Excerpt:

The sun. It burns too much for this time of year. Strange. That didn’t use to happen. He says we should do something this weekend. He and I keep walking. I simply say sure. We walk. Traffic light. We stop.

Across the avenue, a woman behind the wheel of her car is relieved of the weight of her necklace by a man who then bolts down a side alley, the necklace in hand. The light changes. We keep going.

I ask him if things finally worked out with that girl. He frowns. Spits. Can only manage a curse. I ask if nothing happened. He spits again. We walk on. Better aim this time.

With a bitter voice he says no, that he hopes she drops dead. We laugh.

I ask if he thinks they’re actually going to do something to our classmates in the end. He spits again. Says that one’s dedicated to them.

We stop. Keep walking.

He asks how things are with the lazy one. I know exactly what I’m supposed to say. I tell him they’re fine. And deep down, that answer doesn’t feel like a lie—it’s genuinely how I feel.

Traffic light. He turns to me and says his scholarship was approved; he’s going to be able to study abroad just like he’d planned.

I congratulate him while feeling that sharp little sting in my chest, knowing he will get to study what he wants while I have to keep my passion caged.

He says that even though he’s leaving the country, he’ll still come back to spend New Year’s at the beach like we agreed. I tell him of course, that it’ll be our new annual tradition.

We walk on.

I ask if we’re walking back. He shakes his head. Tells me I can walk back if I want, he has to head the other way...

..."

–Continue reading in its original Castilian language at https://fictograma.com/ , an open source Spanish community of writers–

Excerpt:

CHAPTER 47. BUROFAX

The sense of safety in Madrid was a toxic placebo, a false beam I knew would give way the moment it bore the slightest load. I had returned to my apartment on Sunday night, trying to reinstall the clean, contained version of myself. I wanted to breathe the air of my former life: orderly, predictable, honest. My internal building code needed restoring.

On Monday morning, I sat at my desk—solid hardwood, overlooking a park that smelled not of bleach or misery but of freshly cut grass and financial stability—to try to resume the skyscraper plans. Those curtain-wall facades of glass were the last bastion of my straight life. I had invented a technical, convoluted excuse to justify the week’s delay—a hidden flaw in the structural stress calculations, I had claimed—and now, in the solitude of my desk, I had to honor it.

I put on my pristine shirt and tie, that uniform of a competent architect, a psychological suit of armor. But beneath the clothes, my skin still itched. Madrid’s atmosphere felt too pristine, too easy, almost false. The real world—the true one—was the smell of Lisette, red wine, and feral sex still etched into the memory of a mezzanine floor in Barcelona. I knew I was only here on borrowed time, waiting for the exact moment when the structure of my life would finally collapse.

Around eleven, as I reviewed a slab section—clean, logical, safe—the email client blinked. A dry ping in the inbox. The sender was the Property Administrator for the Les Corts Community of Owners. My heart lurched. I opened the attachment. It was not a call for calm; it was a declaration of war, formalized in a professional, ice-cold template. The document, headed with an official letterhead, seemed to say: You’ve tried to build a lie on mud foundations, and here is the pathology report.

I am writing to you in my capacity as administrator of the Community of Owners to formally convey several complaints received from the neighbors regarding the disturbing activities being carried out by the tenants of your property…

I read the email twice. The first time, to understand the legal-technical language. The second, to absorb its weight. My performance of shirts and fake architectural plans had bought me a few hours of truce, yes, but it had escalated what began as petty neighborly complaints into a formal legal conflict. Don Jaime and Doña Eulalia had skipped the tenants and gone straight to the property owner—the weakest link in the chain—with an efficiency that left me humiliated.

The text cited the Codi Civil de Catalunya, Article 553-37, and spoke of initiating legal action. This was no warning; it was the first step toward terminating the rental contract and potential eviction. Cornered, the owner had promised at the board meeting—the administrator hinted at it with malicious subtlety—that the tenants would vacate immediately. Rage climbed up my throat.

I had to call Lisette.

I grabbed my phone, stepped out onto the balcony so the clean Madrid air could clear my head, and dialed her number. She picked up after three rings.

“hello?” she said in a low voice.

“I just received an email from the Administrator. An ultimatum. They went after the owner.”

There was a silence on the line louder than any drill.

“I figured they’d start acting stupid,” she replied, not a trace of panic—only a steely resignation. “What does it say? That he’s throwing us out?”

I read her the key paragraphs, the ones mentioning the cessation of disruptive activities and the civil code articles.

“You need to understand how serious this is, Lisette. If this goes to court, they’ll investigate the activity. This isn’t a joke.”

“Listen to me, Architect. You’re my insurance. And if I end up on the street, I have nothing. If they kick us out now—if we lose the flat—the business goes to fucking hell. It’s not about furniture; it’s about visibility, appointments, trust. Where am I supposed to go? I have nowhere else.”

Her panic was more effective than any legal threat. She was no longer the cold forewoman; she was a cornered woman relying on me for her roof and her livelihood.

“Alright. Calm down,” I said, feeling my orderly Madrid life shatter as I shifted into crisis-management mode. “I’ll ask them to let us stay until January 30, using the holidays as an excuse—we need time to find another place.”

“And after that?”

“After that, you need to start searching today. A discreet flat, no nosy neighbors, better shielding. We’ll find it, Lisette. I promise you. I’ll buy us time, but you find the hole.”

Silence stretched. Then she inhaled deeply, regaining a fraction of control.

“January thirtieth. Fine. I’ll do it. I’ll start moving the business. But you, Architect”—her tone hardened one last time—“you deal with the administrator. And make sure that date holds...

..."

–Continue reading in its original Castilian language at https://fictograma.com/ , an open source Spanish community of writers–

Excerpt:

“Lise, I’m cold.”

“It’s the fever, you idiot.”

“I know it’s the fever—I’m a doctor, remember?”

“Precisely. You’re a doctor and still manage to say the stupidest things.”

Lise looked stern, her voice edged with irritation, her gaze drifting away like someone trying to escape this reality for someplace far off. Her fair, lightly sun-tanned skin contrasted with her straight black hair, which fluttered faintly in the breeze slipping through the window. Her brown eyes turned honey-colored beneath the languid light of the setting sun. A scatter of small moles on her nose, cheek, and chin formed a distinct little triangle. Her short nose ended in a rounded tip. Her mascaraed lashes—an attempt to give them more volume—felt slightly at odds with her thin, furrowed brows. Perhaps her bad mood made sense; this was no way to spend a honeymoon.

“Lise.”

“What?!”

“Why does love fade in relationships?”

Lise let out a sigh—half groan, half weary exhalation.

“You’ve asked yourself that question a million times. You’ve asked others—men and women alike—and the answer is the same every time.”

She leaned in closer to his face.

“There’s no such thing as love. People come together out of lust and need. Human relationships are transactional by nature; everyone wants something from everyone else. Once the goal is achieved, there’s no reason to keep up the charade.”

“Even ours?”

“Pffft! Especially ours. Don’t you remember? She told you to your face before she left.”

“That’s true, but…”

“No ‘but.’ It’s the fever talking—you’re hallucinating, that’s all. I’m not here, and this isn’t a hotel...

..."

–Continue reading in its original Castilian language at https://fictograma.com/ , an open source Spanish community of writers–

Excerpt:

The Terrifying Experiments at the New Andalucía Military Institute

The Venezuelan government’s search for xenohumans—highly specialized individuals endowed with extraordinary abilities—has been a subject of fierce controversy in the media ever since a series of declassified documents from the Ministry of Defense and the military bodies involved in their execution came to light. Twenty years ago, by decree of President Rómulo Marcano, the Cacique Guacaipuro Military Institute was founded in the mountain range near the city of New Andalucía… to carry out the ultra-secret Páez Project, financed by an Asian pharmaceutical giant; and a host of psychic experiments in a desperate attempt to redefine the boundaries of the known mind… and the evolutionary conception of humankind on Earth.

The Bolivarian Army cordoned off the area and constructed a succession of research departments for subjects selected for their innate abilities. The documents declassified in the year 2000 revealed a dozen terrifying tests related to phenomena such as extrasensory perception and prodigies that defy the natural laws; all under the charge of an analytical team composed of prestigious neurologists, clinical psychiatrists, and metaphysicians from the Occultist Circle of Puerto Bello, supervised by Asian scientists whose interests seemed to point toward possible military implementation and the creation of xenohuman soldiers for the next Great War—foretold by the Seers of the Andes more than a century ago.

To most Venezuelans, this place was a restricted zone used for weapons-testing operations. Yet rumors circulated among the inhabitants of the nearby metropolis of New Andalucía about the construction of a bunker capable of sheltering political elites in the event of an “invasion from Outside.” It was never clear whether the governor meant a foreign attack or something unknown… What was certain is that passersby witnessed formations of military trucks heading to the intricate security barrier that shielded the mountains—sometimes transporting reinforced metal containers, other times crowded with passengers brought from all over the country. In those days, social media had not yet reached its current prominence… so it was a local news channel that published the exclusive story of an eastern inmate who escaped from an armored truck en route to the Military Institute. The fugitive claimed they were being transferred to an experimental brain-study program, but no other prisoner had ever returned… which fueled rumors throughout the nation’s prisons that doctors were sedating subjects with potassium chloride and lethal drugs. Most selected inmates were atrocious criminals serving life sentences—almost all without relatives who might report their disappearance… thus, he concluded, they were being subjected to deadly tests. One either escaped during the smallest lapse in military attention… or was assigned to a laboratory from which there would be no return to the light of day. The report intensified the urban legend in New Andalucía, but its reach remained limited to the city… and the article gained no real significance until more than a decade later, when the censored file on the experiments performed on the Witch of Guayabal reached the public eye.

