of Dante’s phone,” He complains, “You’re telling me I need to do yours too?”
In his defense, it’s nearing the end of the most active hours for Ordem agents– And definitely rounding out the shift he takes monitoring the tech while the other members of the research team rest their eyes and sleep.
Chico shrugs, “If you want to tell me how to do it, I can try myself.” He’s not used to being out of the loop with tech. He’s been meaning to crack open a book on it, maybe take a few new machines apart to see how they tick, but that takes time and money. Everything’s so much more expensive. If he fucks it up now, he won’t be able to afford repairing it.
Samuel purses his lips in thought, “Hm. Only if you’re down to sit and listen to me rant about inefficient design, then yes.” He jokes.
Actually , that sounds pretty interesting. Maybe he should’ve talked to Samuel before, “Count me in.”
Samuel eyes his phone, swiping it from his hand, “You’ve convinced me. I’ll do it, but I’m taking you up on that offer later. Dante just awkwardly stares at me until I tell him it’s okay to leave.”
Chico snorts. Yeah. He’s met a couple people like that in his time.
Samuel’s hands become a blur of movement. He tugs cords out of their curled up coils and plugs one after another into his phone— Adapters and chargers and transmitters all labelled with short hand phrases that remind Chico of his van in its heyday.
He’s only short of a few seconds running a sweeping program from Chico’s phone to his wide monitor screen when the whole device— Samuel’s monitor included— Blink to darkness and a loud thunderous clap of static.
Samuel curses, hands yanking away from the keyboard. When he bends away, Chico bends in.
Green lights up the screens. Images, symbols, colors— A firework display of information assault Chico’s eyes.
Faces, names, pictures; All of them leeching out of the screen with their fuzzing fingers towards him.
He can’t understand a single word yet the understanding comes to him as easy as breathing.
Important. You ? You. Pain.
Chico’s head pounds, that earlier ice pick migraine drumming a beat behind his eyes louder than any concert, than any music or engine or—
Someone. Arrive. Me. Chosen.
Coming. Many. Pain . You. Stay. Stay.
Pain. Many. Many. Many . Important. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain—
As soon as it comes, it vanishes. And at the same time, so do all the lights. Chico thankfully has enough awareness to know where the trashcan is, because he vomits directly into it.
"Holy shit!" Samuel shouts, his chair wheeling away from him in the sudden clamber to his feet, "Chico--!" The lights shutter back to life, the hum of electronics kicking into motion starting to clutter his ears once more.
Chico groans. His head spins, the viscous liquid of his brain matter swaying around the teacup of his skull, "Bad. Oh, god, that was bad."
Samuel barks out an incredulous laugh, "No shit!" He sweeps a hand under Chico's bicep, "You alright? I can call Marcela."
Chico waves him off, "The phone. What bullshit was that?" His voice echoes off the tin can, weak and blanched to his own ears. When he receives no immediate reply, he twists to look back at Samuel.
Chico's starting to grow tired of seeing the same puzzled expression on every expert that's meant to know the answers.
"I don't know." Samuel admits, worrying his lip between his teeth. He's still holding onto Chico, though he loosens his grip to peer up at his monitor, "Everything just went belly-up. I couldn't see anything on my screen, it was blue screening--"
"No it wasn't?" Chico winces away from the nauseating sight in the hugged trash can. Blue-screened? It was hardly blue, or absent of visual noise, "There was symbols, images--" He cuts himself off before he even finishes talking. He pinches his brow.
Again and again and again. Fuck the Order, fuck their knowledge-- Right now, Chico is the expert. He's the one with the fucking van. He knows what this is, can taste the static fuzz on his tongue like the scent of blood for a hound.
He's back. He's here.
Samuel's resting palm gives him a squeeze, "Hey, man, talk to me-- What do you mean there was symbols?"
Chico shakes his head, "Calisto--" The name makes Samuel flinch, "His things. His research . Are they-- Are they anywhere in your archives? Stored on a drive or a floppy--?" He staggers to his feet, grimacing at the trashcan.
Samuel lets out a long whistle, "Maybe. Some things got lost over the ages, some things I'm just not allowed to look at. Depends."
"Can I try?"
Samuel gives him a long, uncertain, look. He looks over the monitors, the cords, and unplugs Chico's phone. "Listen, man, I don't know what you're dealing with, but the last time our stuff got hijacked like that, people died for it. I need to run some hardcore
scans on our gear to make sure nothing got into it from your phone-- You should focus on that."
