As dawn's quiet herald gently unfolded, the world seemed suspended in anticipatory silence, as if time itself paused. Shadows clung stubbornly to the corners of a modest chamber, where the remnants of darkness grappled with the tentative caresses of morning light seeping through worn drapes. The light, timid yet persistent, danced delicately with dust motes, casting an ethereal glow that sharply contrasted with the profound silence enveloping the room.
On the cusp of her sixteenth birthday, a young girl woke not with the morning anticipation but of a suffocating heaviness filling her lungs and a relentless itch across her skin so intense flaying herself seemed less agonizing.
As her eyes adjusted to the murky light, her view caught a form nearby, distressingly inert and unnaturally silent. The once-rosy warmth of the face that had gazed at her with love from her birth had faded to a ghostly pallor, her features frozen in serene repose.
With trembling hands, the maiden reached out, her fingertips stopping just shy of the still body next to her. "Mamá?" Her fragile whisper seemed to vanish into the void, unanswered.
Tentatively, she shook her mother, desperate for any sign of movement. But the only response she received was a glassy, vacant stare—a bleak window into a void where the vibrant spark of life had once danced. “Mamita...” a stifled gasp broke from the girl's lips as tears began their silent, relentless descent onto the spiritless form she leaned over.
"No… not again! Not again..." her plea was cut off by a violent cough, her throat burning with each hack that wracked her body—a symphony of tears and illness filling the air.
Once the coughing subsided, her eyes fell upon what had once been her pride— once smooth despite village life's harshness, her skin was now marred by rotting abscesses. Drawing a ragged breath through her raw throat, the girl cast one last look at her mother. In the soft light, the woman appeared so peaceful that an inexplicable sense of relief touched the young soul. Tearing her gaze away, she stumbled towards the door.
Her steps, quiet yet resoundingly loud against the backdrop of the house's pervasive silence, moved past the chair by the cold fireplace - a haunting relic of her father's presence. Memories of his laughter, which once animated the room with tales of wonder and delight, cascaded through her mind. The robust echoes of his stories had gradually thinned into a troubling cough, and eventually, into the silence that now enveloped her.
Murmuring to herself, “not again, please,” she opened the door and stepped into the gray dawn that awaited her outside. Her pace leading her to the neighbor's house, her footsteps resounding in her ears. The outside air did little to ease the weight of resentment and nausea that choked her; instead, the familiar sights of her surroundings now seemed distant and unreal, as if part of a forgotten dream.
Upon reaching the neighbor's house, the young spirit didn't hesitate: the door swung open under her forceful push. However, as the door swung open, the crisp outside air was quickly overwhelmed by a musty odor that instantly filled her lungs.
Inside, she found not a leader but a pitiful shadow of his former self. Carlos, with his disheveled appearance and the overpowering stench of alcohol, was barely recognizable as the man who once commanded respect. His once sharp, commanding eyes, now avoided hers, swimming in a sea of red. The strength and assurance he once radiated had diminished, now as faint as the morning mist clinging to the village cobblestones.
His bloodshot eyes struggled to focus, veiled by the haze of his inebriation. His voice, laden with irritation, broke the tense silence. "What you want?"
"Uncle Carlos, mi mamá..." the child began, her voice a desperate plea to the good that remained in him, "not waking up!"
Carlos seemed to shrink further, his eyes darting away as he fiddled nervously with his shirt. “Sorry ‘bout yer madre,” he mumbled. "I'll... I'll help you dig her grave, after..." His burp was louder than his faltering words.
His gaze reluctantly met hers. "But now... get outta my damn house." Returning his gaze to his glass, he muttered, "Her Grace Aelithra died just recently, and now, everyone following her..."
"But mi mamá!" the frail protest was immediately silenced by the man's furious gaze. “What’s it matter?” Carlos snapped back, his voice cutting sharply through the air. " We’re all gonna end up dead anyway! Just like my wife… my oldest boy!" His shout filled the room, then fell into a hoarse whisper. " An’ like my little boy will… an’ you too," Carlos's gaze narrowed onto the youth's blister-stained hand.
The fragile spirit recoiled in astonishment, stepping back just as a small boy with a pale, blistered face appeared in the doorway. "Papá?" he whimpered.
Carlos's expression softened as he drew his son into an embrace. "S’alright, Miguel. Todo va a estar bien, my boy," he assured him softly, in contrast with earlier roughness. His gaze then shifted back to the girl, now tinged with remorse. "I'm sorry, really," he said quietly.
The girl's gaze turned to her hands, now marred by the same blisters that plagued her family and many others - a grotesque reminder of the invisible hands tightening around her throat. Memories of her father’s slow suffering, her mother’s final days flooded her mind.
"I won't die!" Her scream filled the room, her legs, faltering and uncertain, staggered away from Carlos's house.
Her path, unsteady and erratic from the cough shaking her body and anxiety gnawing at her from within, drew her along a path that she had repeated countless times in recent days. Each step seemed to echo in the hollow quiet until the empty houses were left behind, and she entered a place that offered both peace and melancholy: the land where the dead find their rest.
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