Norisbel Gómez was five years old when her parents died in a car accident caused by the sudden explosion of the engine—an abrupt mechanical failure that triggered the rapid expansion of high-temperature pressurized gas… resulting in a multi-car collision inside a tunnel in New Bolívar. She and her sister survived, but during the CT scans that followed, a series of tumors were discovered in the younger child’s brain lobes… tumors whose strange behavior appeared to reconfigure the neurological structure of her brain activity. They produced electromagnetic distortions that the girl seemed capable of controlling at will. Continued study of her cerebral mutation became inevitable. Separated from her brother by the State, she was transferred to the New Andalucía Military Institute, where she would be subjected to extrasensory and telekinetic testing as one of the first xenohumans identified as a mutant. Through EEG sensors, researchers discovered an additional lobe attached to her cerebellum and branching into those benign protrusions… capable of emitting electromagnetic waves at frequencies reaching the terahertz range.

In neurology, brain waves result from electrical communication among billions of neurons firing in synchrony. There are five principal types, ranging from one hertz—one cycle per second—to thirty hertz: Delta (deep sleep); Theta (light sleep, relaxation); Alpha (alert relaxation); Beta (concentration, active wakefulness); and Gamma (complex information processing). But Norisbel could reproduce electromagnetic waves reaching three hundred gigahertz—continuous microwave radiation capable of deforming objects and igniting fuel.

Ten years of brain-scan experiments revealed that she could emit and control electromagnetic waves ranging from kilohertz—thousands of cycles per second—to terahertz—trillions of cycles per second; reaching peaks of electrostatic activity capable of altering the physical world. She could exert influence over high-intensity waves to manipulate particles and objects from a distance… and researchers were investigating the limits of her psychokinetic powers when she vanished. The file was censored before it could be published, leading many to theorize her sudden death… likely induced by her extremely thin body and weak immune system—she weighed forty kilos and measured one meter forty at eighteen years old—or suicide driven by guilt and resentment over the explosion that killed her parents. Norisbel Gómez disappeared from the radar, and with her the mutant abilities… and the supposed footage in which she used her powers to twist and contort living human test subjects.

What did emerge after the massive hacking of the Ministry of Defense’s private servers in 2014 were the recordings of experimental drugs tested on inmates. Users worldwide discovered security vulnerabilities and exposed hundreds of short videos and documents detailing pharmacological trials on men and women using substances that caused everything from harmless rashes to metastasis within hours. The videos were removed from the internet for national-security reasons, though they can still be found on the deep web, in forums dedicated to sadistic torture and illegal medical practices. The associated documents point to an attempt to replicate mutagenic agents from the Blood Comet, particles responsible for causing global mutations when they disintegrate into the atmosphere on their centennial return… Others believe these experiments formed the biochemical foundation for the later Páez Project, which involved the corporate giant Shengou. According to conspiracy analysts, roughly three hundred inmates died in these tests—subjects exposed to toxic chemicals and degenerative DNA viruses that transformed them into grotesque abominations or unsettling creatures… whose bodies were vaporized and their records erased.

One name in particular stirred intense curiosity during those days: Dr. Gilberto Moreno. His was one of the most frequently repeated names in the hacked documents—his chemical formulas and ingenious machines seemingly committed to advancement and invention beyond ethics or integrity. No one knows where he hides now, but he is considered one of the country’s brightest minds in mechanics, electronics, and chemistry… graduating with honors from the Puerto Bello Institute of Technology and recruited by the government elite with abundant resources to design futuristic machines and military innovations. From his anonymous hideout, he contributed to the invention of the Bose–Einstein Condensate Bombs at the Eastern University of Ciudad Zamora, and the hypothetical Tesla Magnetic Attraction Generator, designed to harness Earth’s magnetic field as a source of energy. Beyond this, he was only a name… for his photographs never appeared in the press, and it was said he never left his bunker filled with futuristic equipment—addicted to whisky mixed with tranquilizers and B-movies in his spare time.

Gilberto Moreno served as remote supervisor of the Elemental Conjuration Machine, built deep within the vaulted chambers of the Military Institute by a team of mechanical engineers under the guidance of the scholar Juan Resplandor, of the hermetic Occultist Circle of Puerto Bello—now vanished after the Camposanto Incident in Coro—and financed by the magnates of the Rossetti Circle. Through voice commands, rhythmic sounds, and precise hours… they attempted to replicate the Elemental Conjuration of Planetary Magic—one of the most rudimentary forms of mystical manifestation in occultism. But despite the vocal patterns and first-class instruments, no effect was ever produced… demonstrating that humans possess a quintessence no machine can imitate in the performance of magical rituals. Experiments were repeated following the principles of Sympathetic Thaumaturgy—Macumba, Voodoo, and Mayombé—yet their results were null compared to testimonies of African rites performed by authentic sorcerers; further proving the existence of an ethereal, dreamlike beyond, impossible to record through our digital means or quantify with mathematical formulas. The parascientific study of the afterlife and superstition remains a source of debate… for although some xenohumans are vulgarly labeled “witches, magicians, and sorcerers,” researchers believe these individuals may have learned how to channel certain energies and forces still unknown to science and reason.

With the official debut of the national superhero popularly known as Captain Venezuela—during the escalation of the border war with Colombia—the Páez Project was revealed as an initiative to create soldiers whose physical capacities vastly surpassed human limits of muscular strength and physical endurance. For years, the Venezuelan government and the Chinese pharmaceutical company Shengou collaborated to develop a genetic-alteration serum capable of unlocking the maximum human potential, with no need for supplements or anabolic steroids to force musculoskeletal development. The declassified documents detail clinical trials involving reactive chemicals and hormonal doses previously used to enhance cardiovascular performance and neuromuscular response… along with hundreds of failures among test subjects injected with formulas—still considered state secrets—who died in unforgivable agonies that deformed their physiognomy and destroyed their pain receptors.

After years of trial and error, foreign biochemical innovations finally led to a perfected military formula… which was tested on soldiers—the report never specifies how many—until one individual achieved optimal results in physical and psychological trials. This formula drastically improved the subject’s physiology and mind, granting superhuman strength, speed, agility, endurance, and reflexes; it also enhanced cognition and metabolism, allowing rapid healing and resistance to poisons. Analytical tables identify the successful volunteer as Andrés Fuenmayor, twenty-four years old, junior officer with the rank of Major; born in Tumeremo province, veteran of confrontations on the Cúcuta border and jungle commissions in the Amazon… later decorated as Captain Venezuela—Brigadier General of the National Army—by the National Assembly after his public appearance during Operation Burning Jungle.

Captain Venezuela represents the military success of the Páez Project, and despite ethical debate over genetic alteration, researchers continue studying the serum’s precision and compatibility for the creation of a xenohuman division prepared for military operations. Other versions of the serum remain in testing, as psychological imbalance and psychotic episodes continue to pose major challenges.

Another subject studied in the genetic-engineering facilities was the xenohuman G-101003—his name erased from records in the purge that scrubbed his existence—a man with cellular-level mutations that altered his body’s bioelectrical structure. His cells contained additional organelles resembling mitochondria, identified as electrocytes capable of generating electrical potential via sodium–potassium ion pumps. These cellular structures aligned in series to accumulate voltage and produce high-intensity discharges similar to muscle fibers… and could store electrical energy by inverting ion positions, functioning as bio-batteries in electrochemical reactions. This mutant could withstand discharges exceeding a thousand amperes, then store that energy to reinforce his tissues through the ionization of melanocytes in his epidermis; even strengthening bone density in his hydroxyapatite-layered skeleton, where laminar plates contracted to store ionized electrons. He could transform this chemical energy into high-amperage electrical blasts like an eel, or into mechanical strength, becoming a living battery. Despite numerous tissue and blood tests… his ultimate fate was never known. What is known is that his genes were used shamelessly in the Secret Cloning Program involving the Eastern powers.

This research, along with the horrific experiments in the Tachyon Chamber, remains among the most nightmarish conducted at the New Andalucía Military Institute… and explains why the waste-disposal pit reeked like the Municipal Slaughterhouse of New Andalucía, saturating the mountains with a stench of decomposition, toxic chemicals, and tatters of dissolved death. The Secret Cloning Program was executed within armored military facilities under the protection of the Venezuelan government and Asian directives… violating international laws on genetic manipulation. Initially, inseminations were performed on women using their own genetic material to produce production clones, who were administered periodic hormonal doses to accelerate growth; and illicitly sourced candidates were implanted with modified embryos grown in test tubes until compatible subjects were produced… until Artificial Womb Incubators with hormonal substitute were imported, enabling fetal development without a female womb: a revolutionary machine capable of maturing an embryo in just six months, with children reaching adulthood in forty weeks. These clones replaced prisoner test subjects—international human-rights organizations were beginning to scrutinize the disappearances—and were subjected to cruel chemical experiments to create military drugs capable of temporarily enhancing neuromuscular reflexes and physical stamina. Pills such as Hekura—named after Yanomami shamans said to travel through cosmic space—could enhance clone performance through doping; and injections like A-42 served as instant hemostasis and accelerated tissue reconstruction using collagen and new cells.