He tosses Chico his phone.
"Wait-- Wait- Wait-!" Chico bolts to his side as Samuel begins to slide away, "What about just-- Cafe Pizzeria. There was a secret hideout there, Calisto had stored a bunch of information in it. I don't think it ever left, can you... check? If you have it?"
Samuel bites the inside of his cheek, looking Chico up and down.
"...Alright. A search won't hurt. But after this, I seriously have to shut down the system for an hour. If Letícia comes in for her overnight and we've been hacked again, she'll flay me alive."
Chico nods feverishly.
Samuel pushes off his heels and the chair wheels over to another keyboard. In a matter of seconds, a plethora of databases are sprung to life on the screen. Each search bar has the same three lines of reference code; Calisto. Cafe. Pizzeria.
The programs flash through what seems to be thousands of gigabytes of data in seconds, newspaper clippings and websites and videos, blinking past. Chico has to glance away before the nausea starts regrowing in his gut once more.
"There's a few, but they all seem to... Nah, they all point back to this one entry." Samuel collapses back in his seat, frown inset on his face.
Blown up on screen is an older article, probably just at the cusp of the new decade in the 2010's.
"Closed." Samuel reads out, expression grim, "If we had any of that data, it would've showed up. I think you're out of luck, Chico. Chances are the place has been looted or bulldozed, especially that far out in Minas Gerais."
He runs a clammy palm down his face, "I don't feel like I've had much of it recently." The symbols. The translations-- Calisto was the only one who understood them to their full extent. He was the language expert among them, able to read and understand
those... images.
The same ones that'd flashed before Chico's eyes when his phone was plugged into the Order's monitors.
It'd beckoned him, warned him, maybe, if Chico could presume so far. He understood the words without knowing their shape, but he knows if he could get his hands on the actual papers Calisto had pinned up on the wall…
He'd wanted so badly to leave this all behind him. Every piece of it made his head hurt. Every memory, a choking vice on his throat.
Something in him, primal and small, told him that his fear of it was not only real, but responsible, and Chico still can't shake it even months after awakening in the 21st century.
Well. It's not his fault his past seems to be coming back to haunt him. At least now, he'll have an excuse to ignore the warning signs.
"Alright... Alright, thank you, Sam."
Samuel eyes him from the corner of his vision, "...You got that look about you. You're about to do something stupid."
Chico jolts, "Wh-- Hey!"
"Anything for answers. Everyone here has that drive. We all wanna understand." Samuel presses a button on the keyboard and suddenly a printer springs to life, spitting out lines of inked directions. He pulls it off the tray and hands it to Chico with a smile, "Ordem
agents are all the same." As Chico reaches for the paper, Samuel pulls it slightly away, "Stay safe out there."
Chico snatches it from him, "You know, I'm technically in my 50s." He doesn't need someone to look out for him like this.
Samuel flicks a chip crumb at him, "Yeah. You look it." And before Chico can jab back, he tacks on, "Make sure you come back so we can do some tech lessons."
His insults deflates to a defeated, but bemused, sigh. "It's a promise."
“You can’t just skip dinner!”
Lírio’s voice booms through the phone. Even on speaker, beside Chico on the passenger side, it’s loud enough to make him wince.
“Sorry, I’m gonna be late, Lírio, I don’t know what to tell you.”
“I made a brisket!”
Chico shrinks into the seat, “You know how these things get. It’s just a bit of recon, okay? Then I’ll be right home.”
Lírio sputters, “Well, okay , at least come pick me up.”
“No, no— Ah , listen—“ Chico taps his fingers along the wheel, trying to ignore the gentle click of his turn signal, “I’ll be fast. I’ve already lost a lot of daylight. If all of this is happening after nightfall, then I need to be quick.”
“If it happens at night then we shouldn’t be alone when it gets dark!”
”That’s why I’m trying to hurry!” Chico scowls, finally zooming through the intersection when the light changes. He’s already hours out into the fields of farmland, but Chico’ll be damned if he makes the mistake of breaking the law because he thinks no one's looking.
The last thing he needs is someone asking why his drivers license says he was born more than 50 years ago. “I’ll be fast. I’ll call you when I’m on my way home, just— save some leftovers for me.”
His headlights catch the fluorescent coloring of a roadside caution sign, surrounded by cones. Chico flicks on his turn indicator; “Lírio, listen, I’ll talk to you later, okay?”
“ Ooh, Chico when you get back I swear to god –!”
Click ! That’s a problem for future Chico.
