The story
The shadows in that house in Villavicencio were never just simple absences of light. For decades, the family had carried the invisible weight of a dark promise woven beyond the border, in Venezuelan lands. A woman whom everyone secretly accused of witchcraft had long ago dragged an adult and a child into a forbidden ritual, trying to seal a cursed pact. The words that woman uttered before disappearing were etched like a heavy slab upon the bloodline: their souls had been offered to evil to ensure eternal misery.
For the young Esteban, the consequence of that cursed inheritance translated into a perpetual sensation. Wherever he went, in the quiet of his bedroom or under the relentless sun of the plains, he felt a heavy gaze fixed on the back of his neck. An intangible presence that stalked him with cold patience, reminding him that he did not entirely belong to this world. The anguish escalated to unbearable levels until church intervention became inevitable. A priest with experience in spiritual battles answered the family's call for help to perform a series of deliverances.
Those days of exorcism were a descent into the abyss. In the gloom of the living room, illuminated barely by blessed candles, Esteban's mother and brother succumbed to an overwhelming force. Their faces turned ashen until they took on a cadaverous tone; amid heartbreaking sobs and violent spasms, they began to expel strands of hair and inexplicable body hair from their mouths. Esteban, gripped by a visceral terror, experienced the torment in his own body: waves of nausea shook him, alternating with episodes of out-of-control laughter and bitter crying, while the walls of the house seemed to close in.
However, the horror did not stay confined within the walls of the home. Years later, during a camping trip in a wooded area of the region, Esteban believed he was safe from his family's ghosts. Sitting around a campfire, the young people made fun of local myths and began to imitate the terrifying whistle of the Silbón, defying the legend. The air instantly turned freezing cold. From the impenetrable darkness, right behind the canvas of the tent, an identical, mournful, and prolonged whistle answered the challenge. The entity began to approach with heavy steps, dragging itself along with a single imaginary leg, while panic paralyzed the boys. Only when a tremor in Esteban's hands drove them to pray in desperation did the shadow seem to retreat. A clap of thunder broke the silence and the rain began to fall, blessing the earth and drowning out, at least for that night, the echo of the curse.