Naturally, the number of clones sacrificed was never published… and the entire program might have been erased if not for the Jasmine Incident and the second massive hack of the central servers, combined with hundreds of testimonies gathered by journalists swept up in the media fever around the Military Institute after its viral resurgence on social networks. The military supervised scientific investigations and routinely witnessed dozens of clones die in a single day… some whose entrails exploded after being injected with experimental compounds, others who sprouted tentacles from their sphincters, or vomited blood mixed with liquefied organs, or whose skin blackened due to subcutaneous oil combustion… or suffered degenerative mutations that turned them into writhing abominations. The worst cases were those who survived, only to become experimental rejects under constant surveillance… until their deteriorating bodies failed, or—once rendered useless—were killed by lethal discharges so the scientists did not have to “wash their hands.”

Sergeant Douglas Ramos worked for two years as Chief of Security in the facility, witnessing this dehumanization at point-blank range… often pulling the trigger of his nine-millimeter Zamorana when a lethal discharge failed. A tireless soldier hardened by Operation Burning Jungle and earlier missions dismantling drug-trafficking camps in the Black Plains, he was nonetheless consumed by the constant infernal cycle of horror—and losing his newborn son pushed him over the edge. The baby was born prematurely, with cardiac complications… and died after ten days of struggle in an incubator—identical to the Artificial Wombs in which Ramos watched fetuses develop at accelerated rates. One day, the Sergeant could no longer bear witness to the brutality and its staggering death rate. “You have to get out—” he shouted, rifle in hand, eyes bloodshot as he attempted to open the cells—“you’re not lab rats, you’re children, for God’s sake!” But the disoriented clones did not understand him, and subordinates quickly neutralized him with a precise shot to the base of the skull. It was not an isolated incident…

The dreadful experiment in the Tachyon Chamber—designed to observe the disintegration of tissues according to their composition—was one of the primary reasons the files of the New Andalucía Military Institute eventually surfaced. Scientists attempted to measure ten levels of physical resistance using hypersonic particles accelerated through electromagnetic fields, bombarding the bodies of xenohuman clones… prompting many to gain self-awareness and rebel using their genetic mutations and superior serums to escape the facilities. Immediately, SEBIN—the governmental intelligence service—ordered the capture and extermination of these gifted children… and the country plunged into a witch hunt and a wave of accusations regarding crimes against humanity. The files of these clones remain available in police archives to aid identification, as they are considered maladjusted and extremely dangerous xenohumans… and it is believed that Deep-State networks—such as sects, cartels, and guerrilla factions—are recruiting them for an internal war over control of the nation.

This final point raises a fundamental question: what compelled the Asian powers to create a xenohuman cloning program? Popular conspiracy theorists like Carlos Orsetti and Alan Castro claim a financial crisis is on the verge of erupting in the global north, making a Third World War plausible in the struggle for resources sustaining the neocolonial extraction system that keeps the Great Powers functioning. The world is entering an age of instability and conflict, and having a vanguard army would be essential to securing economic survival…

..."

–Continue reading in its original Castilian language at https://fictograma.com/ , an open source Spanish community of writers–

Excerpt:

Two Mountains: The World Did Not Change, but Mine Did – Chapter 2

“You see, for those who are willing to live, any place can become paradise.”

What would that child who dreamed of dinosaurs think of me now? Would he be proud, or would shame stain his cheeks? I have lived in heaven and I have lived in hell, and I affirm with fervor that the latter has been my greatest teacher.

In that despised place unfold the most bizarre tragicomedies I have ever witnessed or endured in my short existence. In my humble view, no rules operate in that world; a person may suffer so many consecutive misfortunes that the only escape left to them is to laugh at their own misery.

It is in this context that the feeling known as helplessness emerges. The daily events in this hostile environment are ruled by routine, longing, impotence, sorrow, and an endless parade of negative emotions that everyone accepts as normal. This leads us back to that macabre truth: we grow accustomed to suffering simply because it becomes habitual. In this metropolis I have noticed countless people leaning on external agents to endure the weight of melancholy. Many resort to drugs and absurd vices; others cling to people or memories that no longer exist; others drown in silence behind a glass of wine.

The empty wine bottles keep piling up in my room. Every day my fondness for that nectar discovered by our ancestors millennia ago grows more evident—a relic that still survives in a small corner of our culture. Each sip slips down my throat as I savor the most exquisite fruits of the earth.

That elixir helps me endure my new reality with some semblance of grace, for the change in my surroundings was so abrupt it may well compare to the shock a deer would feel if taken from its natural habitat and thrust into a cold, merciless city where everyone seeks to hunt.

Hundreds of people move through a fervent commotion governed by time and artificial needs, forced to perform countless contemptible acts to satisfy those fictitious necessities crafted by society and the idealism lodged in their minds. As a child, I watched how herds of animals helped one another achieve feats impossible for a single creature. Evolution forged bonds of symbiosis to soften the harshness of existence. In human society we have forgotten that feeling engraved in our DNA. In the “civilized” world, the one who steps over others is deemed worthy of all life’s pleasures, while the one who tries to help his neighbor is manipulated, extorted, even insulted for doing good. At what exact moment did this become normal?

I have seen firsthand that cities cling more fiercely to this collective sentiment, and the larger the metropolis, the greater the competitiveness—and above all, the greater the disloyalty.

There I was, in one of the largest cities in Latin America. A frightened young man, overwhelmed by the vastness of a utopia forged by madmen. I, a child raised in a small town where everyone confided in everyone, where we were all friends, where art and nature ruled. In this gray concrete center, the leaves of trees had been replaced by the wrappings of unhealthy foods; trees by Wi-Fi antennas; rivers now resembled pits of tar where life had been exchanged for human waste. The air was far from pure; the soot of the engines that powered this metropolis of hatred polluted the already unbreathable air that remained.

The change of environment was so overwhelming that my mind clung to memories to keep from crying on nights when hunger and injustice drew tears I struggled to hide beneath a mask hanging by a thread—a mask I may still be wearing. The illusion of a life accompanied by a flower had been enough to push me into this venture. I recall a small daisy that appeared on an ordinary day, a day that would mark the change in my life. That flower stayed with me for a long time, until a wandering wind carried its feelings to other horizons. Captivated by its beauty, I followed the wind in search of those moments that once filled my life with joy under sunny skies. Energized, and achieving my aim, I arrived in this new context—one where I was happy, one I loved, one that now holds in its memory a man who once knew joy, memories now eroded from my wounded heart by tears.

I am hungry. Never had I felt this feeling so sharply. Before, hunger meant wanting a small treat, or uttering the word and seeing my mother appear with a dish to soothe my need. I am hungry. Where is my mother now? My stomach twists upon itself, attempting to extract even the faintest trace of nutrients still left within me. The problem was that after weeks, my digestive system had nothing left to extract.

I wandered through a silent, empty city. The social clamor had ceased and a nearly macabre stillness lingered at every corner. It was strange to traverse one of the world’s most congested cities in complete silence—yet that silence was broken by the sound of my own entrails contorting. Where was everyone? Had the biblical rapture happened, leaving only me to be punished? As if by destiny’s whim, an answer arrived in the form of a newspaper someone had left adrift. The roaming winds of the ghost city brought it to my feet.

Upon reading that forgotten paper—its words “contingency,” “pandemic,” “virus,” “social isolation,” and “biosecurity” curiously underlined—I ignored the fact that such terms, until then confined to scientific laboratories, were about to become part of our everyday language. In an instant I understood why the city was a ghost town, why I had no job, and therefore why I had nothing to eat. A bitter smile curled from my lips; the almost apocalyptic reality struck me with a sense of irony.

Humanity had gone from the dominant species to revealing its true form. I realized we were nothing more than frightened apes confined to our concrete caves.

“An invisible agent that only attacks humans?” I asked myself. I assumed this was Gaia’s reply to the message humanity had been sending the planet for years.

Sounds my ears had long forgotten began to rise from the bland gray landscape: the wind, frogs croaking, the watery symphony of streams flowing beneath my feet. My brain yearned for those vibrations that once guided my childhood. Yet my peace was betrayed by the numbing groans of my stomach. I walked home—home where nothing and no one awaited. Each day I faced the dilemma of not wanting to arrive, only to be confronted with the solitude of my own reality.

My steps grew clumsy; I felt my body running out of energy like a vehicle sputtering on its last drops of fuel. My vision blurred the world into ethereal shapes; my mind barely interpreted what my eyes took in; my sense of smell sharpened desperately, seeking the faintest aroma that might calm the self-inflicted torture of my intestines. And then the wind carried a scent—coming, curiously, from a place beside an empty road. A road that would forever remember a broken and solitary man who, for a brief moment, removed his mask to show his true face—a face seen by no one.

To me, a garbage container had always meant a simple receptacle where people threw things they no longer wanted. Never had I imagined such a place could hold anything capable of captivating my attention, recalling that oft-repeated saying: “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” I had never understood that phrase in my own flesh—until that cold night when someone’s leftovers became my fuel.

There I was, inside a dumpster, eating the scraps someone had discarded. The food’s appearance did not matter; my most repressed instincts devoured what had been rotting there for days. Its taste resembled a feast from heaven. Almost immediately, a wave of energy flooded my body, and my senses returned to their natural state. Still, I continued searching for food like a stray dog desperate to quell its hunger. Then my primal instinct dimmed and reason returned. Tears welled up, carrying a sadness that flooded my body. My legs buckled, and I collapsed beside the dumpster, remembering the meals my mother lovingly prepared.

Dinosaurs roamed through my mind, and that innocent child—who no longer existed—sat beside me, watching the future version of himself lying on the ground, beside the trash he had become. When will I hit rock bottom? I wondered as my eyes dissolved into a sea of tears, waiting for some angelic being to rescue me. Needless to say, no one came. That night and that dumpster are witnesses to the collapse of a human invaded by uncertainty, witnesses to a face perhaps no one will ever see again.

