It had long weighed on the child’s consciousness that the illness and malaise of his early years had transformed his parents’ faces. His close brushes with death, both physical and metaphysical, had often reinvigorated his desire to live. Yet constraint, pain, and guilt remained constant companions. He looked from the window of the old, dilapidated hospital and saw some children playing in the streets. Kairon anguished, longing to join them and travel to the countryside, his favorite pastimes. He remembered wandering through the hills and valleys, meeting country folk, and pretending to “hunt” birds. The laughter of the children outside the hospital and that of his friends in his memories merged, creating an exalted feeling of hope and a yearning to live. But to live without conditions, without restraints, and worst of all, without the painful uncertainty of an unknown future.
He had a decision to make—or so he thought, for he was just a child. What everyone knew, however, was that the latest sudden, chaotic episode of ill health had left an indelible mark on the lives of those around him. For Kairon, it had been painful and brief, yet full of fear and desperation. For others, it was heavier and darker. One night, Kairon woke at 10:03 a.m. to awaken his parents, feeling the strange sensation that often preceded such bouts of illness.
“Mama, Mama, I’m not feeling well.”
“What’s wrong, my child?”
“I feel funny again. My throat itches, and I’m thirsty.”
What seemed like an innocent conversation carried alarming undertones of crisis based on experience.
“Come here, child, sit next to me. It’s nothing, don’t worry,” the mother lied in a desperate attempt to comfort him and wish away another episode of helplessness and despair.
“Try to go to sleep. It’s nothing; you may have had a nightmare you don’t remember.”
Kairon tried to go back to sleep. Meanwhile, his mother asked his father to get water quietly, hoping Kairon would sleep. At this point, Kairon either fell asleep or entered a delirium; he still does not know. It was then that he had his first encounter with death.
“Mama, who is that man standing in the corner?” the child asked in a raspy voice.
“Who are you talking about, my child?”
“There, the man was holding some water in his hands. He’s strange. Why is he hiding his face and body under those black hooded robes? Something is wrong with him.”
Kairon did not hear an answer from his mother. Whether she had answered or not, he did not know. Instead, he heard the eerie shriek of the man in the corner, akin to the sound of unfathomable pain and grief. The man’s form constantly shifted. He moved like dark shadows through the room, transmuting from a full pale body to an emaciated one, to a form marked by decay, to a skeleton, and finally to darkness cloaked under robes. This transformation repeated. Kairon was thirsty, but something warned him not to accept the water, which he rejected from the hands of the mysterious man now standing at the edge of his bed. This rejection seemed to anger the figure. At this point, Kairon began feeling worse, and his vision started to fail. He hadn’t realized it, but he had stopped breathing. His lungs had been deprived of air for what seemed an eternity to his parents. Kairon tried communicating with them, but no air came to his lungs. Every desperate attempt to signal his fear and pain only worsened the situation. Without realizing it, he had started pulling at his mother’s hair and gesticulating wildly while gasping for air. Soon, his vision failed entirely, and everything went dark.
A while later, Kairon awoke in the back seat of a car, on his way to the hospital with his parents and a neighbor who owned the car. He passed out again from exhaustion, fear, and pain. Meanwhile, questions plagued his parents’ minds, bubbling up from a place of fear, guilt, desperation, and anger. What had their child done to deserve this? What had they done to deserve this? Why was this happening? Why him and not them? Most importantly, they asked themselves: What could they do to resolve this? What was the best course of action? These last two questions paralyzed them.
This experience profoundly changed Kairon. He couldn’t stop thinking about the mysterious man in the room and his desire to rid himself of this debilitating condition. From his hospital bed, he overheard his parents speaking with doctors about the solution: a risky operation or an equally uncertain and precarious alternative. That’s when Kairon saw it again—a dark shadow bouncing around the room out of the corner of his eye. He felt a presence watching, waiting. Yet he was not afraid; he was resolute. In desperation, he silently called for intervention, no matter the source. He just wanted relief. Nothing answered. Kairon heard faint whistling, found it strange, but dismissed it. He fell asleep, weak and convalescing from the demanding ordeal.
