Novels2Search
Parallel Curses [Supernatural/Horror]
Chapter 29 - Elena // Total Blackout Part 2

Chapter 29 - Elena // Total Blackout Part 2

76°00'08.2"S 53°43'31.2"E - Nuevo Trujillo, Spanish Antarctic Colonies

23.05.2024 08:15, UTC+03:00

Lose it all.

“Lose it all…” I whispered.

“Ela! You sturdy bitch!”

“What?”

It was all a haze. I remembered a lot of screams and a lot of fear.

“The night sky. Is it gone?” I opened my eyes and turned around, looking for an indication of time or place. I found myself in a hospital bed and next to me was Miguel. A searing pain crossed my neck and back.

“Where am I? Why are you here?” I asked.

“I brought you flowers from the T-4s, they thought it would be a nice idea,” he said and pointed next to a shut window, where three vases with different colors of lilies were laid out.

“The window! Why is it closed? What time is it?” I asked, trying to move.

“Hey okay relax, relax. You ‘ve been out for a while. Take it easy!” He ran towards me and pressed a button next to my bed.

I believed him. My legs and arms could hardly move, and there was a pain running down from the back of my neck.

“The phone… I…”

What happened with the Prince? Was all that a dream?

Suddenly, a burst of sunshine lit up the room. I yelled startled.

“The sun!” I said enthusiastically to Miguel. I laughed.

“What? Is it too much?” He asked.

“No. It is back, the sun.” I said relieved.

When did this happen?

“The sun?” Miguel asked, his eyebrows stiffening. He looked outside and then at me. “Maybe you need some sleep?”

“No, no. I…”

There it was. This uneasiness. I had felt this before, not long ago actually. Miguel was looking at me the same way he was looking at me on the Transantarctic Rail when we were stopped and then…

“You forgot all about it?” I asked.

“Forgot what? You have to be a bit specific, the last couple of days have been crazy.”

I moved my hand to the back of my neck. Gauzes and dressings were applied around it.

“What happened?” I asked as I remembered hot blood running down my neck. I was digging for my security chip, with Prince Marcello on the phone. I was in Azura’s office.

“You got the worst of us. Some chips exploded, and yours burst right out. After hours of surgery, the Royals sent a Cursed healer to regenerate your nerves.”

Do it Elena, do it for us, Marcelo’s words echoed in my head.

“What the fuck,” I whispered. Was I completely losing my mind?

“Miguel. Please tell me the truth. What happened? Is everyone okay?”

Miguel grabbed a chair and sat on it.

“Okay, I will give you the quick version, because this was supposed to be quick. I have to report back to HQ.”

And he explained to me his version. There was a transmission from the Santiago Towers, where the House of Trastamara, showed off the Queen’s powers. After that, communications and electronics were jammed. This far my memories coincided with his story. After this, things did not make any sense. Or rather, they made more sense than what I remembered.

He said that some of the security clearance chips for a few people zapped out, knocking people out. Mine particularly exploded and I was rushed to the infirmary. And it was not just the HQ, electronics were jammed around the colonies, particularly in Nuevo Trujillo. It was an attack by some kind of terrorists, according to the Sagrada. They left psychic traces, and their location in the Northern Chinese District was discovered.

The T-Agency decided that a counterstrike was necessary, and T-Agents were disposed to fight the terrorists there. Some of the terrorists were killed, but most had already left the premises, believed to have infiltrated deep within Nuevo Trujillo by now, due to the comms and electronics blackout. So now more T-Agents and even the military have been sent here from Santiago, looking for them. Now that reinforcements are here, T-Agents are focused on reconnaissance, and Miguel is supposed to follow that lead he had found in Base Oso. Trying to identify the Survivor of the Breach.

I could hardly follow.

“And the sun?” I insisted.

“What about it?” Miguel asked.

Did I imagine all that, when I was knocked out? I did not dare ask this question. I could not admit, that I had lost my complete sense of reality right now because, as far as I could tell, I could not trust myself.

“Is everyone okay?” I asked.

Miguel shifted uncomfortably in his place.

“I am sad to report that T-3 Gitana was killed. Her comms also exploded. But…” He could not finish his sentence.

My jaw clenched. I could only remember her saying again and again Total Blackout. She did not seem fazed or annoyed by her chip. Perhaps she was too focused on her Insight to notice it.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“I am sorry. I know you two were close.”

It was the only thing I could say.

“It was painless. Immediate. So, I hope she did not feel any agony,” Miguel said. This was a very common line of argument in our industry.

“Okay. Things make sense now,” I lied, “When can I leave?”

He promised he would ask, as a nurse reached my side. I had not realized she had entered the room. Before I could say more, I started dozing off.

It took a couple of days, and fortunately, I could move entirely independently. This was for sure the product of a Curse and no simple medicine or surgery, so Miguel’s story seemed to check out on that front.

Feeling fine was the worst part of the last days in the hospital. Sitting in a hospital bed watching TV was doing the greatest possible damage to my nervous system. The news bulletin every hour had a development every time: terrorists getting caught, terrorists escaping, a building exploding, and civilian casualties. Nuevo Trujillo was slowly transforming into a warzone, and I was in a hospital bed.

Of course, the alternative was chatting alone with my thoughts and mind. I was trying to understand how all the dots were connected, and I could not see any scenario that made sense.

Was the trip to London really without the Prince? Did I imagine my conversations with him? Even when he asked me to rip my chip out?

What about the night sky? That made the less sense of all. Why would the sun vanish? Surely no Curse could reach out to the sun and turn the Earth upside down.

