For a bunch more of Likes - Luis Fernández

 All English translations are done as honestly as possible by a non-native speaker. However, if there are any mistakes, please feel free to comment.

🇪🇦 spanish version

The rules of Urbexing:

"Never go alone"

"Take nothing with you except your photos"

"Leave nothing behind except your footprints"

"Don't break anything to get in"

"Never run"

 

    -But are you serious? asks Rodri without giving credit to his dolled-up sister Happy Panda.

    -And so I am, says the influencer without hesitation. It all started a few months ago. Computer screens turning on and off in the early hours of the morning when I woke up for work at around 11am, cryptic messages on my mobile phone that made no sense at all, a series of numbers and letters in response to my Instagram posts instead of likes. At first, I didn't think anything of it. People envy my life, you know, and they don't know how to give me shit, it pisses them off that I'm so successful. But for a few months now, my followers have started to drop, and it's clear to me that they were giving me the evil eye. There can be no other explanation.

    The influencer Happy Panda, with a disproportionate chest size for her short stature, with a much more vulgar name, Teresa Alcantarilla, keeps moving from left to right as she tells Rodri her dreadful woes.

    Even though they are having coffee and sitting in comfortable armchairs, Teresa seems to have the dance of St. Vitus. Right, left, a little more to the left, back to the right. They seem to be invoking the Devil. She lights another cigarette. The waiter catches her eye. She replies that "shut up, that he doesn't know who she is, that she is influential, super influential in the networks, that she'd better shut his mouth or with the negative review I'm going to give you on TripAdvisor I'm going to destroy your restaurant.

    -Will you stop fucking moving? -You're getting on my nerves. Besides, didn't you say on your channel that you'd quite smoking thanks to meditation?

    -Yes, yes, sorry, I'm upset, super upset. You never stop smoking: you take breaks. What I'm going to tell you now is strong, very strong. Super strong!

    "The sponsor of my perfume has backed out! They've left me without money for the bracelet collection! I'm outraged! Super outraged! Rape! Super rape! -Happy says as she finishes her cigarette with a puff.

    "The bastards told me that I'd had enough of pretending to travel the world when I never left my neighbourhood. That I was putting my money in my pocket without leaving my house. What a shame, they'd noticed because I always had the same cloudscape in all the photos! What's my fault if the weather is nice where I go, and the fucking cloud chases me? Is it also my fault that the intern who does my Photoshop is fucking useless? Eh, you bastards?

    "Anyway -Happy Panda moves to the right again-, I discovered while typing on Wikipedia that the numbers and letters are coordinates located in the Parvati Valley in India, of a temple lost in the fucking jungle. And hold on tight, Rodri, they're signed by Pablito... How did you get there? Super stunned, like me!

    A shiver ran through Rodri remembering his missing friend Pablito, aka Cool_Fog46.

    -Fuck yeah, he's asking me to go look for him. We'll help each other, says Happy Panda, her eyes widening, while Rodri can't stop staring at his swollen lips from the botulinum toxin.

    -You do know that Parvati Valley is the Bermuda Triangle of backpackers, right? You must have looked that up on Wikipedia too, right? Let me see those coordinates, Rodri demands to see that the infamous temple falls about two hours' walk from the town of Manikaran.

    -Sure, sure, Happy says unconvincingly, her face streaked with ostentatious tears. I'm very scared, I don't like to travel, will you help me or not? Are you my brother or not? Or are you adopted?

    -OK, I'm really pissed off, but Pablito was my friend and his disappearance in that house still torments me... If this goes well... Will I be able to touch your friend Chickaboom's tits? -negotiates Rodri.

    -Again? She'll show them to you from above and I'll talk to her so she'll let you take a picture, but don't let you see her face, ok?

    -Okay, another thing, stop moving and record now. I've seen the phone recording and then uploading it to your channel since I entered the cafeteria. Wasn't there a better place than in your open bag?