A few days later, Kairon returned home from the hospital, to much anticipation from the neighborhood and his family. Though he tried to forget the experience and sought to reunite with his friends as if nothing had happened, the memory lingered. He disliked talking about it. When asked, he would brush it off, joking, “Episode? It all feels like a half-forgotten nightmare now lost to oblivion.” After all, he was just a child who wanted to play and enjoy life without fully understanding the weight of his experiences.
One day, while playing with his friends, Kairon saw the father of one of his friends, Carlos, speaking with his parents. Carlos was known in the neighborhood as a difficult, reserved man with a reputation for practicing witchcraft. Kairon recalled overhearing his parents’ dismissive remarks about Carlos offering to help him during an earlier health crisis. “What we need is a doctor, not a witch doctor,” his father had said. When Kairon asked about the man, his parents warned him to stay away from Carlos and his house. He didn’t question their advice and rarely thought about it again until he saw Carlos talking to his parents. Later, Carlos’s son, Richard, invited Kairon and the neighborhood kids to play soccer near their home. Knowing his parents’ disapproval of Carlos, Kairon avoided mentioning where they were going. Instead, he simply told them he was playing soccer with his friends. Overjoyed to see him healthy and happy again, his parents didn’t press for details.
The group gathered outside Richard’s home, near a vacant lot that had been converted into a goat and pig pen. Carlos’s livestock were well-regarded, and the pens became a backdrop for their soccer games. Kairon and his friends played energetically, enjoying the warm day. At one point, the game moved to the lower entrance of a nearby building. The entrance, though a common play spot, was known for its damaged electrical outlet with exposed wires. Though it hadn’t been functional for years, no one paid much mind.
While playing, Kairon positioned himself near the outlet. During an intense play, he stumbled, and his foot tangled in the exposed wires. To everyone’s shock, a sudden burst of electricity surged through the cables. Kairon collapsed. When Kairon came to, strange sounds filled his ears—the clanking of chains, echoing voices, and the hammering of metal. The noise reminded him of his friend Rafael’s father’s blacksmith shop. But these sounds soon gave way to guttural cries of agony and torment that paralyzed him with fear. Though he dared not move, Kairon felt the presence of shadowy figures passing by. He shut his eyes tightly, willing himself to wake up. The noises eventually subsided. “It’s over,” he thought, trying to convince himself it had been another nightmare.
But when he opened his eyes, Kairon saw spectral forms pacing in confusion and sorrow. Some seemed tormented; others moved aimlessly, unaware of their surroundings. As Kairon watched in horror, a few of the specters noticed him and began moving toward him. Panicked, he tried to escape, but the shadows surrounded him. He woke abruptly to find himself lying on the building floor, surrounded by his friends. Their relieved laughter greeted him.
“Bro, the weirdest stuff always happens to you,” one joked.
“Yeah, you’re like a magnet for strange things,” added another. “How did you even get shocked by those old wires?”
Though Kairon laughed along, the incident unsettled him deeply. Reflecting on his friends’ teasing, he couldn’t deny the strange frequency of his experiences. Yet, like before, he pushed the memory aside and rejoined the game.
The day’s events took another turn when Kairon fell onto some rusty metal pipes, cutting his arm badly. The wound bled profusely, alarming Richard, who ran to fetch his father. Carlos arrived quickly, assessing the injury. “Enough play for today,” he announced, sending the other children home. Turning to Kairon, he said, “Come inside. Let me help you with that cut.” Despite his parents’ warnings, Kairon hesitated. He felt both a sense of duty to accept Carlos’s help and a deep curiosity about the man and his rumored powers. Finally, he followed Carlos into the house, unsure of what awaited him.
All the other kids laughed and joked, but deep down, Kairon reflected on their comments and found a painful truth in them. He pushed those thoughts aside, though, as the group decided to play soccer near the animal pens. Kairon and his friends played for another hour, and everything seemed to have settled. But not long after, Kairon fell onto some old iron pipes, slicing his arm deeply. Blood poured from the wound, and Richard, panicked by the sight, ran to get his father.
When Richard's father, Carlos, arrived, he saw Kairon’s bleeding arm and immediately told the children to go home, declaring playtime over. Turning to Kairon, he said, “Come with me. Let’s take care of that cut.” Kairon hesitated, his parents’ warnings ringing in his ears. He tried to decline. “I’ll just go home. It’s fine,” he muttered.
