According to the general consensus, running down the street while looking anywhere else usually ends very poorly, with 9 out of 10 times involving a crash against someone or something. This idea is so widely accepted that it is as if the universe itself plays its hand to ensure it, to the point that every child will eventually hit their face against a streetlight, a tree, or any other hard thing sticking out of the ground to earn a long-lasting sore, and an even longer-lasting memory of it, making sure they wouldn't make the same mistake again.
However, Diego not only thought that those rules didn't apply to him, but that it was perfectly normal to check the map while running fast enough to make anyone else think he was trying to break the 100-meter dash record. And every time he was about to run in front of someone or into a streetlamp, he narrowly dodged them at the last second before raising his pace again.
Kelly street was right in the middle of the Blok, a neighborhood of narrow and winding streets built at both sides of what remained of the old wall that had once surrounded the city. From time to time, the old stones peeked out or next to one of the cluttered buildings that filled the streets.
The kravist moved his eyes away from the map for a second and dodged yet another person by a hair's breadth, earning a couple of enraged screams that he promptly left behind. The Blok was a worker's neighborhood, with paths that sometimes could barely fit two people, and always covered in the shade of clothes hanging up to dry above the ground. However, many of the city's humble workers had plenty of grievances about the revenants and the lower salaries they had no choice to accept to survive, seeing them as nothing more than thieves that took their jobs away. Below the excitement, Diego worried about why the church would be in such a place, surrounded by people that could target them. Maybe the rent was just that good?
The next turn, he nailed his feet on the ground and drifted with a sharp screech, and then raced headfirst into the damp and dark alley ahead without barely losing speed. It stank of fish and the sea, and just ahead, a group of men were carrying all the produce from when the stench came, moving it inside a store. They were blocking the whole alley with a wagon, except for a small gap on its side, with a puddle, and next to a beast of burden with too many legs and feathers despite not having wings, for some ungodly reason. The sensible option would've been to just wait for them to finish, but when in a hurry, any spot big enough to squeeze through looked like the best shortcut ever. After all, the map said Kelly Street was just at the other end, waiting for him.
Diego jumped ahead and turned his body sideways into the gap, ignoring the confused looks two of the fishermen were giving him. As soon as he went through the wagon without any issue, his foot landed on a slippery rock and launched backwards, making him tumble straight into the animal's feathers and hold onto his neck for salvation. The animal looked at him with a curious eye, for about two seconds, and then began to lash around in fear, with Diego still hanging for dear life and trying to stop slipping over the wet floor. The fishermen shouted something, but it drowned under the combined screams from the beast and the revenant.
Without many options and wanting to get out of that situation as soon as he could, he waited until the animal moved closer to the wall and desperately nailed his feet on the ground. He let go and crashed against the side of the alley with a loud smack, grabbing onto the bricks to keep him from falling into the ground to be trampled by the feathered creature. The animal and Diego exchanged a gaze, and he then bolted out of there before anything else could happen, holding onto the map, now crumpled and slightly ripped around the edges.
"This better be worth it", the young man mumbled to himself, trying to bring the map back to a readable shape without ripping it in two.
As he fought with the paper, a woman and her small kid passed next to him, hands tightly grasped as they were on their way somewhere on the other end of the street. The boy fixated his eyes on Diego like he was an alien that had just stepped out of his spaceship, and then raised his free arm to point at Diego like only someone completely foreign to the concept of shame could.
"Look Mommy, what happened to his face!?", he shouted from the bottom of his lungs.
Something shattered inside the revenant when he heard that and turned indignant to the kid. Sure, his face looked like it came out of the lab of some mad doctor, which wasn't that far from reality, but there were better ways to point it out. His mother had already raised her own finger to recriminate him, until she too noticed Diego's face and her anger quickly turned to a fear so strong that she pulled her kid away with enough strength to lift him from the ground as she walked away as fast as she could without running.
There weren't words to express how he felt, so he just sighted in frustration. However, he still had to find the church and after raising his head to a nearby sign, he found that he was finally on Kelly Street. The only thing left was to follow the door numbers until he reached its door.
With a brisk pace, Diego jumped from the map to the doors constantly, following a mental countdown to his destination. In just a couple of minutes he finally reached it, and all his enthusiasm went up in smoke. He looked down to the map, and then up, and then repeated the whole process two more times.
The only thing in front of him was an unremarkable reddish building in the shape of a box, with its front wall covered in vile graffiti. He wasn't expecting something as grand as the Cathedral of Malaga, but at the very least it could've looked something like a church. It was one only in name, without any of the centuries-long traditions held and built upon by countless architects, priests, and artists trying to one-up each other in the name of God, and their very wealthy patrons. It didn't have a bell, a saint, or even a simple cross, it could've just been a warehouse that the local hooligans had marked for some free reign vandalism.
Centuries of traditions across the whole globe, that had decided to stay back home.
Still unconvinced and wanting to be completely wrong about something for once in his life, Diego checked again the number and the direction he had been had given. But, as if God himself had been watching him, and got fed up with his antics, a familiar woman walked out of the building, sporting a deep scowl that made the one the young man had earlier look like a 5-year-old's tantrum. She moved her scar-covered face towards him like she was about to chew him up.
