La Bruja Que Transformaba A Personas En Animales Historias De Terror - REDE

0:05 Grandma' s memories. My grandmother grew up in a village after my grandfather died. He began to allow himself to do things he could never do in his village because he was badly seen and things he could never do while my grandfather was alive, because he was at risk of being beaten by him. One of those things he started doing after my grandfather died was that he liked to drink. He didn' t get drunk even close, but he was pleased with a bottle. I didn' t drink beer, just liquor. And when he was in the mood, because of the liquor, he liked to tell stories about when he lived in that town. Before he got married, he never told us the name of the place where he was born and grew up. I just called it the Rascuache people. And I want to tell you something my grandmother used to say. In that town, my grandmother lived with her parents and brothers. As she was the oldest, her domestic chores were more than those of others. He was in charge of shopping, grinding corn and bringing water in the afternoons. I had to take care of my great- grandmother' s animals. All this before dark. In those days there was no electricity and the surroundings were covered with pure weeds. The only light that came from the moon. Besides, my great- grandmother had one more rule. He asked everyone to go to sleep from eight o' clock in the night because, as the night progressed, evil became present.

1:34 My great- grandmother told my grandmother that when it was near the sunset she would never approach the house of a lady who, according to everyone, was a witch, so obviously my great- grandmother did not want any of her children to approach that house. It was said that this woman liked to become a black monkey at night and walk in the trees, sneaking into the houses and stealing food. For that reason, when the morning came, many people discovered that they no longer had food or that it was rotten along with traces of monkey fur. It was also mentioned that at night people could see many people coming in from the mountain and animals much bigger than they should leave this woman’ s house. His black magic was said to have turned people into animals. Shortly afterwards they became known as the Nahuales of the Mount. In addition, among the neighbors it was rumored that they had already seen her practicing dark arts. These rumors and experiences of the villagers aroused great curiosity in my grandmother. One morning, like any other day, my grandmother went to a store to buy what she had been ordered. That day he couldn' t stop thinking about everything they said about the so- called witch. Like it ' s a very strange coincidence. She found herself face to face with that woman it was as if she had summoned her. Thinking so much about her, the woman talked to my grandmother, told her she needed a favor,

3:07 that she had to do something, but since she was an older woman, she couldn' t do it, so she asked my grandmother to help her. My grandmother told her she had to leave with the excuse that my great - grandmother would scold her for taking so long to bring things in. Then the woman told her that if I helped her, I would give her something, in return, a bag of meat, big enough for the whole family to eat without knowing where. My grandmother saw the woman take out a bag of meat. It was strange, because my grandmother swears that bag wasn' t there. A second before, back then and especially in the village where my grandmother lived, being able to eat meat was a luxury that very few people could afford. My grandmother agreed to help her. What the woman wanted was nothing unusual. In fact, it was something that any older person would have asked for. The woman needed a box that she had on top of a shelf. My grandmother had to put a bucket on top of a chair and stand on it to reach that box. It wasn' t a box with symbols or made of bones. It was an ordinary box. As soon as my grandmother put down that box, the woman gave him the bag with the three kilograms of meat. Upon returning home, as expected, they asked him where he got so much meat. He scaredly told them everything that had happened. My great- grandmother was very angry, but also worried, so

4:43 she asked my grandmother to go to that woman' s house and return her meat. My grandmother obeyed. He went to the house. However, the more times he knocked on the door, he received no reply, he approached the window to look inside and that' s when he saw that the woman had on her table a lot of herbs and bones, wooden utensils and pumpkins. In addition, there were some ugly- looking wooden figures and next to them was a black book. My grandmother was very frightened what she saw, she had paralyzed her, she couldn' t stop looking out the window and, as if she had woken up from a trance, she managed to control herself and leave. When he arrived at my great- grandmother' s house, he explained that no one had answered him and could not leave the meat because he had not dared to enter because of what he had seen inside.

