CAMBIAFORMAS Se Hacen Pasar Por Tu Mascota Historias De Terror - REDE

0:05 Mascot since I was a kid. I remember that day we went to the lake. That day I was getting very hot and my family was enjoying the fresh water from the lake. I was with my dog Duke, a dog who was always happy, especially when he played in the water. That day, as we threw his ball at her to catch her Duke suddenly stood still and began to look toward the mountain. I also tried to see what I was looking at, but I didn' t get to notice anything weird. Duke looked nervous and from one moment to the next ran towards the trees barking loudly. I started screaming his name and asked my parents for help finding him.

0:48 I ran after Duke as fast as I could, but he wore flip flops and the soil of the mountain was full of branches and stones. I didn' t last long running, I tripped and fell to the ground. I hit my leg with a stone and couldn' t help but cry. Sitting on the floor, I was frustrated and worried about Duke. The tears were mixed with the dust on my face and as I tried to get up I felt that my leg did not respond well in the distance. He kept listening to Duke' s barking ever further away. My mom came running to see if I' d been hurt a lot. While she looked at me and calmed me down, my dad kept looking for Duke through the bush.

1:33 It was a long time before my dad came back and, to my sadness, he came back alone. Duke didn' t show up. We didn ' t find him that day or the next. It was simply lost and there was nothing else we could do at home. We had always thought that having a dog was not only for company, but also for safety. A dog at home is a good protection. No matter what security measures one has like a gate or a high fence. A good dog will always help keep the house safer. After losing Duke, my parents decided we should have another dog. We adopt a bitch we call Princess. She came to our house and although I always missed Duke, Princess, she became a very important part of our family. She was a good and loyal bitch, and with her at home we felt that security that Duke had given us again. Personally.

2:35 I never felt completely at ease with Princess was different and the situation of how she came to our house always made me see her differently. Princess had a strong character and was loyal. He never fully earned my trust, as Duke had done. Sometimes when we walked around the park or played in the backyard, I watched his behavior, always alert and sometimes too aggressive with other dogs. This made me miss Duke even more, who was always playful and friendly to everyone. It had been more than a year since Duke had been lost.

3:15 I remember one particular day it was rainy and I was reading in the middle of my reading. I heard a bark I didn' t recognize. It was deep and resounding and made me stop reading right away. At first I thought I was hallucinating, perhaps wishing Duke would come back so much that my mind was playing a joke on me. The bark didn' t stop. I put the book aside and stood up to look out the window. Princess was at my side as alert as I was, with her ears raised well and her body tense outside the rain. He had left large puddles in the garden and the sky looked darker than normal. I made the decision to open the back door arbe to better understand what was happening. Princess did not wait, ran out into the garden, barking in the direction of the mountain surrounding our house. I kept trying not to let myself be carried away by illusions. My heart was beating as hard as that day when the duke disappeared.

4:19 It was wet and slippery because of the recent rain. As he advanced carefully trying not to fall princess, he kept barking at the shadows that moved between the trees on the edge of the mountain. I came closer to see better and suddenly in the dark I distinguished a familiar figure. It was a big wet dog covered in mud that hid the glow of his fur. I stared at him, almost breathless. Couldn' t be, but he was a duke with his heart. Beating fast, I ran towards him. Despite the mud that made every step difficult, Duke looked up and when he saw me his tail began to move slowly. He was skinny and looked tired, but it was undoubtedly he hugged him, feeling his fur cold and wet against me and he rolled up in my chest as if looking for heat. Together with me and Duke and Princess, following us back to the house, my parents couldn' t believe what they saw when we walked through the door.

5:26 We' re all so excited. There were tears and laughter as we hugged Duke, who seemed as relieved as we were to be back home. Of course he would need enough care to recover completely, but that did not matter at that time Duke had returned. The day after Duke returned home, we decided to take him to the usual vet to make sure he was okay. After so much time lost, we arrived at the office and the veterinarian and began to examine Duke carefully, checking every part of his body, looking at his eyes and ears and feeling his abdomen. While checking, the veterinarian commented that there was something different about Duque, something that had changed since the last time he had seen him. I didn' t understand what he meant exactly.

6:21 The vet kept showing concern. He explained to me that the distinctive stain of duke, the one that was patch- shaped and had always been his most characteristic sign, seemed to have changed places. I was standing aside and I couldn' t see what the vet was saying. Then I moved a little to get a better view. Right next to the examination area there was a large mirror that covered almost the entire wall I looked towards the mirror to see more of Duke' s reflection and there I could clearly see the Spot on his right eye, just where he had always gone. I was relieved to see you there, thinking maybe the vet was wrong. I pointed this out to the vet by showing him the reflection in the mirror, but what he said later left me bewildered. He explained how reflexes work in a mirror, saying that if you raise your right hand, the reflection shows you lift your left. If in the reflection the Taint seemed to be on the Duke ' s right side, actually, in his body the Taint was on the left side. When I heard the vet talk about the change in duke, at first I thought it wasn' t important. It seemed so strange to me that I decided not to worry too much about it. I kept thinking it might be a mistake or something I didn' t quite understand. But when I got home and passed through the big mirror we had in the living

7:54 room, I remembered what the vet had said. I instinctively stopped in front of the mirror and Duke, who always follows me everywhere, also stood beside me. Looking at us in the mirror, something made me feel strange. It was true what the veterinarian La Mancha had mentioned in the form of a patch that Duque had always had in one eye, now it was in the other. But what really puzzled me was not just the change of the La Mancha side. I knew Duke perfectly, I knew every detail of his fur and at that moment, seeing our reflection, I noticed that the patterns of his fur were completely inverted, not only in the reflection, but really in his body everything was the other way around. I stared at the reflection for a while, trying to understand what I was seeing. Duke seemed to notice my confusion and, for some reason, turned away from the mirror as if he did not want me to keep watching him like this. From that day on I began to notice changes in Duke' s behavior that worried me.