Gravel crunches under the wheels. Chico starts passing hand over hand with his foot easing on the break. The sun is starting to fall, but the ambient light, plus the beam from his car, gives him a very good picture of what’s befallen Café's Pizzeria.
The building is desolate . It reminds Chico of the many buildings from his past; Torn down and worn by the years, greenery crawling over the brickwork like many tangled fingers reaching towards it’s patina stained glass.
Windows are broken. Weeds sprout within the cracks of concrete. Every inch of the building makes his memories spent here more and more distant. He shuts off the engine and hops out, trying to shake off the chill with a bathing coat of humidity and heat.
It’s been years– decades– But Chico remembers exactly where they all sat, where Calisto entered and introduced himself. He pushes open the door, shoes scuffing over broken shards of glass.
Stepping into Café's Pizzeria and not being hit with the smell of pizza is almost as impactful as seeing the building itself. He tiptoes around mysterious puddles and knocked over tables, trying to push down the warring emotion that grows in his throat.
Quick in, quick out. Chico won’t linger here. He can’t.
He hops over the counter, eyeing the giant stove oven in the other room. It’s pushed aside, lazily hung open and smeared with ash, like it’d been caught in an ages old explosion.
Chico sighs as he meanders to the doorway, running a hand down his face. Samuel was right. The place was robbed. Most everything is likely gone. And he’s kicking himself for it all the way towards the back room. The absent outdoors smell is replaced with something new; Candle smoke.
The back room is more trashed than the pizzeria. It’s bare, stripped of every furniture and detail except for a plethora of papers scattered in a growing, overlapping, circle. Each one, page and inch of floor, is scribbled on in ink and paint, written in a language Chico doesn’t recognize.
Candles, still lit, drip wax down in puddles within each darkened corner.
He shoves his hands in his pockets, frown growing on his lips. The hairs on the back of his neck standing up. He strains his ears.
There’s nothing. Not a single sound. No wind, no birds, no bugs. On the way in, he’d heard a plethora of insects buzzing in the nearby fields.
Now, it was silent.
Slowly, ever so slowly, Chico reaches a hand down towards the gun holstered on his hip. Okay. Time to go–
All at once, his world tips over. Someone tackles his side, jumping out of the exit behind him. His foot kicks out, Morato’s brief trainings ringing through his head– It collides with someone, something, and a table scatters over the checkered tiles.
“ Quick, quick–!” Someone calls, lacing arms under his shoulders and yanking. Chico shouts, clawing and swiping and hitting useless brick as he’s heaved back into the old Order’s office. He just sees flashes through the rush of adrenaline. Hoods, blood-stained bandages and carved tattoos, inked words that he can’t see the end or beginning of.
Chico is small. He is thin, bare bones, and years of– albeit slow– muscle deterioration have made him weaker than he was 50 odd years ago. And, more importantly, when he was weak, he had four other people to depend on to come save him.
Three people. Three?
His head collides with the fractured floorboards of what was once Calisto’s impromptu office. He’s lightheaded, trying to grasp sentences as they float above him.
“ This is easier. We don’t even have to leave the city.”
“He was onto us. We got sloppy, we don’t know who he told about this place–”
“We’ll take the keys and hide the car somewhere far. This place shouldn’t even pop up on their records.” The occultist above him rolls a pair of bright red eyes, “Unless you plan on letting him go…?”
Chico yanks hard at the hands pinning his wrists, “ Get off me! Get off! You fucking–!”
A weathered older man stands near his hip, looking down at him. Through the wrinkles and furrowed brow, he feels the withering glare spearing through him, “Just get it over it. But I won't tolerate your leaping of the chain of command any more.”
The occultist holding his wrists scoffs. “Fine.” And a third, holding his ankles under their knees, pulls a knife from under the tattered edges of their cloak. It’s serrated edges glints dangerously, and the room seems to fill Chico’s nostrils with the scent of copper and rotting blood–
Throughout the years of traveling across Minas Gerais, Chico had grown accustomed to long drives. To the monotony of roads and blurring landscape, and most importantly, to the sensation of going up and down hills in quick succession.
It was still his least favorite part, but it was always fun to look back at the van and see Xande’s face scrunched up, hands pressing over his ears as the pressure change likely filled the inside of his head with the fullness of air.
(He’s not sure how he saw him, though. Chico should’ve been driving. It’s his van after all. Right ?)
