My eyelashes burn from the inside. The smoke scratches my throat like a rough cable every time I try to swallow.
I hold Diego with my left arm, his shoulder bumping against my collarbone, his quick, small breaths stabbing into my ear:
"Mom…" he says, not yet understanding how serious this is. I pull him sharply so he doesn't trip, but the stairs are a trap of heat and dust, my feet slip on the damp steps, and every movement drains the little energy I have.
I work all day so there's food in the house. Sometimes I imagine the steaming stew on the table and the radio playing in the kitchen.
Today I carried a bag of vegetables and a long loaf of bread. I think about walking through the plaza afterward, sitting on the bench under the linden tree, watching the kids chase pigeons. That image holds me like an invisible rope as I climb.
"Diego, don't let go," I tell him. His tiny hand is a cold claw clinging to my shirt.
There's a smell I've never smelled before, smoke mixed with something chemical, a metallic taste that makes your mouth water in the worst way. It enters my lungs, and when I cough, tiny black dots fill my head.
I feel my throat closing, and memory brings, absurdly, the song I sing to stop him from crying:
"To the half-moon…" A verse sticks, and I whisper it under my breath, "To the half-moon… everything will be alright," I tell myself, and for a second, I believe it.
Someone screams behind me. I don't recognize the voice. Everything is chaos, people running, overlapping shouts, the noise of a door falling. I feel a shove in my back. I turn automatically to say something, to demand they let me pass, but the smoke steals my words, and my vision turns white.
Diego presses closer to my side, his scent sweet, a trace of cereal and honey, and I cling to it like a piece of sky.
"Hold on," I whisper. "Mom is here, I won't let you go."
I think of my mother, who always called me "chubby" affectionately, the way she folded the napkins on the table to make the house look orderly. I think of the last time she saw me cry seriously—it was over my first job, when we didn't know if we'd make it to the end of the month. She hugged me and said:
"You can do it. Celebrate the little victories." I repeat that now because it's the only thing that feels true.
I don't know when someone covers my mouth. I feel the fabric, damp, smelling of sweat and alcohol. I'm scared. I don't know if they're helping me avoid more smoke or if they want me silent for another reason.
I try to pull Diego's hand, but my arm doesn't obey as I want; it feels as if there's cement in my bones. I hear approaching steps and then—like the world opens—a shove that throws me off the edge of the stairs and makes me fall backward.
Something hits my back, and the air whistles out as I shield my child with my body. My eyes grow heavy as darkness claims me.
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They drag me. The hands that grab me are not gentle, pulling my shirt, giving orders in a language I don't understand.
I see flashes: a flashlight illuminating a short hallway, the face of a man staring at me with enormous eyes, then gone.
Someone shouts something that sounds like "quick," and I feel my heart about to leap from my mouth. They drag me like a heavy bag, push the door of a side room, and slam it with a crash that makes my bones vibrate. Everything happens so fast there's barely time to mourn.
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I'm in a room that smells of dampness and metal. The walls are cold, and if there is light, it's far above and distant.
I try to move, take Diego and hold him as I always do to protect him, but my hands don't fully obey.
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Someone grabs my arm tightly and another hand pushes my nape so I can't turn. They force me to kneel, and my knee hits the floor: rough, with a warm liquid slowly covering it. My head buzzes, a bitter taste fills my mouth that I can't place.
My thoughts turn into a chain of little pleas, one after another:
"Please… don't leave me alone… please don't hurt Diego… please let Mom come… someone come, please…"
The words come out like a weak thread, powerless, yet I keep saying them. I repeat them in my head until my throat burns.
I plead without order, speaking to anyone—the man upstairs who always passes with his dog, the woman at the Bodega who sells me cinnamon, God if He exists, the moon.
"Give me back Diego," I say, even though it makes no sense because he is right beside me, silent, with eyes wide as a child who doesn't yet comprehend what's happening.
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I look at those around us. Not many, faces covered, moving like shadows. I see one of their hands: a scar on the back, clean as if belonging to someone who works with knives daily.
