He waited around the noisy stalls, in that morning German air, where the cold was beginning to break his face and lips to a chapped mess. He could feel the winter on his thin mustache, on the few strips of hair on his chin, on his eyebrows and hair. It stuck them together and covered them with the specks of white. He waited there, with hands in his pockets and his feet tapping away on the floor. He waited an hour, took a break to find some sausages to eat and out of fear that perhaps he had missed her, had rushed back to his spot with the weiner in his hand. She came. Not with anything special, not with her gears or her sale, she came alone, packing up what few materials she left the previous day.

“What’s wrong?” Dion came up to her. He threw the sausage over his side.

She turned around and looked at him, he didn’t know what was on her face. Defeat or relief.

“I’ve got nothing left to sell.” She said. “I think I’m done.”

“Really? Why?”

“Because it’s a waste of time and I don’t think I’ll need the money anymore.”

He turned his head and observed her. His eyes softened. She had no makeup, no clean clothes either. Her face seemed pale. His voice eased.

“So it ends like that?” He asked.

“Yeah.”

“So I can’t see you anymore then?” He asked. He shouldn’t have. She seemed to be going through a lot and he, feeling stupid, began to pinch his leg.

“Thank god for that, right?” She said. “I’ve been miserable towards you for a while.”

He was taken back.

“We barely know each other and I ruined your stall, it makes sense that you’d be mean to me.”

“You shouldn’t defend someone who’s trying to apologize. Let me save some face, would you?” She said, laughing, sad at the same time. That kind of false optimistic thing, with a broken voice.

“What if I didn’t mind you being mean? I don’t think you were particularly good at it anyway.” Dion stepped up. He helped her with the last table, with the signs. “What if I want to get to know your problems?”

She stayed quiet and looked away.

“Would you mind?” Dion asked. “If we went out on a...date maybe?”

There was silence. He immediately felt the need to fill in the noise gap, to cushion the crash of his blunt question.

“Well, you know. You don’t have to. We barely know each other, I don’t even know this city. I’m a creep, after all, I’d understand.”

“Sure.” She said, bluntly. She couldn’t turn to face him, he couldn’t see what face she was making. If her face had shown color. He couldn’t tell whether he was just a distraction to her problems (which he wouldn’t have minded anyway) or if she actually liked him (or thought he was just cute).

After a while, he stopped caring though. His head filled with imaginations, his hands shivered with anticipation.

She turned, her face, still a bit downtrodden now showed a smile. No matter how meek, or flat.

“But you’re paying, alright?” She asked. He didn’t think anything of her discomfort at the time, he couldn’t. He just moved his head up and down and was glad, strangely enough, of that day in which he tripped and in which he ruined someone's business. Fortune in the unfortunate. It was strange. But he wasn’t mad.

•

“Stop thinking about her.” Claudia felt a tongue slither into her mouth. They enveloped each other, sucked on each other before they let go.

It was a confused state she was in, in the aftermath of a high, when the lights lost their glare and the feeling of touch its intense electricity, a time in which she did not what was louder, the moans of pleasure or the frenzy of EDM music blaring at her. There men and women squirming on the floor, grabbing handfuls of the fur of the rug, grabbing handfuls of her.

This was one of the stranger sex clubs she had attended, the first in a few weeks since she’d been with Günther. It wasn’t that the people were different, they were all lunatics same as they had been, with the same rabbit thrusts into gaping holes and the quickness of their groaning consummation. The music wasn’t strange either, the same loud, fast rhythmic blasts of bass and drums. Nor was it the drugs, the candy shop of debilitators ever present on the glass tables or bean bag chairs or soft fur rugs. None of that was different. But the atmosphere was.

The low, dim hue of red that contoured her body and subsequently the mountain of bodies around her. It looked like a wall of decadence, the fleshy limbs of nudists dancing and fucking on the floor, flat and writhing.

Maybe she was still just mad at her sister. Days later (she lost count how many, clocks were banned in this club, which was strange). Maybe it was the heroin coming off her bloodstream, and the bloodshot eyes and tired drained muscles that gave her that unsettled, weak-leggedweak-legg feeling of dread.

How long have we been here Gunther she said

“I don’t care about her anymore,” She lied.

“Why do you look like you’ve got somewhere to be then?”

“I’ve got nowhere to be,” She said. “That’s the problem. I want to go places.”