I always ended up with no conclusion. My legs and arms were healing faster than my mind, which seemed to break into pieces every time I even tried to put things in order.

Once they saw I could walk and move confidently, a T-Agent appeared with a command report. They had clearance to get me out of the hospital and get me to report to HQ – something that doctors and nurses protested about consistently, but I agreed to sign a voluntary leave from the hospital at my own risk. I had to leave the confines of my hospital room where the only source of intel was the TV news, and my only company was my mind.

“It is good to see you in this room,” T-2 Azura said. She smiled, as other T-3s clapped during my entrance into her office.

I tried to smile, but all I could see was myself standing where Azura was standing now, digging through my neck.

“No rest for the wicked,” I responded, causing a few chuckles around the room.

“Certainly, and we need all the hands and brains we can get. Ricardo, the floor is yours,” Azura said, and T-3 Ricardo approached the center of the room to begin another round of Briefing.

I tried to pay attention to it, but I often found my mind wandering around or even completely spacing out. I had to constantly remind myself of the criticality of the situation.

“Remember your duty to the Royal family, but also remember the duty to yourself,” I heard Azura say, as she did before she handed me the phone to Prince Marcelo a few days ago.

“I am sorry?” I asked. I certainly had just imagined this.

“I said, I am sure you will be happy to work with your favorite Miguel. It is not the first line of action, but he has potentially found the neighborhood of the Survivor. Where he used to live,” Azura said.

“I appreciate that. I will do my best,” I answered. Azura sighed in relief. We both knew I was never happy with ‘what-if’ side quests, but right now I was the T-3 Agent in the worst physical and mental condition. I am sure she expected me to argue back, but I did not. It made sense.

“…so this Lucia girl, right? She was found shattered in pieces next to the Paseo. And she was on a date with a high-schooler named Ángel, now get this, right at the source of the Breach, and yet this guy is unaccounted for. He must be the Survivor. Too bad her parents could not recognize him.” Miguel was explaining his theory as we were walking in the quarter of the San Isidro. He handed me a few copies of Gitana’s drawing of the suspect, Ángel, assuming Miguel’s hypothesis was right.

Interestingly, it was a nice and warm day. We were still wearing our security thermal jackets just in case, but Miguel had opened his and was sporting a summer shirt underneath.

“But why would a high schooler want to cause the Breach?” I asked.

“He would… uh…”

“See, that’s why you need to think things through,” I said, sweeping the sweat of my head.

San Isidro was in the historical center of N.T., neighboring to the northern part of the city. Most of the buildings were built in the same style that the House of Trastamara indicated back when they first came here to colonize barren Antarctica. Six to eight stories tall, with no balconies, but wide glass windows to let the Trastamara Sun in. The first buildings were designed to set the civilian apartments as far away from the icy surface of Antarctica, which was not immediately transformed by the Curse of the Queen centuries ago. Architecture was not a priority during the first centuries, and hence the lack of creativity in the central neighborhoods.

Later in the modern era, the buildings were heavily painted and decorated with blue and green colors, as a passing fashion to differentiate from the Spanish traditional red colors. Some Spanish flags were attached in some of the most historical buildings, adding some red in an otherwise blue and green scenery. Most of them looked worn and torn, echoing even more the Colonies' people’s detachment from the far-away Spain.

“Alright, so this San Martin street,” Miguel said, showing a street on our left.

“Which number?”

“We don’t know. Do you want to take left or right?”

I glared at him, and I sighed.

“Don’t look at me like that. I was alone. You were out, and Gitana… well. All I could do was ask, and her parents told me this is the street they would leave her to meet him sometimes.”

“Whatever,” I said. It did not matter. The sooner we would finish, the sooner we would be on to the next mission.

“Okay, then I take left. You take right,” he moved his hand and tapped his earpiece, “but I will be right there!”

I tapped my earpiece. It felt odd to do that, after all that had happened. I had not dared try to use one and search for Marcelo’s frequency. I feared what I would hear back.

“Can you hear me?” he asked and smiled.

I hesitated and looked at him. I nodded. “Loud and clear. A little less loud please.”

Within the first thirty minutes, I was already exhausted. Going door to door, asking the right questions, showing Gitana’s picture of this Ángel guy, getting nothing in response.

I exited one of the buildings and unzipped my jacket. The heat was a little bit on the uncomfortable side, so I leaned against a blue wall to drink some water.

Miguel was muttering on the earpiece. I silenced it while I was taking a break. Although I had started to appreciate his appetite to solve this case, his incessant bickering remained annoying.

I raised my bottle to drink, and as I lowered it, a woman was standing right in front of me, startling me as she appeared out of thin air. Her hair was a mess, her clothes as well, her skin covered in ink and what looked like pencil scribbles. She was wearing a lowered hoodie.

“Ma’am I would ask you to back…” I stopped speaking as she drew closer. I recognized her.

“Gi…”

“Sh.” Gitana shushed me. It was her, there was no mistake. Her eyes looked at me with the same insanity as when I had seen her for the last time in the HQ the fateful day of the Blackout.

“I thought your head exploded,” I said, my voice wavering.

“This might be how it is drawn I die,” she said stepping closer, “but you have to understand what you have done. I know it is not you, Elena. This is what they are doing to you.”

I felt cornered. I could easily run away or incapacitate her. But still, her words were pinning me down. She was looking around as if she was being followed. She was in a hurry.

“I do not know what is happening,” I finally admitted out loud, “I really don’t.”

“I can show you. I have to, Elena, or this will never end.”

“What won’t end?”

“Total blackout,” she said, and I could sense sadness in her voice, “I do not know what I will draw in your mind. But I suggest you Soothe yourself.”