9:03 Duke had always been a very safe and quite dominant dog, but his behavior began to change, especially in how he treated Princess. Princess as I mentioned before, was a very brave bitch and never let herself be intimidated by anyone. After that incident in the mirror, she began acting differently when she was near Duke. It wasn' t just my impression. My parents noticed it, too. Duke was more aggressive and dominant towards Princess, something that had never happened before. Princess, for her part, seemed to be afraid of you now. Before she was not afraid to face him, but now her behavior had changed completely. This became evident in the way Princess barked at Duke.

9:54 Before his barking was strong and safe, but now there was a tone of panic and fear in his voice. Every time she barked at him it was like she was scared or confused. It made no sense and left me thinking about what might be going on. My dad, noticing my concern, tried to calm me down by suggesting that perhaps the change in Princess' behavior was because Duke had returned from the bush with smells of other animals and that had altered her. But this explanation did not convince me at all. If that were the case, Princess would have shown fear or nervousness from the moment Duke returned. But it wasn' t like that. She started to behave differently. Days after Duke arrived. With the passing of days, things became even more strange and difficult to understand. Duke, who had always been a cheerful and playful dog, had changed drastically, no longer responded in the same way When ur interacted. He always moved his tail excited whenever I approached him or offered him food. Now his behavior was completely different. When I spoke to him, he stood still, staring at me as if he were assessing the situation or not recognizing me. Only when I walked away would he slowly approach his plate to start eating this change at Duke I was worried and confused

11:26 and the strange did not stay there. Normally, the dogs on our street are calm and only get upset if something unusual happens, like the sound of a siren or some loud noise at night. But that night the noise was different. All the dogs barked as if they were seeing or feeling something that disturbed them very much I woke up startled by the noise was so loud and constant that I had difficulty understanding what was happening. At first I thought maybe some wild animal had entered the area, which was not common, but I could pass by looking out the window into the backyard. What I saw had nothing to do with an external animal, but with something much more disturbing among my own dogs. Princess was in a corner of the courtyard completely bent down, her ears glued to her body and tail between her legs. It was an image of fear and submission that I had rarely seen in her. In front of her was duke with a totally different posture than usual. I wasn ' t relaxed or playful. On the contrary, he showed a dominant and threatening attitude. It seemed much bigger than normal because of how he had the hair on his back curled to see this scene. It left me icy, not only because of the unusual behavior of Duke, but also because there seemed

12:58 to be an intense clarity in his posture. It was as if he was warning Princess to understand that she should stay away or something bad could happen to her was an attitude she had never seen in him, not even when she played abruptly with other dogs. Without thinking too much, I ran into my parents' room, hit the door hard and told them that something weird was going on outside with the dogs. After I told them that, I waited no longer and headed straight for the courtyard. The atmosphere was loaded with tension. Duke was acting in a way he had never seen before, with a threatening posture toward Princess who was clearly frightened and cornered in a corner of the courtyard. I yelled at Duke trying to get him to leave Princess alone, but he didn' t seem to listen to me or not want to listen.

13:54 He continued his aggressive behavior, completely ignoring my calls. At that moment, my dad showed up in the yard and seeing the situation was also quickly alarmed. My dad pulled something out of his pocket. It was a whistle that, when I used it, I couldn' t hear any sound, but Duke clearly did. Duke' s reaction was immediate. He shook like he was upset or hurt by the sound. That distracted Duke enough for Princess to take advantage of to escape his cornering and run to the safety of the house. The events of that night took place in just a few minutes.

14:37 Duke' s reaction to the whistle and his previous behavior made me realize that the dog who had returned from the mountain was not the same Duke we knew. Something about him had changed profoundly and it was as if a completely different dog had taken its place already calmer and inside the house. I asked my dad about the whistle he had used. He explained to me that, aware that Duke had been alone in the mountain for a long time, he had bought that special whistle thinking it might be useful. My dad had the theory that Duke, having had to survive alone in the bush, had become more aggressive, possibly as a mechanism to defend himself against other animals. This aggressiveness now made him dangerous in a domestic environment, something very different from what Duque was used to before he got lost. My dad suggested that perhaps part of the problem was that Duque was no longer used to living in the home and that possibly allowing him to come in and out at his whim could help him adapt to our home again and reduce his aggressive behavior. My dad' s idea seemed reasonable to me and we decided to try it in the hope that it would help Duke calm down and adjust back to life with us, allowing him to feel freer. Until that time I had not shared with my parents

16:10 the strange and worrying detail about Duke' s inverted fur. The situation was already quite complicated and stressful, and I did not want to add any more concern to what we were already facing with their aggressive behavior. From the next day we decided to leave the gate open so that Duke could enter and leave freely. We thought that allowing him more freedom could help him adjust and perhaps calm his aggressive behavior. Princess, for her part, was a strong and brave bitch, capable of defending our home, which gave us some peace of mind about security. Far from calming down, the situation with Duque became increasingly strange. Every time we let him go out into the bush to do his needs. He came back with his snout stained with a pink white color.

