Page 53 of Morena
Her lips brushed my forehead, cold as betrayal. Then the hiss of liquid. Gasoline soaked my skin, stinging every cut, flooding the room, leaving a small trail that gleamed across the floorboards, leading straight to the door.
She scratched the match and dropped it to the floor.
Fire spread. It raced along the trail and surged across the floor, devouring everything. Heat blistered my skin, eating into me. A scream ripped from my throat, bubbling blood into the air. I clawed at the wall, nails dragging lines through plaster, desperate for an opening that wasn’t there.
The flames climbed higher, swallowing me whole. I staggered upright, burning, my voice raw as I begged for death.
But Death never came.
When my body collapsed again, flesh still smoldering, I let my eyes close. My lungs emptied in one final breath, and silence settled with the ash.
I died again.
This time, it was real.
I lay in a pile of ashes, my body half-hidden by two strips of black fabric that clung to my breasts and hips before falling away to my crotch. My curls had straightened, dark in color with soot and blood, strands glued to my back until they reached the small of my back.
I looked at my hands. Black paint spread from the tips of my fingers, crawling toward my elbows like an oil stain. My nails had become long, curved claws.
I had become a monster. They had made me a monster.
I couldn’t bear to look at myself. I folded into the corner and cradled my body, humming a soft, broken lullaby. Voices, calling three times, clamored at the edge of my mind. Maybe that was the moment my nightmare was born.
And then, as suddenly as breath, I disappeared.
On the same night, a group of teenagers in the woods at the edge of Montichana were fooling around. One girl with dark, curly hair held a mirror in her hands.
They taunted her, tossing her bag in circles until her shoulders shook with sobs. They stripped her, shoved her in front of the glass, and called hermorena.
When they spoke the name the third time, I appeared in the mirror. The girl screamed. They did too. I crawled out of the glass and hunted them one by one.
The first was a boy. I leapt, dug my claws into his chest, and he howled. I ripped out his tongue and threw it at his feet. He stared at me for a second too long, then his eyes bled and went white.
The second one ripped the girl’s clothes, and I answered in the same way. I took his clothes, then his skin. I flayed him until the muscle clung to bone. He screamed and went blind as his eyes filled with blood.
The third was a girl. She looked at me and begged. I pinned her to a tree and took her eyes with my claws, one by one, until she begged no more.
Morena once meant beauty.
A woman with dark eyes, dark hair, dark fire that could not be contained. A name that should have been sacred. But they twisted it. They made it a curse. They spat it with laughter, used it like a blade, cut us down for being different.
It does not matter what shade your skin carries or where your mother first placed you in this world. We all bleed in the same color. We all break the same. And one day, we will all stand the same, waiting for judgment.
What they never understood is that words do not fade. They stay. They root themselves inside you, curling around your ribs, whispering in the dark until you start to believe them. If you wound someone fragile with words, you may never get them back. They disappear, piece by piece, and you never even notice until they are gone.
If only people thought before they spoke, the world might be softer. Gentler. But this is not that story.
I stood before another Morena, her eyes wide, her breath trembling in the cold air of the woods. I touched her shoulder and said,“Run. Tell them the story. Tell them that if you call my name three times, I will come. Tell them to be afraid. I know where they live. I know who they hide. I know who they hurt. I know the secrets that keep them awake at night. Tell them Morena is not gone. Tell them Morena lives.”
The girl nodded, terror shining like glass in her eyes, and she fled. Out of the trees, through the fields, into the town. Door to door, she went, her voice shaking as she warned them. And with every word she spoke, the story grew.
That night, a legend was born.
Morena.
Morena.
Morena.
