The Dartagnan Brothers Hotel

Chapter 23

Douglas knew exactly what he had done as he seemed to be waiting for the moment when Giovanni would find out about it and come to meet him, demanding satisfaction. The brief moment that preceded Giovanni's shout of his name caught Jonas's attention as Catarina shook Douglas's hand, which was not a simple handshake, but an exchange of something. The slight twitching of Douglas' fingers, as his hands touched hers, implied that the mysterious lady had left him something before leaving for one of the doors at the small torture museum at the Dartagnan Brothers' Hotel.
'What the fuck is this?' asked Giovanni as the doctor approached him far enough to observe what he was pointing out.
'It was Getulio, Mr. Giovanni, you know how persuasive your brother can be. Being kidnapped by him was not an easy time.' Douglas seemed to have an incredible gift for telling unreasonable lies.
Jonas knew that Giovanni did not have the knowledge that Douglas had switched to Getulio's side of his own free will, but his story was simple and strongly unrelated so that it could be easily credited. However, it seemed that Giovanni had an even greater gift in believing that his money would actually buy the truth at that moment, or maybe he was simply letting the lie be a temporary answer, something that could bring Douglas back to his side of the game. It was certain that Mr. Dartagnan would have a future in mind for those who had betrayed him, but apparently, the moment was not auspicious enough for creating disagreements that could be used as a temporary alliance.
'You know very well that these nano-chips are indispensable so that I can finish what I have planned.' Giovanni said as he was seemingly calming down.
'Yes, sir, but as I told you, it wasn't my fault...'
'It doesn't matter who's fault was it.' he cut off Douglas's answer without wanting to give space for other lies to be raised in a place he considered sacred. 'If I pay you enough, can you solve the problem?'
Jonas soon saw that Giovanni knew exactly who Douglas was and, even better, he knew, from the start, how to persuade him.
'Yes sir.' he replied simply when lowering his head and leaving the small room.
'It looks like you'll have to wait a little longer, Jonas.' said Giovanni, who already looked tired of how wrong things had been going with Jonas.
Jonas did not think it would be appropriate to answer right then, in fact, he hadn't opened his mouth to say a word for quite a while. All he had in his mind was looking for a way out of that place. However, the premise left in the air by Giovanni, that his plans would only be successful if those nano-chips were implemented again in his arm made him wonder what the the mighty Mr. Dartagnan might be thinking.
'Why do you need those things inside me?' he asked as he broke his long lasting silence.
'You already know too much about the things that happen here Jonas.' said Giovanni as he stopped running his fingers over the small scars that were beginning to heal. 'I must confess that I am surprised by your reaction. I didn't expect to have so much trouble making things work with you.
'Is there a chance of you to letting me go?' he asked, having nothing to lose even though he knew he wouldn't get an answer.
'The same chance the child you killed has to return to life.' Giovanni replied, looking deep into Jonas' eyes.
'I killed no one! You'll have to agree that the matter is hugely debatable...'
'Not in here, it is not.' Giovanni interrupted without giving way for Jonas to follow that reasoning. 'Here we follow the word of god and the teachings of the bible, this is how things have been since the beginning of humanity and this is how they should continue to be. Society increasingly forgets family values, ​​and traditions are set aside so that perversity takes hold of those who are vulnerable within the christian society.'
'Family? Perversity? Do you hear the words that come out of your mouth?' Jonas had let fear turn to anger. 'You just killed your own niece and your brother has been tortured for months at your command!'
'And who put you in charge to decide who lives and who doesn't? You are nothing but a disgusting worm that have been placed in my path and will be extinguished the way you deserve!'
'Then report me to the authorities!' Jonas sought to plead for his life from any possible argument. 'May the laws determine my destiny, and not your fantasies about an outdated book.'
'I'm the justice here!.' Giovanni raised his voice and showed even more aggressiveness to not let Jonas take control of the situation.
Mr. Dartagnan was letting his serenity and coolness be overcome by rage, something that Jonas had never seen before. He was sweating and itching like someone who was going through abstinence, like a person who was uncomfortably and out of his natural habitat, which made Jonas think that maybe that game could turn to his side. However, he knew that the conversation they were engaged into would get him nowhere; he knew that there was no dialogue with such extreme fanatics, and whatever he said would be countered by sordid and outdated ideas from someone who had not let his mind evolve with age.
The silence reigned for some time. Both Jonas and Giovanni seemed to hold thoughts that would take them away from reality, but the intimidating looks continued to wander across both fields of vision, implying that the battle was not lost on either side.