    Happy, offended, removes the phone with pink bunny ears, makes a duckface next to Rodri and cuts the recording. Perhaps her remaining followers will realise the unfathomable suffering she's enduring and make a contribution to her account.

    A small amount to start with... I don't know, at least €100. Less is being miserable. Super miserable! She can't wait to get home and get rid of the fucking eye drops that burn her eyes. And eat a nice steak. Ever since she was caught eating one at the Asador Guipuzcoano, the networks have been on her case. What's her fault for being a convinced militant vegetarian and having to eat animal protein because of serious medical indications from a doctor on the Internet? She is very ill, with a bad complexion, hell. Although she recognises that the photo of her eating, getting warm with her hands, the bottle of wine shaking and her with her mouth open has done her a disservice.

    -Rodri, we leave in a week for India. I'll be accompanied by my blogger and gamer friend Chickaboom, the one you like to touch her tits so much. You know... the one from the blog BeGuay.com. You go ahead and book your flight, hotel and so on. I'm too stressed to take care of that nonsense. On the plane, my friend and I will be separated from you by at least six rows of seats. I have a reputation and I shouldn't be seen with you. Look, you'd better take us in business class and you in economy. That way there's no hassle. Oh, and I need to check at least four bags. Now, I can't even pay, they've hacked my accounts and my cards are blocked. Don't forget to find a kennel for my little dog Bolitas in the meantime. You know he's allergic to gluten. And make sure it's somewhere nice, because last time he came stressed and his hair was falling out. Super stressed! If the new one you're looking for is too expensive, you can go back to the old one. No problem. The shitty mutt wasn't that stressed either.

    And with these last indications, Happy Panda leaves the restaurant with his six foot six inches of height, wiggling her ass in his pink leather trousers, her high heels and of course without paying the bill. Rodri squeals to the waiter for the bill while thinking, and sighing in passing, that being Happy's brother is most of the time a pain in the ass... he may like touching his friend's tits, but his sister loves touching his balls. Rodri has long lived in fear that Chickaboom will sue him for the time when, in a display of seductive skills, he slapped her on the ass with the shout "What do you think about that, eh!"

One week later

    The rickety Indian bus that has to cover the last part of the journey to the hotel in Manikaran in Himachal Pradesh starts off amidst voluminous black clouds and the throes of a future mechanical death. Rodri has sat down at the back of the vehicle and is about to take a nap. He's had a hard time carrying Happy Panda's four suitcases and the two suitcases of her entrepreneur friend. He's tired as hell.

    Happy sits with her friend a few seats further forward. They take advantage of every Internet peak to upload posts to their Instagram account. Staring out of the window with their gaze lost. Post. Tearing up because Bolitas couldn't join her and blinking "Miss you" tags. Post. Happy super offended that the ham sandwich Rodri bought her at Madrid airport for 12 € only has six pitiful slices. Post. Happy told Rodri to buy him two. One sandwich for now and one for later.

    Teresa Alcantarilla tries to stretch her legs. Post. She looks in disgust at the springs sticking out of the empty seat next to her. Her friend has got up and gone to tell Rodri off. Yesterday she dreamt he did her a dirty trick and he still hasn't apologised to her. Happy looks bored again at the leafy nature and snorts. She's hungry and plans to eat his leftover sandwich, now only crumbs, on the sly. Lest her companions want to take a bite.

    Out of the corner of her eye, she sees a ragged boy in a woollen cap rise up behind and approach her. A fan, no doubt. What a pain in the ass. She's going to bite her head off and laugh at him. Fans are to be pampered. She'll wait on him for a while. One minute. As little as possible.

    How bad it smells here all of a sudden. Everything seems to have gone dark all of a sudden, too. The boy sits down next to you. He looks as if he is badly tuned.

    -Hi Happy, good to see you, greets a disfigured Pablo, aka Cool_Fog46.