My mind makes silly lists: bread, milk, the salt that ran out last week. Little things now impossible.
I try to grasp Diego's figure, the tuft that always falls on his forehead, the little tomato stain on his shirt. That calms me.
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They carry me again. Things happen around me I don't fully understand, muffled laughs turning into short orders, murmurs, a sound like wood hitting wood.
Someone places something around my neck, and for a moment I think it's a scarf, but the pressure and the hard texture of metal frighten me.
"No."
I think it, unsure if I said it aloud or in my head. I can't even summon the thought of fighting; my body is beyond exhaustion.
I remember the plaza, how Diego dirties his shoes playing in the mud, and a deep sadness pierces me, leaving a hole in my chest.
Then I see him, a man on the other side of the room looking at me with a calm that chills.
I don't know him, but there's something in his eyes that isn't human. His eyes are serene, and my stomach twists.
They press a piece of cloth against my face to cover my mouth.
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I try to kiss Diego on the forehead, whisper "I love you" as I always do, and I feel my voice break with such force it hurts.
I think of the word "why" as if it were a literal question that could unlock my prison.
Why us? What had we done to deserve this? I think of the good neighbors, the lady who sweeps the sidewalk on Fridays, the boy who fixes bikes on the corner. I think of the hatred some people carry, and it frightens me that it caught me.
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I don't know how much time passes. My thoughts become slow, sticky, as if swimming in honey.
From time to time, an image appears: the kitchen, the stew on the stove, the steaming pot, and the radio playing some song.
I force myself to repeat it so my memory doesn't dissolve, even recalling the tile pattern, where I used to put the key box. Small, silly anchors, but they work: they maintain the shape of mother here inside.
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Once more, they carry me. This time the hand that grabs me is stronger than all the others, they push, drag, and try to calm me with harsh words.
"Lower your voice and move."
My pleas shrink; my throat burns, and despite everything, I find myself murmuring a lullaby. Not out of conviction, but because I hope somehow the note will change the rhythm of the world and make it less dangerous.
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I see a small window high up; light cuts through the dust. I cling to that rectangle because through it I see the street, people walking with bags, the noise and their shadows.
I imagine someone could look down and see that this is not normal, could run, call the police. I hold onto that image until exhaustion clouds me.
Before losing contact with clarity, I grip Diego's hand tightly. I make a promise I feel deep inside:
"If we get out, I'll take you to the plaza and buy you ice cream, the big one, with lots of chocolate, the one you love so much, okay?"
He doesn't respond, his eyes as black as buttons staring into nothing. His face imprints in my memory, the hatred the world can have for a family as small as ours steals my breath.
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I don't know if this is the part I'll always tell or if there will be more. All I know is that my body is here now, trembling, and my mind strings together a chain of things to cling to:
Grandma's recipe, the Moon song, Diego's name, the color of our house.
I tell myself if I survive this, everything will be different: I'll stop arguing over silly things with my sister, play more on my father's old guitar, learn to bake another cake. Promises that sound desperate and small, but hold me a little.
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As they carry me down another corridor, I whisper:
"Don't let go, Diego. Don't let go."
And even though my body wants to falter, a part of me refuses. That part is what makes me a mother.
The refusal to accept the end without trying, even if only in a whisper, to deny it.
"My little one, Mom's here," I assure him, holding his hand, soft as the fabric of a doll.
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I fall again into nothingness. There is no floor, no air, just a blackness that clings to the skin like oil.
I blink, and my voice sounds strange in this hollow—I hear it, but I can't find it.
"Where are you?"I growl, dragging my composure like someone who refuses to admit the cold.
The darkness responds with formless movements, shadows that are neither born nor die, slipping behind my neck, to the sides, into the folds of my thoughts.
There is no figure I can grab. Only the voice, which comes from everywhere but has no visible source.
"Here,"says the specter, and its tone is a caress that would chill anyone's blood, except mine."In every heartbeat you denied. In every name you buried."
I force myself to vomit disdain.
"Illusion. Theater. Nothing more," I say. The habit of denial keeps me upright, though something in my chest keeps itching.