5:38 In the end, it was my great- grandfather who decided that it would be best to throw the meat in the yard, making sure the animals didn ' t eat it for a while. Then, when they finished eating, my grandmother went for firewood to the yard to light the fire and start making tortillas for my great- grandfather. As he collected the wood, he sensed a foul smell and as he approached to see where that smell came from, he realized that it was the flesh they had given them. A couple of hours earlier, he saw with horror that the meat was infested with worms and rotten as if it had been there for days. Days after the incident, my great- grandmother decided that it would be better for my grandmother to stay and take care of her brothers and that she would now be in charge of sending them out. It wasn' t long before one day my great- grandmother had to go grind the corn. It would take a little longer to get home, so she asked my grandmother to take precautions, take care of the others and not let them play in the yard while she wasn' t home. I' d be back before lunch, but the destination had other plans and it didn' t come at the agreed time. My grandmother tried to distract her brothers and make them some food. While waiting, my grandmother preferred to feed all her brothers, leaving herself without food, as there was not much more to prepare. So when her brothers finished eating, she hung

7:12 up some hammocks to sleep, she would stay awake watching over them until her mom arrived. She had already taken longer than expected. As the hours passed, she began to feel very hungry. That' s when someone knocked on the door. My grandmother approached and checked before opening looking through a hole in the old door, she saw that she was a woman with a white huipil and a rebrow carrying a bucket of freshly cooked corn that to my grandmother' s eyes and hunger seemed very appetizing. He opened the door to buy something. The woman gave him three corn cobs in a bag and told him it was nothing, that it was a gift to my great- grandmother. My grandmother took the corn and thanked him the woman went on her way. I had never seen that woman in the village, but she did not think much about it because she was very hungry and could not resist the temptation to eat a corn cob. He said they also smelled that they opened his appetite even more and before he knew it he had finished them all. Finally, when my great- grandmother came home, she found my grandmother feeling bad. He complained of a very severe pain in his stomach and head. The days passed and my grandmother was still not recovering as expected. She felt a lot of pressure on her head, she looked pale and didn' t want to eat this, along with starting to have a fever. At night, she approached

8:43 my great- grandmother and told her that she felt her head very strange. My great- grandmother touched her and, in addition to feeling the fever, noticed a horrible surprise. There were worms in my grandmother' s curly hair. This was not possible because the night before he had given her a bath to lower the fever and had her hair combed. My great- grandmother began questioning my grandmother by asking her if she hadn' t gone out into the yard and accidentally crawled between herbs and trees, looking for a logical explanation for what was happening. But my grandmother, crying, said no. He said he felt a lot of pressure and headache. She asked him if he had eaten anything outside the house. And that' s when he told her about the woman who spent selling corn the afternoon she had gone to grind. My great- grandmother was about to scold her when my grandmother ran into the yard and threw up there, but what came out of her throat was like ten worms, not too long, but pretty fat. At that moment a hen approached and began to eat the worms. When the chicken finished eating. The last worm, for some reason, ran into the forest and as it disappeared into the trees, malevolent laughter was heard. They say there are people who saw the chicken run by them and saw the chicken laughing that night. My

10:13 grandmother could not sleep yet felt that strange feeling at the top of her head and, moreover, that she washed and brushed her teeth, she could not get rid of the unpleasant taste in her mouth. He stayed awake for a while and that' s when he heard voices outside the house, as if someone were passing by. Out of curiosity, he looked through the same hole in the door where he had seen the woman who gave him the corn and saw that there were three people heading to the woman' s house of which they said she was a witch. My grandmother waited a little longer because she wanted to confirm what they were saying about people going with that woman. So, after an hour, my grandmother p are throwing something that I would never forget, and every time my grandmother came to this part of the story, we all noticed that I felt a terrible fear. My grandmother heard sounds of very strong animals that apparently came from that woman' s house. He looked through the door hole again and saw three unusually large pigs, returning along the way those three people had passed a while ago. The pigs were colossal in size and their eyes shone like fire in the light of the moon. Immediately, my grandmother understood that these were not ordinary animals. With a lot of fear and trying not to make any noise, he returned to his hammock.

11:43 However, he began to hear noises outside the house, as if those animals were approaching and a few seconds later began scratching the door with their hoofs, as well as hitting it with their snouts. He completely covered himself with the blanket and did try to pray as best he could. I didn' t know how to pray. He only repeated the words our father several times as he clung to the blanket. When finally, after a while, those animals apparently got bored and left. My grandmother could have fallen asleep. Several minutes later, when he woke up in daylight, he rose up quickly to look outside. It was then that he found the door, all chipped up by the blows he had received. There were pig tracks everywhere. The door was already old. If someone had wanted to beat it down, it would easily have fallen. Maybe. This had been an intimidation of that woman because somehow she must have realized that my grandmother had been snooping through the night. A little later, my grandmother began to feel a little better enough to be able to help with minor chores in the house. After lunch, my mother either went out and found that all the neighbors were complaining. What the neighbors said was that at night they had noticed that huge pigs had come in to wreak havoc on the courtyard of their homes, knocking on the doors scratching them as