'Whilst we wait.' said Giovanni. 'There is one thing about you that I could never understand...'
Jonas did not expect to have any kind of elaborate conversation with Giovanni, he had already given up trying to convince the archaic type that he deserved to be absolved from his mistakes and get out of there alive, but curiosity was never successfully confronted by common sense within his mind.
'Tell me, then.' he replied without thinking twice.
'I've watched one of your dreams several times without understanding what it means. Maybe you can elucidate me about the meaning that such a situation has inside your subconscious.' Giovanni looked really curious.
Jonas knew exactly about what dream Giovanni was referring to, which, for him, was never a dream, but an endless nightmare he had had since he was a little boy. He had never been able to understand it.
'And may I ask how do you know about such a dream?' he asked, feeling that his privacy no longer held any sovereignty.
'I reckon we're past that stage, young man. You must have understood very well how things work around here by now.' Giovanni was aware that Jonas was fully keen on the functionalities of the dream chair technology. 'I'm sure Getulio and Douglas thoroughly explained to you how the drugs work within your system.'
Jonas was even more surprised to learn that Giovanni already knew about Douglas's betrayals, and, even so, he continued to credit him so he would remain protected within his fanatical ideas. The mercenary doctor should hold a tremendous importance within Giovanni's plans as to operate that technology and all of those drugs.
The invasion of his privacy, however, did not prevent him from being honest and seeking empathy with the old man, who, after all, was nothing but human and seemed to hold a curiosity just as strong as Jonas's.
'I'll answer that if you tell me something I haven't been able to understand myself...'
'Why not...'
'As you were inducing me into depersonalisation I found myself inside Rodrigo's body when he was attached to that weird bed that stretched him to his death. What was that?' Jonas was incredulous as he finally let something like that come out of his own mouth.
'You even know about depersonalisation, I'm impressed.' said Giovanni as he stared into Jonas's eyes. 'That was a programmed dream, not depersonalisation. I made you feel like you were Rodrigo. It was just something to scare you.'
'That's really messed up... You should really see a doctor about that...'
'I do, and he's called god.' Jonas knew exactly that Giovanni was going to say that. 'Now, answer my question.'
'I do not know.' he replied.
'Oh come on...'
'Really. I've got no idea of what that means, it's just something I dream about since I was a very young boy. Never got to know what it meant.' he answered sincerely.
'Odd. I have something similar in my mind that I've also never managed to decipher. No matter how much I am devout or how much I do good for my community, god continues to play the same trick on me, over and over again.' Giovanni seemed to be more in a moment of self-reflection that he seemed to be involved into a conversation.
'Fancy knowing my theory?' asked Jonas as he observed a breach that might create a bond between them.
'I think I still have some time, so why not...'
'I think it is not possible to understand all aspects of life. Take, for example, our differences. We will never be able to reach a fair consensus between us, but we have, within the same society in which we live, established rules that allow us to live in harmony.' he said, showing emotion.
The metaphor used by Jonas came to hold Giovanni's attention for a short time, the old man seemed really intrigued by the meaning that Jonas had found for his dream. The fact that he never managed to get to the floor of the building, and never managed to know who was waiting for him there, had an interesting connotation about how he was guiding his own life.
'This is one of the most crucial differences between you and I' said Giovanni whilst putting a smug smile on his face. 'I would never accept a theory that limited me as far as not reaching my goals, quite on the contrary, I prefer to leave this plan before my ideals are blocked by renunciation.'
Jonas did not expect Giovanni's response to be that deep, which left him without reaction for a brief moment, leading him to seek a break in the matter and bring back what was his biggest concern.
'You seem, at times, to be such a lucid and intelligent man. I can't understand how you can justify killing me or anyone else in this madness you call organisation, based on mere words written in a fantasy book thousands of years ago.' Jonas knew he had offended Giovanni, and that was his intention.
'And maybe you will never understand it.' he replied dryly when he realised that Douglas was making his way back from wherever he was.
The doctor carried in his hands a closed suitcase that Jonas could only imagine contained the nano-chips that would be re-implanted on his arm, but the expression on his face did not seem to match the fact that he had returned bearing good news.
'I hope the expression on your face is not consistent with what you carry in that briefcase, doctor.' said Giovanni, who let Jonas on the care of the guards once again as he made his way to meet Douglas.
The two began to exchange words in a heated and dubious argument; Giovanni exuded anger and disappointment, which made Jonas think he might have a chance after all. Catarina reappeared behind the same door that she had disappeared before and tried to calm the mood before the two came to take more drastic measures between themselves.