After that fateful night, when the mask fell and revealed the person hiding behind that worn-out façade, I understood that the adult I had become was nothing more than a child who once played with tiny dinosaur figurines. Nothing was the same after that. Everything turned to dull and dark shades that smothered the torn canvas of my life. Fatal thoughts grew more frequent; my mind toyed with my emotions like a cat toying with its prey. The self-punishment came from my own mind, contradicted only by my heart. Why am I still here? What is the point of waking up each day? These thoughts visited more often than they should have. More than once I tried to silence them, but the cowardice of my heart stopped me. I could not understand myself; I longed for the peace of eternal slumber, yet my stubborn, weary heart clung to this merciless life.

I tried to understand what tiny rung my hope still clung to. I reassured my lack of courage with the thought that no one would miss my absence; perhaps the people I once cared for in brief flashes of light would not notice for a long time. Who would care if a solitary person vanished? Perhaps they would notice that the strange individual had stopped posting incomprehensible writings—writings that meant everything to him.

“Don’t you ever get tired of writing nonsense?” someone I once loved deeply asked me.

I did not answer her question. Perhaps she did not know that my writings carried her name as their banner, or that the commas and accents in those foolish texts were born of tears—of euphoria and fear.

“Undress. I want to see you,” whispered that angelic being who ruled my life.

Almost instantly I took from my wallet a small poem I had written. On that fragile paper lay the deepest feelings of my heart—feelings I now understand were never cherished...

---"

–Continue reading in its original Castilian language at https://fictograma.com/ , an open source Spanish community of writers–

Excerpt:

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Renaissance in the Valley of Flowers | Dissolved Beings, Ch. 2

by Dissofrity

Crack.

It was the first thing the new consciousness heard. But something was wrong. It wasn’t emerging from anywhere. On the contrary—it felt rigid, unmoving, trapped in something it could not understand. Maybe, if it used a bit more force…

Crack.

The sound repeated, and this time the world truly came alive. With a sharp ninety-degree twist, the pale blue surrounding it faded, replaced by a sea of reds and yellows. It saw flowers—countless flowers—growing between its bones.

The being, barely aware of itself, writhed helplessly, trying to tear itself free from the ground. Its bones creaked as it did, perhaps too loudly, because an unexpected spectator appeared: a small creature with fur dusted in pollen.

“Looks like you’re in quite a tangled situation, friend,” said the newcomer’s voice. It could see the roots growing from the skeleton’s ribcage. “Are you the bony one, the flowers… or both?”

The skeleton, unable to grasp the complexity of the question, produced the most primitive sound it could:

“Hagh.”

The little animal didn’t dwell on it.

“Listen, I don’t have much time. So tell me: if I pull you out of there, do you think you could be useful?”

“Hagh.”

“I’ll take that as a yes. Now I need to move quickly, before they consume you completely.”

The creature placed its soft paw on the bones and, one by one, touched the flowers while murmuring something incomprehensible. The roots withdrew, and the skeleton could finally move freely. Only a single white flower remained, clinging to its skull.

It reached a hand toward its rescuer, brushing pollen from the creature’s fur in a clumsy gesture of gratitude. It was rejected by a swipe of sharp claws.

“Thank you. I can handle it myself.”

The skeleton didn’t take offense. Standing now, it shook the dirt off and plucked the lone white flower, tossing it aside.

“Very well, now that we’re both calmer, it’s time for introductions, isn’t it?” said the creature, licking a paw with an air of vanity. “My name is Kishtar, and I am the lord of this valley.”

He paused for a moment, studying the reanimated bones before him.

“I’ve never seen you before, so I’m curious. Who—and what—are you, my friend?” He contemplated the empty sockets. “And now that you’re free… what do you intend to do?”

Silence. Not a sound. Only the wind moving through the flowers.

“Friend? Nothing to say?”

The skeleton looked at him, confused, and attempted to imitate him. It brought a hand to its jaw and pretended to lick it with elegance.

Kishtar sighed.

“Ok, message received. You have no idea where you’re standing. You need urgent assistance. But worry not, my friend. I, the great Kishtar, will take care of you.”

He made a theatrical pause.

“You will boast of your skills across the cosmos and write poems that bring the hardest hearts to tears.”

The skeleton, innocent, showed a growing intelligence. It tried to communicate using his own words.

“Skills, Kishtar.” Its bony finger pointed at the flowers it had emerged from, still writhing as they lost their color. “I, free. Curiosity?”

Kishtar clearly understood the question.

“That? I didn’t really do anything to them. With my diplomacy, I convinced them to get out of the way. That’s all. Perhaps they didn’t understand that, by abandoning you, they were losing their resting place. The soil is too hard to relocate.”

The implications made the skeleton’s mood sink. Kishtar consoled him:

“It was them or you, skinny one. Maybe that’s your first lesson.” He turned toward the horizon, a path only he seemed to know. “And since you have no name,” he said, “from today onward you will follow me, Belo. That is what you’ll be called.”

The skeleton felt things were moving a bit quickly, but he liked the name. With a direction to follow, all that remained was to ask his new companion:

“What do you plan to do?”

“Now? We’re going to my home. I’ll explain the basics and show you around.” Without further explanation, he began walking in an unknown direction. “We’re actually quite close; that’s why I was able to save you. Well… what remains of you.”

He didn’t seem afraid to walk among the flowers. His confidence appeared well-founded. As they continued forward, he explained the nature of the place.

“This spot is a bit strange, but in time, you’ll get used to it.” He gradually picked up speed, making small graceful hops. “You see, this is a place cut off from reality, where I believe everything with supernatural properties eventually ends up.” He looked at him—no reaction. “I like to think of them as offerings that never reached their destination. I’ve been here for as long as I can remember—basically forever—so I suppose it’s fair to claim it as mine.” Belo followed two steps behind. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

He kept looking around, still somewhat on edge, so Kishtar added:

“You have nothing to worry about, Belo. You’ll learn to live here. This is my territory, after all. The flowers will be like your allies. Wherever they are, you’ll be safe.” Belo did not understand, but the words eased his anxiety considerably. “For now, let’s keep moving.”

After an unknown amount of time, they finally reached a slope in the terrain—something like a spiral in the grass leading to a hole in the ground. The same roots extended into it, but these ones looked more… red.

“Home sweet home, Belo. Follow me, I’ll show you your new house.”

“House?”

“Yes, house. Now let’s go down.”

The hole didn’t seem very deep. Belo crouched and crawled inside without trouble. The interior was surprisingly spacious: a cave with red roots hanging from the ceiling. Three passageways could be seen in the back—perhaps more rooms beyond.

Some small devices illuminated the corners. Belo picked one up, though he had no idea what it did. Holding it clumsily, its lights produced a show of colors.

Kishtar quickly snatched it away.

“For now, don’t touch anything. I’ll teach you about that later.” He guided him toward a large stone at the center of the space, accompanied by two ...

... "

--Continue reading in its original Castilian language at fictograma.com--

Excerpt:

---

It’s late. My wall clock reads about 4:15. A beautiful piece that once belonged to my grandmother, later passed on to my mother, now decorates this grimy little room where I spend my nights writing in solitude, accompanied only by cheap cigarettes that roughen my voice.

As usual, I’m out of good ideas; the pages I produce end up in the trash. Nothing convinces me. I open a bottle of whiskey. Being unemployed and selling very few of my writings, I can’t afford a fine one—but the one I have will do. I set myself to write a love letter. When I was young, I used to write some for my classmates. I never signed with my name: I always left my initials at the bottom, convinced no one would ever notice. Later, I wrote them less and less; there were no girls who interested me, nor was I of interest to them. I wrote letters to women I would never meet, pretending to carry on an active correspondence. I decorated them, perfumed the envelopes, and then burned them. Women today use cell phones, and I cannot stand the passing of time.

“My dear,” perhaps that is a decent way to begin—or “Esteemed lady”… “Beautiful young woman.” How fervently I wish this letter won’t intrude on her busy day; I shall simply leave here a few thoughts that keep me awake at night and try to capture them in these modest lines. I’ve admired her for months, and her presence—fleeting yet radiant—does nothing but deepen my desire to enjoy her company a little more. I know she takes tea in that ladies’ salon she visits with such joy. I know this because I began working at the pawn shop across the street. When I saw her walk into that place, my heart began a relentless race, and my thoughts started orbiting around her. Night after night, thinking of her.

She placed her delicate hand, covered by a white glove, upon the items she had come to part with, and her eyes met mine. That day, the light pouring through the pawn shop windows seemed determined to cut her out from the rest of the world—as if she were the only person worthy of being seen. I remember that when her gloves brushed the counter, a faint tremor ran through her wrist, perhaps from the weight of what she was leaving behind. I, clumsy and mesmerized, barely managed to ask if she needed assistance, though the only thing I truly needed was time: time to look at her, to absorb her every gesture, to understand why her presence made that old shop feel almost sacred.

I don’t know if she noticed, but when she laid those objects upon the wood—a small brass box, an aged brooch, and an embroidered handkerchief—I understood for the first time that beauty could carry a trace of sorrow. For in the instant she gave me that mischievous initial, that tiny letter that fell from her lips like an involuntary confession, I felt as though a secret had been drawn between us. Something that was not quite speech, and yet not silence either: a brief suspension of the world, a tacit agreement that we would pretend, even for a moment, to belong to each other’s lives.

