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What I'm doing is wrong, I know it, but... damnit, I don't know why I'm doing this. It makes no sense at all but right now it is the only thing that helps.
Three more days. No sleep. Nightmares. Yesterday night I woke up screaming - I lay in my bed and all I hoped for was that Audrey hadn't heard me. Had she? I don't know for how long I'd been thrashing around and screaming at the pictures in my head to let go of me.

I was soaked in sweat when I stood up. There was no way in which I could have continued to lie there. Maybe sleep would have gotten the better of me - a horrible prospect, given the thought that I'd only get back into another one of these nightmares. They are an assembly of the worst things that have happened to me in the past six months.
Consciously, I don't even remember them any more. I am good at pushing things out of my mind. Otherwise, I wouldn't have survived up to now. I don't remember getting stung by poisonous scorpios in Sengala, I don't remember being so weak that I couldn't even get to my feet on my own, I don't remember how that Chinese soldier steps on my right hand breaking every bone in it.
At least not during daylight.
But I remember it when I sleep. Somehow it creeps back into my mind, every other night. All the worst moments get mixed up to one horrible scene. It's like drowning. They are a hundred times bigger than I am. I'm helpless against them when they come.

Yesterday, after I got up, I wasn't sure whether Audrey had heard me or not. If she had: was she lying in her bed now, wide awake, thinking that there was an assault going on and that they'd come to her next?
That was my only fear.
I went over to her room, silently I opened up the door and went inside.

She was lying in her bed, looking like she was asleep. I wasn't sure if she really was asleep or if she was only pretending.

I knelt down next to her bed. She lay there, curled up in a ball, in the corner, her back to the wall, covered by that blanket up to her chin.
Was she slightly shivering?
I still don't know that. Yesterday night, I almost thought she was. Probably she had heard me and was now only pretending to be asleep.

I didn't want to wake her up.
I murmured everything is alright, so quietly that she wouldn't wake up if she was asleep but still hear me if she was only pretending.

She relaxed, I guess. Or was that only wishful thinking?

I closed the door to her room, silently, and then I stood outside in the hallway, not knowing what to do, surrounded by darkness.

Going back to sleep was not an option. Neither was going back into my room. I always felt like trapped in a cell, whenever I was in there.
I started walking through the building.
There was an exit, through one of the many doors to the adjoined church, and one exit from the church to the street. Actually, they were my emergency getaway route.

I used it, not thinking of any consequences.

The Kazach night was livelier than I had thought. We're in the middle of the city, that must be the reason. The clock on the church tower showed two thirty in the night.

I could damn myself for being so reckless. I went down the street, wearing the clothes that I'd been sleeping in. I always slept in usual street clothes, just in case we'd have to make a sudden getaway.
But when I went down that street I didn't even wear a basecap or sunglasses or anything to hide my face with. That's stupid.

It was more stupid to sit down on a bench in one of the pedestrian areas, looking at the groups of people who were still on the street at that time. Mostly young people. Eighty per cent of them already drunk.

I sat there, wishing I was drunk as well. It was a tempting thought - because that was one of the few things that could stop the nightmares. Alcohol. Years ago, it allowed me to sleep. If I only drank enough, the pictures of Cheng didn't get to me in that night.

It was so tempting to go into one of these bars and have a drink. I even had some money in one of the pockets.

I was so weak.

I sat at the bench for a few more minutes only, before I chose the darkest bar and went inside. A dark bar - one where no selfie-addicted young people would go. One that was not too big to have CCTV cameras and no so small that people would remember me.

I ordered a vodka, drowned it, ordered a second one and thereafter a full bottle which I took with me.

I hadn't had anything to drink in over seven months. The alcohol got to me, almost immediately.

I don't know how I made my way back 'home'. When I woke up, today morning, I found myself lying in my bed in my room, the shoes still on. Looks like I got here all by myself. More than half of the bottle was still there, standing on my bedside table.
Seeing that, I was sure that I had come back by myself. If anyone had needed to help me, I'm sure they would have poured the rest of the vodka away and not left the bottle there.