She took Giovanni by the arm he had been scratching and gave him what appeared to be a pill. Perhaps a medicine or any other type of drug that would calm the anger that was putting fear in everyone else. Douglas held on to his position as soon as he noticed the way Catarina treated Giovanni, which further intrigued Jonas about the whole mystery behind the distinguished lady who, despite being of little presence, always seemed to have a solution to the problems she encountered. The two exchanged words for a few minutes until they found a solution to the apparent problem Douglas had brought.
'Very well, ladies and gentlemen. Let's go back to the main hall. I believe that everyone is going to be surprised by what my employees prepared for us over there.' Giovanni promptly stamped a smile worthy of the leader he was, leading the way to be followed by everyone else.
The circus was fully armed in the hall that previously gave way to the big party that Jonas had so longed to take part in. A small and simple altar had been quickly assembled in the center of the room. The table Jonas had sat during dinner had given place to one of those dream chairs, as an audience that was starting to build up in front of it. The priest, who had disappeared since Lara's death, had returned to show his tragic appearance, looking like someone who had spent the past few hours drowning in a bottle of christ's blood, causing Jonas to shiver every time their eyes met.
'Please put him in the chair.' said Giovanni to two of his henchmen, bringing torment to Jonas's mind. He was feeling that his time was getting closer and closer to an end.
Two men held him tightly, which was not necessary since he was not fighting it as he felt pain to the even slightest movement his body made against his will, and sat him in the dream chair, holding his feet and hands so that he was completely still until they could tie the extremities of his limbs.
The anxiety came with strength. Jonas hadn't had any hope of getting out of there for while now, but it was only then that it hit him, making him realise that his future was unavoidable. In one night he could account for the death of his best friend, his ex-girlfriend and her mother, as well as other atrocities he had witnessed against people he had just met. His mouth was dry and his mind was unable to focus on a sole thing; several were the insanities that his brain had been propagating behind his eyes, and few were the possibilities in which he survived. He had no idea what Giovanni had programmed to be his long-awaited penance, but he couldn't get his mind off all of those medieval torture paraphernalia the sect had recently used against others. Whatever Giovanni had planned for him, it was still a great mystery, and it caused his mental state to depreciate more by the second.
'Giovanni!' Jonas let his mental stability escape him and started to scream desperately. 'Let me out of here!'
His plea was ignored and, soon after, drowned out by the handkerchief Giovanni carried in the pocket of his jacket. The piece of cloth filled his already battered mouth so deeply, that he couldn't even spit out the blood that had not yet stopped flowing from his wounds.
The stage was set and the main attraction was already present. Giovanni Dartagnan had finally succeeded in organising his final plan; not in the way he had imagined and with a much smaller audience than he thought he would have, but he was going to have the satisfaction of having Jonas exactly where he wanted.
As soon as Giovanni began his usual speech, the priest came down from the altar to meet Jonas. He was so drunk that he could barely keep the balance on his legs. He could feel from afar, before the priest got remotely close, the bad breath left by the misture of alcohol and cigarettes, which exhaled from his open and full of crooked teeth mouth. The old vicar's hair was no longer straight as it had been when they met in the church, the priest now looked more like the one Jonas had met in the small red room whilst being tortured with lucid dreams and depersonalised memories.
Jonas broke out in a cold sweat when anxiety, once again, hit a new peak. The moment the priest got close to him, he could see the dirt accumulated within his teeth.
'Now it's just you and I.'
The old man began to grasp his recently stubble shave on Jonas's face, whilst sniffling hard in his ear. He even threw up in his handkerchief-covered mouth when the priest stuck out his tongue and licked the side of his face from top to bottom.
'You are mine now.' said the priest as he slid his hand over Jonas' chest until he reached his groin and squeezed his testicles with such force that he let out a cry muffled by the handkerchief.
Giovanni just turned his face away with a gesture of repudiation taken by the priest's meddling, preventing the old pervert from continuing to do whatever was in his sordid mind.
'Now I need your utmost attention, my people. For all this time that you have been with me, I have omitted from you, ladies and gentlemen, something of extreme importance for our organisation.' Giovanni caught Jonas's attention who could still feel the repugnance exhaled by disgusting smell of the priest. 'The reason that we are all here today, alive and ready to move on, is this woman that I will introduce to you. Please, a round of applause for my dear sister, Catarina Dartagnan.'