17:03 We did not know what caused these stains, but they clearly indicated that something unusual was happening in the bush. Moreover, her relationship with Princess showed no signs of improvement. Every time Duke approached her, Princess reacted with fear and ran to me looking for protection. It was obvious that something was very wrong with Duque and my parents and I were worried. We knew they were considering getting rid of him. They were resisting that decision because they knew how much it meant to me. One day, while walking with Princess in our neighborhood, our neighbor approached. His expression was serious and somewhat worried. He asked me if everything was all right, which surprised me and left me speechless.

17:53 For a moment I wasn' t used to having neighbors get so directly involved in our family issues. He went on to say that if at any time he needed help with my dog, he would not hesitate to stop it later with a gentle but worried gesture, said goodbye and went home. When I returned home, after talking to the neighbor, my mother asked me to accompany her to the butcher shop. The reason was that my dad had the suspicion that duke was hunting wild animals probably small, which would explain why he was coming home with the pink- white snout. My dad thought if we gave Duque traces of meat they sometimes sell in butcher shops to feed the dogs.

18:41 He could stop hunting because he would have at home the kind of food he liked. We went to the butcher shop to get those meat scraps. I didn' t remember their names at the time. We also decided to make some other purchases taking advantage of the trip of After having made all the purchases, we returned home. Just as we parked the car in front of the house, we heard painful complaints that clearly came from Princess. When I opened the door to the house, the stage I found was heartbreaking and overcame any fear I would have had. Princess was hiding under the kitchen table, trembling and with one of her legs bleeding intensely. It was obvious that she was seriously injured. Luckily, she was still alive. On the other hand, Duque was curled up on the carpet with his snout stained red, indicating that he had been involved in some way in what had happened to him. Princess, my mother, who had followed me to the house, came right behind me. Seeing the situation, his reaction was immediately angry at Duke. While she took care of the duke, I quickly approached Princess. I picked her up carefully, trying not to cause her any more pain, and I quickly took her to the car to take her to the vet. At that moment, my mother, moved by anger and the desire to protect Princess, ran

20:14 for a belt. He took the belt in such a way that the buckle remained in front and prepared to throw it against Duke with the clear intention of hitting him on the snout as punishment for his aggression. What happened next was completely unexpected and left us all in shock. Duke, with an agility and precision I had never seen him before, caught the belt buckle with his teeth just as my mother tried to hit him. Not only did he avoid the impact, but also, with a quick pull, he took my mother' s belt out of her hands. Right away. Duke ran out of the house, disappearing in the street with his belt still in his mouth. The incident left us completely shocked, but there was no time. We had to take Princess quickly. I told my mother and she reacted. We left While Princess was receiving attention, we had to explain to the veterinarian everything that had happened with Duke. When we heard the details, the veterinarian presented us with a drastic option. I could sleep Duke to avoid future incidents, warning us that the next attack could be on even one person. That possibility left us very concerned, but we decided that we needed to discuss it with my dad before making such a final decision. The veterinarian also recommended that Princess stay under

21:45 his care for a few days so that he can monitor his wound properly. With a heavy heart, my mother and I returned home without a princess, feeling her absence every second of the way back. When we got home, we noticed Duke' s absence. He had probably gone to the bush. Recalling my neighbor’ s words about offering help, I decided to go look for him to tell him what happened and seek his advice. I went to his house and knocked several times on the door, and after a moment, he opened. I quickly explained to him the recent events and with a serious gesture, he mentioned that he feared something like this could happen. Intrigued by his comment, I asked him exactly what the neighbor meant. Then he shared a personal and disturbing story. He told me that, before my family and I moved into the neighborhood, he lived in his house with his own family and a dog. Like Duke, his dog had been lost and returned a year later with a very altered behavior. He didn' t eat croquettes and started hunting small animals. The situation escalated to a tragic point when one day, on returning from work, he found his wife wounded, just as his son and the dog snarled a little away from them with all the blood on his snout. In a desperate act, the neighbor had to kill the dog with a machete to stop it. The rawness of history struck me deeply.

23:19 Then the neighbor who said that in the depths of the mountain lived something one thing. He couldn' t explain to me what he meant, but he told me that what he lived in the bush had changed his dog and now he had changed mine too. I asked him what he meant by that change. The neighbor explained that when his dog had returned after being lost for a year, his fur was upside down. He told me that he had noticed that detail from day one, but had decided to ignore it, as his son was happy to have the dog back. According to him, something would have been done. From the beginning, his family would not have suffered severe damage from that dog' s attack. His gaze became intense and worried as he warned me to kill Duke before I could harm someone in my family.

24:15 The suggestion was alarming and left me quite nervous. I confessed I wasn' t sure I could do something like that. The neighbor left me there for a couple of seconds and when he came back, he handed me a gun. He told me that as soon as I saw the dog, I had to shoot him that if I didn' t, my family could die. After the neighbor handed me the gun, I was paralyzed for a moment, holding an object that I had never thought would be in my hands. He told me to use it to protect my family. The idea of firing a gun was completely frightening to me. The gravity of his words and the fear of what might happen if he didn' t act moved me to carry the gun with me. I hid it inside my pants feeling its weight against my hip as I walked back home. Time seemed to pass very slowly that afternoon, my father arrived from work and worried asked about Duque, who had not appeared. Since we returned from the vet, we told him everything that had happened, including Duke' s strange behavior and the neighbor' s stern warnings.

