"I do," he replied, serious, his eyes fixed on her.
... Her expression softened, a brief tenderness crossing her face.
"Seriously?"
"Seriously. It's fair." He smiled with his lips, shrugging. "If you could tell me why you hate... I'd appreciate it. At least I'll know why you tortured an Officer the way you did with me, right?"
"Oh..." Almost inaudibly, she turned her face, a visible hesitation.
Nunes was about to say something when she suddenly opened her mouth, in a soft, almost confessional tone:
"Every day, my family and I used to go to the bakery together, because it was close to where we lived. We didn't know the police were going to kill so many people that day. It was absolutely insane."
"On the day of the invasion, right?"
"Yeah..." She swallowed hard, her voice choking up.
"That day, my parents got dressed and my little brother was finishing getting ready. He was a five-year-old baby... So cute..." She smiled, a deep melancholy in her gaze, but quickly returned to her rigid posture, as if emotion were forbidden. "I was going to the bakery too, but I had slept badly. I decided to nap in my room. You know?"
"Mm-hmm..."
"And then... the three of them went there. I woke up hours later. I felt a strange sensation... you know?"
"...I know."
"I woke up and there was no power in the room, in the house, or in the city. Even though I had turned on the air conditioner, I woke up all sweaty. My cell phone was dead and it was already dark outside. I got a little scared..."
...
"I left the room to say hi to my parents. But they weren't there. Neither was my brother." Her voice trembled, failing. "And then I started paying attention outside. I went to the balcony to listen to gunshots and some loud explosions. I thought I was in a nightmare, but conscious. I saw a lot of fire. Dead people. I saw the bakery my parents had gone to. It was on fire."
She couldn't continue. Her voice choked up, finally showing Nunes the crack in her trauma, a raw and exposed pain.
"I was desperate because my phone was dead." She continued, her voice almost a whisper, mixed with a sob. "I put it to charge in a portable power bank and waited seconds for it to turn on with 1%. It felt like an eternity."
When he saw a tear tracing a path down Ketlen's face, he smiled with his lips, dropping his "serious listener" posture. It couldn't be any other way. He wanted and needed to be as human as possible with her in that moment.
"Hey..." He wiped her tear with his thumb, an almost angelic touch, delicate and unexpected.
She widened her eyes slightly, pulling her hand away from her face like a startled cat, a sudden movement.
"S-stop!" The silence between them was deadly. Heavy. Ketlen sniffled, drawing the water back, wiping her nose with the collar of her shirt with her arm, a disguised gesture. "Don't touch me, Nunes."
"Okay... my bad..." He chuckled softly, brushing a curl of hair from his own eyes. "It's just that a little flower like you deserves a hummingbird."
She gasped, swallowing hard, feigning nonchalance. That was personal. Her eyes widened slightly. Perhaps even too much, as if Nunes had equalized her to the ship's own station, reading Ketlen's personal instruction manual, hitting a sensitive spot.
"When it turned on, there was nothing. No messages, no calls. Twitter was a mess, millions of posts talking about Brazil, a lot of people dying in the streets for nothing. It was bizarre."
"I remember." Nunes's voice came out as a warm breath amidst the cold of the ship, going straight to Ketlen's neck, an involuntary intimacy.
She arched her chin slightly, almost imperceptibly, but continued:
"In my pajamas, I left my room and went to the elevator to get it. But there was no power, so I ran down the stairs with my phone's flashlight on."
He stared at her, serious, his eyes fixed on hers, absorbing every word.
"There was no doorman in the building. No one in the streets. There were puddles of blood at my building's entrance." Her voice faltered again. "I started crying and walking through the dark streets, scared. So scared. I'd never felt so afraid in my entire life. I reached the bakery, still on fire, and I saw."
"I saw my family dead. Cremated. All three of them. All shot."
... He widened his eyes slightly, shock on his face.
"I... I saw..." She swallowed her sob, sniffing again, her voice hoarse with emotion. "But I didn't go with them to buy bread that day."
Another tear escaped. But this time, she brought her long sleeve back to her face, wiping it before her hummingbird had another chance. Nunes saw, but didn't comment on the scar that reappeared on her wrist when the sleeve suddenly fell, an old, deep cut.
Perhaps having sensed the moment, Ketlen pulled her shirt sleeve back to her fingertips. The moment the fabric lifted, her fingers tightened around it, hiding it again, as if she wanted to crush what she had done, the scar and the memory.
"I didn't know what to do, I saw them burning!"
She took a deep breath, amidst another tear. It was automatic, Nunes brought his hand to her face, wiping it immediately. But this time, she didn't flinch.
"And it was on that day that the vultures started eating people's flesh and..."
"Yeah. It rained blood. Flesh." Ketlen cut Nunes off with her words, the cursed memory turning her stomach.
He murmured:
"Like in Kentucky, in 1876, right?"
"Yeah. Except it was real flesh. From people. From my fucking family…" She rolled her eyes, almost grinding her teeth. "Unlike your easy little life, you fucking Officer."
...
"I..." She continued, whispering as she averted her face. "I just went back home scared, locked myself in, and cried for hours, asking God to wake me up. It was supposed to be a nightmare. It had to be... it had to be..." She squeezed her eyes shut, her voice a desperate lament.
"But I didn't wake up."
-----------------☆☆☆☆-----------------
517 Years Ago – Goiânia, Brazil, 7:54 PM
Ketlen huddled in a fetal position, like a scared child trying to disappear inside her own body. She trembled. She sweated. She cried with spasmodic sobs, the harsh sound of unchecked despair, dry and suffocating, echoing in the dark, unlit house.