Like he’d suddenly dropped down a hill, the insides of Chico’s ears clog, becoming stuffy and full– More than he’d ever felt before. Everything grows dizzy, distorted, his mind reeling back from his head and casting itself out with a jarring tug that feels none too consensual.
He presses his hands over his ears. It’s not until he notices the occultists are doing the same that it dawns on him that they’ve let him go in favor of trying to block out the dreadful ringing and thrumming, pounding, sound of inhuman shout.
Words carve their way into his head, unbidden; She is here.
A scream, and the old bulbs of Cafe’s Pizzeria burst into ozone and glass. Chico coils into a fetal position, scrabbling at the floorboards as the building gets dunked into inky blackness.
His eyes adjust to see only flashes. Sparks of vibrant green that cast light on faces bleeding from anywhere, everywhere– Pouring out of ears and eyes and nose in a fount that never ends, guided out by the lithe gloved hand pressing on a forehead.
Flesh begins to boil where her hand presses against their skin. The air smells of seared skin, of cooked meats and blood– Chico’s stuck, locked in place, watching as that simple gesture sloughs meat off the occultist in thick slices of sinew that slump into mush on the floor.
Steam curls off the puddle left behind in its wake. Boiled from the inside out.
Chico’s back hits a wall and he bites on his palm to keep from shrieking in terror.
“I told you.” A voice– familiar, sweet, empty– “I said to leave it alone.”
The older man scuffles away, Chico can see the impression of his cloak in the dark, “I tried! Please, please– I tried!”
“I know.” Crack. The sickening break of bone splinters the heavy air. Someone else, somewhere else– “I saw.”
A whimper; “ Please, please don’t kill me.”
The scuffle of shoes comes to a stop. “I won’t.” She says, “ You will.”
Chico is grateful for the darkness, in a way. The screams that come from the old man punctuate with gurgles and cries that he’s only heard from the worst of deaths. He hears beat after beat of fist against flesh, wood, something– Like he’s bashing in his own skull.
A hand laces into the collar of his shirt and Chico shrieks, “Wait- Wait !”
The thinnest pinpricks of green look down at Chico from the darkness. He sees the stilted, awkward shadow of coiling wires and tubing coming out of her head, into her shoulders, framing her body like the calligraphy on the frame of a painting.
“Relax,” She says, achingly familiar– enough to make his head hurt so bad it might split in two.
Before Chico can say anything more, he’s tugged over the floor with inhuman strength. His feet scramble underneath him, and he’s allowed to push up to his height, past the still beating and bleeding old man, and the corpses laid beside him.
The girl in front of him, more clear now, eases her grip once they pass the threshold, out into the main floor, towards the entrance. Chico can see his car still sitting there, untouched.
“You’ve never understood.” She begins, and Chico tries to beat past the wall in his head that’s– there’s something there– “ I should’ve expected that my message would be lost on you. The fault lies on me. Them, however, I expect more of.”
“You killed them.” Chico whimpers.
“We die twice in this world,” She says, releasing his shirt, facing away, “We die when we die, and again when people forget us. Isn’t that what Lírio said?”
“ Lírio –?” How does… ?
She turns, and Dara’s flat, expressionless, face turns Chico’s world on it’s head, “A single death is nothing.”
Dara. Dara. Of course– Of course! The puzzle piece slots back into his head, sending him reeling. How could he forget Dara, of course he remembers Dara ! Memories come back in waves. The Pression concert, the van– Dara, Dara, Dara.
“I said you were being followed.” She says, flat.
Chico gags once– twice– and turns his head to throw up. Bile burns his throat, his eyes sting with tears; “I forgot you.” Chico gasps out, “I forgot you for– for so long– how– how could I have…?” His arms curl over his folded stomach.
“You did it just fine before.” Dara comments dryly from aside, “Where is Lírio? You came alone.”
He squeezes his eyes shut. How can she be so cold? Indifferent? The questions come to his tongue and never leave them. If his memory is correct, he’s asked that before and he didn’t like the answer then either.
He staggers back to his full height, listing a hand against the counter. “I wasn’t going to be long, I just needed to check something out–”
“You’re going to get yourself killed.”
“ Obviously I didn’t think there’d be something like that out here or I wouldn’t have come!” He shrieks.
“I warned you. I sent you a message” Dara asks, ignoring him.
Chico’s hands shake. “Your— Your message…?” Oh god, of course, of course, “ Yes! Yes, I did— That was you –”
She lets out a short sigh. “You didn’t understand it, did you?”