“Where the fuck do you want to be besides here?” Günther asked. He wrapped his arms around her. On his ribs, in mockery, a tattoo of bleeding incisions were painted on his ribs, like Jesus before. The backward crucifix rattled in his ears.

“This is heaven. Don’t you know? This is Carcosa.”

Ah, she remembered. That’s she was. The little club, Carcosa. A girls hand grabbed her breast. She looked down, the whole movement of her eyes felt eerily slow. The nail was chipped, the nail polish was cracked, red.

She slapped the hand away. All of them. Günther licked his palm.

She stood. Her feet landed on someone's face, she felt a tongue on them and she stepped down harder. The man below was too drugged to scream in pain, he just wheezed and turned his head. None of them could scream, their eyes were open and nose dripping and small bubbles of saliva formed in the edges of their crescent mouths.

She went past the DJ, the music disc scratched as she walked past him. She felt thirsty and picked up the only martini glass not knocked over, it was blue. She drank. Her throat burned. That wasn’t water, she thought. Why would it be water?

She went through her pockets, a condom, new still, some lipstick, a cell phone. The music kept going. She looked around the mess. The druggies, the half dead. She couldn’t stay here, tired and weak, no. She dialed her sister's number, her eyes still blurry. Her battery was nearly dead. It rung. It hung up. It went on for five times before her phone died. She put her hands over her face.

Günther came up, trying to comfort her it seemed.

“Fuck off,” she said. “I want to go home.”

“You were having fun just last night.”

“I want to go home,” She repeated.

“Why don’t you relax and have a drink, for me?” He handed her the glass. She held it, just to satisfy him. But she did not drink.

“Why is it so cold?” She said.

“It’s winter, honey.” He rubbed his hands on her nude shoulders.

“It’s so terrible in here.” She walked away from him, cursing underneath her breath. Her eyes slowly coming to full alertness. The darkness of the room now deeper, frightening. The shadows cast by the lone, smiling DJ, almost following her across the room. Günther came running behind her. She kept repeating, whether he could hear it or not, whether anyone could hear it, I need to go home. I need to go home.

“I need to go home.” She screamed.

“Settle down, baby.” He said. “Come on, where are you going? Why don’t you stay with the people that love you? Like me.”

She walked faster, a steady jog almost.

“Hey! We’re all waiting for you, calm down. Hey! Talk to me!”

“Fuck off.” He grabbed her. She shook his weak grip off. “Get away from me. I’m sick of this shit. I’m sick of being tired, I’m sick of you and all this. Of this god awful city. I’m sick of all of it. I’m leaving, you hear?” She dropped her phone. The screen cracked, the battery dead.

She shouldn’t have expected anyone to have called anyways. She knew it, as she struggled off of Günther, as she walked over the zombies on the floor. She should have known no one would have come for her. After all, that’s what she said she wanted. She walked towards a metal door and where the noise of wind came from. She hated herself, she slapped the walls and broke her heels in her angry stomps. She hated herself for ever having gotten mad. She hated herself for quitting singing. She hated herself for what she had done to her grandmother and her sister after. She put her shoulder first and tackled the door open. Günther was still, steady and hot behind her.

“Now you’re getting cold feet?” He asked. “This isn’t the first time we’ve done this kind of thing.”

“Yeah, but it’ll be the last time.”

They went through the alleys now of those little awkward, curved streets. Like a forest tour, the winding rough road. The graffiti opened up to her rear. Pictures of a yellow eye plastered everywhere, pictures that pricked her, that dug deep into her skin with fear.

She picked her bra strap up. She could see the little medieval town she thought she knew somewhat corrupted here, the little wooden squares and the columns bearing those happy homes now changed to grim chain link fence and the undertow of railroad tracks. The screech of wheels roared past her, above. They walked underneath a bridge now. He grabbed her. His dry hands like lizard scales, a dragon perhaps. He wrapped himself around her like a stray jacket.

“Where the fuck are you going, huh?” He asked. His voice changed somehow. Savage, cruel.

“Get off me,” She cried.

“They always say that,” He pulled on her. “Get off me, leave me alone. You don’t actually believe any of that shit, right?”

She screamed anyways. Inane little things like; you’re hurting me, I’ll call the police, please, I’ll do anything. Those desperate human things, those linguistically evolved yelps of pain.