"You deny because you prefer the lie,"the voice replies, cold."Tell me: What does it feel like to lose a child?"
The question strikes directly, like a blunt dagger finding flesh.
I cover myself with rage.
"You are a shadow, a fool playing a foolish theater."
"And yet,"it replies,"you feel the weight of that woman in your arms. Don't you notice? Don't you feel her hands trembling when she asks you to protect her child?"
I writhe.
I want to rip that feeling from me, but in the darkness, the phrase sticks to my tongue like wax.
I search for logic, for purpose, for cleanliness, for discipline.
"Everything has a purpose," I say, trying to make my voice steel again. "The Hand purifies. What I did was necessary."
The ghost laughs, a low laugh devoid of humor.
"Necessary for whom? For those who remain? Look at how they cry, listen to the promises you tore from them. Do you feel the mother singing songs to a child who is no longer there while you smother him?"
The image pierces me even as I try to close it off.
I see myself—my other self—impassive, giving the signal. The sight of the mother with her hair plastered to her face, singing halfway as she slowly loses her breath, stays with me like an insect in resin.
I want to reject it. I speak harshly:
"You lie. You invent scenes to break me."
"I don't invent,"insists the ghost."I give you what you did. You yourself ordered it. And now you repeat it, word for word, inside the throat of the one who suffered. Do you like the feeling of hearing their last words in your mouth?"
A coldness enters my throat. I don't admit it. I harden myself.
"I don't care what they feel. I care about the outcome. The world straightens if we guide it."
"The outcome?"the voice is a blade."You took Tomás's bread, Mateo's laughter, Marisol's hug. Is that order to you? Purification? Or did it simply entertain you, right? You enjoyed seeing them take their last breath."
My throat tightens for a moment. I try to return to defense, obedience, the greater good.
"The weak impede the strong. The Hand only accelerates what the world already does."
"You say that and expect it to sound like truth," the ghost responds, closer now,"but in the silence where the woman's eyes watch you, there is a question you cannot answer...
Why did it give you pleasure? Why did you enjoy it?"
I refuse to answer. I shake my head as if swatting flies.
"There is no pleasure in fulfilling a duty. Only in efficiency."
"Then why can't you look at that mother and feel nothing?"the voice presses."Why do you hum her lullaby to yourself in the dark?"
The image of the song hits me harder than I would like to admit.
I say nothing. I cover myself with the memory of training, of orders, of the Hand's mantra that taught me not to doubt. But the specter's voice does not relent.
"What if I show you Tomás on a Sunday eating the bread his mother made with love? What if I show you Mateo, who watched the sun drawn on the cardboard he worked so hard on? Do you remember their names, or only their utility?"
I cling to my ability to rationalize.
"They are tools. Names useless against the structure we must impose."
"Tools that breathed," it contradicts"tools that laughed. You put them in boxes called 'necessity.' Now look at them and tell me that doesn't touch you."
The visions overwhelm me: memories, sensations, dreams, hopes… Then…
Silence.
A silence that stretched as if the room had filled with ash and even words weighed heavy.
I am tempted to sink my hands into the void to find something real, something that belongs to me. I search for my face in the darkness, and I see it, pale, unperturbed, the posture of one who never doubts.
"You are a fraud," I throw, to occupy myself. "Are you trying to make me feel pain? That is only fuel for us. We are the edge of the Hand, the sword that cuts all weakness, WE ARE—"
"I seek nothing,"says the ghost, without hatred, with a calm that irritates."I show you. Vanity bores me. It entertains me to see what you do when you see yourself in the eyes of the one you silenced. I watch you waver, and it amuses me that you pretend indestructibility."
Something ignites in my chest, a dry rage, the rage that so many times pushed order.
"Enough games," I growl. "Your theater doesn't bend me. Stop wasting my time."
"Maybe,"says the ghost,"but what about this?"
The darkness shifts. It is not light, it is not shadow, it is images opening like wounds.
I see Mrs. Huang's kitchen, the steaming pot as she cooks for her beloved family, the hands kneading.