25:32 Finally, at nightfall, Duke appeared. My mother was out taking out the trash. When all of a sudden he screamed for help. My father and I ran out and found a scary scene. Duke was about six meters away from my mother in a clearly threatening posture. He showed him his fangs and had his fur erect, which made him look even bigger and or threatening. Most disturbing of all was his eyes that, for some reason, were completely red, as if the pupils had vanished without thinking about what he was doing. I reacted instinctively to the danger that represented Duke. For my mother I took out the gun the neighbor had given me and with trembling hands, I handed it to my father. He asked me where I got that.

26:26 I replied that it didn' t matter, that I had to kill Duke. Dad pointed and shot Duque in one leg. The dog did not react as we expected, there was no squealing of pain or complaining. It was as if I hadn' t felt the impact of the bullet. He just looked back at my father and threw a bark at him that sounded more like a strange grunt than any sound a dog should make, seeing that the first shot had not had the desired effect, my father shot again this time to another leg. It was then that things became even more strange and terrifying.

27:08 Duke began to convulse violently and while he was doing so, pieces of his fur and flesh seemed to be detached from his body. What we were seeing was something that challenged all natural logic and understanding. It was clear that what we had in front of us was not just a dog. I didn' t know if what we saw was a gual or a creature of legend, but it was definitely not an ordinary dog. With the situation, escaping from any frame of normalcy, my father fired again. But this time duke incredibly dodged the bullet. He made an abnormally agile move for an animal, especially one that had already been wounded on two of its legs. After that failed shot, Duque didn' t stay to face the danger my father posed with the gun anymore, he started running. My father, determined to put an end to the threat he posed to our family, ran after him with his gun still in hand. Concerned about both the creature and my father' s safety, I ran behind him trying to keep pace and be ready for anything that might happen. My mother stayed behind at home, trembling with fear over what was happening in the pursuit. My father tried a fourth shot, but failed. While Duke was running toward the mountain, my father managed to hit

28:41 a fifth shot. The sound of the dog squealing confirmed that the bullet had hit. It was difficult to know exactly where, as he ran, he was still stripped of fur and pieces of meat. The creature, who once was a duke, emitted sounds of pain and followed his frantic background into the mountain. I thought my father would stop at the edge of the mountain, but to my surprise, the chase continued into the darkness of the trees. As we moved forward, I was a little behind. My breathing became heavier and the fear increased with every step we took in that unknown and gloomy place.

29:23 I heard a sixth shot, but apparently it didn' t hit the creature. Finally, my father stopped and with effort I managed to reach him. For a moment I thought that Duke had fallen dead and that that was the reason my father had stopped, but as I approached and saw what was before us, I understood the real reason why he stopped what lay in front of us on the ground was no longer recognizable as the dog we knew. It didn' t even look like an animal. It was shaped like a per- zone, with head, arms, and legs, but it was completely black and its eyes shone with a disquieting light in the dark. It was something that resembled a person, but clearly it wasn' t and definitely wasn' t an animal. The creature was wounded lying on the ground, but still looked directly at us with a look that communicated a clear intention to harm us. My father pointed directly at the head of the creature and pulled the trigger, but no bullet came out the gun was no longer in ammunition.

30:40 He dropped the gun on the ground. Being snarled us weakly. Then he began to move away, crawling slowly among the trees of the mountain. My father and I, without words, turned around and returned home, carrying with us the weight of the inexplicable and praying it that we had experienced when we arrived home. The silence between us was deep. We didn' t know how to explain to my mother what we had seen. Words simply could not describe the horror and confusion of that night. We didn' t tell him anything. The next day, my father put the house up for sale and we got the hell out of there. During the next week, the issue of the weapon obviously arose and I had to explain to him that the neighbor had given it to me. Of course my father was upset at first, but in the end he understood that, had it not been for that weapon, duke would most likely have killed the three of us the grove.

31:52 My grandparents before I was born left Mexico and moved to the United States hoping to find better living conditions. They were not alone in this adventure, as they took their children with them, one of them my dad I was already born in the United States. I was a citizen of that country. The life we knew suddenly changed when a person for reasons we never knew. He decided to inform the authorities about the irregular situation of my parents in the United States. It didn' t take long for immigration agents to get to our house and take my parents. That event completely altered our life. As a result, my whole family had to return to Mexico and we stayed there for twelve years. The return to Mexico was complicated for my parents. They faced many adversities and difficulties in reintegrating into life in a country they had left years ago. Despite the few opportunities available, my parents always looked for the best for me. After much deliberation, they decided to send me back to America to live with my grandparents. As I crossed the border and arrived at my grandparents' house, I realized that I would not be alone in this new chapter of my life. My grandparents had taken in a girl named Romina who was my age. They had adopted her to fill the void left by their

33:22 children and grandchildren. Being far away, Romina and I quickly developed a friendship almost as if we were really brothers. As time passed, I adapted to my life in America. I also became fascinated by everything related to the stories and legends of Mexico that my parents and grandparents used to tell me. One afternoon, while chatting with my grandparents, I mentioned to the nahual a mythical creature from Mexico that is believed to be animal- like. My grandfather, hearing this, smiled and told me that there were no Nahuales, but that there was a similar creature called The Grove. My grandfather explained that Grove was like a werewolf, but that its transformations were much more unstable and unpredictable than those of ordinary werewolves. He told me that these transformations were dangerous and could end in various ways. One of them was tragic, as the person could lose his life in the attempt to change because his body and mind did not resist the transformation. Another possibility was that the person would become a worf bar a wild and uncontrolled being, capable of hurting others for being lost in its beastly form. The last way was to become a complete grove, capable of