13:16 if they wanted to come in and grunt. What caught everyone' s attention was that the only one who didn' t complain was the so- called witch. So the days passed and it was said that the pigs that were seen at night and in the forest had also been seen as a group of owls flying from house to house. There was talk of a black rooster that was strangely larger than normal and in the afternoons on top of the trees, he watched people pass by never heard him sing and to finish off there were sightings of a black monkey entering the houses at night to steal food. The neighbor even managed to see him at the foot of her son' s bed, the monkey caressing his head while he slept. The people of the village were tired of this, so they decided to act against what they feared so much. Everyone was absolutely certain that this woman was behind what was happening, because she was a witch, so the plan was to kill her. One night a trap was set up where she would be caught. They saw the black monkey walk into the courtyard of a house and just as he was about to eat, they went after her with rifles and dogs. She quickly climbed into the trees trying to disappear into darkness, but they continued to chase her.

14:39 At one point, while trying to hang on a branch, a man shot him, but failed to impact the branch. Instead, breaking it. This caused him to fall abruptly and by hitting the ground, the monkey became the woman. The dogs pounced on her by tearing pieces of meat out of her. The fall from that height and the injuries caused by the dogs resulted in his death. Right at dawn. The news quickly spread that the witch was dead. Neighbors, people from other parts of the village and even from faraway villages came to see her and among them my great- grandmother wanted to see for herself there on the ground lay an old woman with half her face, with black hair. His arms, legs, and thighs had bites that were still dripping blood. My great- grandmother confirmed it was her that night.

15:39 After a long time, the appearances of these strange animals ceased, and that' s what my grandmother tells us every time liquor brings back memories of her childhood. The witch of the tree. A long time ago something happened to me that I rarely tell and I prefer to omit many details about myself, because if someone recognizes me and listens to this story, I might feel ashamed, because sometimes they don' t believe me without giving a lot of introduction or context. I' ll go straight to the moment it all started.

16:22 It was around seven in the morning. When I went out to my car with the keys in my hand, I was opening the car door when something caught my attention was just a white flash. I looked up from the tree, narrowing my eyes to try to distinguish what it was at that time. I didn' t worry too much. I was just curious. Leve checked my watch to make sure I wasn' t late and I walked down the street. The tree was across the street, in front of my house, in a small dead end. I crossed the street and stayed on the sidewalk for a moment protecting my eyes from the sun through the dense branches and brown leaves. I couldn' t see well. As I looked at the tree, I immediately felt a feeling of discomfort that I could not explain, but it was strong enough to decide to forget the tree and go back to my car. When I turned my back on the tree, I felt an intense desire to run, almost like when I was a child, convinced that something followed me I tried to ignore that feeling just when I got to my entrance. A sound broke the calm of dawn sharp and clear, as if someone were trying to get my attention. I stopped dry without turning. I knew the sound came from the tree I ran into my car trying to insert the key into the lock before I could lock the door and lock it.

17:52 I thought I heard another sound, like someone was laughing that night I didn ' t sleep well. Mira Mira looked or continually through my window, imagining seeing the tree rocking in the breeze and something that looked pale skin, moving with it, as if greeting me at dawn the next day. I dressed quickly and crossed the street hoping that none of my neighbors would see me as part of me. He rebuked himself for being irrational, but he kept going. I heard the birds singing and the slight noise of traffic. In the distance, I hugged myself with my jacket as the cold breeze hit me. I reached the base of the tree and looked up. The tree had lost most of its foliage to the cold, but the many decomposing leaves made it look more full. Hiding the object well, I positioned myself just below the thing and then saw it for the first time. I' m not sure I expected to find it, but it definitely wasn' t that. A woman was sitting on a thick branch about fifty feet off the ground. I stared at her trying to find some sense in her presence. There he was looking straight forward, without blinking and without moving, wearing what seemed to be a sack, but it could have been the remains of an old, dirty dress. His thin legs hung from the branch. For a moment I thought

19:23 she was dead, but I could see her movements, even if they were slight. I looked around on the floor looking for a ladder or some way the woman might have climbed the tree, but I found nothing. I wasn ' t sure how the woman got to the tree. It was not a typical tree to climb was too wide and the reachable branches were too thin and very separate. Climbing would be almost impossible for most people. The more I thought about it, the more I began to believe that it must be a kind of joke, though very strange. I talked to the woman to ask her if she was okay or needed help. To get down. If she listened to me, she showed no sign and kept looking forward without expression.

