The story
The heat of the Cundinamarca savanna used to dissipate a bit toward dawn, leaving a heavy and silent atmosphere on the outskirts of Tocaima. That night, in the solitude of a finca, a small country farm surrounded by the distant chirping of crickets, Esteban was sleeping deeply. The radio on the nightstand emitted a barely perceptible buzz, a thread of sound that kept him company in the gloom. However, a sudden chill, foreign to the tropical breeze, yanked him straight out of his sleep.
It was three-thirty in the morning. Upon opening his eyes, terror settled in his chest before he could understand the reason. Sitting on the right edge of the bed, bathed in an ash-gray light that came from nowhere, was a child. His skin was an unbelievable whiteness, almost translucent, and his fixed gaze was lost in nothingness. Driven by a strange mixture of curiosity and dread, Esteban stretched his hand toward the little boy, trying to reach him to make sure he was real.
As soon as his fingers brushed the air near the child, a violent jolt raced up his arm. It felt exactly like sticking your hand into the invisible blades of a running fan or taking a direct electric shock. The shock barely lasted a second, because immediately the atmosphere in the room collapsed.
An imposing presence, dense and dark, rushed down upon him from the darkness of the ceiling. It was a very dark-skinned woman, a shapeless mass that completely lacked a face. She was dressed in spotless white pants and a plaid shirt that grotesquely contrasted with her spectral nature. She slammed down onto Esteban's chest, crushing his lungs with a colossal force that stole his breath away.
The man tried to scream, to move a muscle, to ask them what they wanted from him, but his body was made of lead. The words drowned in his throat in a mute death rattle. For five eternal minutes, he remained trapped in the clutches of a ferocious paralysis, feeling the suffocating pressure of that faceless woman keeping him anchored to the mattress, while the child kept watching in silence from the edge.
When the invisible force finally gave way and Esteban managed to sit up with a bound, breathing desperately, the room was empty. There was no trace left of the cold, nor of the child, nor of the shadow. Only the echo of his own heart galloping in the stillness of the rural dawn.