34:52 changing shape at will This was also not safe and always carried risks. This story caught my attention because these creatures were not identical to the Nahuales of Mexico, who also had the ability to change form shared the same basic idea of human beings who, for different reasons, had acquired the ability to transform themselves into other entities. Two years after learning these stories about changing creatures, our life faced a difficult time when my grandfather was diagnosed with lung cancer. At that time, my parents had already returned to the United States again without legal documents. My grandfather had been a central figure in my life, especially after our return to America, and his illness was a severe blow to everyone.

35:47 My grandfather' s condition quickly deteriorated. Doctors did their best to help, but their health continued to worsen every day. Despite his grave condition, my grandfather continued to smoke. He seemed to have resigned himself to his destiny and decided to face his situation in his own way, without leaving the cigarette romina that to me was like a sister. She felt very sad. For all this, every time I saw our grandfather so weak and sick, I couldn ' t help but cry. In those days, when I could barely get out of bed, my grandfather kept telling us stories and giving us warnings.

36:28 He told us that the grove really existed and that it was only shown in very special moments and under very particular conditions. One day near the end he asked us to approach the window of his room. Outside everything looked very nice, because it was autumn and the sun was all golden. The lake nearby shone calmly and in the sky there was a large rainbow that seemed to reach the other side of the world. My grandfather told us that kind of afternoon was perfect to see the grove. I didn' t know whether to believe him or not I thought maybe medicine and illness made him say things that weren ' t true. That night, as the noise of my parents' little fights filled the house and I tried to think of other things not to listen to them, something happened that changed everything for our family. My grandfather, who had been ill for a long time died before dying had said with a quiet smile that an Iris bow would illuminate his way to heaven and surprisingly, that very evening, an Iris bow had gone out into the sky just as he had said Romina and I, still very sad and moved, felt a mixture of peace and pain to see how he had died so calmly. After my grandfather left the calm of the place, it broke with gossip and stories of an attack, of a very ugly bad girl near where we lived that

38:00 bad day. Some who were out on a field trip got lost in the bush. Later, those looking for them found only their phones and pieces of bones scattered everywhere. They said a bear had been the one that attacked Romina and I couldn' t help thinking that the grove, that creature our grandfather had talked about so much, had to do with it. Romina was very scared and surprised and I was scared too. I was trying not to show it and be strong. The next summer I decided to go back to the cabin where our grandparents lived. It was a place full of memories and feelings.

38:45 Romina who had just finished high school and was about to start studying veterinary. Thanks to some money our grandfather had left her, she took her boyfriend Carlos one morning with a climate that seemed good. Romina and Carlos went for a walk in Canoa, but suddenly the weather changed a lot. The sky got weird and a rainbow appeared. That made me remember what my grandfather always said about when it was the perfect time for the grove to show up. The hours passed and there were no signs of Romina and Carlos. We started to worry a lot. My parents, very frightened, called the police and started looking for them everywhere. After several hours, they found the things of Romina and Carlos on a lonely beach in the lake. There were also traces of blood that made us think the worst And yes, the bodies of Romina and her boyfriend appeared lifeless. They had been brutally attacked by some huge wild animal that could not be identified. My mother was devastated. I had promised the late grandfather that keeping her safe my mother, overcome by pain, went with one of her sisters to take some time out of that place. I was left alone with my dad, who was also trying to understand and accept everything bad that had happened to us. That summer was the hardest one of

40:17 my life. I quit school and got a welder' s job. Not long after I met Saraí, we fell in love, we got married, and we had a daughter that we decided to call Lily. She quickly became the center of all our happiness. In spite of that, the memories of my past were always present there as shadows lurking from the darkest corners of my memory. Over the years and looking for a respite and a new page in our lives. We decided as a family, to take a vacation. I chose a cabin that I had arranged myself, thinking that moving away from our usual surroundings and those old memories could be a good start to leaving behind the tragedies that had marked my existence. This trip represented an opportunity to start again in a renovated place. Lilly, who had turned twelve, was very excited about the idea of vacation, especially because she would bring her two best friends, who were twins. Everything seemed to be ready for this holiday to be perfect. During one of the mornings at the cabin, I decided to take Lily fishing to the dock. It was one of those special occasions, a quiet and happy moment between father and daughter. Meanwhile, Saray stayed in the cabin preparing burgers on the grill. At one point, she worried and asked

41:50 about Lily' s friends. I replied that I had seen them just a few minutes ago with Lilly, but when I looked over there I wasn' t just. We assumed that they had gone to play elsewhere, but suddenly the sky that was clear began to get dark. A big thunder rang in the distance, a gentle rain began to fall. Just at that moment I felt a great fear, a fear that reminded me of my grandfather' s stories, stories of a monster that appeared at just moments like this. The grove. At that time, with a quick look, I looked for my wife and my daughter there they were safe, but the ones that weren' t there were my daughter' s friends. I dimly looked in every direction, but I hadn' t found them. I looked at my watch anxiously, noting that it had been almost an hour since I saw them For the last time moved by a concern for the girls, I took my phone and called the security of the place, asking them to come and help find the twins. As the situation was alarming, they sent a security man named Edgar.

