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02:07
Adam sat up upright in the middle of the night. He was woken up by a couple making love just next to him. He glimpsed at the bodies in hectic movements and turned around. It was hot and wet in the room and their sweating clinging faces and limbs in uneven position made it just worse. He was thirsty, so he went outside to get some water, jumping over the bodies sleeping on the floor. He went downstairs. Walking along the corridors, he felt the stench of the rotten bodies stored in the basement due to the lack of finances to bury them properly. Communal pits were usually too crowded to deal with every remaining dead. And with so many people, deaths occurred usually more than once a day. Those attached to their lovers could keep their bodies next to them, dressing them and washing, and watching them rot. In time they turned into mummies and in time they were disposed of as everyone in the end. For some love was in the beginning too strong to leave the beloved in a basement or to throw them into the pits in the ground. Some decided to leave the bodies in the mountains. Others had a peculiar habit of eating the body and dividing it among the members of their room as if the flesh could give them strength. People believed in the power of the human meat.
Adam also believed in the extraterrestrial qualities of a body. He felt that N.'s prosperity was a result of eating all of the people in K. There was something God-like in the human flesh and blood and this Godly power was filling everyone in this small selected place, giving them peace, stability, beauty, and wealth. He often wondered whether Gemma was also eating K.s and whether her diet was the result of that sudden change. She was no longer the same person he loved. She was the other forever belonging to N.
Adam also believed in the extraterrestrial qualities of a body. He felt that N.'s prosperity was a result of eating all of the people in K. There was something God-like in the human flesh and blood and this Godly power was filling everyone in this small selected place, giving them peace, stability, beauty, and wealth. He often wondered whether Gemma was also eating K.s and whether her diet was the result of that sudden change. She was no longer the same person he loved. She was the other forever belonging to N.
Adam grew stronger and more manly. His muscles thickened from the hard work, his feet hardened from kilometers he walked together with his mates. His voice lowered from hundreds of conversations he had with the elderly. His scars deepened from the hundreds of friendly fights, which to an objective observer weren't looking friendly at all, but were aggressive, hostile and dangerous. They liked those fights and they liked their women. Boys could release their anger and frustration. They felt that they were alive. No one died during those battles. Blood was something to boast about. The women licked their wounds like juice from the smashed fruit. The more fights they had, the more women visited them at night. The more pain they suffered, with more pleasure they were rewarded.
He liked his new self. Gemma wouldn't be able to appreciate it. She taught him how to read and write. How to understand the world which wasn't his. But she would disapprove of the world that ran in his blood. He knew that he would have to pretend that he was different, better, smarter, wiser, while in fact, he wasn't. He was true to oneself in K. He would never leave. He felt that he belonged to these fights, these women, this land, these fruits and vegetables and these corpses stored in the basements.
He fed mice. The colony was getting bigger every day. They were reproducing with the same intensity as the citizens of K. He and Gemma started the breed with just a couple of caught creatures, now there were thousands which needed constant nourishment.
But above all else, he liked wandering alone at night along the empty streets of the city to watch its dilapidated buildings, to smell the scents of his place and to know that he is completely safe in this area, among these people. Safe until N. decided to close its districts, put them all on the train and ship to an unknown destination. He didn't want that to happen. He didn't belong here enough to die.
For that reason, he was wandering all alone at night. He needed at least a few moments of isolation from the rest. There was something in him that didn't belong here. It was a bug that Gemma gave him years ago. It was the knowledge that he didn't have to agree with everything that was lying in front of him. He could question the reality which was his reality, knowing that there were other places following opposing rules. He knew one thing in particular. He didn't have to die.
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