The announcement didn't just take Jonas by surprise, but everyone in attendance who began to whisper and comment on the newest arrived news they had just heard. After a brief moment of awkwardness, one of the guests encouraged the applause requested by Giovanni, which was followed by a loud wave of applause that came to an end when requested by Mr. Dartagnan himself.
'Thank you, thank you.' he said, looking pleased with the general reaction. 'Now, in a very brief moment, I will explain to you the role of Catarina in this organisation, and how our next offering, Jonas Albuquerque, relates to the cause.'
Jonas's mind began to imagine all kinds of possible scenarios to try to understand what his relationship to that woman would be, but his energies were completely depleted and his thoughts could not dismiss the idea that he was there to die.
The time-frame was too short to follow the surprises that appeared in the main hall of the Dartagnan Brothers' Hotel, which now made more of a full sense by how its given name was settle, since Getulio was not very welcomed in there. Giovanni stopped giving explanations and started acting as if everyone there was following his line of thought and understood everything he was doing. The same opening in the floor, that had swallowed the dining table Jonas had sat on before, opened to bring yet another dream chair; the extremely advanced technological paraphernalia had Giovanni's initials engraved in extravagant golden letters. Giovanni's chair seemed to have some increments that the others didn't have, a technology that seemed to be really advanced when compared to anything else that Jonas had ever set his eyes on, but what most caught his attention was the lack of cables and monitors who accompanied its peers.
'I will show you something that is very personal to me. Something about my family that I've never showed anyone else, something that only a select few know about.'
Giovanni's words seemed to be sincere and held an immense meaning for him. Jonas managed to focus his attention on what was about to happen since the priest had left him alone and was now nursing an empty bottle of wine whilst lying on the floor by the altar.
The host said nothing more, letting only his gestures demonstrate what was going to happen. Douglas appeared at his side to help him sit in the dream chair, not needing to do anything else as things became completely automatic from then on. The body of the chair started to change so that Giovanni would be as comfortable as possible, his head was already the target of some laser-like-lights that made him sleep immediately. A large projection screen appeared over Giovanni's head, causing the murmur to reign among the guests who continued to be surprised by the news presented that night.
"Two young adults, who were talking to what looked like a young Giovanni, appeared on the projector. They had the appearance of simple and humble people, but at the same time they held an expression of conviction on what they were about to do.
Next to Giovanni sat an elderly woman, perhaps a little older than the young adults, but with an aspect of much greater experience; her clothes were beaten up and her hands were callused by the hardness that life had imposed on her. She was crying tirelessly and rubbing her face with her hands so she wouldn't let her sadness affect the child in front of her.
'Son, do you understand that this person will bring you a sister?' asked the woman, apparently Claudia, matriarch of the Dartagnan family.
He replied with a negative gesture and a confused look. Maybe he was too young to understand how anyone could relate to him without coming from his mother's belly, or maybe he didn't even understand how children came into the world in the first place, but he certainly didn't seem happy that his parents were giving him that news on in front of a stranger.
'I thought you were my mother.' he said whilst swallowing his weeping. 'Is she my mother now?'
'No! I am your mother and this is your father.' she said whilst pointing to Mateus. 'But this lady carries a gift from god, and unfortunately she won't be able to take care of the child in her tommy'
'And why do you want to take care of this child? Am I not enough for you?' young Giovanni seemed to be about to explode amid the confusion created by his parents.
'You will always be the greatest love of my life, but you will have to share our attention with this girl who will be born in a few months.' said Claudia, pointing to the belly of the mysterious woman and leading the boy's hand to touch the life that was being formed in there.
'Enough, Claudia. When he grows up, he will understand the reason, there's no need to explain ourselves to a child.' said Mateus, already fed up by that conversation.
'Why don't you go to your room and play with Getulio?' she said whilst rubbing the boy's head and insisting that he got up at once.
Giovanni left the place where the adults were talking and pretended to make his way to the room where his brother was, but he, surreptitiously, hid behind the half-open door that left room for him to eavesdrop the conversation that followed.
'I told you it wouldn't work.' said Mateus, letting his back lean against the chair.
'And what do you want me to do? Do we let this woman commit the crime she intends to? What would we be, before god and his final judgment, if we have this dwelling into our consciences?' Claudia's questions were so many that Mateus just shook his head as if he were there just to obey orders.
Claudia held out her hands on the table so that the woman could find the comfort she was offering.
'Now I want you to give me those home remedies that the man offered to take off the child.' she said passing a feeling of confidence through the look in her eyes. 'I promise you that I will take care of you until the day of delivery, and of this child for as long as I breathe on this plane.'"