Terrace of the Priyanka Palace Hotel, a few hours later

    -Are you sure it was Pablo? -Rodri asks his upset, super upset sister, who is shaking all the time. There was no one else with you, and before getting on the bus I saw you smoking one of those special cigarettes of yours?

    -I swear on Kardashian's ass! -says the influencer with the world record of losing followers in an hour. It was him, and he was looking not so good at all. How awful. Besides, smart ass... that was one of my joints, I mean therapeutic cigarettes that I have to take to calm my stress. The one you keep provoking me with your questions!

    -What did he say? -Rodri and Charo, aka Chickaboom, ask in unison.

    -This is super strong -Happy snorts, waving both hands to get some air -Mega strong. He told me the story of Shiva's temple where we're supposed to meet him, first thing tomorrow morning. That we should go alone, although that wasn't going to be difficult either, since no one will want to join us. The abandoned temple was a place of dreadful suffering, he told me. Normally Hindu temples are dedicated to several deities; a main presiding deity and associated secondary deities. This temple, on the other hand, is exclusively dedicated to Shiva. In the early sixties, I guess when the world was still black and white (can you imagine?), leprosy began to ravage the valley and the village. About ten families decided to isolate themselves in the Shiva temple in search of its protection, guided by the directions of a mysterious ascetic named Hapreet Nahinrayan - they say he even cut off his penis in one of his meditations! Yuck! Well, to get to the point...

    "They abandoned the village, taking all the food and animals they could, and took cover behind the walls of the temple, condemning it from within. They let no one in, hoping to save themselves from leprosy. The most disadvantaged had no choice but to stay in the village and wait for death... which did not come and passed them by. After a few months, the villagers began to wonder why the temple families did not return. Torrential rains, falling for weeks at a time, made it impossible to reach the temple, and when some villagers were finally able to approach, the temple was still locked up tight... and remained so until the turn of the century, when urban explorers, intrigued by the mystery of the temple and ignoring the prohibition against entering the jungle, desecrated it - Happy continues in a supposed trance⸺. None of them have returned. The villages surrounding the valley are littered with posters, with the word "Missing" and the faces of backpackers, urban explorers and the curious. Of different nationalities and social strata, but with one common denominator... They all set out to visit the cursed Shiva temple and none ever returned. That's where Pablo is waiting for us. He reminded me not to forget the doll with the burnt face, which was like a portal. I don't know what he was talking about... he was missing half his mouth.

    -I do. It's his sister's fucking doll. The one I threw in the woods a year ago, Rodri confesses. I have no fucking idea where it is.

    -Is this it? -asks Chickaboom, lifting it from inside his backpack.

    Rodri nods with a chalk-coloured countenance as Happy lights up another therapeutic cigarette.

    -Did he tell you anything else? -asks the terrified gamer.

    -Yeah, he told me you're a slutty whore and that you're jealous of how cool I am, Happy lies. Proud, no... the next thing; of being so smart and taking advantage of the situation to make a dig at her friend.

    Chickaboom, embarrassed, can only nod and apologise again and again to her beloved friend, although she herself doesn't know why.

    The three friends decide to retire to the room they share shortly afterwards. Happy seems liberated after telling them about her encounter with Pablo and asks them to upload a couple more posts to her Instagram account before they go to bed. A few of her leaning on the railing with a view, coffee in hand, and an open shirt showing a bit of flesh.

    Happy throws the butt of one of his therapeutic cigarettes down the terrace. Rodri, following his trajectory, glances down the street and pales immediately. The same blinded, one-legged fox that welcomed him and Pablo a year ago in the forest, watches him down the street along with a large and noisy flock of crows. They just watch and watch. Unmoving.

The next morning, on the way to the Shiva temple

    The heat and humidity is unbearable, but both Teresa and Charo don't seem bothered by this fact. Perhaps it is because the backpacks loaded with clothes and shoes are carried by a sweaty and exhausted Rodri, and they are so divine, just carrying their mobile phones and taking photos.

