The Hatch

This was exactly the place.

Exactly the place where souls left the world crying and screaming. Thrashing like mad men. Holding on to their lives by a thread, only to have it yanked out of them. They'd be left staring into the abyss with wide child-like eyes that used to look at the world with curiosity, but now only with bleak contempt at their final resting place on earth.

The Hatch. Year 2565, Mexico City.

It was used as the drop-off point for people struck by the epidemic raging through Mexico; a plague called Insinga. No one made it out of the Hatch alive. And that was kind of the point. Authorities had swept through the cities and gathered everyone cursed with the illness. They had put them in on giant fenced-in, sound-proof, metal-walled prison; where the sick would await their deaths, clawing and screaming, so that no one else would suffer from that insanity.

There was no cure for Insinga. At least no cure before death. After death was a different story. A situation only one man could deal with. This man, if you could even call him a man, was these people's only hope of ever surviving this epidemic.

And it was a good thing Renato was very good at his job. Before 1862, Renato had been a dead man, living in the Land of the Dead. And after Mexico was facing defeat in the Franco-Mexican war, an unlikely thing happened. After hearing tireless prayers from Renato's father -a soldier in the war- that they would become victorious, the Lady of the Dead had decided to send a champion. Someone who hadn't died fairly. Someone who could've been a great hero.

The Lady of the Dead had sent Renato back to earth. But not as a man. Instead, she simply left off his flesh, his muscles, his heart; all that remained was his skeleton. His white bones were beautifully painted, and he wore leather pants with a leather jacket. Beautiful designs were stitched everywhere on the black clothes.

And on his head, he wore a sombrero, with small blue flames flickering on the top. The source of his power. When the Lady of the Dead had put him on earth, he was given one task. Win the war for Mexico by changing their numbers. By the thousands.

Renato himself was not a fighter; he could barely lift up a gun. He knew he wasn't created to destroy, but to make things. Put life back into people who once had it, and in this case, the soldiers. With the flames that glowed blue from his hat, he put life back into dead bodies, and those humans would be born again.They would be healthy and void of injury, resuming from where they had left off as it they had never perished.

Renato loved the feeling of souls being rejuvenated in a body. So cold and barren at first, but then full of breath and joy, with courage once again. In the Franco-Mexican war, Renato had won victory for Mexico, bringing so many soldiers back home.

"Renato the Hero", they called him. "Renato the Reborn".

Renato's duty here had lasted lifetimes, beyond the war, and he would continue serving his people. Multiplying them by the hundreds- healing the sick and injured- bringing back loved ones.

For no one deserved to leave this world with a desire for more.

Renato had been drawn to the Hatch, like a mother to a baby. He needed to be here, and it had been far too long that it had been hidden from his sight. Guarded well by the Dictator of Mexico.

Renato's figure had been shrouded in mystery and turned to legend after his time in the war. For not many people truly believed a walking skeleton man who could bring people back from the dead. Because of this many threatened to lock him up and run tests on him, even though he had shown them what he was capable of.

When the Dictator had made it his goal to capture Renato at all costs, Renato had to flee Mexico, although it pained him greatly. Renato had been gone for awhile from his beloved home since then, but now he was about to set things right. For good.

The plan was simple. Get into the Hatch, save as many as possible, then get the heck out of there before anyone got their hands on him. The dictator would have to set them all free once he realized none of them were sick.

Getting into the Hatch was another thing. It wasn't exactly easy breaking into a high security protected prison made of metal walls. Especially for a skeleton glowing with blue flames.

That's why Renato had obtained a Time Shrouder, a mythical element that could stop time completely. He could stop time and slip in unnoticed. Which is exactly what he did.

Once he had gotten in, the first thing he noticed were the lined up cells, and how they were so much more than he had expected. The griminess of the walls and cell bars was almost revolting. It was so badly taken care of. And why take care of it if everyone's just going to die?

He approached the first body in the first cell. He was able to pick the lock rather easily. A trick he had learned in his time on earth. When he got in, he could tell she was dead from the way her eyes stared and her bones faded in. He pressed a button on the Time Shrouder, and time clicked in place again one millisecond at a time.

As soon as it did, muffled moans creeped in, and then louder and louder as time fell into place, until the sound surrounded him like a swarm of bees.

The body at his feet was mistakenly not dead, but breathing ragged breaths as her skin turned increasingly purple. Her hands looked like wires, and her eyes sunk deep in her head. She didn't seem to notice the skeleton standing above her.

Her face was staring dead-eyed into the long darkness ahead. Her hand clutched over a pendant that had a picture of someone. The last breath escaped her halfway through her chest.

Renato saw with tainted eyes inside his skull how much this woman had seen in her life. How many people had left her. People who couldn't be brought back simply from the dead. People who had left her for her sickness. For how poor she was. For the burdens she carried.

Renato didn't know how he knew this, or why he felt something inside of him; some pull from within that told himself to not bring her back. Somewhere inside his dry skeleton cracked ribs, beat a heart. A metaphorical heart. And from this heart came a sense of pity and sorrow for the woman.

Who was he to bring this woman back only for her to be tortured by the memories of this place and her past? Who was he to put life into this woman only to have her life be spent in loneliness and despair?

Would it just be better to let her heart stay still, her lungs void of air, and her body here to rot, if it meant she was finally at rest from this cruel world?

Who would he be to bring her right back into this world struck by fear and subordination of the Dictatorship of the country she once loved?

And another question to be asked: who was he to bring any of these people back to the smoke-filled hell of Mexico? Where the bottom of the social pyramid groveled at the feet of their masters. Where they broke their backs in labor.

Was it any better out there then it was in here, where you awaited your death? At least you knew you could finally leave....And would that really be so bad?

For the first time in his life Renato didn't bend down to touch the dead body. He didn't fill it with its soul again. Instead he just stared as cold-eyed and dead into a mirrored image of the woman.

He fiddled with the Time Shrouder in his hands, and listened to the moaning and screaming all around him. Hesitation creeped into his thoughts, as he didn't know what to do.

If Renato left the Hatch, all these people would stay here and die, suffering in their last moments.

But if he stayed to heal all the dead bodies, what refuge would they run to in a Hell-bent country?