Half an hour later Alexandra and Vajk arrived. They slowly approached Luca from the other end of the hall, sweaty and naked, teeth sunken into each other’s shoulder. Their old wounds had all reopened, their skin was covered in dark blood. They didn’t speak, they just groaned like savage dogs as they dragged each other towards Luca. She watched them, this beautiful couple, as they fought each other inch by inch for progress. She felt no fear, only a weird sense of amusement and maybe a pinch of jealousy. Only when she heard the squish of wet soles in the stairwell did she run out of the hotel into the dead of winter.

It was freezing; she had only had time to put on an abandoned bathrobe over her summer dress. She slipped on the icy ground but quickly stood up again and ran towards the parking lot. From the other end of the lot a pack of wolves looked at her; they were feasting on a body which was now nothing but genderless flesh. Beside the wolves were the children who had been jumping into the pool not long ago, now on all fours, naked, their faces bloody, chewing on the same meat the wolves feasted on.

The wolves howled at the sky, and the children howled with them.

There was a Toyota that somebody had left the keys in. Luca jumped in and started the engine. She looked in the rearview mirror. The spa hotel shrunk away as she sped out onto the road; Robi was in the hotel, and thus he was shrinking away too, which she was fine with.

The landscape turned pure white, like a wedding dress. The roads were in horrible shape, but they stood empty for Luca. She saw some cars in ditches, the wrecks now covered with snow. There was nothing on the radio but static noise; under the noise, if she listened carefully, she could hear the voice of a man. She thought she was listening to a sermon; it sounded like a priest’s voice, that singsong recital voice they used in churches. But she couldn’t be sure, it might have just been her imagination. She found a couple of unlabeled CDs in the glove compartment. She put one into the CD player; it turned out to be ABBA’s greatest hits, which was fine. She hated ABBA but screamed along with the songs anyway.

She ran out of fuel two hours later. She let the Toyota roll until it came to a complete stop, then she laid her head on the wheel so that she could finally get some sleep. In the distance, beyond the snowfall, colossal three-legged giants walked in silence. Maybe they were only trees, but who cared when this car would make such a great bed?