Page 27 of Morena
A tear slid down my cheek before I could stop it. I turned, ready to leave, but she was there. She pressed against the wall, pale, her outline soft as smoke, but her eyes wet with tears.
“I don’t remember,” she whispered. “What was before?”
I turned back to face her.
“Somehow,” she said, “we connected when you broke that urn.” She circled the room and then stopped. “It was as if you brought humanity back to me.”
A hard lump caught in my throat. What if the dreams I kept having were not mine at all, but her memories bleeding into me?
“I had a dream last night,” she tilted her head, eyes glinting in the half-dark. “It was about the one you left behind.” She whispered the words, then broke into a soft giggle.
“Stop,” I said. “You have no right.”
“To bring it up?” She laughed, the sound sharp enough to cut. “Did I touch your poor little heart?”
I stepped outside and reached for the door. I was about to slam it when her hand pressed against it, holding it open.
“I know what you did,” she said. “You are no better than the men you despise.”
I turned, but couldn’t look her in the eye. “I never claimed I was better than anyone else.”
She didn’t reply. Maybe she felt it, the same feeling that pressed on me whenever she was near. It was as if we were already bound together, two broken pieces of a puzzle that no one could solve. We were past and present colliding, yet somehow searching for an ending that would quiet the noise inside.
If María had been right, if she had taken her son’s eyes, then mine were next. The truth was that I had been blind for a long time. I saw things, but like I had no sight at all.
I walked into the room with the broken window. On the other side of the glass, the neighbor’s shadow stood watching the house. She stayed only a second before leaving further into the room.
The thought clung to me. Maybe the haunting wasn’t just in the house. Maybe the entire town was cursed. Some people stayed because they had no choice. Others stayed because they were foolish enough to keep chasing ghosts, just as I was.
1. Everything good?
2. My mother's name is Lucia.
3. Pink in Spanish
4. You know?
5. Calm down, Maria
6. Crazy
7. They were all completely crazy.
8. Help me… please…
VIII.
Itwasraining,storming,the sky colliding with the earth until the streets drowned beneath rushing water. That is what happens when it refuses to rain for weeks, the ground swallowing every drop until it spills over. Even if I wanted to stay away from the house, I had no choice. I needed shelter, and there was only one place left.
Around three in the morning I climbed onto the dumpster, reached for the window, and pried it open. I slipped back inside, into the room with the dirty mattress. I couldn’t feel her anymore. Maybe tonight I will finally sleep.
My clothes clung to me, soaked through, but I was too exhausted to care. I didn’t bother to dry myself. I collapsed onto the mattress, and the moment my eyes shut, darkness swallowed me whole.
Her voice found me, faint at first, then clearer, tugging me between dream and waking. I could feel her touch. Cold, invisible hands gliding up my legs, from my ankles to the soft skin of my inner thighs. I lay on my stomach, and her weightpressed down across my back. Her presence carved into me, slicing my skin open, again and again, the same name etched until the pain reached my nerves and forced me to move.
My cock hardened, twitching against the mattress beneath me, but my eyes stayed closed. I couldn’t tell if I was dreaming or if she was truly here, possessing me again. Either way, the thought of her made me want her.
My body rose from the mattress, levitating, suspended upside down. My back faced the ceiling, my chest still toward the mattress, yet I floated as if half-asleep. My cock hung stiff, my blood rushing until my face burned. Her cold presence closed in, raising goosebumps, her touch sending shivers down my spine.
