Excerpt:

Darkness.

It was the first thing I ever knew.

A vast, heavy darkness.

I didn’t understand it; I only knew it was there, as if it had been waiting for me, stretching into every corner, swallowing sound, color, and hope.

The darkness wasn’t just a lurking shadow—it was something that stayed, seeping all the way into the bone.

I can’t remember the last time I saw the light.

Now and then, a drop of water falls from above; its sound multiplies through the stillness, disturbing the quiet like a sigh.

In one corner, a child with pale pink hair curls up inside a tiny cage, dressed in nothing but a thin scrap of cloth—so flimsy it can barely be called clothing; the fragile fabric barely covers him, leaving his skin exposed to the freezing air.

He shivers uncontrollably, and in a desperate attempt to keep warm, crosses his arms over his shoulders, shrinking into the corner.

When he tries to embrace himself, he clutches the fabric as if it were something precious.

Not because he thinks it helps—but even so, his knees stay pressed to his chest, his arms tightly wrapped around his shoulders.

The child lifts his head.

His breath rises in small white clouds, and every time they vanish, he feels that something inside him vanishes with them.

It’s because he wants to disappear—yet not entirely—and so he wonders:

If those little clouds disappear so quickly… why can’t I?

He looks toward the door, watching the place carefully.

He’s anxious, and he knows he must stay alert, because the footsteps he hears don’t always bring anything good.

He tries to hide wherever he can, seeking a corner where the cold hurts a little less...

..."

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