Chapter 4: 4.- An Excuse to Stop Waiting

 

When she woke up the next morning, the first thing she noticed was her dad's empty bed. For five seconds she wondered where he would be, before vaguely remembering their last night's conversation and her strange dream.

What business could keep him away? His last words had been very definite, like if he didn't come back in three days, it was because he was dead, something virtually impossible for him. Was there anyone capable of killing him? But why then and not before? Was he involved with some kind of militia, some kind of mafia?

But Erica was no detective, not even an amateur. Whatever her dad was doing, she could only wait. So she stayed there for three days. She tried to distract herself with walks and games, but the anxieties were eating her up inside. She wanted to know what her father was up to, why he hadn't taken her with him, when she would see him again.

The night of the third day she lay awake in her room, waiting for him to come through the door or the window, maybe even through the ceiling, you never knew with him.

He didn't show up.

So she waited another three days without hearing from him. Every time she woke up and looked for him in the empty room, her anxieties grew. The hotel manager would ask her where Mr. Sanz had gone, and that irritated her even more.

 

The seventh day was stranger. When Erica was again disappointed to find herself alone in the hotel room and went downstairs for breakfast, she found a lot of people in the hallway, a large number of tourists running around, hurriedly dressed and with suitcases in hand. In the lobby it was much worse, everyone wanted to leave at that very moment and the hotel employees could hardly contain them.

Erica didn't like interacting with strangers, it was exhausting, so she decided to stand in a corner listening to the pleas of the customers who wanted to leave and the receptionist who was trying to make them pay before they left.

—...an invasion...— she heard a lady say.

—...a city under siege...— claimed a fat man.

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—Red men— explained a mother to her son.

—...catastrophe...

—...aliens....

After five minutes she felt she had everything. The dining room was empty, so he served herself breakfast as she did every day and went back to her room, where she decided to turn on the TV in case there was something on the news about those aliens people were talking about.

Indeed, as soon as she turned it on, she found an aerial shot of a nearby city, one where she had lived for a while as a child: Santa Gloria. The buildings were smashed, the houses swept away, there were fires and bonfires in some places. She noticed tanks of strange designs next to large red-skinned soldiers with horns on their heads. She could not see them in detail, as the reporters were at a distance, but she could tell they were not human.

An alien invasion? It seemed like a dream, a very well constructed joke, but she didn't see how it could be. It all seemed so authentic, it almost made her want to go and kick some alien ass, just for fun. She turned to tell her dad... but he wasn't there. Erica put her hands to her head, weary from the disappointment of not seeing him, and stayed that way for quite a while.

The TV was still on. Instead of turning it off, she decided to distract herself with the concerned voice of the journalist. Before long she began to concentrate on what she was saying, on what was known about the red beings and what could be done.

Apparently they were physically strong, and well organized. They were also taller and heavier than people, and had very advanced weapons and vehicles. They even showed one firing his rifle, which instead of shooting metal bullets, threw a deadly laser that cut a car in half.

Erica stared at the aliens for a long time, through the images they repeated every few minutes. It looked serious, the red beings seemed to have a huge advantage and to be well trained. The army was no match for their strength and weapons. They were calling for reinforcements from all over the world, but, according to the reporters, that would not give Santa Gloria enough time to resist.

A strange idea suddenly popped into her head; she could go there, she could fight those red aliens. She had a lot of pent-up frustration and an excuse to beat someone up was exactly what she needed. Besides, it seemed entertaining. Who could say they had fought aliens?

That same day she grabbed her stuff, took an abandoned bike from the hotel and set off for the besieged city.

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