43:08 It came with a rifle, which surprised me, but at the same time it reassured me a little because anything had a way of acting by protocol. Edgar had to check the area I had already checked. Obviously, there was nothing. Then we started to get into the Boscosa area. We move in silence, focused on finding any trace of the twins. When, suddenly, a loud roar from a few meters ahead interrupted our thoughts. He told me that he knew that roar, that his grandfather had told him of a monster changes ways that he used to attack those who knew of his existence.

43:52 I, almost automatically, asked him if he meant the grove. Edgar turned to see me and said yes. As we kept moving fast, he asked me if I knew how to shoot. I said I knew, but I didn' t have permission. He pulled out a short gun and gave it to me. We both needed to be armed as much as we were looking for. We didn' t find anything in that. Edgar suddenly stood there lying between the stones was lying the backpack of one of the blood- stained twins. Next door I saw his shoes that were broken and badly damaged.

44:34 At that moment the storm broke loose with force. Edgar, who looked very worried, told me it was time to get out of there that with the storm on top we weren' t going to find anything. Besides, that was there the backpack and the slippers indicated that at least one was already dead. I told him we couldn' t just leave on that. He took his radio and warned about it and asked for support, to which he was told that it was not feasible to send support, that the storm was electrical and that the area where we were always suffered lightning impacts. It was too risky. They also told him that we should return, that as long as the storm followed, there was nothing more to do. There was nothing left but to return. When we were back, there was already the police, the ambulance and the parents of the twins. They all came close to us.

45:35 I wanted to talk, but Edgar came forward and said that we had a trail, but that it began to erase with the rain that as soon as it stopped, we would all go back from where we had stayed in the rain. I went to see my wife and daughter. She was obviously crying, very worried and frightened by her friends. I tried to transport her in less than an hour, the sky began to clear and then Edgar I the other safety of the place volunteers, the parents of the twins and the police among all we went to look for Edgar and I went to the front, we walked straight to where we had found. The backpack and slippers were still there. From that point on, the police took control of the situation and divided us into groups of two and told us in which direction to go looking. Edgar and I went in such a direction and about forty minutes after walking suddenly and without warning, something big hit me in the back. The blow was so strong that it fell to the ground, but six meters from where I was literally pushed I literally flew out, so Edgar fired four shots at what he had pushed me, I got up to see and what I saw wasn' t a monster, but it wasn' t a person either.

47:02 It was an intermediate point. The monster was becoming a person as he bled out by the time everyone who heard the shots arrived, the group was already just a naked person, lifeless, lying between the stones. It was clear to everyone that this man was responsible. I say what would you think if two girls disappear and in the middle of nowhere meet a naked man with blood between his fingernails. After a while, the paramedics arrived by the body and took him to the ambulance. Everyone else continued the search until one of the cops found the twins. They were dead with nothing else to do.

47:47 We' re back now to go home, but I noticed the ambulance guys were bringing something. They were weird. I came up to ask them what was going on and they told me that the body of the man they had put in the back of the ambulance had disappeared. The body was gone. The ambulance doors had not been opened from within or from outside. The corpse of that man of the person who was the grove had simply disappeared. It wasn' t an animal. He lived in an old five- story building that was located in a fairly quiet part of the city. Each of the apartments of the building was small designed to be inhabited by at most one or two people were compact spaces that contained the essentials to live comfortably without too much complications. Mine was located on the top floor, which placed me just below the roof this location had a large window. I had no neighbors directly above me, as there were no noises of steps or furniture crawling around that could bother me. The general atmosphere of the building was quiet. He was not exempt from the typical sounds one would expect. Any place where several people live

49:17 together from time to time you could hear a baby crying. There was also the sound of a neighbor’ s television, whose volume sometimes rose high enough to allow him to hear it. From my apartment and could not miss the steps of the people who, in haste did not climb down the stairs of the building. These sounds were part of daily life and the walls were not too thick and allowed these noises to leak. I' d gotten used to them. As for the neighbors, most of us were working people who had similar routines. We would leave our homes early and return either late or late in the evening or late at night. This shared routine also helped to make the atmosphere in the building generally quiet during the day, as most of us were out for work. The neighborhood around our building also reflected this tranquility.

50:19 Dogs living nearby used to be calm and there wasn' t much traffic on our street, which kept the outside noise level to a minimum. I' ve always had the light sleep. Any noise wakes me up and that night was no exception. The dogs on the block were restless, they kept barking a fuss, it was already around three o' clock in the morning and the situation showed no signs of calm. I decided I couldn' t keep trying to sleep without doing something about it. Moved by the need to understand what caused such a stir. I got up from the bed, walked into the window wave of my room and looked up with the only intention of finding out what was altering the dogs so much in my mind I thought of several possibilities. Maybe a thief surrounded my property, or maybe some animal. Streetman was looking for food in garbage cans with silent steps so he wouldn' t wake up the other neighbors. I climbed the stairs leading to the roof of the building. The night was quiet, with the exception of the barking that kept ringing insistently. When I got to the roof I headed straight to the edge. From that height, the street was clearly bathed in the orange light of the lanterns. I leaned on the railing. The dogs distributed along the street seemed to focus all their attention on a specific point in the middle of

51:52 the street. Some were standing with their bodies tense and their ears raised. Others moved restless from one neo to the other. Everyone, without exception, directed their barking towards that central point, as if something or someone invisible to me from my position was there. I spent several minutes watching, trying to see any movement or figure that could explain the agitation of the animals. Then I saw him. The reason the dogs were so brave and staring in the middle of the street was because there was something there, a figure that captured the attention of both dogs and mine, something that really challenged any logic.

