Capítulo 6: ...

Lucifer, upon hearing Jonas' affirmative answer, snapped his fingers and disappeared, leaving him at the hands of his lynchers. The poor boy looked for him desperately until he collapsed.

He woke up terribly painful, and could hardly get up from the bed where he was sleeping with Mama. It didn't take long for Jonas to realize there was something different about his body. Alma was gone. He ran to the mirror to see that the worst of his nightmares had just come true. He didn't even notice that he was now a "beautiful" person, with milk-white skin and golden curls instead of hair.

"My God, what have I done?" Said Jonah, trembling. He felt unprotected. For the first time in his life, he experienced loneliness, because he had never really been alone. Alma was his soul, and he gave her to the Devil. He came out of the tent in search of Lucifer, but he did not find her. He was hurrying towards the big tent when someone called her.

"Jonah! Come here," shouted the obese woman, who at that time of day was a slender, almost anorexic redhead. The boy approached her with a head down, he couldn't look her in the face.

"The worm man was right, appearance does not help us be happier," said the poor boy with his only head down.

" What did Lucifer ask you?" Asked the woman.

"My Soul," replied Jonah.

"It is what he asks of all of us," he asked.

"No, he took away Alma, my little sister."

"Forget about her and your whole life if possible. You have opened the door to your eternal damnation," said the woman in a plaintive voice, as if what she said was not to Jonah, but herself. He answered nothing, for he was immersed in the saddest and darkest part of his thoughts.

"Go with the others to prepare everything, tonight we have a show"

Jonah left slowly and sat down in the corner of the floor in the tent. No one disturbed him. They knew what he was going through, losing your soul is never easy.

When it was seven o'clock at night, one of the dwarfs approached the boy and moved him to wake up, it was time for the show. Jonah woke up shocked, and the first thing he did was to check if Alma was with him, but she wasn't. He had become a monster again, but without Alma. His other head was there, but she wasn't. He cried bitterly feeling empty, but the show had to go on. He could hear everything: the music, the people screaming, and the horrible voice of Lucifer who was leading the show.

"Are you ready to go to hell?" Asked burlesquely, knowing what was waiting for those poor people who ingenuously bought their tickets. An hour passed when Jonah felt the curtains open and his cage slowly being pushed on to the stage.

"And with you, the most horrible monster human eyes have ever seen. Please, if you or your children are sensitive, I recommend that you leave. What you will see next will be the cause of your eternal nightmares," said Lucifer with a big smile on her face. Jonah closed his eyes tightly, he knew what awaited him. When the people in the show saw him, they ran in fear, screaming and asking God for help. Only a few stayed, not because they did not want to run, but because they were petrified by fear. Jonah wasted no time, and when he saw what was happening look at Lucifer, and asked her:

"Where is my sister?"

"How ungrateful you are, you are not happy that I made the villagers forget your existence. Just because of that you were not lynched again," answered Lucifer indignant.

"Where is Alma?" Asked Jonah again, more annoyed than the previous time.

"I hope that in the next city we visit people won't be so scared because they turn the tent into a disaster by running away."

"Devil! I asked you, where is my sister?" Shouted Jonah on the verge of madness.

"In hell," she replied with a smile and then added, "Oh, and before I forget, please pack up everything tonight, tomorrow we'll travel to Paris.

They departed to Paris two days after the show. They did it in caravans pulled by horses. Lucifer could make them all appear there by just snapping his fingers, but she preferred to make them suffer. The pain and sadness of the world were her most precious food.

Two long weeks it took all of them to reach Le Hell, a little village in the outskirts of Paris. There they arrived on a Saturday night, the weather was terrible, and it did not stop raining. The poor freaks had to set up their tents under the torrential storm. Every drop of water falling on their deformed bodies was like a needle stuck in them. Although within themselves they said that they were already accustomed to misery, the truth is that no one can become accustomed to suffering.

They say that time cures everything, but in their cases, the time had only increased the pain and despair at the thought that they would never have the so longed-for eternal rest. This idea tormented them so much that at some point all of them ended up going mad. Lucifer chose to throw those who lost their senses into the lake of fire, because there no matter how much they shouted and wailed, they could not go out by themselves.

Jonah was unable to get up the whole way. He was very sick. He was besieged by incessant vomiting and fever, he could not eat anything. Many came to believe that his only living companion would die. To Jonah's misfortune, exposure to rainwater caused his fever to drop, and the same night they arrived, he was able to eat something. All of them, wrapped in old blankets, gathered to eat. All you could hear was the clink of the spoon as it collided with the dishes and the occasional sound that some of them made as they ate.

"Is there a way to recover what Lucifer has stolen from us?" Jonah finally asked, "is there?" He insisted, seeing that no one answered.

"Everything is possible," said the worm man, whose tongue had completely grown that day.

"Shss," said, placing his index finger in his mouth, a tall man with all his skin burned off. In the shows, they set fire to him completely, and he stood motionless without a trace of pain.

"Leave me alone. I know when to shut up. Besides, even if there was a way out of here, do you think that after centuries we have the strength to fight? No, do you? This is our destiny, and we have already accepted it."

"No, you, have, already, accepted it. Not, talk for, every, body;" answered the burnt man. His voice was hoarse and almost inaudible. His words were constantly cut off by a loud raspy cough that attacked him every time he tried to speak.

"Do you still have hope after all you have suffered? You more than any of us must have lost it. Yet I think it is a mockery on your part to come and bring us words of encouragement. We are all dead, and we know that there is nothing left for us after this. The nothingness became pain and bitterness."

"We, have, all, eternity, to, find, out," said the burnt man.

The worm man turned his soup bowl over with his head and stood up as high as he could.

"What do you mean by that? I just hope you don't try to do anything. Lucifer is very cruel and could punish us all if he finds out you have hope," the burned man stood up from his seat, and without say nothing went to his tent. This made the worm man even angrier, and he started screaming like crazy.

" I've been here a hundred years, a hundred years! Do you think I never felt hope? Yes, I did, but that goes away when you realize reality, fairy tales, and heroes do not exist. We are dead, and that's it! We can't dream of a better world, where we don't even belong."

By the time that soul finished venting, the burned man was no longer seen. Jonah only listened attentively to every word. He too still possessed hope, he wanted his sister back, no matter what he had to do, he had nothing to lose. He ate quickly but reluctantly what was left on his plate, and before anyone else finished, he got up and went into the burned man's tent. He was lying on the floor, looking at nothing. Jonah approached him, trying not to make any noise.

"Is there a way to get our souls back?" The boy whispered for he knew how dangerous it was to talk about this subject - the man just nodded.

"Which one?" he asked quickly.

"Kill, her."

"What? Is this possible? Her is the Devil," said Jonah, surprised and frightened by the mere thought of killing someone so powerful. He turned around to leave, but something made him turn back.

"She's, not, Lu, cifer. She, is, powerful, but, it's, not, the, devil."

"I don't believe you. How could you know something like that?" asked the boy with a choppy voice, he was terrified.

" I, was, in, hell, for, centuries, there,I hearddd, thingsss"

At that moment all the courage that Jonah had vanished, and he was tormented by the idea that someone could have heard that conversation and that because of him, everyone was punished terribly. He was just a child and was expected to react in this way.

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