"Hey, you, I know you, don't I?", she said without patience for nonsense, or little else, "Aren't you the new kid, the one that's always hanging out with Emma?"
"Yeah…?", Diego answered, timidly looking away from the map and not really sure what she wanted to hear. He still couldn't quite place her, but between the scars and how she mentioned Emma, she could only be part of the promotion.
"Right, what was your name? David? Daniel?"
"Diego", he squinted his eyes, trying to remember who she was. Maybe Dirtha did had a point about spending some time with other people and not just Emma, "And you are…?"
"Epifania", she said with silent judgement that managed to be louder than a cannon, "Or Fani, that one's also good".
He scanned her with another look, trying to get any idea of who she was. She wore her Sunday best, with a simple and prude dress, complimented with a chaste bun, something that he definitely hadn't seen on anyone else back at the promotion.
"Do I have something on my face?", she said with an irritated tone, with an inflexion that finally made everything click together. She was the woman that had pushed back against Dirtha on the store prices at the last meeting. The one that no longer believed in keeping her opinions to herself.
"No, sorry, I was just…thinking", Diego stumbled on his words as he spoke. Tactically, he decided to throw a Hail Mary to escape that situation, if he was lucky enough, "Is this the church?"
"Yes, it's here. Why? Are you normal or into one of those weird religions?"
His strategy had delivered a totally unexpected result. How was he even expected to answer to that?
"I'm Catholic?"
"Good, about time we got something normal again. It's already enough with having to deal with Emma's Anglicanism, and worse even with that gringo Marvin. God knows I hate Evangelicals", she made sure to emphasize her hate, almost spitting it out into a black bile.
But there was something else that made younger revenant felt a shock on the back of his skull. For a single word, Fani's voice had completely transformed. It had left her lips with a strong Mexican accent that clashed with the all the rest, and even the sound of her voice had changed slightly.
"Sorry, I think I misheard you. Could you repeat what you just said?"
The woman raised her eyebrow, "That I hate evangelicals and I'm glad we finally have someone else that's normal?"
"No, the part about Marvin?"
"That he's a gringo".
There it was again. It was as if she spoke in a completely different language for just that one word.
"I hope you don't think I'm crazy, but every time you say that, I keep hearing you speak in Spanish".
She stood in silence for an uncomfortably long second before speaking, "I don't think it, it's not the first time someone has told me that sort of thing".
"God, everything lately has been so crazy that I was worrying I was hearing things", hearing even more things, he followed in thought.
"Don't say the Lord's name in vain", the woman stepped in front of him with the fury born from a life in a devout household. She was smaller that Diego, but her gaze was of unbreakable steel, capable of folding anyone else and making the younger revenant stand straight, "Now, about what you said, me and others like us have talked about it and our best guess is that whatever they gave us to help understand each other translates most things straight. There's no room for interpretation, so it gives you a direct translation, and if it can't figure out what a word means, then it just doesn't do it.
She then stopped for a second, before adding a small remark with a mischievous smirk, "It does make it easier to tease Marvin from time to time, though".
Diego looked again at the building, and all the rancid paintings telling churchgoers to go back to the grave, and other awful things. The more he looked at them, the more he felt a target growing on his back, marking him as unwanted in the eyes of others.
"It doesn't really look like a church".
"It doesn't look like one at all, but we have to make do with what we have. The Lord was born in a stable, after all, so we can't be picky", Epifania turned once more to the younger undead, "And to that, what are you looking for here?"
The question caught Diego by surprise, "I…honestly, I'm not that sure. I was happy to learn about the church and came running. It made me think of home, and my family, even if I've never been that much into praying".
"You remind me of one of my grandchildren, Cesar", Fani's frown relaxed slightly, enough to make her piercing eyes begin to look warmer instead, "He only took his communion because he wanted a PlayStation".
The younger revenant couldn't help but look down with nervous shame. He had done the exact same thing in his own communion. It was the only reason he'd begrudgingly tolerated getting into that silly sailor suit every boy had to wear for theirs, or the pictures that came after. He would still do it again.
Epifania caught how the tones of his skin came together into a single shade of red and smiled. In that moment, she could see her grandson again in him, and that was more valuable than all the gold in the world for her.
"I guess you and him aren't so different".
"I mean, I like presents, but I did that because of my family", he lied, "And my sister had hers before, so I had to do it too".
"I'm sure you did", Fani's initial hostility kept melting away, now amused by Diego, "That's one of the good things about religion, even if you don't believe that much. It gives us moments to share with family, and a community to celebrate with.
"I guess", the memories came back in waves to Diego's mind. How he thought he was smart when he said he wanted a communion after he saw the presents his sister had in hers, how he almost melted inside of that sailor suit because of the hot it was that day. How his parents asked him to smile for the camera, even if they were all covered in sweat, and how they all went to the swimming pool after that.
Things that he wouldn't be able to live again.
"I have to run some errands, but you should go inside and meet father Kwaku", Epifania said, seeing how a veil of sadness began to cover his face, "He's always eager to talk and help out. But if he asks you to play cards, just tell him no, he has a problem".
Diego nodded in silence, and get close to the door as Fani walked on her way trough the streets of the Blok.
"And remember, it's Epifania". She said before leaving.