I had seen bodies burned before enemy soldiers, friends, men who shared their last breaths with curses or prayers but burning the old man felt different. His skin had slackened in death, yet something about him looked… waiting. As if the fire was not destroying him but sending him somewhere he had already prepared to go.
The flames licked at the sky, painting the clearing in trembling orange. Shadows twisted against the trees like restless spirits, and for a moment I wondered if the creature Matteo spoke of stood among them, invisible but present, watching us return a servant or witness back to ash.
Matteo stood closest to the fire. He didn't cry. His narrow shoulders shook only when a gust of wind drove sparks onto his clothes. A boy of thirteen shouldn't have known how to stand like a widower, but grief had carved lines across his face older than mine.
I stepped closer. "You don't have to watch," I told him quietly.
His eyes stayed on the corpse as the flames folded inward. "I have to."
There was a strain behind his voice fear, guilt, and something else sharpened by loss. The boy had loved that old man. And despite the madness, despite the white eyes and prophecies, the old man had died trying to shield him.
I had seen devotion before. It never died clean.
The others stood scattered in a rough circle Bruno, rigid and stone-faced; Maria with her arms crossed in a soldier's stance; Ivan's hunters murmuring among themselves. No one knew what to do with this kind of death. The fire crackled, and the scent of burning hair and resin bark unsettled my stomach.
Matteo finally spoke.
"My granduncle wasn't always like… that," he murmured. "The war, the deaths….. they broke him more than the rest of you. He said things came crawling out of the dark when men spilled too much blood…" His breath faltered. "I didn't believe him. Not really."
I shifted my weight. "You're a child. You shouldn't have had to."
He shook his head. "No. I should have stopped him. Or listened more. Or something." His voice cracked for the first time. "He thought the creature would take me. He said I was marked."
The flames hissed at the word marked.
Across from us, Maria's jaw clenched. She muttered something under her breath half prayer, half curse.
"You said it has… names," she said aloud, speaking to the boy but glancing at me. "What did you call it? El… cucey?"
"El Cuco," Matteo corrected softly. "Or El Cucey in some older stories. Some people say it lives under beds, or in closets, or in caves. But those are stories for children." His eyes lifted toward us. "The real one doesn't hide under beds. It hides inside people."
A chill rolled along my spine.
He continued. "Granduncle said the creature isn't a demon or a man. It's… something that takes root in people. Something that needs fear. Needs children." He swallowed. "He said it has existed under a hundred names, in a hundred places. And when war breaks the world open, it crawls out, it wakes up."
The hunters murmured nervously. Bruno crossed himself.
I wanted to dismiss it. Truly, I did. But I kept seeing Antonio's small body in the dirt. The carved symbol. The cold that never left my chest. And deeper still, the old man's last rasp before he died:
Death and rebirth.
Superstition. Madness. And yet truth has a way of hiding under myth like an animal under brush.
"Whether this is real or not," I said, voice steadier than I felt, "you said something else earlier. That it will strike again?"
Matteo nodded. "Tonight. Before sunrise."
My jaw tightened. "How do you know?"
"Because the books…. they say it feeds more and more, starting with one a night but soon, dozens will fall at its feet every night. And because Granduncle kept repeating it for hours before he died. He called it the night of crossing. The night the creature chooses its next vessel."
Silence swallowed the clearing.
Maria's expression softened, but only barely. "You've been through too much, boy. Listen, we don't know what your granduncle saw or believed, but…"
"I know what I saw." Matteo's voice rose sharply, cracking but fierce. "I saw the symbol in his blood. I saw the way his eyes turned white when he said the war woke something up. I know…" He stopped breathing for a moment. "I know he died because something was coming for me. But he gave himself instead."
His voice broke.
Something hot pressed behind my eyes, something painful and alive. I put my hand on his shoulder light, careful. For a second, he didn't move. Then he leaned slightly into the touch, too proud to cry but too broken to stand alone.
