He lifted up his candid face, and looked ahead, in front of him, the people who passed walking quickly, or got into the metropolitan, or were waiting for it on the binary. Then his eyes, as two blue, shining plumes in the dark, looked at the stairs, at the people who were going up or down, as if they were escaping from a sleeping, old and unknown evil. In all of those years, he learnt to look at the other lives as a spectator could do. Cold, uninterested, but with the same consciousness of an executor. All of this was .. nice, wonderful, exciting. People walked away from the train, without giving him one only eyed, one only attention. He believed to have begun proof to this. In the end .. what were the other lives, if not a group of crawling insects? Every single missed attention was a sure confirm of it. A life so empty and fragile didn' t worth one only second, not if stolen to the Mother. Yes .. She was all he showed interest for. She, her transmigration on Earth: every second of his life was only for contemplating her, planning how to act in the best way. It was really difficult to find a sparkle of Her Grace, in all that mud. But finding 21 fragments of Her hidden mosaic, sounded really like an impossible thing to think to even, some times. He just thought of Catherine, in that instant. How many days were past without finding her in any way, any were? His eyes continued following every person in the metropolitan, from his dark corner, careful, unceasing. He smiled, when he realized that, without really understanding, he was looking for her in every person he had seen since then. Her Grace couldn' t be found in a place so .. empty, and dirty.

" Stop it! " A voice thundered at her shoulders, while she continued running away, in the street. The few people who were there looked at her strange, then at her stalker, but no one did really interest of what was going on. Catherine kept closed her black coat, and made her eyes two little dark cracks, looking often back to the man who was following her. She ran with all the rapidity and the strength she could find in her body, and felt an inexistent wind slash her face. " Jim will be very angry with you, it would be better for you to stop and come with me. I say it for your good. " The voice continued, she felt it like a precise threat. " Better to be dead, George! " She answered, looking at the man, while she went on the other side of the road, and avoided a car as for divine miracle. She took in this way some time for running away, in a little, narrow road.

He took a short breath, and lifted up, touching the humid wall with his left hand. He caressed his long, blue coat, as it would serve to clean it, and looked at the metropolitan that arrived, again. He saw people came away from it, and people who came into it. Men, women, children with their parents, or alone, only with their coloured rucksacks and their toys. Males, females, always with a joyful smile printed on their faces so happy and young. He thought of his childhood, of all those colours, of all he did never had, and quickly felt tears running up, to his eyes. He looked at the ground of the subway station, while people walked away in front of him, to the stairs. In the general chaos created from them, he recognized the sound of a voice. A voice that he secretly prayed, to remove from his memories. He looked to the train again, and saw a group of guys coming out. Girls with some boys, and between two of these, a face that looked well known, to him: Catherine .. no, Cynthia. His emotions died in a split second, when he realized she was not the person he was looking for from some days. Catherine .. gone in the fog, without a word, maybe not with a motivation. She had resisted to Jim for so much time, that it looked quite strange for her to have escaped like a thief in the night. Or maybe things had come to an unbearable point for her .. but anyway, she did know she could count on him, every time, every where, in every situation. Was she missing to the promise she made him? And all those moments with her, hidden, but happy to be finally together. Her telling about how she could keep that monster away from herself, thinking to every way she could, sometimes also paying her growing disgust for him with the blood of sores and bruises, fists and kicks. He thought about all the times she told him she would appreciate more to be dead, and not to be touched by him again, all the times he told her he didn' t want to divide her with nobody else, her silence, her impotence.