20:12 I must have been feeling really cold. Given the temperature. The dress I was wearing couldn' t offer you any heat. A few seconds passed, but the woman was still not responding. I was about to call her back, but before I could, the woman made a noise, a strange sound, snoring and gasping. He floated towards me, increasing in volume with every second that passed. It took me a minute to realize what it was and, for some reason, I felt a chill. She was laughing I took a step away from the tree my instincts, screaming at me to run. I had no explanation for this instant sense of terror. All I knew was that something was terribly wrong with her. Before I could move my feet.

21:02 The woman' s head moved, began to lean over the branch on which her face was indwelling, leaning down very slowly. Until he was looking at me. He bowed so much that he was sure he would fall. At first, his face was blank without any emotion, but that changed in the blink of an eye. Her lips stretched in a horrible smile that somehow occupied most of her face. I was breathing in those shallow gasps that became almost deafening. His hands clung to the branches so hard that he could hear how the bark broke and see pieces falling to the ground where I stood. We both looked at each other for a long time, before he suddenly opened his mouth so wide that I thought his jaw could break. Allowing a very uncomfortable, deep and snoring noise to escape. I ran home and ran through the front door in panic, closing it behind me and putting both locks. Even that didn' t seem to be enough. I waited there with both hands at the door, waiting for the sound of a body hitting her, but she didn' t make it. When I finally got over it, I risked a look through my front door window, but fortunately I didn' t see it. I didn' t go to work that day as dumb as it sounds. I was afraid, afraid to leave my house, afraid to

22:36 hear that laughter and watch her look at me through the branches by mid- afternoon, that fear began to diminish and I began to feel angry. Whether this was a weird joke or something completely different. It didn' t make any difference to me. I was angry that I was terrified to leave my own house, I went to bed furious with plans to hira i directly there in the morning to talk to that lady. If I was still there, I didn' t sleep well. That night, my eyes kept going to the window, looking at the darkness beyond the glass. I couldn' t help but imagine the woman in the tree with her dirty face pressed against him.

23:19 I woke up the next morning, before my alarm sounded and I even beat the sun. I dressed quickly and drank my coffee while waiting for the sun to come out completely by the time I did all my courage the night before seemed to fade I took a look through the window of the living room, but if the lady was still there I could not see her. I ignored my trembling hand. As I opened the door and crossed the street, the branches rocked in the icy wind that pricked my face and slipped down my jacket. I stayed a few meters from the base of the tree front and looked up. I didn' t see her in it, and I let myself relax a little bit. I was hoping that cold temperatures would have made her find a new place I took a step closer, but that was all I got to, as the silence was interrupted by a loud grunt coming right above me. Before I could look up, I heard something colliding through the branches and hitting the ground with a wet noise, landing right in front of me a dead squirrel lay at my feet his coat soaked in blood and pieces of meat. It seemed to be empty inside, as far as I could see, except for some bones that helped maintain its shape. Even the eyes seemed to be absent. I stared frozen at the devoured corpse in front of

24:52 me. Then I heard the woman' s laugh. I ran home without looking up, knowing that I would see his face in bloodied r smiling back at me. The next day it was Saturday and I promised to do something about the lady in the tree I was clearly suffering from a mental illness and needed professional help. I did the only thing I could think of and called the police and explained the situation to them. The dispatcher assured me that they would make sure that the woman received the help she needed. I stood by the door looking occasionally through the blinds. The officers arrived about twenty minutes later and from the small window above my door, I saw them walking directly towards the tree. They stood directly below and looked up. For a long time they just stared at each other as if they were confused, so they saw even from the other side of the street. I could see how their expressions changed. Moving from a vague curiosity to completely in still. They looked briefly at each other concerned before the officer began talking to the woman in the tree, moving uncomfortably while doing so spoke for a few minutes and then the officers ' uneasy expressions changed again to one of horror. The cops began to walk back little by little. Once they reached the street, they both stopped and

