Chapter Text
Thanks for coming all the way to Croatia. Have you enjoyed the country so far? I hope you did. Excuse the mess my house is in, I’m still trying to pull myself together and stuff, I haven’t had the energy lately… My therapist said this would help me process things a bit better so that’s why I accepted the interview. You know, when heavy things happen to me, I tend to shut down and try to drown them. This has led to unhealthy coping mechanisms in the past, but I wanted to change that. Therapy and God have helped me a lot with this. He’s always there to listen to me no matter what time it is and is welcoming me with open arms. I trust that everything that I went through was for a reason, even if I’m still too broken to think about it in full detail.
You know, I used to have a future mapped out in my head before I went to Sweden. I would go back to Croatia, plan out a few gigs here and there, and start planning my wedding… But none of that will happen now, of course. I still can’t believe I went through all of that trauma. I’ve been in dark places, yeah, but nothing like this. And every night I wake up with horrible nightmares and crying and I sometimes have ended up back in the hospital. The press won’t get off my back everyday thanks to that, they’re always trying to catch me off guard so they can have a new headline about how “ruined” Baby Lasagna is now. Bah. I only accepted this interview because it won’t go to any media outlet and I know you’ll handle the information I give you with care, this is for a good cause after all.
Sorry if I’m stalling, I get a bit nervous. But luckily, this girl is here to make things better. Gertruda got her training sorted out a month ago and she’s my emotional support animal now. How cool is that? This sweet girl has always been by my side, and now she helps me out. Notice how when I get agitated, she comes over and puts her paw on my arm? Fascinating. Cats are pretty great. Branka also has helped a big deal, but Gertruda is close to me at all times, ready to act.
Okay, so… Let’s get to this. The best way to go through a hard thing is to just get on with it. Deep breath… Okay. So, the ones who were invited to go for a show representing Croatia were me and the guys from Let 3. Amazing men, by the way, the toughest and coolest fucking people I’ve ever known. We even planned to have a collaboration on stage for one of my new songs, we got together for rehearsals and all. And of course, Elizabeta went with me. She wanted to see the snow up close for a change of pace and we were even gonna try to ski.
I have to admit that we panicked a little when the storm started, because the wind was howling too loud and we could hear the hail hitting the balcony we were in, but eventually we calmed down because the staff assured us once and twice and thrice that we were going to be fine and that they were trying to reach out the Swedish army for help. So we kind of calmed down, and we went to the guys from Serbia, who were right beside us, and we also had the Italians and the Swiss nearby.
Then the power went out and we were at a loss. And then, on the following days, we witnessed the death of Salvador Sobral from Portugal, may he rest in peace. Elizabeta was horrified. I was horrified. Mrle, it’s easier for me to call him that, he got between the people who were trying to rip Iolanda and Mimi apart from Salvador’s body, got a few bruises in between, but didn’t manage to do much. Jaklin and Nemo immediately ran to the girls to try and settle them down. I just held Eli in my arms because we suddenly got the realization that it was either this or die from hunger. It felt like someone had shot us.
We both had accepted it too easily. Eli had always been a tough woman and knew that this was coming one way or another when things started going south, and I knew that I had to make it back alive because I wanted that wedding to happen. So we conferred with the guys from Let 3 and we said essentially “Look, this is gonna get ugly, we’re going to do stuff we aren’t gonna be proud of ever, and we are going to be mentally scarred, but if we want to be alive, we need to be strong and stay together”. So, whatever. We would eat other people if we needed to and we would kill if it would mean we would see the light of day ever again, outside of that complex. So we did what any reasonable team would do, and we got to work on plans.
First and foremost, we needed to establish alliances, and it wasn’t hard - the girls from Georgia, the Swiss, the Serbians and the Italians were the first ones we made pacts with, because those were the closest to us in the floor we were in. We did extensive negotiations with every single one of them to ensure that we would stick together no matter what. Then, we needed to strategize. So, Mrle and Zoran had brought these big ass rockets that they were going to use for their performance, and also the mallet. Severina was supposed to fly in with us for the show, you know, she was doing Baba Roga, but her flight was due for the day the storm hit so she couldn’t make it. Anyway, Elizabeta got the mallet as her own personal weapon. She got good at aiming. Harley Quinn had nothing on her, I’m telling you, she looked fabulous and strong. And we had formed a good protection squad in general so there was a general feeling of confidence among our delegation that we would make it home alive.
I spent most of my days checking on Elizabeta, making sure she was safe, even though she would laugh at me a bit because of that. She’d always tease me for my worries, insisting she was fine, but also saying how lucky she was going to be for having such a caring husband. I also spent a good chunk of time with Teodora and her friends because, you know, Balkans, we understood each other well even if we spoke slightly different languages, it was something more familiar. The Swiss didn’t come out of their rooms much, and the Italians would mostly stick with themselves, but we knew we could count on them for whatever we needed.
Mrle told the guys from the band that there was an idea to start shoveling snow up from the outside so there could be communication with the exterior. And the work started one morning. In the meantime, Eli and I would get out of the room and start exploring the building in search of things that could be useful to any of us, trying to map out where everything was located. We took some stuff from the infirmary so we could treat the wounded a bit easier. Though, you know… That place had such a dreadful ambience of death. It was eerie. We didn’t stay there for long because Elizabeta said she felt watched and pulled me away from there. It was the first and only time I've ever seen her courage waver.