I had a massive headache. But for the first time in days, I wasn't tired any more. I had knocked myself out with that stuff, to get at least one night of sleep. I had worked, but still I felt guilty. I had brought myself and Audrey into danger. Massive danger. Not only by leaving the house, also by getting myself into a state where I couldn't defend us any longer.
When I woke up today morning, I didn't even know how I had made my way back. What a disaster.

I grabbed the bottle and immediately hid it in the closet- but I wasn't even sure if somebody had already seen it. Had they seen me come back? Had I been noisy? Had I woken Audrey up again? I hope not. She's the last person on earth who I'd even want to see me like this.

At least is was early enough to wake up. I had forgotten to close the blinds of my window so the early morning sun woke me up at seven in the morning. Usually I bring Audrey some breakfast around eight.

When I went into her room an hour later, I watched out for signs, but I didn't find any. Probably she hadn't heard me or seen me in my awful state. She was just silent as always, when she sat across me at the table, and today I wasn't even too sad about that, because of my headache.

She still didn't talk to me.
She got a lot better in the last week, gained back some weight and strength and she needed less and less help to walk. Her nightly ritual of going up to that chapel and playing Chopin obviously helped as well. I followed her two more times, but then she seemed to be able to do this on her own. I stopped following her and spying after her. I have my own nightly problems to deal with.

Today we went around in the house and in the gardens, our typical daily route. She doesn't need me to hold her any more, she doesn't even needed to grab my arm. She's recovering. I'm glad.

Then the evening came. She retreated into her room, I retreated into mine.

Now I'm lying here again, like always, wide awake or at least trying to be wide awake. If Audrey hadn't been there - I don't know if I would have already taken my gun to blow my brains out just to stop these pictures from coming back. Probably I wouldn't have. I would have bought a stiff drink to get the pictures out of my head.

Lying here I squint at the wardrobe. Half of the bottle of vodka is still over there. That's way more than needed to have a good night's sleep.

I can't do this again, no. It'll leave me and Audrey unguarded. If anyone came to harm us, I wouldn't be able to fight back... probably I wouldn't even notice. I can't do this.

I keep lying there, for hours.

Weirdest thoughts come. Even though I manage to keep my eyes open, now these pictures even start haunting me while I'm still awake. My subconsciousness wants me to deal with everything that happened to me in the past seven months. It seeks closure, even if it destroys me with that.

I'm not hungry now but I remember almost starving to death, on the way back from Sengala.
It's cold in here but I remember the heat and the humidity inside that sea container that made it hard to breathe.
I'm covered with a blanket but nevertheless I remember the icy cold of the Russian winter. Things that I never want to experience again.

The worse memories are yet to come, I know. They just haven't reached me yet, today. They will come, maybe in an hour, maybe in two, or maybe in five minutes, when I'll no longer be able to keep my eyes open.

I throw the blanket aside and sit up in bed. Don't lie down again. You'll fall asleep and that's not good.

I sit there, staring into the darkness. There's nothing to do. I've already cleaned, inspected, disassembled and put together my guns a hundred times. I've already had a look at the city map a thousand times, I know exactly what the best route to escape is, I know how to get in and out of that convent unseen, if necessary. I guess my enemies would needed a really long time to find that out.

I get up and count the money again which is hidden in various places all over the room. Around seven million Tenge. That sounds like it's a lot, but it's not. Those aren't even twenty thousand Dollars. That's enough for one getaway. It's pretty much all I have.
I had to pay a lot for the travel to get here, unseen. I had to pay a lot for the weapons, for the house that we were at, for the car, Belcheck, for staying here. Three of my four bank accounts are empty. Plus I had to ask Mark for money. I hated it, but he had sufficient funds, after selling his and Audrey's house. I guess he somehow felt obliged to spend half of the money - Audrey's half - for her and not for a new place for himself. I was always good at reading people. As he gave me the money, he looked like felt obliged to do it. For her. Sometimes I really forgot how much that guy still loves her. He would have done anything. When I told him that there's a chance that she's alive, he didn't even question me. He went all-in, just like me.