    The overgrown top of the temple can be seen less than 300 metres away and a shiver runs through Rodri. The idea of coming here to make a fool of himself seems worse and worse to him. If Pablo wants help, they could have met up in Belchite or Torrejón de Ardoz, grim places if ever there was one, and not in India.

    Happy takes another photo of herself getting into a leafy area as if she were fighting with the jungle. This is completely unnecessary because there is a clear path to cover the last few metres to the temple. Of course, you can see it in the photo.

    This time she's going to be swelling up with likes, not like that time in Madrid's Casa de Campo at night. She wanted to make Madrid look like Japan, and the Casa de Campo like the Aokigahara suicide forest. But once there, she was kicked out by a group of cops, and she, who had announced a live stream on her channel, had to back down, saying that evil spirits had prevented a pure soul like her from accessing the interior. That she was super offended and that she was going to do some shopping in Tokyo to get rid, only halfway, of her displeasure.

    -Hey, fellas, I'm going to pee behind a hedge! -Chickaboom informs Rodri and Happy, putting her hands to his crotch, "Whoa, whoa... I'm going to piss myself!

    -It'll be behind a tree, says Rodri, You'd better stay close, Charo. We shouldn't get separated. You know how, in the movies, at the end, they always disappear one after the other and it gets messy...

    -Of course, so you can see my ass, Rodri. For such a smart guy, you don't have many friends, do you? Well, I take that back. You're dumber than the Power Rangers saying their colour. You want a picture of me pissing? I'll take my phone, okay?

    In his haste, Rodri sees Charo drop an earring, but he doesn't want to give it to her, lest he ends up being reported for harassment if he catches her with her knickers down. You have to be really careful these days.

    After twenty minutes of waiting, Rodri starts to get impatient and shouts for Charo. Nothing. He tells her to cut the bullshit. Only the noises of the jungle and the curious glance of crouching animals is the answer he receives.

    -Maybe she's lost, or headed for the temple? The temple looks great from here. Hold on... I'll call her on her mobile, says an increasingly upset Happy. Nothing. What do we do? Let's see if her friend wants to be funny and broadcast the streaming exclusively? Because we wanted to do it together once we arrived. Now she'll show up on her own, showing off her calf and mega cool... Charo is capable of that and more... she's a slut, you know? Super slut!

    -Fuck, I don't know. I can't leave you here and go to the temple or the other way around. Let's both go. I hope she's there... You're getting on my nerves between the two of you.

    The brothers walk towards the temple, looking back every few metres. Behind the main door, covered in lush undergrowth, a familiar face in the shadows seems to greet them. It is Pablo with a broad smile.

    -This way! Charo has also arrived a while ago. She's with me. Hurry up! -squeaks an excited Pablo.

    With the joy of seeing his friend after so long and the reassurance of Charo's whereabouts, they both disregard the start of Chickaboom's streaming from a poorly lit room, surrounded by spectral-looking beings.

    -This is Chickaboom, streaming live. This is awesome! I have no idea how I got here. The last thing I remember is being up my arse pissing on some cool flowers. There's a lot of people here. I don't understand any of them. They all speak No sense for me. And you know my English is not very good... I'll catch up one of these days, I promise, my dear followers. The characters in here look like the ones on the missing persons posters in the village, but they all look terrible. Some are crying and some are just looking at me. It can't be because I'm not made up because you can't see shit in here. They are obsessed with touching me. There are also a lot of bodies on the floor, but they don't move. I think they're dead. This is a bit creepy. Rodri and Happy, if you can hear me, don't go into the temple... The weird guy is not Pablo.

    Arriving at the gate of the temple, Rodri and Happy notice that the entrance is forced but not enough to enter through it. Pablo calls out to them from inside, insisting that they push the door and go inside. Happy orders Rodri to show off those months in the gym and give the door a good hounding. She can't help him as she's carrying a painful, painful injury from doing a Photocall in Puerto Rico.

