The red numbers on the hotel alarm clock marked one o'clock in the morning, the heavy breathing of two men woke up the girl in the middle who was dozing.
The windows were fogged with drops sliding down the glass. She slid out of bed with the grace of a shadow. The used condoms lay crumpled on the carpet. For her, it had all been theater.
She dressed in silence. First the lace underwear that man A had insisted on buying her at Victoria's Secret —"so you feel special, princess"—, then the tight dress she had chosen for the occasion. Her green glasses rested on the nightstand; she put them on and the world regained its familiar focus.
The suitcases were by the closet, open and messy. Man B had been careless, as always. The important documents were in a manila envelope inside the side compartment. H.H. reviewed them, contracts, account numbers, access codes. Exactly what she needed.
The silent flash of her cell phone captured each page. She rearranged everything just as she had found it.
The hotel hallway was deserted. In the lobby, the night concierge barely looked up from his magazine. Once on the street, she completed the transfer from her cell phone. $50,000 dollars divided between both idiots' accounts. In less than five minutes, the money had been converted to cryptocurrency, impossible to trace.
She headed to the alley next to the hotel. Everything she was wearing —the dress, the shoes, the jewelry her "sugar daddies" had given her— went into the garbage container.
In the adjacent garden, she dug with her hands in the wet soil until she found the plastic bag she had buried days before. Simple clothes, worn sneakers, an oversized hoodie.
The cell phone received the same treatment as the rest, she smashed it against the pavement.
Man A and man B would wake up in a few hours wondering why "sweet H.H." had disappeared without a trace. But by then, she would already be a ghost.
Her motorcycle waited for her in the underground parking, hidden among the shadows. The engine purred softly as she disappeared into the empty highways of Puebla, the city lights blurring in the rearview mirror.
Angelópolis at three in the morning was a desert of concrete and glass. Her apartment, modest and anonymous, welcomed her with familiar silence. She collapsed on the couch without even turning on the lights.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
The alarm woke her in another life. Both blue eyes blinked against the morning light filtering through the curtains. She sat up slowly.
—Shit... She would be late to school. Again. As she got up, a pang of pain between her legs reminded her of the previous night. She grimaced in disgust.
—The damn guy had to be well-endowed —she said, heading to the bathroom with tired steps.
She opened the door as best she could, took a seat on the toilet and with her right foot opened the small refrigerator she kept next to the bathroom. The ice cubes clinked against the plastic, she wrapped them in a towel and applied them. The cold made her sigh with relief.
Sitting with the ice soothing her pain, depression came. It always came in these moments of quiet, when there was no man to scam.
She had no reasons to wake up in the mornings. She didn't enjoy doing anything. She had no one or nothing meaningful to her. It was an absolute and enveloping boredom that settled in her chest.
A deep resigned melancholy that she knew so well.
But she continued. She always continued.
She showered and dressed in her school uniform. In the kitchen, she served herself a cup of black coffee. She checked the messages from her classroom on her new phone.
Math test today. As if she cared.
In the message tray she found one from W, the womanizer from school. She smiled bitterly. She was known for being... accessible. She liked to think she had a sociable vagina. At least it sounded funny in her empty head.
"My buddy wants to meet you. Says he's interested" H.H. typed her response.
"Rooftop. 4 PM. Don't make me waste my time."
She arrived at second period, just before the teacher talked about quadratic equations.
—H.H., what a surprise to see you before lunch —the teacher commented sarcastically.
She just shrugged and headed to her seat in the back of the classroom. F, one of the boys from class, intercepted her.
—Hey, H.H. —his voice was low—. I wanted to thank you for last week.
He handed her a bag with breakfast from the cafeteria: a sandwich, orange juice and a glazed donut. His cheeks were flushed.
H.H. took the bag without smiling. —You better keep me happy —she told him in a flat voice.
He nodded quickly, like an obedient puppy. He had done her history homework for a week in exchange for fifteen minutes in the men's bathroom. For him it had been heaven.
She put the first bite of the sandwich in her mouth. The taste was bland. Her eyes drifted to the window, contemplating the gray clouds gathering over Puebla. It would rain when she felt like this.
Tick-tock. Tick-tock.
H.H. looked up from the sandwich. There was no pendulum clock in sight. It was a deep sound coming from within her.
The sound stopped. On the city's horizon, a purple lightning bolt tore through the sky. A line of light extending from the clouds to the ground. The sound that followed wasn't the typical thunder, but something more like a roar.
—Oooooooh.— H.H. murmured, standing up along with several classmates.
The lightning's light intensified, becoming brighter than the sun. H.H. covered her eyes with her hands, but the light seemed to pierce through her eyelids. The entire classroom was bathed in that supernatural luminosity.
—Don't look directly! —the teacher shouted. Energy particles appeared in the classroom air, floating. Students extended their hands, hypnotized by the ethereal beauty of the particles.
Then came the shockwave. The air itself seemed to ripple like water. H.H. felt an invisible force hit her in the chest, lifting her off the ground.
The world became a blur of colors and sounds as she was dragged by a current of pure energy. The last thing she remembered was the collective scream of her classmates.
She woke up with the taste of dirt in her mouth and a sharp pain in her head. She sat up slowly, dizzy and disoriented.
The floor under her hands wasn't the cold linoleum of the school. She was in an opulent room taken from a fairy tale. Golden tapestries hung from carved stone walls. Mahogany shelves, filled with leather-bound books and crystal bottles.
Swords rested on silver stands. H.H. approached one of the bottles, one containing a blue liquid. Her cell phone vibrated.
Miraculously, it had signal.
Message from W: "Bro, tell me this is real. I'm in a castle garden. There are fountains and the teachers are freaking out. Where are you?"
He attached a photo that made H.H. let out a nervous laugh. W was indeed in an ostentatious garden, with students and teachers in the background staring open-mouthed at marble fountains.
H.H. took a quick photo of the room where she was and sent it: "Looks like we're in a castle. This is off the charts."
She put her phone in her pocket.
—I caught you, thief! H.H. turned abruptly. A tall, burly man wearing silver armor that reflected the torchlight.
—Are you here to steal the palace potions? —the knight asked, partially unsheathing his sword—. Intruders are not welcome in the alchemist's tower.
—Wait, wait —H.H. raised her hands, the bottle still in her grip—. I'm not a thief. I don't even know how I got here.
A translucent panel appeared floating in the air in front of her. [Cursed Heart System activated]: H.H. (Marquess) LEVEL: 1 CLASS: Unassigned UNLOCKED ABILITIES: Weapon Mastery (Level 1): Allows using any weapon with basic competence STATUS: Disoriented, in hostile territory
—What the hell...? —extending a hand.
The knight looked at her with growing suspicion. —What kind of dark magic is that? —he growled, unsheathing his sword—. You're definitely a dangerous intruder.
—Well —she said, gripping the bottle as if it were a weapon—, I guess we're going to find out how real this is.