George Rosten closed his hands in two fists, and answered indecorously to the comment of a driver. " Little stupid bitch, I' ll show you. " He said at low voice, and returned to run behind her, finding her figure far, running away, toward a road usually not full of traffic. Catherine wiped away the tears that started running down from her eyes, and returned to look behind, at the man that was coming, not far. When would it have ended? It was the first time she tried to run away from that horror, she had repaired in a hidden motel, without saying a word to any one. Her sister, Walter neither. And every day, she felt like she was missing to the promise she had made him. " You' ll never be alone, no one will hurt you never again. " A promise .. it sounded like an empty word, insignificant. How could she have promised any thing, if she couldn' t be sure to keep alive herself neither? She looked straight ahead, and returned to run toward the big road in the end of the narrow one she was running through. George Rosten continued running, cursing her, that day, Jimmy and himself either. " Damn. Damn me, damn you Catherine, damn Jim and his deviated obsession for you. For all the women of this World, he came to desire just You. " He whispered to himself, while his breath grew up deeper. When Catherine stopped, she was in front of an open road, but the sound of the rare cars that ran through it was such distant, far because of the Fear. She looked behind, and began to move back to the road looking at the man. On the other side, the entrance stairs for the Subway Station.

On that day, Cynthia looked quite strange, unusually distant and scornful with the two boys who were next to her. " You' ve not been made to be so cold, dear .. " Said her one of them, trying to hug and touch her. But the girl quickly moved, and held his hands which threw away from her body. " See asshole, don' t try to act like this again, or otherwise I swear I' ll throw you under a running rain, ok? " She screamed, moving quickly ahead of some steps. Walter observed her in silence, she was dressed like always. A very short skirt, a very short t-shirt, her hair up and well ordered, her way of moving, of talking, so .. worish. Her friends stayed behind, the boy kept silent, looking at her. Some of her friends told him to don' t add any other word, and let her in peace, alone. " Come on Cyn, you can' t continue in this way .. " Some one said, but she looked like she had a moment of pure anger. She looked at them, and moved trembling, while she talked. " Listen. How would you feel if your sister was gone in the Nothing, without a trace? Without a message, nothing at all? " The girl asked, but every one kept a perfect silence, looking at her, while the Station returned to be desolate. She kept her lips open, but she didn' t say nothing at all. She only wiped away her tears, and continued talking, while cried. " Leave me alone, I' m not a good company for today. " Cynthia moved quickly away to the stairs, while she continued crying, but her friends divided: some one stayed there, commenting her acts, but some others walked behind her, for following her.
Walter kept silence, for all the time. He would have never imaged that Cynthia could be affectionate to her sister in that way, so strong, deep and pure. He followed her on the stairs with his glance, until she reached the exit, the light of the hidden sun of outside. She stayed there, stopped by one of her friends, and hugged her strong, crying on her shoulder. Walter took a deep breath, and looked at the floor. Cynthia had no news about Catherine too .. all of this was very strange.

There, not far from them, Catherine opened her black eyes wide George Rosten, who stopped his run, and breathed very hard, moving slowly toward her, bending a little his back. She had the road behind, and the entrance to the Subway Station. A car past running fast behind her, before of new silence. " Now .. follow me to that motel .. Jimmy .. is still waiting for you there. " Rosten said her like this, while he returned calm, and moved again one step to her. She moved back to the road, keeping quite big the distance from him at every step he moved, dangerously. " I' d prefer to die. " She answered, trembling like an autumn leaf, dead scared. She would never have joined him, for making return to the monster that Jim was: what would have him thought of her escape? What would have he done after one week and half past without her news, surely drowned in the alcohol of a glass of whiskey? She could feel the sensation given from his kicks in the stomach, from his fists on her cheeks, or on her chest, very clearly. Rosten smiled moving another one step to her. " I don' t want to think to what would happen, if You should really die, some day. I think Jim could go mad definitively. " He whispered, laughing really amused. Catherine began to cry again, and wiped away her tears, while her voice trembled stronger, when she added some other words. " Come back to you' re precious head, George. Tell him to leave me in peace once for ever, I don' t want to see him or you never again in my life. I hate you, I hate you all with all myself! " She answered him full of Hate, crying, nervous, quite hysteric, while she trembled, and felt her heart beating mad, out of control. At those words, George Rosten stopped smiling, and his thin face became serious. He closed his hands in two fists, as he began black from Anger. " You have bothered me little stupid. You' ll came with me, if you want it or not, the time for caprices is ended. " He moved his steps to the woman, full of rage, but she moved quickly back, and began to run through the road, as to reach the other side. " N-No, no!! " She whispered, before she ran away rapid, as a hare in the woods. George Rosten stopped on the edge of the street, and from there, he could only assist to what happened.

