Page 61 of Morena
“You will be fucking sorry,” he said.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry, always sorry,” I said, laughing. “I feel nothing, Matteo. Can’t you see? Everyone broke me. You will have to kill me all over again if you think I will be sorry.”
He leaned close enough that I felt a shiver creeping in. “We will see,” he whispered, and the promise in his voice was worse than any threat he had made so far.
1. What's up, sister, does it hurt?
2. Please, don't shout so loud. Neighbours might hear.
VI.
MATTEO
“Thisendshere,Morena.It is onlyyouandme.”
The mirror groaned as I tore it from the wall. The glass fogged as though it breathed on its own. I set it on the floor. I pulled her by her chains, and when I shoved her forward, she fell. Her limbs flailed in silence as she fell into the darkness. I waited for the echo, but what came was just one sharp, sickening thud.
Then her face pressed against the other side. Skin sagged and peeled away in soft strips. Her eyes, white and hollow now, sank deeper into their caves. A mouth full of gray gums split open and sang:
“Oh, Death… say my name three times.”
She lost her beauty. She was just a story now.
I turned away.
That is the trick, is it not?Do not feed the thing. Do not give it attention. Bury the story in silence, and the silence swallows it whole. I wrapped the mirror in the folds of my robe and carriedit outside, and dropped it to the muddy ground. The glass sank beneath the mud, disappearing.
And still, I knew. One day, she would crawl back out. They always do.
But Death had already loosened its grip on me. What I saw then was worse. I saw life unfolding, endless futures pressing forward, visions too wide to bear. A thousand tomorrows pulsed inside my skull, each one with an end more tragic than the last.
When you believe in ghosts, you begin to believe in everything else.
Morena’s story spread like an infection. Lips twisted it and tongues bruised it. Every story cut her into new shapes until she was no longer herself. A girl murdered by her own blood. A heart cracked before it could love. And those who die empty don’t rest. They return, not as memories but as rage, haunting.
She had a gift once. I believed I could shape it, bend it, make itmine.Instead, I made a nightmare, and the nightmare learned how to walk.
So I hid. I learned how to live again. I walked among the living with the same name and a borrowed heartbeat.
Not as Death.
As Matteo De La Cruz.
VI. (SPLIT)
September 2017.
Itwasraining.Itslicked the ground below, hissed against the flames, and pooled around my shoes as I stood at the edge of Montechata Street.
Two houses were in flames. Carlos’s place and Maria’s were nothing but skeletal frames, collapsing in on themselves. And inside the ruins were two shapes curled and blackened beyond flesh.Paco and Maria.
Sirens lit the streets and each window. Firefighters shouted orders as they were helping rain to put out the fire. Someone had sent them an anonymous tip:Carmen Garcia had evidence hidden in the house next door.
When they pried their way in, the truth spilled out. Carmen was no victim, no terrified woman caught. She had been El Treceall along, carving her way through girls with no explanation. The evidence painted her hands in blood so clearly that no one could wash them clean.
Closure never came. Not the kind the town wanted. Sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes evil is only that evil, smiling in daylight while the world mistakes it for kindness.
They found Isabella, too. Her eyes were gone blind, her mind shattered into pieces. She screamed at ghosts no one else could see, holding onto the empty air. The officers did what they always do when something doesn’t fit. They shoved her into the back of a car and shut the door on her cries, sending her on the way to an Asylum.