    -Hurry up, friends, orders Pablo impatiently, we haven't got all fucking day.

    Rodri picks up a rag-wrapped branch from a fallen tree and begins to leverage it. Happy's mobile, blinks back into his rucksack only to be ignored again.

    -Chickaboom here again. I've approached some bodies at the entrance. They are skeletons wrapped in colourful rags as if they were in a Bollywood film. These ones, though, have long since lost the urge to dance. One of the pale guys in here, who speaks some Spanish, although his face is a terrible colour and his make-up is terrible, has told me in a guttural voice (is he doing it to look cool?) that the other backpackers, and he, have been anchored for a long time. Yes, yes, anchored, he said. I promised to send him some of my sponsor's creams, as long as he subscribes to my channel. He didn't say anything to me, the ungrateful bastard. He told me that the dead people at the entrance were villagers who, with the false promise of being saved from leprosy, locked themselves in here. It did them little good, as one of them was already infected before they entered. And although they isolated him, it was too late. Leprosy had already taken hold within the walls of the temple. Things got worse and the few who did not die of the disease, distressed by the sudden lack of food, began to eat the dead. Some men rebelled at such an atrocity, demanding to leave the temple, but the priest, the only one who knew of the existence of the secret passages to the outside, kept quiet as a slut (well, he didn't say slut, but who cares) and the rebellion lasted little to nothing. He also told me that he knows how to get out of here, but that in return I have to do something very, very heavy... I told him that I wasn't going to cut off anyone's penis, to which he grumpily snorted at me that it wasn't that, fuck, he said that "fuck" in better Spanish than the rector of the University of Salamanca! I'll go on later, I'm running out of battery... thank goodness I have a spare Powerbank in my trousers... I'm a marvel, I'd marry myself if I could. I'd divorce and remarry myself again, I love weddings!

    The door gives way a few centimetres as Pablo from inside keeps shouting at them to hurry up. Dark clouds begin to overcast the skies as suddenly a strong wind is picking up and seems to push them inside the temple. Happy begins to scream as she notices the roots of the trees beginning to tangle around her ankles.

    Rodri, help me! -Happy cries out, trying to free herself from the tendrils.

    Rodri realises to his horror that it is not roots that are holding his sister's ankles, but skeletal fingers that have emerged from the dusty earth. Likewise he realises that he is not propping the door with a branch; but with a fleshless human humerus wrapped in a greyish semi-devoted pullover. The wind intensifies and the voices inside the typhoon begin to howl "Nahin, Nahin, Nahin!". Happy has fallen to her knees under the weight of the rotting arms and weeps inconsolably. The sky accompanies the influencer in her tears with a thunderclap and the beginning of a copious downpour.

    -They're calling the fucking priest! -Happy wails, as more and more bony hands rise from the earth, imprisoning her, preventing her from moving.

    Inside the temple it is now Charo shouting to Rodri to hurry and get inside to safety, this will be their only way to save themselves. Rodri again levers the door fiercely and it finally opens. Inside, the only light visible is the reflection of Chickaboom's earrings.

    Rodri turns to help his sister throw off the skeletons' yoke. He recognises the half-decayed ashen faces of backpackers and urbexers... he stops dead in his tracks and shouts to his sister that it is not the ascetic that the shadows are calling...

    -This is Chickaboom back! They want my mobile! They cannot leave this plane while their kin are still searching for them. That their uncertainty anchors them to this plane and they cannot leave, as long as their families do not know that they have died, that their loved ones need to finally accept the loss and begin the healing process. They have asked me to allow them to call their families, their partners or to leave voice or text messages. That, with this last act of compassion, I release their anchors and let them go. What a pain... all those hands with black fingernails, a hideous pedicure, touching my mobile, but I have agreed. They will instead show me the secret passages of the temple which, although flooded with filthy black water, will help me to get out and meet my friends. They are disappearing little by little they are fading away. They smile at me with their crooked mouths. The last of them, the "Rector of Salamanca" shows me the passage that will lead me out of the temple. Buahhh, it's overflowing with smelly water, do I really have to get up to my shoulders in here? Didn't they have a VIP exit that takes me outside to a beach with bare-chested waiters? I'm dying for a Bloody Mary! Some blackened logs float in the water. I'll help myself to them. God, they're not logs, they're rotting corpses. I've got hardly any signal...