I put the money back. That's all I have now. One getaway.

On my way here, I didn't spend one second thinking about a possible getaway. I postponed it to later - actually to now - to think about the next steps.

I still haven't made a plan. Every other day I keep telling myself that Audrey is not yet ready to get away from this place, but it's just to evade the decision. I have one shot. We can travel to one other place, but that's it. I could use the money and buy an old house somewhere in Kazakhstan, to stay there indefinitely. It's an option, but I feel bad about it. That's not how I want Audrey to spend the rest of her days.
I could use the money to travel back to Serbia with her. Better, but again, it's not a life that I'd want her to live.

I can't think of any place that I'd want her to live at, which is safe and which I can afford to bring us.

She deserved so much better. I can't give her that.

I hate to make that decision regarding her whole future life.
That's why I put the money back and postpone the decision again. One more day. She's nowhere well enough to leave, anyway, I keep telling myself.

The bottle of vodka is talking to me. Take me, it says, loudly, the bold black Cyrillic letters tell me that they're the medicine against the tiredness that I always feel because of not sleeping. You deserve one more night of sleep, they say.

They're right. I do deserve one night of sleep. After barely sleeping for such a long time I've already been running around like a zombie. I'm not a big help for Audrey either in that state or the other. If I go for three more days without sleep I don't know if I'd be able to defend us then.

I grab the bottle and take a big gulp of vodka.

Actually, I hate it, I must admit. I hate the way it burns down my throat, it almost hurts to drink that stuff. That gets slightly better after the third or fourth slug.

The room suddenly feels really small. I have to check on the two guns that I hid on the way out, I remember. I haven't checked on them in two days. Awfully long.
But maybe my brain is just searching for an excuse to leave again.

It's one a.m. in the morning now. Everything is silent out in the hallway. Not even a faint sound of Audrey playing the piano up in the chapel. It's past her usual time, anyway.

Getting more and more drunk I stagger down to the ground floor and check on the two guns that are fixed behind the picture frame of a mighty portrait of some saint. Of course the guns are still there. Of course they're still loaded. Of course, everything on this end of my escape plan is okay. The nuns would never search for or find these guns.

I have to fight the wish to leave the house again. I've been trapped here for too long, I hate to stay within these mighty walls but they're something to protect Audrey and me. I'm not yet drunk enough to forget that. Thank god.

While I wearily stagger back to the third floor, where our rooms are, I drink the rest of the bottle. I don't know how long it takes to get back. There's nobody but me who's still up at that time. I'm alone and I know it.

The empty bottle is still in my hands as I climb the last one of the steps. I have to hide it and get rid of it... someday. Doesn't matter, as long as nobody finds it in the meantime.
I wonder what kind of details my mind is still able to think about. Lucky me.

I walk over to my door - as I suddenly freeze.

I'm standing at one side of the corridor, Audrey is standing at the other. Looks like she's just coming back from the chapel.

I almost drop the empty bottle. Does she see it, that I'm completely wasted?
Of course she does. There's an empty bottle in my hand, and I have to hold on to the wall not to wobble.

She says nothing. Of course she says nothing.

I want to say something - to apologize - but I can't get any words out. I can't even think of any words.

She hurriedly opens her door and slips into her room, locking the door from the inside.

I dash over, already lift my hand to knock at it, but then I realize how inappropriate that would be. I'd be harassing her. There's nothing I could say or do to make the situation better.

I hate myself. I hate that bottle in my hand. I hate having bought it the night before. I hate my nightmares. I hate everything.

It's only three yards over to my door, but the way feels endlessly long.

Right now, I don't even care to hide the bottle. Who from, anyway? She's already seen it.

I sit down at the bed. Probably I should hope for a resting sleep without nightmares but the adrenaline of meeting Audrey, so unexpectetly, keeps my pulse up.

I should have never done this.

Damn it.

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