If I can start over: A new world

VI. Innate. Part 2

"You're a tough nut to c***k, aren't you?" The voice was new, deep, and sullen. Like a chronic smoker. "How did you know your Geist would absorb all that energy?"

"Francesca..." I doubled over, sitting on the carpet, rubbing my hair as I tried to accommodate my thoughts and put my head in place. "Why did your voice suddenly change?"

"My voice hasn't changed." There she was, in my mind, laughing with her lips together and barely audible. "He is Vuk. It is the Vormund assigned to guide you through the next century."

"What?" Ideas were still spinning, and my throat was still scared from gagging. "Where I am?"

"In your room, boy," the dwarf spoke. I opened my eyes wide when I saw it. It was at least five feet, only. Plump, brown-skinned, and hairy, thickly hairy on the limbs, face, and chest; n***d to the lower part of the abdomen, where ripped trousers made of animal skin covered both legs, down to the lower part of the heels. Besides, he wore as a cape the back of a wolf, whose head served as a hood, and glossy brown hair danced in waves on his forehead. "Are you feeling better?"

"But what the fuck..." I opened my mouth in amazement and horror at the creature in front of me.

"How much do you look at me, kid?" Growled the little Ewok. "Have you never seen a Vucari before?"

"No sir, I'm sorry." I stood up, and as rarely happens, I looked down to speak to the tiny rover. "What are you, exactly?"

"It's a Vucari," Francesca repeated. "A Slavic creature that inhabited your reality in the 5th century. It was the basis for Herodotus' studies as a historian and geographer."

"I've never heard of it in my life." I looked around then. Both Holger and Álvaro were still as he had left them before they lost consciousness. "When you said that a Vormund was a creature, I thought it was figurative, that it would be more... astral."

"No," she answered simplistically. "It was literal. The Alt confine creatures, beings that our ancestors viewed as monsters, and that philosophers and writers painted as mythological creatures, but were actually only corrupted at some point in their lives. He has been sent to protect you."

"You're more important than you think, little boy." I still wasn't used to his raspy, guttural voice. It made me want to give him a sore throat pill.

"What happened? Why am I not dead?" I changed the subject.

"Your geist is energy, boy! Get on the side of an atomic bomb and you will charge up enough to blow up a star... For Perún! They told me you were smarter, kid. Look at your hands."

"What the f**k have... my hands...?" They glowed like fireflies in the meadow. In general, it was covered with a thin layer of luminescence that didn't radiate light to the surroundings, that was contained in me. "Ok, this is extremely new. What's going on?"

"I didn't think it would work," Francesca confessed. "I mean, you just got used to jumping in the lines, I thought you would spontaneously consume yourself if you carried your Geist..." she apologized. "Luckily it didn't happen." She sighed and giggled.

"He was born for this! Oh yes!" Vuk replied.

"Are you listening to her too?" I asked the Ewok.

"Sure, newbie," he laughed. "If you don't want me to hear it, mute her."

"How do I do that?" I frowned.

"Put it back in your big head, the one you carry over your neck, kid."

"Is that possible?" I looked diagonally at the ceiling, where I always thought she was.

"Yes," Francesca said bluntly. "But I serve you much more freely: I can have a view at three hundred and sixty degrees and watch your back when Vuk is not there, and I will keep you informed of the presence of other Geister or Berater, like me. If you keep me in your head, I will see what you see, and I will converse with your reasoning, just that. So slow down on what you think, if that's what you prefer."

"How do I do it?" Now I did look directly at the Ewok.

"By Voloh's beard! Just ask, boy." He raised his arms and dropped them as if everything was so obvious to know.

"Are you coming in?" I felt a sting on the back of my neck, right in the middle.

"Done. Now just you listen to me and keep me blind for now." She complained.

"Just for now. I don't trust Vuk." I alerted her.

"Don't worry about him. He is tied to you until he perishes, in a situation similar to mine. He would give his life for you."

"Similar to yours?"

"He is confined to you because it ordered..." I got the message.

"Are you talking in private?" Said Vuk. "I imagine your Ratgeber tells you how nice I am, huh, kid?"

"Something like that," I replied. "So... is the c***k fixed yet?"

"Well, take a look for yourself. Let's see if the memory is the one from before, okay, boy?"

"Alright"

Before I could say anything, he took me by the shoulder and we vanished in the wind. As if sucked into the tiny space under the bedroom door. We crossed building five at breakneck speed, swinging down the stairs, leaving the building behind, and entering the lobby in a couple of blinks.

"What was that?" I asked, still dazed from the ride.

"It's my way of using your gifts," he explained. "In case you are not in conditions."

"But that pull... I felt like you were pulling something out of me."

"You're full of energy, little cub," he laughed again, one of those laughs that go in instead of out. "I used your energy to do it. Your gifts are based on how charged your Geist is, and I feed on you. So you better stay bright, or at least solid. That way another Geist, or even worse, some Jäger, won't be able to locate you so easily."

"If a Jäger comes after me, wouldn't you have to stop me and save him the job?"

"No, kid," he scoffed, clearing his throat as if he had gallons and gallons of phlegm in his windpipe. "It don't matter which side you choose, it don't matter if you wanna save your lovers or relatives, or kill someone who hates you in the past or the future. Don't care, boy. I'm on your side, always."

"Ok, now I don't like him so much." Francesca intervened.

"If I ask you to kill someone for me..."

"I'd do it without asking if I want to." He finished the sentence and answered me at the same time.

"Doesn't it matter who or how young he is?"

"Why do you ask that?" Francesca said, dismayed at the context of my question.

"Don't be alarmed, I just want to know its limits."