"Come on," I said. "You'll stay with me tonight."
He sniffed. "I don't need a guardian."
"No," I said quietly. "You need someone who believes you. Or at least someone willing to listen."
He gave a small, trembling nod.
We left the clearing slowly, the fire dying behind us. Matteo walked beside me, his steps small but defiant, as if he had made a silent promise to avenge the man who raised him.
I feared promises like that. They made boys into martyrs.
We reached my home just as the last ember of daylight surrendered to night. Matteo paused at the doorway, glancing back toward the forest as if expecting something to follow.
He wasn't alone in that fear.
"You're safe here," I said.
His mouth tightened. "Safe? No one is safe. Not if it's hungry."
I didn't answer. Because I didn't have an answer.
Instead, I stepped outside again. The hunters were already gathering. Shadows moved through the streets sharpening knives, stringing crossbows, lighting torches. The night air hummed with tension, thick and electric. The streets were empty, quiet…. everybody feared making a noise as it could be their last
But suddenly somewhere behind them, a scream carried through the street.
A child's voice.
Soft. Familiar.
I froze.
"Francisco?" someone called.
"No…" a mother whispered.
Then came the second scream a woman's this time, raw with grief:
"Mi niño! Tomás!—Tomás is gone!"
My heart stuttered.
Tomas.
The boy who followed the Marino family to market.
The boy with the crooked smile and dusted hair.
The boy who tugged Francisco's cloak when he wanted attention.
Gone.
I ran.
The Marino home was a lantern of chaos, its light spilling onto the street. Ana held a woman thin, trembling, sobbing as if trying to glue her together with her own grip. Isabella stood pale and motionless beside them. Jorge was shouting orders at the hunters who tried to decipher the direction of the scream.
But Francisco….
Francisco stood in the center of the courtyard, his face white as bone. His breath came shallow and hard. And his eyes were wide and… wrong.
"I can feel it," he whispered.
The crowd went silent.
"What do you mean, chico?" Jorge demanded, grabbing his brother's shoulders.
But Francisco didn't look at him. He stared past him. Into nothing. Into something only he could see.
"It's close," he said. "It's… among us."
The words scraped out of his throat as if someone else had spoken through him.
Then he screamed.
A sound so sharp it sliced the night open.
Before anyone could react, another howl echoed from the tree line a thin, distant wailing that rose and fell like an injured animal.
Tomas.
"Tomas is alive!" someone cried.
"No," another whispered. "That's not alive. That's calling."
Francisco lurched forward, as if pulled by invisible strings.
"I can find him," he said, voice hollow but determined. "I can find Tomas. And I can find the creature. It's showing me."
And before anyone could stop him, he ran.
"Francisco!" Jorge shouted, sprinting after him. "You're not going alone!"
The hunters charged behind them
Ivan shouting for torches, Maria cocking her musket, Bruno muttering prayers.
Tomas's mother collapsed to her knees. "Please, please save my boy…"
Ana held her tight, though her own hands trembled violently. I could see it in her face, the thing she refused to say:
Her children were in the woods too.
And something was hunting them.
I took one last look at the dark line of trees.
Then I ran after them.
The woods swallowed us whole.
The forest was quiet in a way that felt unnatural, suffocating. Every branch, every rustle, seemed amplified against the dark. Tomas lay in the shallow ravine before us, sprawled like a child who had tripped and fallen but something about the stillness struck wrong. Deep inside in the woods running after Francisco we finally found him near the ravine where Antonio's body was last found. His small frame barely moved. Dust covered his clothes, and his face was pale as parchment. His chest rose and fell in slow, shallow breaths.
Jorge's hands shook as he reached toward him. "Tomas…"
I felt a wave of relief wash through me, until the boy's fingers twitched almost imperceptibly. Jorge froze.
Then, without warning, Tomas's eyes snapped open. They were white as snow, pupils gone, the whites unnaturally luminescent under the torchlight. A shriek, a sound somewhere between a child's cry and a wild beast tore from his throat.