As soon as the projection disappeared from above his head, Giovanni promptly rose from his chair as if he had no hangover left by the experience he had just had. Jonas knew that if the drugs were taken in a rightly fashioned way, people would be good as new after experiencing a lucid dream.
'So, ladies and gentlemen, this is another story about my family that I share with you tonight.' he said as he rotated the red cane around his fist whilst he climbed back up in the recently assembled altar, becoming evident to everyone who was seeking to follow his steps.
Giovanni's audience was very strange. People talked in whispers as if they were in a play that was being shown for their sole entertainment, but for Giovanni it seemed to be a moment of sadness combined with a feeling of relief and satisfaction. For the first time, he let himself sat down in one of those ceremonies as he crossed his legs and started looking at the horizon as if all his problems were solved. That was when his eyes met Jonas's, sitting in that chair and ready to suffer the long-awaited penance that had been in storage for him.
'So, ladies and gentlemen.' he repeated the jargon he had being saying throughout the whole time when he cleared his throat and got back to his feet 'I believe that those with the sharpest minds among you have already understood exactly why this boy is stuck to this chair.'
Jonas felt that his time had come when all eyes inside that place started focusing on him. Catarina had taken the position at Giovanni's side and Douglas followed her closely without letting any of his movements come to attract attention. Jonas couldn't help believing that he still had a chance to leave that place alive, and he saw that possibility only and exclusively in Douglas. Every time their eyes met, he tried to exhaust the sadness contained inside of him so that perhaps he could move Douglas and encourage him to conduct some majestic gesture that would get them out of there safe and sound, but as it seemed, the doctor had already returned to Giovanni's good side and he had nothing to offer that could change his mind.
'Everyone knows exactly what Jonas did to deserve to be here, and now you know why the subject is so delicate to me. I know very well that this organisation was not created to satisfy personal desires, and I promise that this will be the only time that I use my position for personal gain.' the members of the C.P.F. held their words and acquiesced with their master. 'We will then proceed with the evening's events.'
Jonas was so frightened by the final destination of his weekend that he had not noticed that dusk was beginning to fall through the big doors leading to the balcony where he had previously observed the maze that had tormented him for hours, which was now clear to him, a few months ago. Giovanni started to approach Jonas slowly until he got so close to him that his body shivered with fear that came and went from the most haunted places in his mind. Unlike the priest, Mr. Dartagnan smelled very nice and always carried an elegance that he would never be able to forget. It was what made him think, in that instant, of what the end would be like, what death would bring him and that he would finally discover what awaited him in the after life, if such a thing even existed. He, the skeptic who did not believe in any of the fantasies adored by all those lunatics, would be the first among them to know what really happens after the end.
'You must be really scared.' whispered Giovanni in his ear as soon as he got close enough.
Jonas went into despair and started to project out screams that were still muffled out by the cloth lodged in his mouth. His body was already used to the constant pain he felt due to the blows he received all that time.
'Let the man speak his mind, provide him with a worthy ending.' said one of the men in the middle of the audience that Giovanni could not recognise.
'Let him speak, Giovanni.' to Jonas's surprise, Catarina had come to put a little common sense in her borrowed brother's ear.
The leader's morale was no longer at the peak it had once been. He decided that satisfying a small desire from one of his subjects would not be the end of the world and would demonstrate that his seriousness with the sect had never been more imperative.
'So talk then, boy.' he said as he removed the bloodstained cloth.
'I really don't know what I did to make you hold such hatred towards me. I know very well that I made a mistake and I know very well that my attitudes cannot be repaired in a way that brings back the lives that were lost, including those that you eliminated yourself here today.' he tried to appeal to the logical sense of someone who could get him out of that chair. 'I have nothing to do with anyone in your family and I never wished anyone any harm. Please let me go.' he certainly still had a lot to say, but he didn't find the strength to allow his voice to be heard. He was trying to find clemency amid the people in the audience, but no one there seemed to be willing to risk their own well-being in order to save him from the hell he was living.
'You see, ladies and gentlemen, he doesn't know what he did to deserve what is about to happen to him.' Giovanni returned his attention to the members of the sect who also seemed to expect a slightly more logical explanation of the facts, which brought an unexpected discomfort to Giovanni.
'Whatever I did, I don't deserve to be stuck in this chair without a chance to fight!' said Jonas his last words before Giovanni spoke again.
