The Cracks in the Labyrinth

Prologue (Part 2)

Evelia thought seeing her friends in the hallway where they were having their own party, hidden from the other guests, would make her feel better.

She was wrong.

The familiarity of the conversation between six of her favorite people in the entire world, the spontaneous laughs lubricated with liquor, did nothing but deepen the pit in her stomach. Could she have imagined what she saw on the balcony? Perhaps. To clear up her doubts, she would have to step outside and look at the night sky, and that idea alone drained the color from her face.

Without knowing what to say, she remained still, holding her empty glass. The sickening smell of beer, somehow intensified by the air conditioner, made her queasy.

Evelia crossed her arms. She dreaded seeing someone or... something lurking in the darkness, behind the large tempered glass of the empty offices. Even though the ample unfurnished corridors looked the same as before, their fluorescent lights no longer seemed bright enough to keep the night at bay.

"Did you see a ghost?" Ernest joked after taking a puff of his joint. His face was flushed with alcohol.

All of them turned to Evelia, except for Adam; he avoided meeting her eyes.

At that moment, Evi observed her friends in more detail than ever before. The men, uniformed with the same dark suit (cheap and rented), had managed to let their personalities shine through in small ways. Ernest had rolled up his sleeves to show his tattoos, Adam was wearing sneakers, while Santiago's tie was identical to one Daddy Yankee had worn. And then there was Chuo, who looked like an underpaid bank teller trying to blend in with the crowd.

On the other hand, the dresses of Evi's two girlfriends were at the opposite extremes of the decorum spectrum.

"Evi, are you okay?" Claudia asked her.

Claudia's stern features and piercing eyes made Evelia uncomfortable.

"Here you go, kiddo." Santiago offered Evi his marijuana cigarette. "Just what the doctor prescribed."

"Please! When Saint Evelia smokes a joint, it will be a snowy day in hell," Ernest said. "She's so pure and chaste that poor Adam is fasting until their wedding night, am I right? How long has it been since you had your banana in a fruit salad?"

Ernest moved as if to touch Adam's crotch. Adam recoiled, upset, while Santiago burst into laughter.

Evelia found the whole thing depressing.

"Your girlfriend is shaking," Claudia pointed out, ignoring both Ernest and Santiago.

Adam didn't move. Chuo, however, tried to comfort Evelia by putting his hand on her shoulder, something that proved impossible since he'd been playing the part of Ernest's drink coaster all night long and was holding a bottle of beer in each hand.

"M-maybe we can leave?" Chuo's voice, which didn't match his towering height at all, sounded weaker than usual. "I mean, we've already shown our faces, and it's not like we are downstairs with the others."

"We haven't 'shown our faces' until the president sees us," Santiago said.

Vera drew Santi closer in her arms, pressing her pronounced cleavage against him without stopping her hips' movements to the beat of Juan Luis Guerra. The song playing on her stereo was drowning out the music's murmur coming from the party three floors below them.

"Come on, Santi. Don't get all serious. It's Christmas!" Vera told him. "And the Mission is over! No more internship or dissertation! Besides—"

"Fucking dissertation!" Ernest interrupted her, raising his drink so it would enter the camera's field of vision. He hadn't stopped recording for a second.