Jorge barely had time to react before the boy's small hands gripped him with a strength that made bones groan. A roar of pure inhuman force echoed through the trees as Jorge was lifted and hurled into the woods.
"Jorge!" Francisco screamed, his voice cracking. "That's him! That's the creature !"
The realization hit us all at once. It wasn't Tomas. Not really. This was something else, wearing his body like a mask.
Maria raised her musket immediately, aiming steady at the thrashing boy. "I'll—"
I grabbed her arm, stopping her. "No! Wait!"
It was a mistake.
Tomas's body moved impossibly fast. In a blur, he slammed into me, knocking me to the forest floor. Maria went flying in the other direction, landing hard against a tree. Pain shot through my ribs, but worse was the fear: this was no ordinary child, no ordinary monster.
The hunters staggered, their faces pale. Some froze in shock; some gripped weapons too large for their trembling hands. No one could tell whether this was Tomas or a demon in disguise.
Francisco's face was ashen, his small frame trembling violently. "He's dead! That's a shell! Kill it!"
But conviction faltered. The idea of shooting a child, even one transformed, slowed them.
A horrific scream half human, half something unnatural cut the hesitation short. The creature lunged and ripped one of Ivan's hunters in half like a twig. Limbs flailed, blood sprayed, the wet, ragged sound of tearing flesh echoing through the trees.
Silence fell for a heartbeat, broken only by Tomas's unnatural gurgling breaths.
I rolled to my feet. "We cannot hesitate!"
Then, from the shadows, a gunshot rang out loud, precise.
The creature jerked violently, stumbling backward. It collapsed to the ground. Tomas's white eyes flickered one last time before the body went still. Matteo emerged from the trees, shaking but resolute, the smoking musket in his hands.
The forest was quiet again. Too quiet.
I staggered to Tomas's side, gripping the limp body. The warmth that he had moments before was gone. His small body was cold in my arms, yet for a heartbeat, I felt a whisper of the boy we had all loved,his voice calling softly saying Madre, a tear sliding down his cheek. Then it was gone.
Maria groaned as she sat up, rubbing her ribs. "That… was no child."
"No," I whispered, holding Tomas closer than I ever had held another. "Not anymore."
The forest seemed to press in around us. Branches clawed at our clothing as though mourning. Somewhere, a raven cawed, sharp and accusing.
Jorge stumbled from the underbrush, blood streaking his temple, bruises forming across his body, as he managed to stand up long enough to be found and carried back. Bruno and Ivan followed, carrying the half-shredded body of their fallen companion.
We moved slowly, mechanically. Every step out of the woods was a reminder of the cost. Every shadow flickered with imagined movement.
Francisco lagged behind, hands pressed to his mouth, eyes wide and unblinking. He whispered hoarsely, almost to himself:
"It's not dead."
I froze. "What do you mean?"
His gaze was unwavering, full of conviction. "The body is here. The shell is gone. But it's still… out there. Watching. Waiting."
A shiver ran through the group. Bruno muttered a prayer, crossing himself repeatedly. Maria checked her musket again, though her hands shook. Ivan cursed under his breath. And I, Manuel de Herrera, veteran of wars that had once seemed endless, finally understood the truth: the battle we had just survived in the woods was only the beginning.
The walk back to A Coruña was quiet, broken only by the ragged breathing of those carrying the injured and the dead. Tomas in my arms, Jorge leaning against Bruno for support, Francisco trailing with eyes darting to every shadow,the weight of what we had lost pressed down like stone.
The town lights ahead were a hollow promise of safety. We had won the night's fight, yes but at a cost that made victory meaningless.
Matteo walked beside me, his expression pale but determined. He said nothing, though I could see the guilt etched in his young face. He had fired the shot that ended the creature's use of Tomas but at what cost?
A boy was gone. A hunter was gone. And perhaps, somewhere, the true horror remained, watching us.