Chapter 3:

The girl

Magnum Opus


I see my mom, she´s on the corner of my room covering her head while on her knees. She´s sobbing, my father is hitting her with his belt, one, two, three, four, five, six… just how many times is he going to hit her? My brother appears, he´s laughing at my mom while encouraging my father to hit her harder. Then, I see myself, I´m just standing there, next to my father watching as my mom is being beaten repeatedly. Despite seeing that scene, my face is unexpressive it´s like I didn´t care. My heart is beating rapidly, I can´t do anything, I don´t even know how to feel. This scene continues like this for a while, nothing changes, I´m just seeing myself and family doing that all the time.

A nightmare.

That´s why I hate dreaming. I don´t understand what the meaning of this dream is. Should I help my mom? Should I join the beating? Should I enjoy the view and laugh like my brother? Then my mother looks towards my direction, not the one where my body is right next to my father but to me, the spot in my dream from where I´m seeing all this, like if there was two me´s. Her gaze is not like the one I remember from her from when she was alive, this gaze is calm, charming and always finishes with a smile. A huge contrast to what her personality was, that´s why every time I dream about this I´m terrified. How can she be sobbing and then smile at my direction like nothing.

I wake up.

I see the girl looking at me with a preoccupied expression.

“Are you okay? You were making weird sounds.” She asked.

“Yes… I´m okay, it was just a nightmare.”

After saying that, the girl stays in silence then looks away and pats me on the shoulder.

“There, there.” She says while patting me.

I look at her in confusion. When she notices that, she stops and turns away.

She´s weird, probably more than I expected. Everybody says that she is troublesome, but from what I´ve seen so far she´s just a weird girl. Yes, she´s direct and intense, but then she acts kind or at least it seems she tries with an unexpressive face. Does she even understand what she does? Anyway, what´s her name?

“What´s your name?” I said to her while she looks at her television.

“Hope.”

“Hope? That´s a pretty name in my opinion.” I said that with a smile, who would have thought a girl like this was named Hope.

“Mmmm.” She replies without looking back.

“My name is John.” I said expecting her to look at me.

“Yes, I know.” She coldly replies.

“How do you know my name?”

“It was in your school’s ID.”

“Ah...” I let out a faint laugh. I was waiting for a different answer. How arrogant of me to expect something else. However, that means she helped me without knowing my name this whole time and also she says that she will protect me. Maybe she is really going to blackmail my family, but unfortunately I doubt my father will agree to something like that. He may be my father but he carries no interest in those who are not confirmed or serves him. Anyways, I´ll continue with her until I can move to a safer place.

“Look” she says.

On the TV, the news show a transmission from the hospital. There are corpses of patients and medical staff surrounding the hospital, the bodies seem to form letters that can only be distinguish from above. I turn to look at Hope, she is unexpressive as always, on the contrary, I´m intrigued. The news then proceeds to shoot from above with a helicopter.

OPUS 2.

It seems, killing me was Opus 1, well, they obviously failed on that one. But, what is the connection in killing me and then murdering hundreds of people at the hospital, is the tuxedo guy trying to kill everybody connected to me even if the connection is the most minimum?

I don´t get it.

“What a sad new. This event cannot be free of punish.” Said the newscaster.

“It was horrible, the man was around six feet, he was wearing a tuxedo and a mask. He murdered everyone with a knife…” The man takes a pause to sob. “He ended up covered in blood, me and the rest hid to avoid getting killed.” The man takes a pause. “It took him around twenty minutes to order the bodies, every now and then he killed everyone who tried to escape. We tried to call the police but the electricity power went out somehow.”

Hopefully the news helps to encourage the police to look for the tuxedo guy. And maybe, the police will try to look for me now that it is public. After all, back in the school it was written with my blood Opus 1. I smile in excitement.

I turn to look at Hope. She turns the TV off after the transmission finishes, then stands up.

“I´ll take a shower. Do whatever you want, just don´t try to leave this place. It´s dangerous to go out at this hour.”

“Wait, what are going to do now? Shall we go to the police station?”. I asked almost yelling.

“I don´t know. For now, we wait.” She said and then shut the bathroom´s door.

I laid down on the couch lost in thought. What should I do know? Is this place safe? Can I trust in her? Should I escape while she´s taking a bath? I snap back to reality after hearing the shower. I think I´ll go.

I stand up and look for the motorcycle´s keys. I found them. I think I should try to look for something to defend myself in case someone approaches me or if she finds out and chases me. I looked around and the only thing I find are kitchen knives and cutters. I took a kitchen knife and carefully proceed to leave this place. Her bedroom is open, the moonlight slips through the windows´ curtains. My curiosity raises. Should I take a look before I go? But why should I enter? Is there anything interesting about her despite the fact she´s a weird girl? The wind blows lifting the curtains, the moonlight bathes the room. Newspapers. There are newspapers all over the place. I can´t control myself. I turn on the bedroom´s lights.

There are photos of the mafia accompanying the newspapers cuts pasted on the walls. The principal. The school´s principal who had passed away a few months ago is on every single one of the walls. I see something similar to a family album. I opened it. There are tons of photos of a woman who seems to be Hope´s mom, her mom is with the principal. To my surprise, the principal and her mom are alongside people who seem to be mafia members. Was the principal a mafia member all this time and nobody knew? Is the principal her father?

“If you wanted to sleep more, you could have told me so that you can rest on the couch.” Hope says with a calm voice.

I am an idiot; I was so immersed on this that I lost track of time. I turned back to see her. She´s only wearing a towel. At this moment I realized how pretty she really is, she´s around six feet similar to me, short haired, slim yet tone figure, broad hips, good sized breast and pale skin.

I´m speechless.

“This is my mother´s bedroom. If you want, you can sleep in here.” She turns and walks out of the room.

What? Isn´t she angry? How can she allow me to sleep here? No matter how you see it, the information in this room is too private, how can she not be worry about me finding out about this?

“Where is your mom? Isn´t she going to sleep here?” I asked, trying to hide my nervousness.

She stops before leaving the room. “Don´t worry about that, she died a long ago.”

What?...