The Unworthy

by Agustina Bazterrica

I’d stay behind to delay the progeny of filth, the mistakes of nature, the murderers that are the superior sister and that despicable man capable of lingering on my body. Lucía refused, begged me to escape with her, but I kissed her, stroked her black hair, hugged the blue paradise that she was, and told her I had no time left. I showed her the wound and she understood it was too deep. She hugged me back and wept until three of the enlightened tried to take her away. Lucía put up a fight. I told her they had to flee, that if they stayed, they’d be killed. Before they left, she hugged me again, and through her tears, she called me by my real name, kissed me one last time, and, in her translucent voice, said three words, but they weren’t words, they were a vibration of fire, fire that enveloped me like a river of light, a river of dazzling flowers.