I asked her name and she let an initial slip out, laughing like a schoolgirl. She asked for mine and I played along. She never guessed it, but I did manage to learn hers. It torments me not to know anything else about her. No one in the city knows her; she never returned to the tea salon, nor to the pawn shop. She left me only her beautiful eyes carved into my heart. I searched everywhere and found nothing but an empty silence that wounded me. I know she does not love me; her eyes were never meant to rest upon someone like me. But allow me, now that I’ve learned who she is and where she lives, to state publicly that I am in love—that nothing in this world would make me happier than her perfume enveloping me while her arms slide around my neck and I take her by the waist to the rhythm of a waltz in a darkened room...

..."

–Continue reading in its original Castilian language at https://fictograma.com/ , an open source Spanish community of writers–

Excerpt:

Recovery Report on the Anachronistic Artifact Identified as the Betancourt Stone, following its tracking through one of the countless favelas in the marginal sector of Nueva Bolívar, locally known as Barrio Venezuela. Foundational Agents Rafael Sandoval and Frederick Rojas were assigned to the operation after clinical reports surfaced describing a man who spat fire… and another who suffered a sudden intestinal prolapse—meaning his viscera burst out of his abdomen—in the capital’s peripheral district.

IT specialist Victor Horacio, from the Department of Data Analysis, traced the artifact’s position to a cluster of desolate favelas in the area, inhabited by abandoned vagrants and psychotropic addicts. The dispatched agents—equipped with proper protective gear and the containment briefcase—swept through shacks built from plastic partitions and rusted zinc sheets in search of the extremely dangerous object known as the “Betancourt Stone.” After hours of searches and interrogations of the zone’s dissident population… the agents entered a derelict settlement infested with drug-addled beggars, where they found a grim scene centered around the artifact.

According to reference photographs and related documentation, the Betancourt Stone is a fourteen-centimeter spherical object, pink in coloration and rough in texture; (anyone who touches it will suffer intense hallucinations). That strange device sat atop an old desk, surrounded by unconscious vagrants and wide-eyed addicts who shouted at the top of their lungs in a deranged symposium triggered by psychotropic distortion.

The agents had been discussing the performance of Japanese and Venezuelan players in the American baseball league; but they fell silent at once as the communicator began transmitting audio from that den of addicts—most of them comatose from ingesting opioids, dead in all ways except the literal one.

“Then President Herrera Betancourt opened the Punto Fijo oil well, and he… and they… discovered what was thrashing in the black hole, so they sealed it under fourteen meters of reinforced concrete. But that didn’t stop the refinery’s output. Is the house shaking? —The man was a scrawny figure with curly hair and an unkempt mustache, the look of a petty criminal baked by hardship, and tear-rimmed eyes carrying a corrupt little satchel—. Hey, brother, are you the Ghostbusters or what?”

The foundational agents then donned their gas masks, drew their nine-millimeter Zamoranas from their full-body gray uniforms, and began killing everyone present. One of the addicts awoke—visibly unstable, according to analysts of the audiovisual recording—and opened fire with a machine-pistol. The agents threw themselves to the ground as a storm of bullets ripped through the air… and Rafael began cursing for having landed in a puddle of vomit, forced to crawl while rounds buzzed over their skulls. A voice rose above the chaos: “That belongs to Dog-Belly, you fucking government whores!” His partner, Frederick, managed to twist his body and dispatch the shooter with two shots to the chest.

The man collapsed with his eyes rolled back, struck by the orgasmic surge of cardiac arrest… and the agents quickly finished off the remaining vagrants of that favela, its cement walls gnawed by erosion and its corrugated roof eaten away by rust. Fourteen dead in total—whose bodies would appear in the newspapers as “a settling of scores between criminal gangs over product cut with garbage”—and one agent drenched in radioactive vomit, placed under temporary quarantine and subjected to preventive medical tests. Both men approached the Betancourt Stone, its rosy surface giving it the appearance of a fossilized red dragon’s egg… and slipped on their elastomer gloves, opening the reinforced steel case while trading jokes about the genital warts of a giant and how revolting the object was.

Frederick stared long at Rafael. “What are you staring at? —Rafael snapped—. Your mama’s the one who’s gonna grab this stone! I’m covered in shit, for God’s sake!”

“Fucking disgusting, brother,” Frederick muttered before pinching the stone with the tips of his fingers and placing it inside the lead-lined, rubber-cushioned interior. “Goddamn it, I’m gonna puke in this mask.”

“Don’t you fucking dare!...

..."

–Continue reading in its original Castilian language at https://fictograma.com/ , an open source Spanish community of writers–

Excerpt:

In October 2023, one of the most chilling clinical incidents in Venezuelan medical history unfolded.

At five in the morning, on the eve of Halloween, twenty men and women arrived at the Rómulo Marcano Hospital Complex in Ciudad Zamora, suffering from a grotesque and previously unknown condition: their bodies had become fused together at the genitals after a lavish ceremony of obscene orgies and rites devoted to the Adversary. They collapsed the emergency ward and required surgical intervention to separate what appeared to be a single mass of melted flesh.

One of them—a disheveled acolyte who asked that his name be omitted from the report—shouted that it had all been the fault of “that damned rickety witch.” He told me this while doctors sedated his partner, still fused to him in a canine-like lock of penetration. According to him, she had dragged them into a satanic ceremony involving forbidden conjurations… and they had become playthings of Pazuzu.

The complaints against this unknown young woman began to fill an alarming criminal dossier that horrified the authorities presiding over the case. Her subsequent disappearance from the city triggered collective panic among the mutilated victims, who claimed to still be stalked by her. Their testimonies formed the basis of a disturbing chronicle of the sect’s origins—a sect of flesh-worshippers whose fugitive priestess was said to be allied with both the Witch of Guayabal and the phantom Ánima del Naranjal.

The group had originally been gathered by Rafael Rojas, a black magician and former night watchman of the Joboliso Cemetery, imprisoned decades ago for trafficking human bones to the Paleros of Marhuanta. Drawn together by occultism, superstition, alcoholism, and the migrant folklore of Colombians and Cubans during Ciudad Zamora’s oil boom, their practices blended Afro-Caribbean Vodou with Catholic ritual. Over time, this syncretism birthed rural dioceses led by healers and spirit mediums. Alcoholism, repression, and evangelical guilt gave way to carnivalesque depravity: naked bodies dancing in nocturnal covens, intoxicated by liquor, LSD, and the delirium of a society collapsing into its own shadows.

These nocturnal traditions waned with time—evangelical expansion, economic collapse, and mass migration emptied the hills of their nightly rites. But the digital age revived the hunger for forbidden ecstasies. As loneliness metastasized through smartphones and isolation, the old flames reignited: sweat-soaked bodies fused again in the Cerro de los Báez, while spirits returned to mount the vulnerable, the desperate, and the spiritually porous.

“It was our duty to return to the practices of our ancestors,” Valeria Carrullo told us after eight hours of surgery to remove two fused penises from her vaginal canal. Her mother had belonged to Rojas’s cult when she lived in 19 de Abril. Her ex-partner lured her to the circle of Luis Manuel, and what she witnessed there—their sorcerer forcing her partner into a humiliating position—shattered whatever illusions she had left.

José Manuel, the group’s twenty-two-year-old Guide, survived three surgeries to remove the fused organ lodged deep in his rectum. A clinically depressed loner with schizoid features, he claimed that visions of local spirits called to him. During a trance at the “24 de Julio” ravine, he was supposedly possessed by Guaicaipuro and overpowered two women “like dolls.” That was before they met the Witch of Guayabal.

Witnesses describe her as a tiny, skeletal woman with cropped black hair and a furtive gaze—an infernal creature hiding behind the face of a malnourished girl. Greigimal Solórzano introduced her to the circle after meeting her at the Feria de la Sapoara. Their nights of drinking, vomiting blue liquor, and sharing ghost stories forged a bond that later led to the revelation: the girl claimed to be a priestess of fire and wire, capable of levitation and mesmerism. Many swore they saw her bend the laws of the physical world.

Her true name remained secret; within the circle she was simply the Witch of Guayabal. She partook in orgies with indiscriminate hunger, allowing herself to be ridden by spirits while she officiated rituals with forbidden books—most notably pages from the Garra Negra, a proscribed text linked to Nicolás Fedor, the infamous Black Sorcerer of the Llano Negro. Her ceremonies emanated a force that made campfires explode and the earth vibrate.

In their eyes, she was everything at once: Aphrodite incarnate. Succubus. Medusa. Venus. Child. Demon. An angel broken beyond repair.

But it was her idea that damned them. She persuaded José Manuel to pose as a marble David while she sculpted his body in grey clay, her hands gliding over his thighs, his sex, igniting him with delirious ecstasy. Her rituals blurred the lines between art, seduction, and sorcery.

Then she produced a copy of the Garra Negra—a book believed destroyed by the military. Its pages, yellowed and cracked, contained prophecies, necromancy, and heretical invocations preserved by academia in vaults and archives, far from public reach.

The Witch convinced the circle to invoke Pazuzu during a grand orgy on Samhain night. She taught them a Babylonian chant and instructed them to wear white ceremonial tunics. As they spat on the Gospels and bled sacrificed animals into the fire, she painted pentagrams on their foreheads and recited an unholy tongue that twisted her eyes into a demonic glaze.

According to survivors, **she also invoked the Demon of the Meridian...