Chico stammers, frantic, “Does it matter? Dara! Dara — Where have you—?!”
A street bulb outside pops.
Suddenly, projected over her, bright green and thrumming like a beating, bleeding, heart, the symbols return. He can’t see the origin of the light. He’s not sure there is one.
“ You. Followed. Danger.” The click of a slide, lines of hypnotic code drooling behind her, “I figured it was fair to give you warning. In your dreams. In your waking life. It didn’t seem like either made a difference.”
His sneakers scrape against the linoleum, scuffling through glass; “Dara–” He tries, shaking his head. Fuck the message, fuck the warning, he doesn’t care–!
His step forward is accented by Dara’s single step back, her unblinking gaze unchanged.
“You shouldn’t go out alone. Not while you know what you know. You are in an unfamiliar world now, Chico, and you should be treating it like one. Things have changed, and will continue to. You need to change with it to survive or get swept away.” She shoves
her hands in her pockets, “And it’s in both mine and your best interest that you survive.”
“Is that what you’re calling this?” Chico gestures with a nod towards her, teeth grit, “ Change to survive? Jesus Christ, Dara , what happened to you? Where have you been? ” His voice chokes with unbidden emotion; “ I missed you. ”
This– Her– has been the emptiness in his chest. The absence, the skipped song on a record, the static on his tapes. Dara has been gone and he felt that disappearance like the gummy abscess of a yanked tooth.
She regards him with a head tilt. The flared ‘ears’ of her headband tip with her. Dara shrugs. “Around.”
Chico waits a handful of seconds before he realizes, no, that’s it . Dara isn’t going to add anything else.
“ Dara. ” He rasps.
Not even a single twitch of a shifting expression mars her face.
“Is that it? That’s everything? ” Chico blurts, “Dara, what’s going on? How did I forget you again–?”
“You ask a lot of questions for someone who understands the consequences of knowing .” Dara quips.
“But you’re alive, you’re real, you–” Chico shakes his head, “We have to tell Lírio.” He was heartbroken over Dara’s sudden change of heart in the Television Station– He’ll be so happy to see her again, even changed, though–
He chews at his lip, “I can explain this to Dante, he’ll get it. Dara, they’re good people. They’ll understand–”
“You always say that.” Dara cuts in, leaning back against a booth.
Chico tries to ignore the itching discomfort that comes with knowing they’ve… probably had this conversation before. They probably had it this week. He just… forgot.
“But it’s because it’s true,” He affirms, palms spread, “Whatever this is, whatever happened, we can–”
“Fix it together.” Dara finishes for him, drawling, “Make us a family again. Figure out what’s wrong with me.” She counts out the phrases on her lithe, long, fingers, grayed at the tips and curved with a claw.
Her arm falls back to her side. “I’ve heard it before.”
His shoulders slump, “Then why…?”
“Because this is better.” She hisses, eyes narrowed, “Which is what you always fail to understand.”
–“ Something bigger. Better. How could anything be better than this?”--
“Dara, this isn’t worth your life.” Chico swallows thickly, “Please, just… get in the car with me. Let’s go home .”
Her stature tightens. It vibrates with unknowing energy, the flashing waves of green spooling around her. “You don’t get it.” She says, “You never do. I’m not trapped, Chico. I’m not stuck. I’m more free than I’ve ever been before, I know more than you or I
could’ve ever imagined!” She laughs, carding her fingers through her bangs.
Dara shakes her head, “You always do this. Pretend you know what’s best.”
Chico balks, “That’s not true.”
“Then understand, Chico, that I’m doing this for everyone . What you don’t know will kill you. The bell, Tenbebris, it’s a unity that’ll destroy all the barriers between us. You will never forget me again, no one will. There’ll be no second death. There’ll be no death at all. ”
A crooked smile grows on her face, “Doesn’t that sound nicer?”
His stomach broils, “I don’t care about unity!” Chico exclaims, “I want my friend back!”
A feeling of deja-vu comes over him, washed with a thin layer of sweat. He’s done this before. He’s already made this plea, once, twice– Five? Six times?
Dara comes to him at night and offers an end to separation. And every time, Chico tells her that he wants her to come home. And every time–
Dara casts her eyes away with a sigh. She tosses a hand, “‘Ta. Then you’ve forced my hand once more.” The pressure shifts, eyes glowing an eerie shade brighter and brighter still, “Maybe next time you’ll listen.”
Her hand raises, and Chico runs. He shoulders past the front doors, nearly tripping over debris and glass. Something whizzes past his head, a cable that splits the air inches from his arm. To capture, to harm– He doesn’t know.