"Old people, children, women. Newborns are very tasty." He smiled wickedly and licked the corners of his lips. I could see out of the corner of my eye the huge canines that he had in his teeth.

"I think he has no limits..." Francesca said. "Be careful with him."

"A moment ago you said not to worry."

"A moment ago he did not offer you his services to eat newborns."

"I thought and Alt sent you. Shouldn't you serve him?"

"I serve him, and his orders are clear: protect you." He smiled maliciously. "It's your decision what to do next so."

"And... how do I stay charged?" I tried to divert this gloomy gathering.

"Basically" he moved his thin hairy arm, elbow bent in a vee and wrist thrown in the air, around himself "of anything that radiates energy. You're like a…" He put one hand on his hip, while the other scratched his wavy hair that was streaming down from the wolf's mouth. "I don't remember the name given to these batteries that Perún charges."

"Who's Perún?" I asked, giggling briefly, making fun of my ignorance.

"Who is Perún?!" He threw his fists down and back and tilted his jaw in my direction. "Well, the very god of lightning and thunder, the creator of everything, the..."

"Why did you ask ..." she complained.

"I'm sorry. I won't ask anything about gods and banalities."

About fifteen minutes later.

"... the mountain, the eagle, the punisher of armies, the giver of fertility, the..."

"Well, well, I get the point. Thanks for the history lesson," I interrupted. "Now what?" I looked down at Vuk.

"Oh, come on, kid." He pointed his hairy index finger toward the door. "I just saw you turning left awhile ago. I think as soon as we got there I could see..."

"And we're here wasting time." I turned around and raised my left arm, pointed to the third-floor south window in building five. "There we are."

"This is where we saw you, remember?" Francesca told me. "The young wolf in the gray shirt is just coming out of the door behind the fence, on the right."

"I guess we should run," I proposed.

"What?" Now Vuk looked at me in surprise, "Why do you have to run?"

"I have the wolf through the gate."

"You have me where?" He said. I didn't pay attention, I was listening to someone else.

"Remember, don't look at yourself. Avoid direct contact with you. And be faster than him." Francesca advised me

I took a deep breath, filled my lungs to their limits, and ran out of the lobby waiting room. The boy in the T-shirt saw me through the fence, and he went into the path that leads to the other buildings. I heard their laughter in the distance, and their moans of weariness thank the difficult weather.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," he yelled at me, still laughing. "Take it, take it," he said, taking off his mask.

"What?"

"But what...?" Francesca imitated me.

"Ah?!" Vuk growled. "Why are you chasing this jerk?!"

"Take it, I'll give it back." Junior raised his right hand with the wolf mask. "I saw it on your desk and I wanted to scare you in the lobby. It worked with the other two. Where did you buy it, by the way? It's straw."

"I bought it so long ago and I used it so little that I didn't even remember it." I thought.

"I know," Francesca confessed. "I didn't remember it either."

"At the gas station two blocks away. It was fifteen dollars," I informed Junior while holding the mask in my hands.

"Were you chasing him for a stupid mask?!" Vuk yelled at me. "I think I was wrong... the fool is you, brat."

"Thank you," I replied to Junior. "Eh... you'd better stay in the lobby and don't come back to the room for a while." I lied so he wouldn't run into my other astral self or the explosive.

"Why? What happened?"

"I think Álvaro is busy... with a girl. It seems to me that they need to be alone for a bit."

"Ah ok... yeah, that's fine. Well then, cholo, see you later." He said goodbye with a clash of fists before following the path back to the lobby. "Really, aren't you coming to the lobby?

"I'll go see Ramcés," I lied again. "He must be asleep, and I don't think the alarm will wake him up."

"Oh yes OK. See you later then." He walked away and got lost with the rest. A few seconds later, to my luck, Ramcés and I were going down with the girls in the same direction.

I followed the path quickly, and turned left, next to building three, so that the view to the lobby was minimal. I went into the kitchen, the light came on automatically.

"Boy, stop thinking thoughtful thoughts, and answer me, why were you chasing that moron?" Approached Vuk, who was by my side the whole time. I rested my backpack on the nearest red chair, unzipped it, and placed the wolf mask on top.

"Nevermind. Explain to me something, how come we didn't see you before? I was chatting with Francesca on the third floor, and I only saw myself crossing the lobby."

"Well, because I'm invisible even to the Berater. Only you can know of my presence unless you ask me and wanna scare some Weltlich."

"Somewhat?" I couldn't even pronounce it.

"A >," he said slowly, to show me the pronunciation. "A worldly, an earthly. A sleeping Geist. Just like your friend."

"That's why no one saw you," I stated. "And how did you make your way?"

"The Weltlichs just pierce me. As I explained to you a moment ago, I feed on you, and your energy materializes me. I'm tied to your Geist until further notice."

"My friend... Why did Junior see me?" I asked Francesca.

"I don't know. I hadn't realized it. It's so usual where I come from that I forgot you didn't know how to do it." She replied.

"How can my friend see me? How come I could see myself from the window?"

"Well, because you're solid," Vuk replied sarcastically, wrinkling his face. "Like I told you before, kid. If you're not luminous, at least stay solid... By the threads of Mokosh! I'm talking to a rock!"

"And when did I materialize?" I suddenly looked at my body. It was complete and palpable. I was no longer covered by the thin layer of light, I was no longer phosphorescent, but I felt just as energetic as before.

"Well, when I brought you to the..." and lengthened the sound of the 'the', he looked at me and smirked. "Wait for a second... so the child himself doesn't know his limits. I think this will take fewer years than I imagined." He snorted. "Apparently, it was true, you were born for this."