---"

–Continue reading in its original Castilian language at https://fictograma.com/ , an open source Spanish community of writers–

Excerpt:

"Reports of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) in Venezuela have long stirred controversy within the South American history of ufology. From the declassified files on the Children of Falcón in 1910—who displayed strange precognitive behavior after a Close Encounter—to the UFO that crashed in Petare in 1954, whose official explanation failed to convince the press; and to the recurrent sightings over major cities; all the way to the alleged aerial confrontation between the Armed Forces and an unknown craft drifting over the desolate mountains of Maracay during Operation Red Light. The study of anomalous aerial phenomena—and the question of whether we are alone in the universe—continues to provoke uneasy debate among the nation’s academic circles.

Since the land’s founding as territory of the Spanish Crown—christened Tierra de Gracia by Columbus during his passage along the Orinoco, and later renamed Venezziola (“Little Venice”) by Amerigo Vespucci—the Captaincy General of Venezuela was established as a province of the Empire. Its later proclamation as an independent republic, the ensuing federal wars that bled the nation dry, the discovery of the world’s largest oil reserve, and the political sabotage that eventually turned the country into a failed state… all have made this Caribbean land a persistent hotspot of unusual activity. Especially the Catatumbo region, whose unique geography creates the planet’s largest permanent storm zone; and the Maracay highlands, whose wasteland was the epicenter of native legends about floating lights and expeditions lost in search of the White King. These documents, written by royal scribes three centuries ago, survived the upheavals of the Bolivarian Campaign, and scholars of ufological chronicles have long debated whether Venezuelan territory may be a meeting point—or landing site—for starships and beings beyond human comprehension.

In 1798, the monarchical system governed by Captain General Pablo Morrillo, sent from Spain to rule, received correspondence from peninsular and creole leaders in the western provinces warning of fiery spheres flying over the Lanterns of San Antonio—an ancient name for the Catatumbo Lightning: “Each night, white orbs buzz across the heavens like immense fire-flies… The lightning throbs like an Indigenous god, angered by the arrogance of our ships, punishing the lake with an eternal storm.” Witnesses described formations of lights descending into Lake Maracaibo at dawn, and regional authorities conducted inquiries in the province of Montenegro, investigating tales of marriage rituals with these otherworldly apparitions.

During the convulsions of the stubborn republic and the dissolution of Gran Colombia, the military strongmen who seized conservative power received countless reports across fifty years: sudden fires consuming plantation fields attributed to the supposed “descent of luminaires”—wrongly blamed on escaped slaves—and the seizure of nighttime travelers along the roads of the East by the so-called “Apparitions of the Black Plains.” Close Encounters in the Catatumbo region became the most thoroughly documented of that era—nearly a century’s worth of peculiar engravings survive. Newspapers warned of corsairs and phantom ships roaming Lake Maracaibo and vanishing within storms of lightning, often crewed by luminous beings whose presence alone blinded onlookers, as though emitting a harmful, searing radiation.

A second UFO wave struck the country with the political consolidation of Juan Vicente Gómez: unifying a fractured nation of empowered warlords; and with President Cipriano Castro’s 1905 Mining Law, which opened the land to foreign exploitation and led to the discovery of the world’s largest oil reserve—marked by the 1922 blowout of the Barroso II well at La Rosa field. Popular lore claims it rained black for hours after the drill struck the reservoir. Ufologists believe that hypothetical extraterrestrial visitors understand our planet’s condition more intimately than we imagine.

One of the most significant events in Venezuelan ufological history occurred in 1910, with alleged contact from an intergalactic civilization in a desert hamlet of Falcón known as Santa Teresa de la Espina—founded atop an abandoned Indigenous monument long before the conquest. On Christmas Eve, a blinding light shook the artisan village near the Coro Isthmus and its shifting sand banks… waking the villagers from their holiday feast only to discover that all the children had vanished from their beds. Panic spread among the parents—especially since, on previous nights, the children had claimed that beings of light revealed to them the secrets of the universe in their dreams. According to a later El Nacional chronicle, the comet-like lights crossed the village toward the megalithic structure where the children played: a series of triangular blocks aligned around a truncated six-meter pyramid. No formal archaeological study exists—only local legends of cannibal rites to appease a centipede-headed god.

The children were found seated in a circle atop the pyramid, beneath a suspended star-like light. Parents later told authorities they had seen “whitest beings—like kerosene ghosts, Holy Mary, several of us fainted at the sight”—and those who approached suffered burns and violent convulsions. The beings, nearly three meters tall according to official records, drifted toward the pale hovering star and shot skyward at impossible speed. What followed has no more credibility than oral legends of headless tribes deep in the Guyanese jungle, for all involved are now dead: some claimed the pyramid’s surface was searing hot, others that its steps had melted as if exposed to unbearable heat. No photographs prove the alleged scars on the children’s faces, nor whether they slept for forty-eight hours after the encounter. These questions remain forever unanswered, because what happened next could have changed—perhaps did change—the course of human history.

Authorities from the city of Coro arrived to document the event and send reports to the national press. When interrogated, the children stunned officials with their intellect and innate abilities. News reached the capital, and the Central University of Venezuela sent a team of doctors to investigate. In the reports by Dr. Eusebio Fuentes (1884–1939), the Children of Falcón claimed to receive telepathic messages from a civilization on the far end of the spiral galaxy… and exhibited psychic powers, from reading thoughts to diagnosing illness with a glance, along with lightning-fast calculation, unprecedented memory, and intelligence far beyond local averages. Plans were made to move them to the capital to form a seminar, but due to political instability and the precarious state of scientific research, they fell into tragic obscurity. No declassified records or rumors survive regarding their fate.

Not until 1954—after a supposed crash of an unidentified airborne object in the Petare district of Nueva Bolívar—did the simmering ufological fervor erupt again. On February 14th, witnesses saw a spherical craft over Mount Ávila, ending in an explosion at dusk that sent patrols racing up the mountain. The official explanation claimed it was a fallen U.S. spy satellite. Yet in the following days, strange events suggested something far more profound. The fall of the UFO marked the beginning of an alien hysteria: travelers along metropolitan highways were chased by unknown creatures; residents of the Sierra de Nueva Andalucía reported terrifying encounters. The case of Jesús Moreno—a truck driver pursued by horse-trotting pale creatures taller than his vehicle—became the most infamous. His recorded testimony survived the official inquiry (and remains genuinely chilling).

Other reports were added: nighttime encounters on rural roads, confrontations in the Sierra, the sighting of the Humita Craft on the Simón Bolívar Highway (2000), dozens of radar-tracked flyovers above major cities, and the original photographs of the Maracaibo Craft. The case was closed in 1980, yet sightings and alleged captures of humanoid beings in the Black Plains and the Amazon continued. When the case dominated national media, scholars revived ancient Indigenous gods such as Amalivaca—the Tamanaco creator figure—revitalizing the Ancient Astronaut theory: the hypothesis that humanity was shaped by a superior civilization that visited Earth in prehistory.

Anomalous activity in Venezuelan skies reached a critical apex with the Red Light Incident over the Valley of Maracay—a sunken wasteland surrounded by forested mountains and crossed by arterial highways. On November 1st, 2013, a pulsating red glow flickered across the night sky every thirty seconds, inciting mass panic in a population steeped in legends of giant creatures sleeping beneath the plains. At 20:00 hours, the red luminance intensified alongside violent electrical storms, triggering blackouts and bizarre low-frequency vibrations that affected the psyche of the populace. Amid the chaos, numerous objects were spotted streaking above the city at incredible speed. The Venezuelan government, believing it was under foreign attack—tensions with Colombia were high—ordered an aerial strike.

Given the limited fleet, Fighter Squadron No. 33 was deployed—five Sukhoi Su-30s and a single F-16 Fighting Falcon for reconnaissance—while ground forces prepared their 9K37 “Buk” surface-to-air defense system.

Major General Santiago Infante Itriago commanded Operation Red Light from Nueva Bolívar Air Command, coordinating with the Maracay Air Base. The fighters tore through the storm, breaking the sound barrier and leaving violet trails—Venezuela’s spearhead against the unknown threat rising from the swirling cloud of blood-tinged dust. Pilots reported that the unidentified objects—“silver spheres six meters wide”—vanished into the scarlet lightning and changed direction with impossible physics, defying gravity itself. Four brilliant mercury-lit spheres converged, and the Major General ordered an immediate strike...

..."

–Continue reading in its original Castilian language at https://fictograma.com/ , an open source Spanish community of writers–

Excerpt:

---

"Half an hour before the massacre, Taro was munching on popcorn alongside Revolver, watching a horror movie in their living room, between the crunching of kernels and the terrified screams of a character whose ribs and lungs were being ripped from their body by a sophisticated machine that made them look like an angel.

Neither of them flinched at the grotesque scene, thinking that Revolver’s taxidermy was far scarier than a few special effects in something fictional and intangible.

—What a boring movie —murmured Revolver, shoveling a handful of popcorn into her mouth—. You can tell it’s fake; I don’t get why anyone thinks this is better than the sixth one.

—But the acting’s actually good —Taro replied—. Besides, the sixth is way overrated; the deaths are too quick. The first one’s the best.

—The first one’s bad too; the only good part is the bear trap, and even then you can tell they swapped the head for a watermelon with makeup at the end.

—That’s not the case with the sixth. Everyone dies in such stupid ways, and the protagonists’ worst enemy is actually being able to use their brains for anything useful.

—Yeah, but the traps were really well done, and it’s so realistic in showing what we all are inside; that’s why the tension holds up.

—But the only good thing about that movie is the morbid thrill of watching all those bastards die.

A vibration interrupted their conversation. Taro dug into his pocket and pulled out a compact cellphone. Opening it, he found only a message from a familiar number: EMERGENCY MEETING, AT THE USUAL PLACE.

