"You left me. left me to die. So I teamed up with the devil to take my revenge." She screamed, tears running down her flushed face.
"I saw your dead body! Your lifeless body! Do you have any idea what that does to a man?" He screamed back.
***
Set...
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Maria's eyes fluttered open to a dimly lit cabin with wooden walls and a porthole window. The faint smell of saltwater and the gentle rocking of the ship made her aware of her surroundings. She tried to sit up, but her whole body felt like it had been through a war. Every muscle screamed in pain and her head throbbed with each movement. She croaked out for her grandmother, but her voice was barely a whisper after days of screaming and crying. As she lifted her arms to rub her eyes, she noticed the deep purple bruises on her wrists, reminding her of the horrific night that led to this moment. A wave of despair washed over her as she wished for death instead of enduring this agony.
A sharp creaking sound cut through the quiet morning air as the cabin door swung open. Maria jolted awake, her heart racing in fear. A young soldier stepped inside, his uniform pristine and his posture rigid. Maria couldn't help but shrink away from him, pressing herself against the wall with her arms held up defensively.
But to her surprise, the soldier's own arms shot up in surrender. "Por favor! Estoy bien!" he pleaded in broken English. "Solo quería saber si estabas bien," he added in Spanish, lifting one hand to point at her. Maria's confusion grew as she struggled to understand his words, cursing herself for not keeping up with her Spanish lessons. She understood a few words, so she put her hands down and nodded to the man.
"Youre...youre wearing their clothes. Where am I? Where is my grandmother?" she questioned her eyebrows twisting in confusion.
"Tu abuela?" the man said quietly, his expression changing to a sorrowful one. Maria nodded in reply. "Si" she said under her breath.
"Lo siento señora, ella falleció. Gonzalo descubrió tu secreto y se vengó. Ella se asustó por tu seguridad." the man explained but he spoke too fast for Maria to understand fully.
"No! Slowly. Tell me again in English if you can." Maria responded in frustration, not understanding what he was saying.
"Your grandmother has died. Gonzalo killed her. He knows about you." The man responded in broken English and his thick Spanish accent, his voice shaking slightly.
Maria's heart constricts in a vice of unrelenting grief, her entire being shattered into a million splinters. She stands alone in this cruel world, her family taken from her, betrayed by friends, with no one left to turn to for comfort or solace. The weight of her loneliness crushes her like a boulder, suffocating and oppressive.
Maria's heart was a cavernous void, an endless abyss of sorrow that threatened to swallow her whole. Her eyes, once bright and full of life, were now dull and lifeless, their light extinguished by the relentless ache that consumed her. Her hands, once steady and graceful, now trembled with the weight of her pain.
She stood in the middle of her cabin, her surroundings barren and cold. It was as if life itself was drawn from her. She was truly broken. The wind howled outside her cabin, a symphony of despair that echoed the emptiness in her soul.
