The story
The warm breeze of the savanna swayed the paper lanterns that decorated the backyard. They were celebrating another year of life amidst laughter, guitar music, and the sweet aroma of aguardiente, the anise-flavored spirit. However, the merrymaking shattered abruptly. An icy gust of wind, inexplicable in that tropical area, shook the tree branches with unusual violence, snuffing out all the lights in one fell swoop.
It was then that LucĂa, her heart sinking with a bad feeling, looked up toward the old eucalyptus tree. Among the darkened branches, two points of pure fire glowed. A pair of red eyes, fixed and loaded with an ancient malice, were watching her from above. Before she could warn the others, a shapeless mass, a compact shadow with the silhouette of a gigantic bird, detached itself from the tree and lunged at the group.
The impact was invisible but devastating. Elena, one of the most cheerful guests of the night, took the full force of the onslaught in the chest and collapsed onto the tiles. When she managed to stand up, her face was no longer the same; her gaze had turned dull and glassy. With a raspy voice that seemed to rise from the depths of the earth, she began to hurl unrecognizable and degrading insults at her best friend, unearthing secrets that nobody else knew. Seconds later, a tremor shook her entirely, she passed out, and she began to vomit a dark substance under the terrified gaze of those present.
The nightmare did not end with the dawn. The following night, at exactly two in the morning, a metallic crash shook the second-floor terrace, accompanied by heavy footsteps pacing back and forth across the tiles upstairs. The family dog, a loyal German shepherd, was howling in despair in the patio. When the owners dared to go out at sunrise, they found the animal cowering, trembling with fear and with strange purplish bruises around its eyes, as if invisible hands had beaten it viciously.
The pieces of horror soon fell into place during whispered chats among the neighbors. Days before, a local woman, consumed by jealousy and infatuated with one of the party attendees, had thrown out dark warnings. Convinced that it was a work of witchcraft, the family gathered the suspicious belongings and a photograph of the woman to destroy them in purifying fire. But the unthinkable happened: while everything else was reduced to ashes, the image of the woman stubbornly refused to burn, resisting the heat as if protected by an unbreakable pact.