The smile of a girl placing a drawing on the table.
I feel all of it as if I were holding it.
I cannot prevent a thought from exploding:
What kind of monster remains impassive before embraces that will never be returned?
"Those are not my memories," I respond, with a voice weaker than I want, "they are things that don't matter."
"THEY MATTER!" the ghost roars, for the first time with violence."They matter to those who lived them. You took them from them, and now you look at me as if nothing happened. How do you close your eyes at night knowing Mrs. Huang will never bake for her grandchildren again? That Marisol will never fulfill her dream of being a painter?"
A sharp cut pierces me. I do not say it aloud, but her words hurt.
For the first time, I notice the image of the empty kitchen with a weight that is illogical. The armor trembles.
I straighten up, trying to recombine strategy, to speak of doctrine, discipline, duty.
"The Hand has a higher purpose," I insist. "It is not pleasure I seek. It is order. Under the Beast's command, we will reach our potential."
"Order?" the voice becomes almost maternal, with disdain."You speak of order while showing a mother who tried to sing to her child until the end. What order do you speak of while leaving gaps that can never be closed?"
At that moment I notice something beneath my feet—or what should be the floor—a vibration, a tension curling.
It is not a pleasant vision. I lift my foot instinctively, and the black strands coil like snakes rocked by a new gravity.
"Don't start with tricks, monster," I say, trying to regain control. "You won't drag me."
"I am not dragging you,"the ghost responds, a voice now coming from everywhere. "I show you what you are. And if you cannot bear it, you will sink alone."
The shadows beneath rise. They are not plants, not bodies; they are shadowy tentacles emerging from nowhere, winding around my ankles, climbing my calves with a cold pressure like the void. I try to kick, hit, tear them off, but my strength seems dissipated.
"Do you hear?" it whispers."It is the silence you left. Now it swallows you."
I struggle with impotence, shouting command words, names of my masters, everything to recover some space.
But the black strands tighten, pull, and lift me off the nonexistent floor.
The sensation is of sinking, of descending in black water devoid of temperature.
I scream that it is a trick, that it should let me go, that this changes nothing.
"Shut up!" I throw, already without the composure that held me. "You cannot prove that the flesh of a child weighs on my soul."
"You will know,"says the Entity patiently."You will know for the rest of your life."
The shadows drag me down.
I am ashamed to admit it, but halfway through the descent, my breathing changes.
It is not panic from the fall, it is because I feel the accumulation of faces as a real weight on my chest.
I try to gather one last defense: reason, doctrine, the history that shaped me.
I recite those excuses aloud.
But the ghost, before disappearing entirely from my ear, leaves one last phrase, spoken with a contempt that reaches deep inside:
"You killed hope. Not weakness… And that sin… will swallow you deeper than you think."
I choke in the darkness.
The tentacles—if they can be called that—crush me as the void claims me. My last thought, before the blackness covers me completely, is a fragment of the lullaby the mother sang in the vision, a simple melody, a vain promise.
And I cannot decide whether that memory frees me or kills me.
"To the half moon… To the half moon… everything will be alright."
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HOW'S IT GOING, GUYS? HOPE ALL IS WELL
IN THIS CHAPTER, WE GET A "LITTLE GLIMPSE" OF OUR PROTAGONIST'S METHOD. WHAT DO YOU THINK WILL HAPPEN? WILL HE BEND AND COOPERATE, OR WILL HE STAND FIRM? WHAT DO YOU THINK WILL BECOME OF HIM? WHAT WILL OTHERS THINK WHEN THEY SEE THE POSSESSED STATE HE'S IN?
I'LL BE READING ALL YOUR COMMENTS CAREFULLY. BY THE WAY, I'M THINKING ABOUT CHANGING THE COVER TO A BETTER ONE. IF YOU HAVE ANY SUGGESTIONS, FEEL FREE TO LEAVE THEM IN THE COMMENTS AND GIVE A LIKE IF YOU LIKE ANY OF THE OPTIONS.
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR SUPPORT AND COMMENTS, I REALLY APPRECIATE IT.
TAKE CARE :)