UNINTERLINGUA 2015

U N I N T E R L I N G U A 107 his wife’s face, but the most he was able to do for her was rebuild her throat enou- gh so that after two years she could once again speak. Mijail’s ongoing secret experi- ments on dead bodies were now focused on efforts to help his wife. His goal was to re- vive them, but during his failed experiments these semi-dead/semi-live monstrous bo- dies suffered immensely. However, he was obsessed with helping his wife and did not care at what cost. Eva thought that having a child would improve their relationship, but she was wrong. Mijail had been taking an elixir to prolong his life because he knew he had an incurable illness. However, over time this potion had converted him into some sort of dark creature that in order to survive would eat its young. So when their baby girl was born, Eva felt she had no choice but to give her away to their trusted friend, Dr. Shelley. The lives of Óscar and Marina and Mijail and Eva crossed paths when Marina asked Ós- car to accompany her to a cemetery where they saw Eva and followed her. In time, the two adolescents found out the truth about Mijail and Eva’s love and their horrific story, mostly due to the detective skills of Óscar who visited with all those who knew Mijail and Eva when they were young. Near the end of the novel, Óscar and Marina went to the theater where Mijail and Eva have spent the last days of their sad and horrific lives. At one point Mijail grabbed Marina, and Óscar tried to barter the last li- fe-giving vial in exchange for his friend, but in the process the vial got broken. Just when Mijail was about to kill Marina and Óscar in a rage of fury, Eva was forced to shoot her own husband. To Eva, the Mijail she once knew and loved no longer existed; he now was a monster that earlier had kidnapped and harmed his own daughter, Maria, in or- der to keep himself alive. So to save the young couple, she shot Mijail five times and then gently cuddled his deformed head on her lap and kissed him one last time before the fire consumed them both. The man, who had given up his brilliant career, money, and success to find a cure for his wife, ended up dying in the infernal fire that had broken out. Mijail could not be saved. To keep him alive would have meant to continue killing others, and Eva could no longer accept that situation. After their narrow escape, Óscar was invited to spend the Christmas holiday with Marina and German, but for some reason she avoi- ded him as much as possible. Their recent adventurous experience, instead of bringing them closer, had caused a rift between them, and two months went by before he built up the courage to return to the rundown man- sion to visit Marina once again. Upon arri- ving, Óscar found the house extremely quiet and soon discovered that it was Marina who had been very ill all along, not her father. Love and horror in the earlier...