    

    Rodri turns back towards the entrance of the temple where Pablo's arms try to drag him into the temple. He twists and pulls them away. The voice, which is no longer Pablo's, howls in pain.

    -Teresa! -They are not calling the priest! They are saying NO in Hindi. They don't want us to go in, they are helping us. Inside is not Pablo, he never was and just like THAT is not Charo... I have one of his earrings in my pocket. -He exclaims as he keeps trying to get away from the ascetic.

    The ascetic keeps howling and insulting them, resisting with supernatural strength. The downpour intensifies. Hapreet Nahinrayan's ashen, gnarled hands grip Rodri even tighter. His strength is not of this world and he begins to gain the upper hand. With less than a metre left to be devoured by the darkness of the entrance, Rodri feels a multitude of arms pulling him out, helping him to break free from the deadly embrace. They are the arms of Happy, of the spirits of the backpackers, of the urbexers... of all the missing people of the Pavarti Valley. The ascetic's arm splits like a splinter and falls to the ground where it immediately melts into black wisps of smoke. Rodri slips and falls backwards away from the entrance. An eerie snake-like hiss is lost inside, and the door slams shut. Happy hugs Rodri soaking wet. Her tears mingle with the rain.

    -What the fuck was that, Rodri? -sobbing a tearful Happy.

    -I have no fucking idea. Let's get out of here, Rodri orders.

Bus station, a few days later

    Soon the bus will be leaving to take her and Rodri to the airport. Happy has watched the Chickaboom stream countless times and still doesn't understand anything. Rodri, too, doesn't understand and is mostly lost in thought. The local authorities found Chickaboom's rucksack about ten kilometres from the temple on the banks of a river. It contained the burnt doll, the mobile phone and a black stone marked with a trident. But of her, not a trace.

    Happy finishes hanging the last of the posters with Chickaboom's face on an electric pole and enters the bus. A silent fox watches them from the curb surrounded by crows. All other passers-by do not seem to see him, but unconsciously avoid his position.

    The state of Himachal Pradesh is also known as Kulanthapitha, or the end of the habitable world.

    To this day, Chickaboom is still missing... super missing.

THE END

PS:

The deity Shiva is one of the gods of the Hindu trinity responsible for destroying the universe and then renewing it along with the creator God, Brahma and the preserver God, Vishnu. Within Shivaism, Shiva is considered the supreme God. She is both benevolent and feared.

NOTE

The Urbex philosophy is based on respect for lost and abandoned locations. Unfortunately many urbexers do not respect basic rules of behaviour and behave like savages destroying everything around them. These well-known rules should not be taken lightly. The "Never go alone" rule is to prevent that in case of an accident urgent help from other members of the expedition can arrive. The "No running" rule, for example, is to prevent old structures from collapsing under the weight of the urbexer and causing an accident. The characters in the story are disrespectful stereotypes and only serve as examples of what we should not be. On the one hand, the influencer Happy who only wants to increase her like count at any price. She is capable of negotiating with her brother for a photo of her friend in order to ensure that Rodri accompanies her. On the other hand, Rodri, an urbexer who doesn't give a damn about respect for others and only wants to take advantage of the trip to flirt with Chickaboom. All of them are wannabes and experts in nothing. None of them is an example of anything (good) and they are suitably exaggerated for the literary purposes of the story. I super love mixing humour with horror. Thanks for your comments.

Safe creative 2205091093766

Many thanks to Klaus Fernandez for his "Klausicísms" and to Beto for his accurate corrections of style and vocabulary!

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