Taro stared at his phone, his gaze shifting from the screen to Revolver, and he clicked his tongue; annoyance was written all over him.

—What’s wrong? —Revolver tilted her head.

—I’ve just been ordered to run an errand, but honestly, I’ll probably just be a Christmas ornament —Taro explained as he headed for the door—. Though I have a feeling something’s going to happen.

—But tonight was our movie night.

Taro froze just short of the doorknob, turning his head toward Revolver, whose expression he compared to a scolded Dalmatian looking up with forgiving eyes.

—I promise that tomorrow we’ll spend the whole day on a marathon, from the first to the tenth Mouth movie, eating popcorn —Taro said as he opened the door, not fully turning back—. It’s a promise for you, my little Rev.

—But I don’t want you to leave and leave me here alone —said Revolver, looking away.

—Just try to pass the time without me.

Taro left the house while Revolver lay back on the sofa, returning her attention to the movie, but losing the one thing that made movie night—and life itself—enjoyable.

As Taro walked through the empty streets, he could only feel the autumnal winter chill, the absent wind, and the intermittent hum of streetlights illuminating just enough to make him feel suffocated in the sea of silence that had long surrounded him.

Before reaching the next intersection, he saw a woman his age emerge from the corner, wearing a parka that hid her wild, possessive hair and striking, obsessive eyes. As she locked eyes with Taro, a smile crossed her face, making her seem light, though her sins kept her grounded.

—Hello, Taro —she greeted, grinning from ear to ear, her teeth black as coal—. You look very alone.

—Nyx, don’t bother me; I’m not in the mood to deal with you right now.

—As if talking to me were some kind of punishment.

—It’s not that I dislike you; it’s just that knowing Revolver’s probably alone because of this meeting annoys me. But fine, tell me what you want.

—Well —Nyx’s smile softened, her gaze drifting to the sky—. Do you know if my Gael will be at the meeting?

—I have no idea what we’re going to discuss, so how do you expect me to know if your… target will show up or not?

—We’ll probably be talking about the one who died or something with him. Honestly, I think mostly they’ll argue over who could have killed him, since he was ranked tenth among the strongest students. He also belonged to Radorana and Minro.

And so, Taro and Nyx wandered, speculating about what would be discussed at the meeting, walking until they reached a large ruined building in the woods, roofless, walls cracked, held together only by nature and a massive metal gate. Taro grabbed the gate and lifted it with too much force, creating a loud clang that would draw the attention of everyone inside.

—Alright, who called this meeting at such an hour? —Taro demanded, his face set, determined not to leave without giving whoever ordered it a beating, crushing the piece of the gate he still held.

—We don’t know yet, really.

From the shadows emerged Charlotte, a condescending smile on her face, holding a teacup and saucer.

—Areus and his brothers haven’t shown. Moro and Gashiga are also missing, so we don’t know exactly who ordered this meeting —she said—. By the way, Taro, did Revolver tell you about our little chat?

Charlotte instantly tilted her head to the side, barely dodging a wooden stick that sliced a few strands of her hair—the result of Taro, whose veins bulged on his face and temples.

—What did you tell her? —Charlotte could only interpret Taro’s words as if a black hole were pulling her in, yet she could only smile at such chaotic veins, an impulsive, imperfect reaction. It was clear why such misery irritated him in her eyes.

—I just said that horses eat grass, but each one grazes in its own part of the field —Charlotte replied.

At that very moment, everyone in the room felt a presence. Looking up, they saw a figure, feminine yet not, blocking the moonlight. It seemed like a moth—not by attire or flight, but by the amber eyes fixed on them like the weave of a cloak.

As it descended, a calm smile appeared on its face, and as it landed, no one could ignore the sound of crunching branches and footsteps drawing closer to the ruins.

—Buongiorno —said the figure, a rough, deep voice scanning each of them—. I brought you here.

—Minro —Taro muttered.

No one there liked Minro; the Italian caused trouble merely by speaking, yet none dared stop him, curious why he had gathered them here...

---"

–Continue reading in its original Castilian language at https://fictograma.com/ , an open source Spanish community of writers–

This is a short-story still in Fictograma's writing workshop:

Excerpt:

God Knows

(Deus Scit)

---

On an utterly ordinary day, a young man: Joshua stared at his computer… for over two days straight. His room was a single, closed, sober space, devoid of life save for the insects infesting his walls and the geckos that judged without judging.

A closed window overlooking nothing, draped with a curtain so thick it barely let in a few sunbeams. The walls were bare, lined with newspaper and crooked family photo frames, where the geckos enjoyed the warmth of confinement and the available food. A small vent was the only ventilation, located above a bed too small for an adult. The smell was bland and unpleasant, yet he kept the bathroom clean, perhaps out of self-preservation or sheer laziness… but why did Joshua live like this?

The geckos knew.

Two years prior, at the school Joshua attended, the older boys constantly harassed him. Simple, everyday things like eating breakfast in the cafeteria were impossible for him. The fear mounted daily; his friends drifted away, scared of becoming targets themselves, and the teachers were powerless.

He had lost his parents young; they left him only a small house on the outskirts of the city and some money. He went to the orphanage and then to this school… by age 17, he wanted no part of society and spent his time learning programming. He considered becoming a freelancer, leaving the world behind, but at his graduation, they gave him the biggest surprise they could.

Joshua was standing in a corner of the party, watching his friends enjoy themselves. He wore a somber expression, his hair matted and bushy, a cheap suit without a tie, utterly disheveled. He wasn't interested in standing out positively.

Jaret, the popular kid, approached him. “Hey, Joshua!” he said with a face as fake as Joshua’s own smile at that moment.

“We know we’ve done a lot of damage to you, but we seriously want to make amends.” Joshua felt fear, thinking it was another trick, but accepted out of weakness or innocence.

Jaret wasted no time, leading him to the center of the dance floor. He handed him a glass of alcohol, and together, his group yelled: “Chug! Chug! Chug!”

Joshua had no choice but to drink the glass, and he did. He knew he tolerated alcohol well, but he quickly started to feel dizzy, and within seconds, he was dumped into a trash bin where the party’s food waste was tossed.

Buried by garbage and trapped due to his weak, scrawny frame. It was cold, and he could no longer hear music or voices outside… he tried to cry out for help, desperate, but no one heard him.

“Shit… sh-shit, that son of a bitch drugged me… I need to get out of here,” Joshua expressed in his panic.

He couldn't breathe anymore. He couldn't move. But a loud noise reached him, like a truck parking. He thought it must be the cleaning service and felt a wave of relief. He began to shout, hoping one of the workers would hear him, but all he felt was the robotic arms of the truck lifting him.

The container was inverted, and Joshua managed to grip the edge. Although he was battered by various debris, he was slipping, yet he realized that if he held on long enough, he might be at the right height to avoid being crushed.

He looked at his arm; his hand began to slide. At the bottom of the bin, something seemed stuck. Suddenly, it fell, startling Joshua, who made a last-ditch effort. But then, a few geckos tumbled into a small container.

Joshua saw it fall, and in the time he had, he grabbed the container, but it slipped. He then leaped from the bin and caught the container, not realizing he was heading straight for the truck's edge.

He hit his head on the truck, and the driver, sensing something had fallen outside the skip, went to check. Joshua only saw the geckos race toward the nearby woods, as if they were free again.

The driver quickly stepped out and found a boy lying there, naked and scrawny, covered in blood, food scraps, and maggots… he immediately called emergency services and sped away in his truck without looking back.

Later that morning, Joshua woke up in the emergency room with his head bandaged and blood all over his body. He was disoriented, and everyone stared as they passed his gurney. Joshua couldn't move or speak. He felt a certain pain, but he was numb. The ceiling light blinded him, and he could barely hear. On his tongue, he felt something moving, small, five-toed feet, as if adhered to his palate.

A nurse closed his curtain. She was a blonde woman with her hair pulled back and a surgical mask. She looked at Joshua, but he couldn't tell if she was speaking, though her jaw was moving. She pulled out her cell phone and showed him a social media feed with a photo of him naked on the dance floor. Confirming it was him, she opened her camera and took his picture.

Joshua panicked and tried to move as he saw her sneak away between the curtains… his eyes rolled back, and he began convulsing seconds later, feeling as though he was choking on that creature relentlessly nibbling his tongue.

After a few days hospitalized, Joshua returned home with his tongue intact, but he could no longer go out. He tried for the first few days, but his shame was so profound that he secluded himself in his small room for over a year and a half.

Now, he only plays games with online friends who don't know his real identity. He plays for days without cease. The computer light is the closest glimpse of sun he has, as his lightbulbs burned out long ago.

The geckos have invaded the place. They spend all their time watching and observing Joshua. When he’s asleep or resting, those black eyes are always fixed on him. Joshua, however, considers them family. He feels they judge him, but they have never betrayed him.

One of the small geckos had become fond of him and always went where he went to climb onto his feet. Joshua, though he hadn't spoken a word in over a year and a half, named him “Veritas Crucis,” a reference to the cross shape on its whitish skin.

The gecko, cold to the touch, greeted Joshua with its tiny paw, almost as if displaying happiness, which made him smile genuinely and wish Crucis was truly sentient.

Since then, they play together. They are never apart.

Every night, as the bluish screen bathed his pale face, Joshua typed slowly. The sound of clicks mingled with the constant hum of the old fan. Beside him, on the desk, the little gecko watched. Always still. Always present.

“Hey, Taylor,” he whispered into the mic, barely audible. “I have a gecko here, on my desk. The one I mentioned.”