'Didn't you understand what happened to Catarina, even before she was born? It is because of people like you, my boy, that many lives are denied even being tried! My sister is the purest consequence of avoiding such acts of evil, she is a godsend creature and is here to prove that people like you do not deserve to have the life you waste, you don't deserve freedom and you don't deserve to live among us!'
'You and your family did the same to Lara! Getulio showed me how you made him leave her behind so your family would not be ill-spoken within society!' he was trying to make a point, trying to appeal to he other member's willingness for forgiveness and sensibility.
'That's what that imbecile told you? Getulio wanted her abortion, the same way you did with your unborn child, and after that was denied, he wanted to give her up for adoption, to a family so far away he would never have to hear about that child again!' Giovanni's words were sadly deep as he held the tears that were trying to make their way out of his eyes. 'My family sought the only solution they could so that girl could have an honest life!'
'For what? So you could kill her in front of her own father?' Jonas knew he was throwing away every chance he had of turning Giovanni's senses around. 'You are nothing but a murderer.'
'Don't you dare use that filthy mouth to disrespect Lara's memory, she was more than you could ever be...' he was reaching an extreme point of angst. 'You have no right to speak ill of the god given people that once set foot in this sacred place.'
'So then I deserve to die? Then you hold the right to kill me?' he asked as his anxiety returned to torment his mind.
'Die? Who said you're going to die?' Giovanni didn't even bother to demonstrate the rhetorical tone of the question before shoving the bloodstained cloth back into Jonas's mouth and continuing the ceremony. He was tired and had enough from Jonas. He knew he held all the keys to his own kingdom and no one in there could stop him from fulfilling his wishes.
He waved his red staff through the air and Douglas soon came to meet him as the two began to discuss warmly without Jonas being able to distinguish exactly the words that came out of their mouths, but one thing was certain, the doctor was not comfortable with the situation that was to follow.
'I've told you that so many times...' said the doctor between one sentence and another.
Jonas could remember the exact meaning of those words from the time he had been trapped in the red room and the warnings that doctor Douglas had given Giovanni about the harms that the excessive use of that drug in Jonas's body could bring him, but Mr. Dartagnan did not seem concerned with the consequences that would be coming henceforth.
'I'm truly sorry.' said Douglas as he approached Jonas with the suitcase he had been carrying since he returned from wherever he had gone.
He opened the case and withdrew a large syringe containing a light-blue liquid. Giovanni came to his side and started rubbing his hands anxiously, hoping that the moment he had been waiting for would finally come.
'Jonas used to have two nano-chips in his body that allowed me to control his lucid dreams and depersonalisation.' he turned to the audience to explain. 'However, my brother managed to remove the objects that I struggled to put inside him.'
Jonas shook his head in fear and trembled with intensity as Douglas would approach him with the filled up syringe.
'According to the doctor here, it will not be possible to make new chips so quickly so we could return them to Jonas's body. However, we found an even better solution.' he seemed really satisfied with the conversation he had had with Douglas and Catarina.
Catarina arrived at Douglas' side, showing him pinch of support that only a very intimate person would.
'My initial idea was to make Jonas relive his own past and experience the crime itself, with a few increments, of course.' he said referring to the possibility he had to change Jonas's dreams. 'But doctor Douglas here will enable us to inject a new species of the drug into his system. Something that, if I'm not mistaken, will never leave his body.'
Jonas soon gathered the ideas presented by Giovanni and realised that his plan was not to kill him, but to torture him for who knows how long. He sought to bring comfort to his own thoughts so that his end would come without pain, he knew he had no regrets in his life and he was sure that he had done nothing wrong, at least not to a point he deserved what was about to happen to him. He had no idea what was really going to happen in the next few seconds, but he knew he would never be able to have a normal life again.
Douglas injected the syringe into his bloodstream with a certain rush in his eyes. Catarina, after fiddling inside Jonas's trouser pocket, held Douglas by the hand and comforted his shoulder as if he were the one about to end in a tragic way.
Before his mind went into a complete reverie and left the conscious plane he was so used to, he was able see Douglas embrace Catarina, as she shoved what she had just taken from his pocket into his hand, and whispered words in his ears without letting Giovanni see it. The doctor then walked out the door without letting his eyes look back.
'Sweet dreams, my boy.' said Giovanni as soon as his eyes started to close.
"The tall building made a new appearance in Jonas's mind. That thirty meters  high monstrosity brought an immeasurable adrenaline back to his mind before he could jump to meet whoever was waiting for him down there. He closed his eyes and began to feel that energising wind before he could open them again and realize that he had returned to the top of the building, where everything would begin again."

The End.