'The ways of God in Nature, as in Providence, are not our ways; nor are the models that we frame any way commensurate to the vastness, profundity, and unsearchableness of His works, which have a depth in them greater than the well of Democritus' - Joseph Glanville
Would you love me still? If my skin turned grisly, and my eyes were wild? If my nails stretched into claws, and I devoured raw meat? Would love truly pierce my beastly heart; and unravel the man I used to be inside? Hark, for I am changed; no longer a learned and civilised son of Spain, would you love me still?
Even for my most profound nature, you must reconcile that I do not intend to abstract or obfuscate what wonders I will pen. My endeavours, which stretched far and wide across Mexico, began when I uncovered a lead on a 'mysterious beast' in a chance encounter with a mesoamerican man. I inquired, pleaded I dare say, for any more details on such an enigma, but the man only spat at my feet and mumbled curses and prayers till he fell limp and dreary. Alas, my accomplice, a quiet Nahuaian tracker named Itzcoatl, managed to coax more distinct markings on our map as to our bounty.
You see, my profession is that of a marksman, and what strange occurrence brings me to such odd lands is imperative to my story. My insatiable yearning for the thrill of hunting had been exhausted by escapades in France and Spain. And now my own consciousness and pride is pestering me, demanding for a revival in this passion! So I have sought out rumours, and sightings, tales and tracks to unearth what dastardly beasts lay hid from the eyes of the world.
However, I would never anticipate what misfortunes and peculiarities would befall us. Pray tell! You keep sane as you read, for whatever I proceed to recount happened- and I yearn to rid myself of such a curse! Our intrepid venture began smooth, our course being only mildly derailed by buffeting winds. My mind began to slip into boredom and stupor, when our horses began to recoil and act strangely. ItzcoatlThey began acting on their own accord, neglecting our orders to the point of which we had to abandon them. As we disembarked, Iztcoatl unleashed a cry that alerted me to a marvel that lay beneath us. A monstrous sight! For lying askew on the snow, was a cross entirely of bones!
My suspicion that this land was cursed and apart from that of God and men- only intensified by the lack of animals and wilting flora- was searing itself into my brain. There were times even when I started itching, as if something burrowed and squirmed beneath my undercoat. I would gouge the buttons from their seams and rip open my shirt only to find... nothing. One desolate night, I envisioned myself drinking deeply from a black cup of sleep, but I couldn't swallow, and choked and awoke! Such hallucinations made my attitude one of deep doubt, and a deeper exhaustion. So much so that the delirium of gathering, searching, gathering, and searching only drove me to speak heartly to myself outloud. But blame not my soul, blame the woods that poisoned me to cast such foul thoughts. "Hearken! The woods, they cry!" I said, "Pray that you hear them, for they whisper and whisper!" My mind was full of conspiracies and dread, and when I couldn't stomach such despair, I pivoted my heel to scream again at Itzcoatl demanding him to confess. But he ignored me and continued to gaze at something behind me. I feel as though; my mind tricked me, for I saw words slither upon Itzcoatl lips mouthing 'la llorona'.
I turned, and saw what could only be satanic, a sacrifice mercilessly hanging in the shadows, for an ungodly purpose that I could not fathom or discern. Ahead was a gigantic tree, surrounded by a frozen river, and pinned by wayward branches against the trunk, hung a girl in a white dress. We approached awkwardly over the ice, and got a closer inspection on what were long black incisions lacing her pale arms, a foreboding black cavity beneath pumping a unctuous black ooze. Dark tears dripped from her lustreless eyes, blackening the snow as vinegar parts water. I removed my glove and reached forward to touch the wooden fingers that traversed and trapped the girl's body. The texture was unimaginably, deathly cold - icy and clammy and soulless. Señor ayudame!
I yearn that you never have to touch skin so damned than that of this child. It was delicate and pure, but it prickled like knives. Then, as if possessed by the same terror in my mind, the girl's jaw seemed to unhinge itself from her top lip, and released a terrible scream. I stumbled back, slipping pathetically on the ice, watching as the girl's body convulsed. Unfamothable distress that such a vision laid upon my soul. I wished to vex it, to abandon it, and sought to grasp whatever edifying and stimulating ground I could.
Out of my eye's corner, Itzcoal started towards the branches, weiding his machete, but I yanked him back with my full strength. Pitiful fool, we were not savages! I cried. But whatever notion of morality I held in that moment evaporated as quickly as it had surfaced. Now, I blame none who would act as though I did; for I am not mad, and with the same instinct that prompts a man to savagely stamp on the spider he has but half killed, I spun my pistol to the cranium of the girl, and silenced the woods of her suffering. The noise was cut, the gunshot echoing and echoing. Within seconds, after which I supposed the hallucinations had stopped, I was mortified to witness the girl's limp carcass turn even paler than the sheet I write on, and then rot away. Itzcoatl knelt sorrowfully - the visage of a broken and unkempt man - near the ashen remains. Awaken I was! And I profess that everything is with utter truth. But this weight that proceeded, and the sultry feeling that arose with it, allured me to solid ground, on which I crumbled and became sick. Suddenly, a cracking sound emitted from the frozen river.
Itzcoatl, the blessed soul who he is, turned to look back my way and - with air erupting into a maelstrom - the ice fractured apart. He plunged below - began to drown - thrashing manically! Such a startle arrested my body, unable to react nor retreat. But then I saw those eyes - those lustreless wells of panic. I stumble frantically away, afraid of losing the heat that pumped my own heart. I crossed - nay I leaped - back over the embankment, retreating back through the arcanic trees. In time, when the shroud of trees abated, and dull rays of sunlight became to show, I collapsed on the snowy floor. My mind a pondering, wandering, loose bundle of terrors and questions, but the bittersweet notion that I had survived, nestled up into this form of revelation; this reckoning. There was no beast in these woods, only I, and the screams that now haunt me.
