Outside the Encanto

The Incinerator

A/n: Woke up with 96 notifications today, wow. Huge thanks to Snook6785 for voting for every single chapter of the book, it was a lovely surprise.

The morning comes, along with a new roommate. This time it's a young boy, no older than 9. He shares similar features to Cecilia, a young blonde girl. You think they might be siblings.

You decide to do a little snooping. You sneak around the medical wing, pretending to be visiting patients, but really just looking for the missing woman. By midday, you've visited everyone in the medic center, and no sign of the woman.

Your stomach feels as if it's trying to kill you, a sudden onslaught of pain. You decide you must be hungry, and go to the cafeteria.

Isabella is the only Madrigal left, so you go to sit with her. The two of you have a conversation about nothing, just words meant to fill the time.

"Yeah, I've just been- ah.. AH.. ACHOO!" You sneeze, and birth out a jellyfish.

You sit there for a second, realizing exactly what you'd done. Isabella must've seen your face, because she pulled a thickly wrapped pad.

"Go."

You get up and rushed as fast as you could to the bathroom and sat down on the toilet quickly. You lock the door, clean up your underwear, and put the pad inside. You'd love to get new underwear, but undergarments are hard to come by now.

"Phew, rough days work, eh Julie?" Fish Lady said, washing her hands.

"Yeah. Honestly, are we sure this is the best way to deal with the tattoos though?" Julieta pumps out some soap, washing up to her elbows.

"Honestly, it's the safest. Getting rid of the problem before it spreads.. I hate doing it, but it's better than just letting it spread." Fish Lady rinses her hands, eventually just letting them sit as the water washes over them.

"It's cruel." Julieta sighs, reaching for paper towel. She dries her hands, waits for Fish Lady, and finishes.

The two women exit, even so you wait another minute before flushing, washing, and leaving the bathroom. Isabella's gone now, but you still see Julieta and Fish Lady.

You decide to follow them.

They follow the same trail you and Mirabel had the day before, but instead of taking a right turn, they stay forward and continue along, towards the white tents. You see smoke rising from one of them, a foul stench filling the air.

The trail opens into a patch of hills, so you decide to stay in the forest path. You sit and wait for someone to appear in a hazmat suit.

....................................................................................

A twig snaps, jolting you awake. The sun had long since set, even longer since you'd fallen asleep. You creep into a bush, peering out to the trail.

A middle aged woman around your size walks right in front of you, clearly unaware of her surroundings. You jump out of the brush, and sock her right in the face. Her nose begins bleeding, and you press against the side of her throat as she struggles. Finally, it's done.

The woman isn't dead, but she'll be out for a while. You remove her suit, and slip into it yourself. You tuck your skirt into one of the legs, but the bulge is barely noticeable.

You begin proudly walking into the tent, just as the woman had been. You unzip the tent, and are immediately blown back by decontamination gasses. You stumble for a second, before entering the main tent.

All around you are dying people. Crying, moaning, screaming. They're strapped onto the same beds as before they were taken here, and clearly haven't been let out. A foul stench fills the air, practically choking you. On one of the beds lies the woman you'd previously been roommates with, along with several other familiar faces.

You begin walking through the beds, noticing yellow stains around their belt line. You shiver in disgust, before going up to one person.

"Don't take me! I'm getting better, I promise!" She pleads.

"Shh! Listen, I need you to tell me what happened here." You say, gripping the metal on her bedside.

"The medics took us! They said I was getting better, to let us be strapped down for our own safety. I didn't mind at first, the leather was loose. But then once we got here, they tightened the coils until the circulation in our hands cut off, and haven't moved us since. We haven't gotten any food, or water, please get us some water, I'm thirsty. Not even to use the bathroom." She sobs, crying out in pain. "My skin burns, IT BURNS!" She screams, struggling against the restraints. You know you can't let her go, but then study her face closely.

What you'd though was just her skin color was actually the dreaded tattoos, hardly noticeable in the darkness. The tattoos skin peeled and bubbled, becoming much worse than you'd thought.

Looking around, everyone had the tattoos on them. It wasn't just one or two, either. Everyone around you had been dyed black, blacker than the night sky.

"What did you mean by 'take you?' I thought you said nobody moved." You shiver, a feeling of cold resentment residing inside of you. Pure terror.

"They take us." The girl whispers, then begins to cry. Everyone just shakes their heads, refusing to talk. You decide to leave the room, enter somewhere else. You see a light shining on one of the doors, so you decide to enter that room.

You wish you hadn't.

There were several more beds, each lined up by the walls of the tent. Nobody was silent. Several people were yelling to be let go, that it was a mistake, how it wasn't their fault, how they promise to listen. Some people were sobbing dramatically, as if their life depended on it. Some people struggled to fight their restraints. Some were so close to death they could only breathe.

The thing that made the entire room so terrifying was the one thing that brought it light.

A large incinerator was burning brightly, and it seemed as if the tent was built around it. A large man tended to the flames, as if he were having a bonfire.

Two women unlatched a mattress from the stretched frame, which held a young woman in her early twenties at least. She didn't speak, until they began lifting her mattress, with her still strapped down.

"No wait, wait please! I have a family, PLEASE!" She begs, struggling the best she could against her tightly wound coils.

"Mommy!" A young boy yelled, his eyes spilling over with tears.

The two women hoisted her up to the flames, and tossed her into the incinerator. You watch as she and her clothes burst into flames, and her restraints break. She quickly crawls towards the exit, only to be shut in at the last second.

You bravely enter the room, fully exposing yourself.

"Èva! You're late." One of the women say, scowling at you.

"I'm sorry, an owl attacked me on my way here." You apologize in a disguised voice, not sure what to sound like. Over the noise, they don't seem to notice.

"Well, I need to get back to my family. My youngest daughter, Mirabel, asked me if I'd make a new dress with her. I'm no seamstress, but I'll pretty much just watch. Try to be there for her, you know?" One of the women say, and you freeze.

As she walks by, you take a look at her face, however distorted by plastic.

Julieta.

Julieta had thrown a woman into a fire.

And now there you were, expected to do the same.