Chereads / Saint Christopher's Belly / Chapter 3 - What Shall We Do Now?

Chapter 3 - What Shall We Do Now?

"Fausto, where are you?", calls out a voice to him, "Please return to me, don't you know how much I love you? Don't you understand that we were going to be together forever?" He looks around where he was at and sees that he was in the middle of jungle, just the gentle sound of flowing water traveling down a river is the only thing generating any noise. Fausto turns to see where the voice is calling for him and he sees someone standing 15 feet away from him standing out in the river like a ghost, which he recognized as Rachel, his ex-girlfriend. She calls out to Fausto, "It doesn't matter to me what you do, don't you understand that I love you and we are destined to be together? I will always love you no matter what!"

Although it was Rachel, she seemed to appear much older than what Fausto could remember being. Her hair has become overgrown, it's length has passed way beyond her knees, it was practically dipping itself into the water. Despite being naked, her hair was long enough to cover her breast but she also had noticeable marks on her body, her stomach was covered in strange scars. The wrinkles on her face made her look aged, like a much more mature lady than what Fausto can remember. She called out to him while raising her arms, "Come here, my little bird, come here and make my heart complete."

Something about the whole dream was very off putting to Fausto, he asks, "Are you sure you can love someone like me?" Rachel makes a pained expression, she begins to squat into the river and contiues to make her pained expressions and groans. The small patch of river underneath her suddenly turns red, she reaches for the red water, "Yes, you are my lover, I love you more than you can ever understand", says Rachel as she lifts her hand to reveal that she has given birth. Fausto's eyes widen as he can see that Rachel is carrying a small infant, "Come here, come take a look at our daughter", she says while cradling the baby. Being completely shocked by this, he begins to take steps closer to Rachel to peek at the baby that she claims is theirs. With each little step he takes, he feels himself becoming slower, almost like as if he is walking under water.

"Please, Fausto. Come closer and take a look at our healthy, beautiful baby daughter", calls out Rachel. Suddenly, something begins to rise from the river, dividing Fausto and Rachel from each other. In a hurry, out of fear losing Rachel or out of fear of being lonely, Fausto tries to fight the slowness of his actions. However, as soon as he gets to couple of feet away from her, the thing rising from the river shoots up splashing water and knocking him down into the river. When he emerges from the shallow river, he sees that a giant wall of concrete blocks has erected itself sky high, until the slabs of concrete were punching through the clouds above.

Rachel and Fausto were separated by a giant wall that he looked like it never stopped getting taller. Fausto throws himself against the wall and begins to scream out to Rachel but no sound is able to come out from his mouth, just complete silence. He can feel the rough texture of the concrete with his hands as he tries to claw and maybe get a grip to climb his way up. But alas, there was no way to traverse over the wall even if he did managed to get a grip, it goes up too high. On the other side, Fausto can hear the muffle sounds of Rachel screaming and banging against the wall. Hearing the pain in Rachel's voice, as much as Fausto tried to shout back at her to let her know that he is ok, no sound came out. Only the tears were pouring out as he can hear the girl he loves so much suffer.

The torment that Fausto was going through only grew as the wall began to shift. The wall's ends began to curve and Fausto watched as he was slowly being encircled by the concrete wall. Day suddenly turned into the night, above him became dark and starry, with very little clouds compared to the beautiful blue skies. Fausto tried his best to tread through the shallow river to escape his entrapment but as he was reaching the end, he was completely closed off to the rest of the world. All around him was the rough pattern of the concrete wall, the river that he was standing over began to dry up until he just standing over a cold, grey flat ground. Fausto looked over his head and just saw the full white moon gently levitating above his prison.

A large shadow began to block out the moon and that's when he notices that it was in the shape of a head. Looking down at him was a giant version of Rachel, he can see her peek one of her eyes down to look at him. Fausto tries to yell for help but Rachel puts her mouth over the top and says, "Fausto? Are you happy here... without me?" She keeps her mouth over the top and slowly, these tendrils begin to make their way to Fausto. He can see them as they spew from her mouth, he becomes frightened by what he sees leaking out of her huge mouth.

The tendril creep ever slower down the enclosure and Fausto tries to stay away from it but there is nowhere to run from them.

Suddenly, Fausto wakes up in shock, nearly pissing himself and out of breath. He looks around to see that he is sleeping on Alora's couch. He looks around to see Alora peacefully sleeping in her bed. "Man what a crazy as dream", thinks Fausto as he lays his head back down and begins to drift away again.