Victubia: An Origin

Chapter Five

She was fairly tall, about the same height as Pewdie, with long, light brown hair that bordered on orange. She was beautiful, with deep brown eyes and a slim figure, which was showed off by her little pink dress. Her attention was completely on the man in front of her, however, and she rushed forward to engulf him in a bone-crushing hug, and he returned it. He closed his eyes and buried his face into her shoulder. His Marzia was here, and he was so glad. He could hear her gasping ‘Felix…Felix’ in between gentle sobs, clutching him as if she would never let him go.

The whole Late Night had gone silent, all staring at them. A woman had just appeared out of nowhere and started crying into the shoulder of a distinguished Lord- who was now crying himself it seemed. It was only natural for the confused customers to stare. Cry was the first one to speak;

“Well that was unexpected.”

This seemed to trigger Marzia, making her pull out of the hug, quickly wiping her face as Pewdie did the same, then gripping her fingers into his shoulders. When she spoke, her soft, Italian voice was angry, a little upset and confused, with a dash of relief thrown in.

“Where have you been? You’ve been gone for weeks! Why would you just disappear without leaving, Felix, why?”

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to! I didn’t have much of a choice in coming here, to be honest.” He laughed a little, so happy she was here.

Marzia looked at where she was for the first time, aware of the people staring and the strange man in a mask standing to the left of her.

“Wait… is that Cry?”

“The one and only.” He had started to remember Marzia now too- he didn’t know her very well, but memories were being released slowly of videos with her in, Pewdie talking about her, her voice in the background of skype calls. Wait, what was a skype call? This was messing with his brain.

“Are Ken and Minx here too? You’ve all been gone for weeks. No one knew where you were, you just vanished-“

“I’m over here, and Minx isn’t far away,” Ken called from the back of the room, “But don’t you think we should take this somewhere else?”

He was right; people sitting around them had heard the whole thing and started to mutter. They had been missing? Missing from wherever this woman had come from? Did they even belong in Victubia?

“I agree. Russ, can we use the room in the back?” Cry called out to the man serving drinks, who had been scrutinising the situation. He nodded, and the four made their way to the backroom. Cry heard Jund say something to the murmuring room, probably a joke about the whole situation, and the chatter started up again. The four of them walked into the small back room, Pewds holding Marzia’s hand, Ken leaving Mary behind with half an excuse and another apology. Ken shut the door behind them and Marzia began speaking again,

“Where have you been? And where is this, how did I get here? I was in our house when suddenly there was this light… and now I’m here.”

Pewdie led her to an old, tired sofa and they both sat down.

“We have been here, in a City called Victubia. We were brought here by, uh, some people- we couldn’t remember anything so even if we did have a way to contact someone we wouldn’t know who to contact. You got here the same way as us, it looks like, but without the memory wipe and the hooded guys.”

Marzia looked at him confused. No one really blamed her. This was a strange situation and Pewdie just explained a lot of things all in one go, and most of them not fully. She brought one hand up to her forehead, closing her eyes.