The story
María lived in a reddish-brick house at the end of a cobblestone street in an interior town in Colombia. Each window let in the scent of the coffee plantation that stretched beyond the horizon, and the distant hum of crickets accompanied the fall of night. For several years, an image had run through her dreams: the silhouette of a man wrapped in a black cloak who glided among the shadows of her bedroom. She did not remember ever seeing him while awake, but the dream repeated itself with the exact same precision, as if it were a visit scheduled by some memory that time had forgotten.
When the clock struck bedtime, María settled between the crisp sheets and the slight creak of the mattress. Upon closing her eyes, the sensation of a presence became palpable before the darkness enveloped her completely. She felt a slight weight on the pillow, as if someone had reclined next to her without being able to see him. A faint tremor ran through the frame of the bed, and the bedding stirred as if an invisible breeze were brushing against it. Her heart beat hard, and every little creak of the old floor seemed to amplify, as if the house were responding to the movement of that entity that never showed itself completely.
One night, after having chatted with her friend Carlos, who had come over to drink a tinto, a traditional small cup of black coffee, and discuss the harvest problems, María felt the atmosphere change. The chat had ended, and silence had settled when, suddenly, an intense scream broke the quiet of the room. It wasn't a human screech; it was a sharp, torn sound that seemed to travel through the entire room, vibrating in the walls and reverberating in the heavy air of the night. At the same time, she perceived a current that slid across the floor, as if something were running at high speed around the room, brushing against the headboard of the bed and disappearing into the gloom.
María described the figure as a shadow that ran without touching, a presence that, although she could not see, she felt so close to her body that the air grew dense around her chest. The black cloak seemed to flow like spilled ink, tracing invisible arcs that intersected with the edge of the nightstand lamp. Each step the entity took left a subtle vibration, like the beat of a distant drum, and the feeling that it was right next to María made her shudder. There was no light to reveal its shape; only the certainty of its proximity kept her alert, fearing that the next movement would be more intense.
That very night, María's oldest son, four-year-old Juan, woke up from a sob that echoed in the room. He sat up in bed, his eyes wide open and his gaze fixed on an empty spot, as if he were watching someone he himself could see. His lips trembled while he muttered incomprehensible words, and a tear ran down his cheek. María tried to calm him, but the boy remained motionless, staring fixedly into the air, as if an invisible figure had taken his place in the gloom. Fear spread like a shadow crawling across the floor, infecting the mother who, although tired, could not look away from her little one's anguish.
Meanwhile, the one-year-old baby, Pedro, began to move unexpectedly. Without María noticing, the crib rocked slightly, as if a small hand were pushing it. The mattress creaked and the blanket shifted, but when the mother approached, the boy was still, looking at the ceiling with a curious expression. There was no crying or babbling, just the faint sound of the wood giving way under a force that did not belong to his tiny hands. María felt a chill run down her spine, understanding that the presence did not discriminate by age or reason to manifest itself.
Terrified but determined to find an explanation, María decided to place a video camera and a recorder in the corner of the room, right where the shadow seemed to appear most frequently. She wanted to capture, at least, a sign of that which disturbed her sleep and that of her children. Each night, before turning off the light, she adjusted the device, listened to the hum of the refrigerator, and lay down with the hope that, the next day, some image or sound would reveal the true nature of the black-cloaked figure. Fear was still present, but also a spark of curiosity that drove her to face the darkness that, year after year, had turned her bedroom into a stage of shadows and whispers.
