The story
The night in the hills of Bucaramanga brought no relief, only a thick, humid heat that clung to people's clothes. In the rural church, the praises and cries of the all-night prayer vigil stretched well past midnight, vibrating through the walls like a steady heartbeat. Exhausted by the heat and the drowsiness of staying awake for so many hours, little Mateo could barely keep his eyes open. Noticing this, his father, Hernando, gave him a silent nod: it was time to look for refuge in the old pickup truck parked under the dim shadows of the trees.
The inside of the vehicle smelled of old upholstery and settled dust. Outside, the gravel crunched under the warm Santander wind, while the chants barely reached them as a distant murmur. Hernando reclined his seat and Mateo settled in on the other side, grateful for the quiet. Soon, the heaviness of sleep took over both of them, rocking them into an apparent calm.
It was just a few minutes before one in the morning when an unnatural stillness paralyzed the cab. The air, which had been suffocating before, turned freezing and dense, loaded with a sour smell of sulfur and stagnant moisture. Mateo woke up with a start, his lungs empty. He tried to breathe in, but an unforgiving pressure wrapped around his throat. The sensation was unmistakable: a thick, invisible, and rough rope was tightening with millimeter precision around his neck, burning his skin as it crushed him against the seat back.
The boy desperately brought his hands to his windpipe, but his fingers only grabbed empty air. When he turned his face amidst tears and spasms, terror completely overwhelmed him. Hernando was living the exact same nightmare. His father wasn't sleeping; he was kicking violently against the pedals, arching his back while his clenched hands tried to tear off a nonexistent tie. On the man's neck, purplish grooves were beginning to sprout, raw gashes in the flesh caused by an invisible force squeezing with methodical hatred.
It was barely fifteen seconds of pure agony, but to both of them, it felt like an eternity suspended between asphyxiation and madness. The truck shook with the mute struggle of two bodies resisting being hanged by nothingness. Suddenly, with the same violence it had started with, the tension let up. As if an invisible knot had suddenly snapped, air rushed back into their lungs with a sharp, lacerating hiss.
Coughing uncontrollably and with their chests on fire, Hernando pushed the door open and stumbled out of the cabin, pulling his son with him. They collapsed onto the stones of the path, panting under the night sky, touching their burning necks where the reddish marks gave away the ghostly noose. The cab stayed behind them, dark and silent.
Days later, amid the community's evasive whispers, the truth surfaced with a delayed chill. That very same madrugada, that same dawn, in a secluded room of the church, the religious leaders had fought a fierce battle to cast out an evil spirit from a tormented believer. Upon being cast outside, that wandering shadow didn't leave right away: it sought to vent its fury on the first sleeping corner it found in the parking lot.