I did kill, of course. I only killed the people who threatened my friends or my fianceé directly and weren’t willing to be civil, and I remember dragging them to the kitchen with my standard sour expression on my face to intimidate whoever wanted to mess with me next. My band also helped me out a big deal, they were my ride or die. They still are, even though we barely talk these days, and understandably so. While the guys from Let 3 helped out with the escape, I made sure everyone was as safe as possible. I felt like a kind of hero, who was there to protect his friends from the forces of evil and save the day. Or whatever that timeframe was because I can’t even recall how many days we were trapped there. I stopped counting when we stopped having food.
So time goes by, and everything is stable, relatively stable. I thought “huh, maybe it’s not as bad as I thought it would be”, because yeah, there were killings and wounded and stuff but it was to be expected. And that’s how you know shit is going to get fucked up soon, because there’s too much peace around you. Life has such a shitty way of having things happen in this weird balance. And when we got to finally unblock the road outside, that’s when the worst thing I lived there happened.
Eli and I decided to go check out the outside, because I was gonna run out and try to chop up wood with a knife we got from the kitchen. It was getting kind of dark but we thought that it would be okay, we had snow boots and all. So we were walking towards the woods, right? We were talking. Elizabeta never let go of her mallet, even though it was bloody and not very stable by now due to the amount of hits she had given with it so far. We were talking about what we are going to do after this was over, our plans for a honeymoon - we had settled to go to Thailand for some reason. We talked and got a bit of wood for the fireplace out, and decided to head back because it was already nighttime. So we were chatting and then all of a sudden I heard a loud thud.
I looked to one side and I saw these people, they had their faces covered up, but they grabbed Elizabeta’s mallet and tried to pry it off her hands, and another guy came from behind me to steal the wood from our hands. But I wasn’t gonna allow that, so I started kicking back. Eli gained her stability, and started knocking the guys out with the mallet, which gave us enough time to run. We ran together with these guys chasing us. I snuck a quick view behind my shoulder and I saw that one of them had an ice pick. We started running but the snow made it so hard to run, and then I heard Elizabeta fall.
I froze. I threw the wood in front of the door and screamed for help, for anyone to come and intervene, and ran back to Eli immediately, because I saw Ivan and Mrle coming out. So I ran back and this one guy was on top of Eli wrestling with her. The other came towards me but I kicked his stomach…
And I wasn’t fast enough.
I heard Eli scream. That fucking scream will haunt my nightmares forever. I froze in place immediately again. I perceived that Mrle had grabbed the mallet back from the ground and was swinging it around, but I didn’t really see it. Everything was a blur. I couldn’t hear anything around me. It sounded like voices and sounds were all inside a glass jar, or underwater. My body felt frozen and it hurt to stay there. I just worked in automatic motion and turned back to Elizabeta, held her tight and ran upstairs without giving anything a second thought.
I reached Konstrakta and Teodora, who were together at the time, and I begged for them to please help Elizabeta, please save my girl, my love, I couldn’t lose her, I wouldn’t lose her. They examined her and found that fucking ice pick on her chest, deeply stabbed. She had put her hand over in an attempt to stop them, but it was bleeding. They got through her hand and the wound was too deep. It was obvious they had twisted the thing so it really stabbed her.
Eli heard me cry, and shushed me gently, calling my name with the little breath she had left. I could just stare at her, eyes fixed in those beautiful features that I loved so much. The face of the only woman I’ll ever love in my entire life. Our years together flashed before my eyes as she held my hand, lifted it to her lips, kissed it and smiled at me. And I will never forget that last smile she gave me and the last words she said to me.
“Marči. I love you. Stay strong.”
You see the tattoo I have here, on my wrist? It’s exactly those words.
From that day onwards, I became a shell of myself. I functioned automatically. I tried so hard to keep a good facade and a high disposition, to pretend I was fine, but all I could think of was about those two fuckers who killed my Elizabeta. I didn’t see their faces, but I knew that if I ever saw them again I would kill them. They took the most precious thing in life from my fucking hands.
I kept Elizabeta’s corpse with me as much as I could. I wouldn’t allow anyone near it. They found me holding it close. I just grabbed her and… Handed it to the people who rescued me and begged them to please return it to Croatia. The corpse wasn’t in the best state when they recovered it and I went so hysterical about having her back home that I had to be sedated before I got flown back. Luckily, her corpse was appropriately repatriated and now she has a grave here, in Umag. I go there every single day and bring her fresh roses. Her favorites. I sit on her grave with Gertruda and tell her how I’m doing. I’m pretty sure she is now cuddling Stipe in Heaven, and the both of them are taking care of us from above.
The guys from Let 3, all of them are okay. Mrle lost a leg due to hypothermia, but he’s rocking a prosthesis he customizes all the time. I don’t think they’re planning a return soon, but if they do, I bet they’ll release a song about the incompetence of the people who planned this whole thing, mocking them with their usual edge. As for me, I don’t want to sing anymore. Not until I find my purpose back. Elizabeta’s death took away everything from me. Luckily, I still have Matija, Martin and Mihael who come to check in on me and are helping me through grief, and my therapist has also helped me a lot. And of course, Gertruda is of big help as well.
Will I ever get better? I want to believe that yes, I will get better, because darkness doesn’t last forever and the sun always has to come back up, one way or another. But even if it does get better, for now it doesn’t seem like it. But I promised Elizabeta to be strong for her.
And damned sure, I will be.