52:38 The silhouette was unusually high, so much so that I had not initially noticed it, because it was mixed with the darkness of the night. It was so dark that, if it weren' t because at one point it passed near the light of a lantern, it probably would never have seen it, but there it was moving slowly under the street lamps and with every step it took under the light more details of its strange form were revealed. This figure seemed neither animal nor human. His body was composed of a dark matter that, more than solid, looked like a coagulated shadow. As his silhouette moved, he became more clearly delineated under the intermittent lighting of the lampposts. From my elevated position on the roof I observed that the head of this figure had no facial characteristics. The contour of his head was smooth, with no sign of eyes, nose, or mouth, as if it were simply a head - shaped void, an absence of features that gave him an even more disturbing appearance. The most disturbing thing was his arms, if so they could be called hanging on the sides of his body unnaturally, the la and disproportionate compared to the rest of his form. These arms almost brushed the ground as it moved and ended up in what seemed to be long, thin limbs similar to

54:15 twisted branches of a tree rather than human hands. The dogs, completely mad, kept barking with an intensity that echoed throughout the block. I stood still on the roof watching fear begin to take hold of my senses. The curiosity was stronger and I kept my eyes fixed to my place. In that strange figure moving slowly down the street, every dog near her barked with all her might, but as soon as the creature got away enough. The barking was abruptly extinguished. Every step he took to the other end of the street seemed to be accompanied by a gradual decrease in barking behind it. After what seemed like hours, it was actually only a few minutes. The figure finally disappeared from my sight. He hid himself in the darkness of the night. When I lost sight of her, I noticed how the dogs gradually stopped barking and everything on the street returned to calm as if nothing had happened. Despite the silence that now reigned, I could not sleep the rest of the night.

55:30 I stayed awake thinking about what I had seen, trying to make sense of something that was clearly beyond my comprehension. The image of the dark figure moving silently under the light of the lampposts. It remained in my mind. That morning when I signed up to go to work. It was the same time that many of my neighbors were also leaving their homes. It has never been my intention to listen to other people' s conversations. Concerned voices and hasty comments They were hard to ignore phrases like it was huge and didn' t seem human. They knew something was wrong. It was evident that I was not the only one who had seen the creature. One of my neighbors, with a look of astonishment still visible on his face, commented I saw how he passed right under my window. Another addition did not seem real rather like a shadow or a trick of light, but it was there. I cannot deny it two months later, the tranquility of our neighborhood was abruptly interrupted again that night, under a clear and starry sky, the same feeling of restlessness took over the block again. Dogs began barking again as sudden and frantic as the first time. Sa ba s s s n two of my apartment and

57:00 I met other neighbors in the hallway driving to the stairs. We didn' t have to say much. We' re heading towards the ladder. When we got to the roof we all rushed to the edge, but what we saw that night was completely different. Instead of the gloomy creature we expected, there was a person walking under the same lantern where the dark figure had been seen before. He was someone who seemed completely normal, an ordinary person walking quietly down the street. The bewilderment took over all of us. As we watched from our high perspective, the person showed none of the unusual characteristics of the creature we had seen before. The dogs on the street reacted exactly the same way, barking loudly as if they sensed something we couldn' t see.

57:58 Suddenly, one of the neighbors next to me murmured the nahual word. Right after that murmur, the figure on the street stopped. It was too far away for us to see his eyes or any facial expression clearly, but the way he slowly turned towards our direction was enough to leave us frozen. At that brief moment when his body was oriented toward us, it made us feel like he was really seeing us. Despite the distance, he was detained looking at us for less than five seconds. Then he resumed his walk, slowly moving away until his figure dissolved in the darkness of the night. As soon as the figure moved away completely, the dogs stopped barking us even on the roof. We stared at the void of the street in silence. We had actually witnessed the manifestation of a nahual I do not know. I haven ' t finished believing it since that happened. It' s been several years and every now and then the issue comes up among the neighbors, especially in the inns or when someone throws a party. Several of the neighbors are convinced that what we saw was still nahual, the first time in its monster form and the second time in its human form. Every time they mention it, I try to get them against it,' cause I' m really not

59:30 sure that was a hua. But the argument that they always give me is that when that neighbor mentioned that word, the person stopped immediately and saw us again. That is, according to them, the irrefutable proof that what we saw was a nahual, the nahual of the school. Upon arriving at that community, which was in an ur area where all the surroundings were pure mountain, I was excited and a little nervous about starting my first job as a primary school teacher. They sent me to that place because the Community had been without a teacher for several months. Upon arrival I was greeted by the local people, who showed a warmth and hospitality that made me feel welcome immediately.