She kept crying all the way past the corner. Past another one. Until they made a full circle back. She screamed at the apartments near them, no one even ruffled their curtains. It’s as if no one was even here. And for a while she began to blame herself, feeling stupid and helpless, thinking of all the permutations that could have gotten her out. Thinking of all the times she had gone to sex clubs, had been safe, had enjoyed herself. Thinking, sadly, how she should have avoided this man that night, how she should have never trusted his kindness. Thinking his charm, that satanic aesthetic to be nothing more than some perky, hip thing.

“Please, Günther. I won’t tell anyone.”

“You would. Trust me. You aren't the first, you are the more fiesty ones though.” He smiled.

She was still drunk. Still a bit tipsy, still too weak and sad to punch or kick him. The scene of snow and of the grey brick building came as foggy blur.. She was out one moment, with the snow burning her bare feet and in again, with the wall of flesh on the floor below licking and reaching for her. And the men and women yearning for her, crawling towards her as Günther sat her down on a seat.

“You made an oath when you walked in, you know that?” He said. She didn’t remember. Maybe she did. She didn’t realize what it meant. She thought it was just fun. Just games. Just escapism.

The orgy kept going on, faster now. People came to circle them and to inspect and lick her.

“She was having fun earlier, wasn’t she?” A woman asked.

“She got a little scared is all, she just needs some help.”

The woman smiled. She had a pentagram on her lower back. Her flesh was ripped, scarred from whips or blades or something else. Most of them were. She hadn’t noticed this when she was fucking, when her passions were roaring and eyes were closed and her mind was muddied. She hadn’t noticed anything. She began to cry. I hadn’t noticed, Claudia repeated in the echo of her blank mind.

“I can help her with that.” Another woman said. She had piercings from her breasts to her feet, like hook holes to stick her on the butchery line. A walking carcass, gaunt eyes, sickly thin.

She walked away. Günther kept her still though she moved in her seat. The thin woman came back, with a glass.

The lights blared yellow. The graffiti of the eye was everywhere. Strange symbols filled her thoughts, she couldn’t get them out. Strange geometry. She closed her eyes.

“Don’t avert your eyes.” He said. He pulled her face open.

“I don’t want this.” She said, pushing away from her. Another pair of hands gripped her tight.

He started with her eyes, to make sure she would see the images. Then with her mouth, as she opened it wide and another girl poured a drink down her throat. Something fizzy, something that tasted familiar. Günther closed her mouth shut and shook her head until she swallowed. As if she had a choice.

She sat there, growing more paralyzed. With the sounds vibrating through her. With color, fading in and out. Confusing senses, taste for color, sound for touch. Confusing her thoughts with the non-euclidean shapes. She wanted to rip her hair out. She couldn’t even raise her arms to do it. Her body leaned back, her neck laid on the back of the couch.

Gunther held her by the shoulder. She was still able to register that much, that cruel touch of evil. She could see his low grin, his beady eyes like two black holes.

“Look, they missed you.” He said.

There was no DJ, no lights, only smoke that filled the room. Astral projections that made her face go wide. She wasn’t even sure they were in the club anymore, the lights looked like halos. Günther turned her head. She saw nothing but limbs below. Almost detached, almost inhuman, like something down below was yearning for her.

The room spun with the dragging sound of a train roaring past, away from them, but very near, her head seemed to spin with it and she allowed herself to slump by the side of the sofa, near the arm. Blood fell on her face. She couldn’t tell whether it was hers or someone elses. She couldn’t tell what the screaming was, what the laughing eluded too, whether Günther was in pain or pleasure. She only saw the hints of it, the spectral images coming in and out of her vision, looking at her with pale and deformed faces. She couldn’t scream, she wanted to. She couldn’t leave, she had to stay and watch the dance. The sex, the fire growing (was it even real? It felt hot), the strange dance around the symbols. A ritual, she thought. For what? She asked, For what? For whom? They went in circles around bodies they were cutting up.

She gasped.

“Don’t worry,” A voice said. It sounded as if in her head, like an invader had taken the last sanction of independence from her. “You’re in Carcosa now, it’ll be alright. We’ve all waiting for you here too. So don’t you worry, child.”

The voice spoke in Latin. But she could understand it. The ocean of blood increased. Her body moved, she could tell. But her soul seemed to sleep, deeply. As if sucked into a vortex, a comfortable, warm and distant sleep. A sleep better than any she’d ever have, or had ever known.

A sleep of the soul, an awakening of something worse.

Günther screamed. Claudia, or whatever was inside of her, smiled.