“Nonsense,” Carlos said firmly. “Come inside.”
Conflicted, Kairon felt both a sense of obligation to accept Carlos’s help and an inexplicable pull toward the house, as though something unseen was urging him forward. He finally relented and stepped inside. Years later, Kairon recounted the events in a letter to his friend Gustavo:
“…..I went to Carlos’s house to get help with my cut but, as I now see clearly, also for my condition. The house was clean and peaceful. Carlos told me to come in, and I did. He was very kind, taking care of the cut first. The bleeding stopped almost immediately, and I still have the scar to this day—proof of the incident. But then Carlos told me something unexpected. He said I needed spiritual help. He claimed to have consulted with his spirits of the dead, who revealed that I needed protection from the powers of Death itself. Death, he said, was willing to protect me, but only if I became its servant. He explained that the spirits wanted me to work with them as their supreme necromancer.
Carlos pointed to a witch cauldron hidden behind some netting and beads. He told me he would pass it to me, that it would help me fulfill this role. The cauldron was made of black cast iron, covered in what looked like decayed matter, with sticks and other metal objects adorning it. The top half of the skull was faintly visible. I thanked him for his offer but told him I wasn’t sure this was right for me. Carlos insisted, but I politely declined and left in a hurry.
That night, I dreamed about the same thing. In the dream, I was back in his house. Carlos was once again offering me the witch cauldron. This time, I accepted it. It was smaller in the dream, made of gray metal and fitting neatly in my hands. Carlos then led me to a part of the yard I hadn’t seen before, behind the animal pens. He asked me to stand in the center of the space, holding the cauldron, while he sang incantations in a language that sounded very ancient but unrecognizable. He drew sigils and diagrams on the ground around me.
Then, Carlos took a branch and made a shallow cut along my Achilles tendon, moving upward. It didn’t hurt much. He continued singing, shaking the branch, and striking the ground and my body with it. As he did, the cauldron seemed to grow heavier. A second head, resembling a large porcelain doll, appeared inside it. The vibrations and pulsating power from the cauldron were overwhelming. After some time—I can’t say how long, since it was a dream—a figurine inside the cauldron straightened and stood upright. Carlos then took the cauldron from me and walked away. When I looked at his face, his eyes were white, like a blind man’s, and he wore a malevolent smile. He began speaking in a strange, distorted voice, as though to someone I couldn’t see.
He said, ‘You, servant of the cauldron, you’re acting like a fool. Why don’t you tell him the truth? Tell him that he is wanted by the power of lightning, destructive fire, and the god of Olympus himself. The dark, shadow side of Jupiter does not want him to suffer the disturbances and hunger of death again.’ Carlos tried to hand me the cauldron, now engulfed in flames. But another voice—higher-pitched and distorted—spoke. It rejected me, saying I was ugly and unworthy.
Carlos argued with the voice, speaking in the same ventriloquist-like tone. After some back-and-forth, the voice relented, agreeing that the spirit of the cauldron should serve me. At that moment, I noticed a black, jewel-encrusted rickshaw in the corner of my eye. Carlos gestured for me to sit in it, promising that if I accepted, my life would be as easy as a ride in the rickshaw. But his eyes betrayed a dark ulterior motive, and I felt repelled.
I rejected the offer. Even in my sleep, I knew better than to accept. But that wasn’t the end of the dream. The scene shifted to a dimly lit room filled with taxidermized animals, old wooden furniture, and fur and leather garments hanging from racks. A hooded figure screeched and flew across the room, its movements erratic and terrifying. Oddly, I wasn’t afraid. Instead, I felt an intense desire to confront it. I chased the figure as it tried to hide inside the furniture and clothes. Eventually, I cornered it at a rack of garments. When it leaped at me in a final attempt to escape, I felt it fuse with me. In that moment, I saw my reflection intertwined with the figure’s—our images inseparable.
Then I woke up.
After that night, I stayed away from Carlos and Richard’s house for good. I never saw them again. Strangely, my condition improved. I’ve never suffered from it since. What do you think, Gustavo? Was it just a child’s vivid imagination? Or was it something more? All I can say is that the dream remains as vivid today as it was then. Make of it what you will ....”