1:00:22 During the trip and the previous days I had been looking for some rental room where I could stay, but last minute the rector informed me that I could use the house where the previous teacher had been living. When I arrived at the house, the first thing I noticed was his state of abandonment. The Community had made efforts to clean it up. The atmosphere inside the house was strangely oppressive. Despite the effort to make the place habitable, there was a sense of loneliness and desolation that I had difficulty ignoring. That first day I went to unpack and accommodate some things to make the space more personal. It was a long, tired day. The first days as a teacher in that community went through the normality that can be expected at any beginning of the school cycle, but there was something that was deeply disconcerting to me. Some children looked at me and told me a word I didn' t understand. It wasn' t until a family mother scolded her son for telling me that I discovered that the word meant demon. This left me quite confused and concerned, without understanding why the children associated me with such a term. As the days passed, the community began to open up more with me and it was in one of those afternoons that a lady brought me food and while we were eating, we began to talk about various things about life in the Community. In

1:01:53 the midst of our conversation arose a history of the past that left me pensive. He told me about an incident in the 1960’ s when a priest had come to bless the school. The teachers of that time had reported appearances of strange shadows and phenomena and, curiously, after the priest' s blessing, one of the classrooms had mysteriously burned down during the morning. After that talk, the lady said goodbye and I was left alone thinking about what she had told me. To distract me from those somewhat disturbing thoughts, I decided to focus on preparing material and planning for the next day. That very morning, while I was asleep, a disturbing incident abruptly interrupted my rest. I woke up startled by heavy knocks on the window. I thought it might be someone making a joke or maybe needing help, but when I got up and looked there was no one out there act. Then I walked up to the window to see better what was happening and through the glass I saw a shadow moving quickly across the school court. This is because the house where I was staying was literally next to the school and the school didn' t have a fence. That' s why I had a view of the school court.

1:03:22 The shadow disappeared in the darkness of the night as quickly as it had appeared with the heart, beating a thousand and a deep feeling of fear I decided to close the curtain and walk away from the window. I looked at the clock and dialed one in the morning, trying to calm my nerves and go back to sleep. I put on my hearing aids and selected music on my player, hoping that the sounds would help distract me from the restlessness I felt. Finally, after a while, I managed to fall asleep again the feeling of restlessness. I' m not sure she left it at all. The next morning I woke up when I heard desperate screams from a lady asking for help. The community quickly approached and I did not approach I immediately found out that a tragic accident had occurred. A little boy had fallen on a nearby wheelhouse and drowned. This event plunged the Community into deep sadness and for reasons that it did not understand. I noticed that people began to show themselves distant with me, avoiding even greeting me. With the passing of days. The situation at school also began to deteriorate. It originally had a group of twenty - five children from the first three grades and another twenty from fourth to sixth grades, but attendance declined dramatically to just six students. The only person who

1:04:54 kept talking to me was the lady who had previously taken me food. One afternoon while planning to convene a meeting with parents to discuss the situation, the lady confided something disturbing to me. People in the village were saying that I had brought misfortune to their community. These words left me deeply concerned and bewildered. Never in my life had I faced an accusation of such magnitude and much less in a place where I had arrived with the intention of helping and teaching the. Lady warned me to walk carefully, because according to her, the people of the place could be quite peculiar and superstitions were deeply rooted. Between them. I don' t like the way things were getting. I was actually getting worried. I couldn' t stop thinking about it all afternoon.

1:05:53 Already at night I realized that I no longer had coffee and I couldn' t sleep without having a cup. I had to go out to buy. In the place there was only one store and I had to walk five minutes to get there already. When I came back, I began to feel strange the atmosphere to start at the place had not lit up. The only light I had was on the phone and, for my bad luck, the battery ran out quickly. As I walked through the darkness that enveloped the path I felt a disturbing presence behind me. I tried to calm down, but the fear was stronger, right at that moment, when I felt most vulnerable.

1:06:36 I heard someone uttering the word Master alarmed. I turned to see where the sound came from and, to my horror, I saw something posed on the branch of a nearby tree. His eyes shone with an intense white and he uttered sounds as if he were biting something barely illuminated by the moonlight. The outline of the figure was grotesque coorl lono faster than I could hear how that creature followed me along the path terror drove me and I did not stop until I went into the house. Once inside I secured all the doors and windows trying to protect myself from whatever had haunted me in a state of panic.

1:07:16 I hid under the bed, exhausted by fear and race. I fell asleep under the bed. My rest was interrupted at dawn by sounds of scratches on the walls of the house. Suddenly I saw my backpack get up with a hairy, grotesque hand. Something was on the bed right above me. I couldn' t see it clearly, but I felt her presence. The creature was breathing heavily and moving from one side to the other on the bed. As if looking for me in my despair, I bent my head and covered my face with my arms praying that he would not find me. I felt an indescribable terror when the creature bowed to me and whispered master with a voice I could never forget. It was a tone that iced the blood, one that no human being could imitate. At that moment of sheer fear, I felt like something like a claw gently brushed my hair. I began to cry, unable to contain fear. The creature withdrew a little bit and when I finally raised my head, I could only see his ankles and feet, which were covered with thick hair his nails were long yellow and disproportionately large. When that creature began to destroy everything I had inside the house. I cornered as much as I could. While this was happening, I heard the lady who

1:08:46 used to bring me food knocking on the door urgently and at that moment the monster began to emit strange noises as if she was thundering her jaws threateningly. Suddenly, men broke into the house, pushing the door hard quickly. I crawled under the bed and was told to leave the house immediately. They took me to another very upset place. I asked what was inside the house. What the group of men explained to me was that what was inside was a nahual. My mind couldn' t process that information. I really couldn' t believe everything they were telling me. But because reality was reality, it didn' t matter if I couldn' t assimilate it. That night I had to sleep at someone' s house already in the morning I went to pack things and had to leave the place. Since then. I do not accept jobs in places that are very remote from the urbanization. Tale written and adapted by Ramiro contreras