Dara wouldn’t hurt me. She wouldn’t.
He slams the car door closed behind him, jamming the keys in the engine— The key chains jingling is the only sound that fills the car. His engine sits dead, the battery sputtering to audible ashes. Fuck, fuck, fuck–
“It’s no use!” Dara’s voice comes through muffled by glass and static, “Did you think you could just walk away from this?”
Without warning, her hand slams against the hood of his car, the piercing green pin dots of her pupils peering through the darkness beyond his windshield. Like the camera flash in the eyes of a nocturnal animal. Wide. Yawning. Consuming.
Dante. He needs to call Dante– He always calls Dante.
“You’ll forget,” Dara says, “You always forget. Can’t you just…make this easy for the both of us?”
Chico’s hands slip along his phone. “Dara— Dara— I don’t know what’s happened to you, okay? But— But we’ll figure it out. We’ll fix it, we’ll be Os Três, just like Guizo wanted—“
”Why?” She asks, “Things are better this way.” Her nail runs a screeching line against his car, sparking friction-made lights that dance around her, “Everything went much smoother the minute you forgot who I was.”
Chico’s hands pause on his phone, face scrunched up in pure misery. He shakes his head, eyes stinging, “That’s not true.” His voice breaks, “You know that’s not true, Dara. You are— You—”
A palm slaps against his window and Chico nearly leaps out of his skin, heart lodging into his throat.
Her face is inches from the glass, breath fogging the pane. Her face is lax, withdrawn of all emotion. What little remains must lie beaten behind her expression, where he can’t see it. It must be.
” I know everything , Chico. No one can lie to me.”
Chico’s jaw sets. Before he can even think, he presses his hand to the spot where Dara’s rests on the glass, hoping the warmth leaks through the pane.
The Dara he met, the young 18-year-old at The Pression concert with an affinity for helping others and a kind heart— No , she wouldn’t approve of this. She wouldn’t want this. The cords that coil out of her skin, the pallor to her complexion— Dara looks like a
dead woman walking.
”I never lied. You are everything to us, our heart, and you mean to world to us all . I meant what I said— I will let you do what you need, it’s your choice, it’s your life. But this isn’t…” His voice cracks, shakes— “This isn’t living, Dara. I don’t even know who you are anymore!”
Her eyes remain unchanged. It’s too dark to tell much of her expression beyond the abnormal gauntness of it. Chico can feel the phone ringing in his hand, buzzing away as the dial tone goes once. Twice. Three—
“Then this should be familiar to you.”
She snaps and a cord, snuck into the underside of the car, wraps tight around his ankle.
Chico’s dreams come in waves. Cars, the rumble of an engine, the sway of his feet, like dangling from a rooftop.
He wakes up slowly, following the tide of the conscious world. His arms are slung around Lírio, grasping him close, still dressed in his street clothes. Damn, he must’ve passed out hard once he got home from….
From… ?
His head gives a weak pang. In the process of scrunching up his face against Lírio’s back, he apparently jostles him just enough to wakeness.
Lírio grunts out something unintelligible, which means Chico slaps his bicep and says; “I’m fine. Go back to sleep.”
Lord knows he’ll already be getting an earful from him later. Chico needs to delay this conversation for as long as he can.
Still, Lírio persists and twists over to face him, eyes still lidded with drowsiness.
“How’d your mission go?” Eventually slips from the grumble of nonsensical sleepy mumbles.
I don’t know.
Chico presses his lips into a thin line. He remembers driving there. He remembers getting attacked. He remembers… getting in his car? Before he can think too hard, he hits a familiar wall.
Oh well. He scrubs his face.
”Fine.” He decides after a beat, “They closed the Café Pizzeria.”
“ What?” Lírio balks, frowning deeply, “That sucks. Makes sense, though. It’s been awhile.”
“How’d you sleep?”
Lírio’s brows furrow for a moment. “Good.” He says, “Actually, I slept really good.”
Chico turns onto his back, resting a palm over his eyes, “Yeah,” He says, though admitting it feels wrong to say, “Me too.”
“Do you think that thing is gone?” Lírio asks.
Chico’s hand rests over his chest, chasing the fleeting feeling of… something. Something that feels heavy, waning, on his heart.
“Maybe.”
“That’s a good thing.” Lírio says, though it sounds more questioning than a statement should be.
Chico’s sigh is long and unbidden. “Yeah.”