On the other end, his friend laughed. “Seriously? I need to see it. How about you send me a picture? I bet it looks… cute.”

Joshua smiled faintly. His eyes were heavy. “Sure… but you’ll have to beat me in eliminations.”

“That’s not fair, Josh. I’m a tank, you know I don’t even get points for that.”

“Well… then you’ll have to do the impossible.”

His voice trembled slightly. But he sounded calm. Almost too calm.

“You make it sound so easy… not like I’d have to be high to do something that crazy.”

There was a silence. An awkward one. Long.

No laughter. No clicks.

Only the ambient noise of the open mic… like someone breathing very slowly.

“Josh… are you listening to me?”

Nothing.

“Josh?... Joshu—”

click

[Call Ended]

Something disturbed him; he remembered things he didn't want to and left Crucis sleeping on the desk. Though as Joshua turned, Crucis slightly twitched his tail. Joshua continued toward his small bed, where the sun never entered, and fell asleep in the immense silence of his room.

A few days later, Joshua was able to get out of bed with an idea in mind: reinforcing vitamins and training.

“Crucis, this will help me leave this place again. I just have to order it… I’m scared, Crucis. They’ll laugh at me… will I die?”

The small gecko approached Joshua, slowly moving its little paws, and climbed up to his ankle, where it bit Joshua for a few seconds before detaching.

Joshua gained the determination he wanted, and that made him happy, even as Crucis disappeared into the shadow of an old picture frame left by his parents.

Today he walked fervently around the room, awaiting his next delivery, which would come through a robust grate that only Joshua could open. He had been thinking about getting some exercise to leave in a healthier state… his work was enough, but the confinement was killing him.

The time came. Someone knocked on his door. The noise startled Joshua, who immediately covered his face. They knocked on the door again, and this time Joshua decided to approach. He opened the grate, removing a sturdy padlock and chain.

The package was heavy. It was difficult to drag it inside under the gaze of the delivery driver, who, with conflicting thoughts, bid him good morning and continued his route.

Joshua returned the greeting minutes later, with a somber expression and a nervous voice. Crucis reappeared, walking on Joshua’s feet as he opened the box with a bread knife. Opening the box, he set the knife aside and pulled out a dumbbell to check its weight. He walked around the room with it for a bit, and when he tired, he placed it back on the table.

Joshua was happy. He managed a rarely seen smile and rushed to turn on his PC. He looked back: Crucis was beneath the table, too quiet.

Excited, Joshua approached him, kneeling down to look closely. He said: “Crucis, I can finally leave this place and maybe make some real friends. Maybe a nice girl, I don’t know. Hey, even so, I’ll never abandon you, buddy.”

Crucis looked happy, wiggling his little paws in excitement. Joshua laughed softly, but in a moment of carelessness, he lightly brushed the table leg. It wobbled due to its moisture-damaged structure. Joshua looked up, terrified, as the dumbbells were spherical. He thought they might roll toward him.

There was no sound, and that calmed him. He looked down, smiling at Crucis with a drop of sweat rolling down his chin, before falling from his face.

At the same time, he saw the utility knife slowly drop beside his eyes, aimed directly at Crucis.

Joshua was startled. He froze. He didn't know what to do. His body moved as if by instinct, as if his courage had returned. His hand reached Crucis first, shielding him from the knife's impact, which only lightly lacerated his skin.

Joshua smiled again and felt a shiver run through his body. As he raised his hand, the dumbbell fell onto it. Time stopped. Nothing could describe Joshua's expression.

He looked around and moved the dumbbell. He closed his eyes, grabbed a small towel, and collected Crucis's remains and blood. He wrapped the remains in the cloth and went into his small bathroom. He carefully cleaned his stained hand with the towel and flushed what was left down the toilet.

He flushed the toilet and let the water run. Nothing could convince him otherwise. His expression was empty and terrified, as if the raven had already eaten his eyes.

Joshua sat terrified in the bathroom, looking at his hand and thinking about what he had done. He punched the toilet bowl.

“Damn dumbbells… they killed Crucis.”

“Damn this urge to go out… it was my fault for wanting to go out… yes, it was the damn dumbbells…”

…

Joshua remained silent for a few minutes, mumbling insults at the dumbbells. Suddenly, he felt a sudden coldness in his hands and turned them over to himself in surprise. Instantly, he saw crimson blood flow across his palms. It was like seeing the moment before the dumbbell fell again, as if telling him something was wrong.

Joshua ran back to his room in fear and heard the surrounding geckos’ feet making a ruckus. Joshua felt dizzy. Wherever he looked, dark eyes watched him. The house seemed intent on devouring him. Guilty whispers reveled at the mercy of the naïve Joshua’s ears; he could only cover his ears and close his eyes, even if that smeared blood across his face.

Finally, the whispers stopped, and the geckos calmed down. Joshua slowly opened his eyes and looked at his palms: the blood was gone. He smiled and looked under the table. A dumbbell, clean and spotless. His hand started hurting seconds later.

Night fell, and while Joshua played on the PC, he kept his hand iced.

“Hey, go to the jungle. I’ll be support today, just going to spam abilities.” The voice came out distorted through the microphone, but carried a dry, almost absent tone.

“Why? What happened?” Joshua adjusted the headset on his head and rotated his wrist to relieve tension.

“Nothing… one of my dumbbells fell on my hand.” He tried to downplay it, but his fingers trembled slightly on the keyboard.

“That sucks, man. I didn’t know you were working out.” “It was something new to try, though I wasn’t totally convinced.” A slight crackling sound was heard when he flexed his hand. The ensuing silence was more awkward than the comment.

“Is your hand broken?” “I don’t think so, just sore…” he sighed. It was a dense, slow sigh, laden with more than physical pain.

“Hey, what’s bothering you? You almost never sigh. Did your girl die?” “Girl?” The mouse click stopped.

“Yeah, your little Crucis. Lately—” “W-what are you talking about? Crucis is just fine… understand?” His voice barely cracked at the end of the sentence.

“What?” “—UNDERSTAND!?” It was a digital scream, sharp, as if the room he was in suddenly shrank.

“Yeah… man, I understand. You’re really jumpy today.” Joshua swallowed upon hearing him. He knew him too well.

“I don’t know, sorry. Lately I feel… watched in my own house.” The fan's hum seemed to rise in volume suddenly.

“By whom? Ghosts?” “I don’t believe in them, Joshua…” He said it in a low voice, his gaze fixed on a corner of the room.

“Right. I think it’s the geckos.” “You’re kidding, right?” “Obviously. Why would the geckos be watching me?” He let out a brief, almost automatic laugh.

“Right… hey, I bought this new skin. It’s from the last event. You’re going to hate it.” The click returned. The tension dissolved only in appearance. The match began.

A few days later, Joshua started dreaming of the sea. Not its beauty, but its hunger. In his nightmares, he was choking on crumbs, on rotten fish, on something that was born from within him. He barely ate anymore. He barely slept.

“I threw up a fish,” he said quietly during a match.

“What?”

“A fish… small, scaly. I never owned one.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m scared. I can’t go out. I can’t sleep. I feel watched.”

His friend laughed, at first, but hearing the silence on the other end, he softened. “Everything is going to be okay, Joshua. Really.”

“Thanks…”

That night he managed to sleep. But, as always, he woke up at 3:17 a.m.

The geckos were watching him from the ceiling. Their eyes gleamed, fixed.

Joshua looked back at them.

He felt his chest tighten, his body stiffen. He couldn't move.

The room disappeared.

He was inside.

Inside the gecko’s eyes.

A Gothic temple loomed beneath a black moon. An inverted cross crowned the belfry. The bells were silent.

The priest awaited him at the door. His smile was thin, his eyes glass.

Joshua entered without resistance. Inside, the walls were covered in murals: hundreds of painted geckos, some alive, crawled among the figures. He sat down in the front pew. The priest ascended the altar. His lips moved, but he emitted no sound.

Darkness descended.

Joshua woke up drenched in sweat. He brought his hand to his chest. He was trembling. He fumbled for his cell phone, calling his friend:

“I can’t take it anymore! I don’t know what to do! They’re going to kill me!”

“Joshua, get out of there! Get out of the damned house!”

He looked at the door. He ran toward it. The handle turned. But it wouldn't open.

He pounded. He screamed. He cried. The call disconnected. The echo of his voice dissolved in the empty room.

He fell onto the bed.

And then, he felt the movement beneath his skin. From his stomach, from his throat, they began to crawl. Small, damp, cold bodies. Geckos. One, then two, then dozens. They emerged from his mouth. From his nose. Through the pores of his chest.

Joshua groaned. He coughed. He choked.

He died with his eyes closed.

But he opened them again. Just for a second.

With a trembling hand, he smashed the glass on the table. He took a piece of glass and cut his index finger. With his own blood, he wrote on the wall:

Hours later, his friend called emergency services. The police forced entry.

Joshua was on the bed, surrounded by small corpses. Dry, rigid geckos, some still stuck to his skin. His eyes, wide open. His expression frozen in a grimace of horror.

On the wall, above his head, the message still dripped:

“Deus scit.”

The officers walked toward the exit in silence. The faint light of dawn barely broke the stagnant fog in the hallway. Beside him, his partner looked at him with a certain unease.

“Jaret? Are you okay?..."

---

This is my first time posting here, I don't know much about writing but I like to write. I usually don't get feedback, but if you have anything to say, I'd appreciate it.

ByeMyDream.

---

–Continue reading in its original Castilian language at https://fictograma.com/ , an open source Spanish community of writers–