Walter returned to sit on the floor, slowly, and put his arms on his knees, flexed. He thought of all what happened .. it was from about 12 days he didn' t know any thing about Catherine, and it looked like it was the same for Cynthia. What could be the reason for her escape? Maybe she was escaping from some one: she was escaping from Jim, this looked like the only reason he could find. But more he thought about Catherine, less he understood, and felt like a sensation of Anxiety, an Anguish so violent and oppressive. It was like he couldn' t breath anymore, like his heart was slowly stopping. He took his right hand to his chest, and took a deep breath, but that sensation grew up, similar to Death' s one.

Catherine ran through the road, without controlling the cars in it. All she thought of was the threat of Jim, the threat of Rosten, sent by him to follow and take her back, like she was a kind of object. A his own property. He told her not only once about it, in fact .. she could still listen to his voice, and closed her eyes, crying despaired. " You are mine, Catherine. Mine. Mine. Mine. " All of those minds ended in a split second, all happened rapidly, too rapidly. A car past while Catherine was in the middle of the road, at high rapidity. She just had the necessary time to hear its brake, an high, screeching, abrupt sound, before of the final hit, not inferior for the violence of the sound, and for the violence of the scream that Catherine let go. George Rosten closed his eyes at that scene, and took his hands to his face. The voices of the people who ran to the woman, their comments, the sound created from the crowd that populated the place in a few minutes took his eyes on the road again. He saw Catherine on the ground, livid and unconscious, and the blood that quickly came out from her lips, and fell under her body, in a lake. She looked dead, so Rosten moved back his steps, in the crowd, before of running away, scared, making return to Jim Stone.

The sound of the hit and the voice screaming came since to Cynthia' s ears, who left her friend, and stopped crying, looking outside. She could hear only the voices coming from the crowd, because she kept motionless, without controlling what happened. She could not surely know about what was really happened.
In that moment, Walter felt like someone hit his heart with a blade, and lifted rapid from the floor, without really understand why. He trembled violently, and looked upon the stairs: strangely, he could hear that scream clearly, so awful. He moved some steps to the stairs, scared, as he didn' t find the necessary courage to take his steps out of the Subway Station, and stopped a bit far from Cynthia and her friends. Their voices were confused, he felt like he had been relegated in a kind of parallel universe, as if it was not himself. " Cynthia! " A voice screamed, and a girl came running to her, scared and agitate. " Cynthia, for God, You have to come with me! " The girl continued, taking her hands that held strong, moving back to outside her steps. She trembled, looking at her, but she didn' t hazard to ask why: an idea, far and oppressive, filled quickly her mind, and Walter' s one, behind, in silence. " Your sister has been swept away from a car, You have to follow me, there' s no time to waste! " At those words, Walter opened his eyes wide them, and quickly moved outside, where the people filled the entire road. Cynthia began to cry again, and followed the girl and her friends outside, where they asked about what was happened.

Someone called the ambulance, some others were talking about a man who had run behind the woman swept by the car, some others tried to look at the woman on the ground. When Walter reached the exact place where Catherine was, there were some people who tried to help her, by keeping the other people away and trying to reanimate her. Cynthia reached her sister a few instants later, and when she saw her, she cried more despaired, and ran next to her. Her face was white, but of a livid white, painted from the red colour of the blood that came out from her lips, and her nose. The ground under her body was a lake of blood, but she reacted to the cures given her by her rescuers a few time later, breathing again. In that time the ambulance reached the road, and quickly the crowd went away. Catherine had been took in it and cured by the medical stuff, before the counters closed, and the ambulance ran to the hospital, not before Cynthia joined her sister.

When she reached the hospital, she was in a comatose state. She had been taken in the reanimation depart, and her sister had been kept away, in the hall of the Depart, where she had been reached from the driver who swept Catherine away, chocked more than the same Cynthia. A group of doctors quickly moved around her, making their controls and check up on her, spasmodically.