26:23 looked up at the tree, without saying a word. Suddenly there was a flash of movement from above in the tree, causing the branches to tremble violently in the place where I knew the woman was sitting. The officers turned and headed to his car across the street, with faces marked by fear. I unlocked the door and ran out trying to reach them. They watched me and for a moment I thought they' d leave. I noticed they wanted to do it. Seeing they weren' t moving, I got close. Running into his vehicle, I noticed how pale they were with sweat on their foreheads. Despite the cold, I claimed that it was I who had called and asked if they would help the person who was in trouble. The officer looked at me briefly and after trembling his fear was replaced by Ira. He tried to tell me that that wasn' t a police problem and that I should go back to my house. I interrupted him by insisting that the problem did need attention, as the person had been in a difficult situation for a long time and it was not right the officer came forward with a threatening tone, asking me to calm down. He explained that the person did not seem to want help and that he was in his right to be where he decided.

27:45 Although it seemed strange, they got in the car without saying another word and left at full speed. I watched the car disappear down the street. Completely puzzled, I didn' t look up at the tree I didn' t want to see it, but somehow I knew I was there watching and maybe even laughing. I spent the rest of the day thinking about what I could do. If the police weren' t going to do their job, then they would find someone who did. I decided to call the local news station and tell her about the woman and how terrible her condition seemed, just as the police came and left doing nothing. The woman I spoke to sounded dismayed by the situation and promised to send someone to talk to me. The next day, a reporter arrived at my house. After talking to me. For a few minutes, the cameraman and the reporter approached the tree. From my house I watched them talk to the woman, but I couldn' t hear what they said. I could see how the smiles disappeared from their faces the moment they looked up. In the branches they seemed restless while talking trying to convince the woman to come down from the tree. But, like the police officers, they didn' t last long. Three minutes later I saw them rushing across the street with expressions of pure panic. They didn' t even

29:15 stop to talk to me. I tried to talk to them, but the cameraman almost knocked me down and all my calls to the news station went unanswered. No one wanted to be near the woman, so they just left her up there with no options. I did the only thing I could and tried to ignore it definitely. It wasn' t as easy as you might think. He avoided going outside as much as possible and never looked towards the tree when he had to leave the house. The next few days were horrible, but the nights were the worst. I was afraid to close my eyes while I was in bed, always looking at that window. I pictured her up there on that branch her barefoot feet and her exposed skin slowly turning blue, and that didn' t make me feel a little better. I was hoping you' d have an uncomfortable night out there and finally leave the tree.

30:17 I told myself that I did my part to try to help her and if I finally succumbed to the elements, I wouldn' t be, in my consciousness, strange and disturbing as it was the woman was still just a person with a mental illness. Obviously, I had a feeling it wouldn' t be long before there was only one corpse left in that tree. I hate to admit it, but part of me was expecting it I could avoid the tree. The rest of the week, taking a few days off from work, I was just going out to the store. I know my fear may seem irrational. It' s not like the woman did something violent. He didn' t even come out of the tree. Technically, the only person she was hurting was herself. I tried to tell myself that my fear was irrational, but on Monday things took a turn for the worse. It was around noon. When I heard a hit. For a moment I just looked at the door imagining the woman from the tree standing on the other side.

31:25 I doubted, but as the beating became stronger, more insistent, I finally forced myself to open up was the neighbor. He was there to ask me if I' d seen the woman who was climbing in the tree. I said yes and told her what happened to the cops and with the reporter the neighbor sighed upset and told me that she herself was going to go and with her own hands she was going to go down to the crazy old woman in the tree. Those were his words textually. I didn' t know what to tell her if she wanted to go do something stupid, because for me she was going to do her stupid thing. I closed the door and from the window I saw that, in fact, it went straight to the tree and climbed I stopped seeing it. When it was lost between the leaves.

32:15 I waited for her to appear again, but the minutes passed and there was no sign of her. I was about to open the door, when I finally saw her coming down the back of the tree. When she got down, she was paralyzed. Looking at me, I walked away from my window thinking of calling the police again, even if that meant being arrested, something was very wrong. I risked taking another look out the window and, to my horror, the neighbor was smiling a smile so twisted and different from her usual expression. Whatever the woman in the tree had, now she had the neighbor too. She stood up and began to move slowly across the street with her eyes fixed in my house. I had no idea what you' d do trying to get in, but he never got across the street, because he drove a car fast and ran it over. The neighbor' s body flew out and when it fell to the ground, her head hit heavily against the asphalt and the sound of the car, impacting on a pole, made the whole place shudder quickly called the police to report the accident. Both the person in the car and the neighbor died for a few hours due to the accident. I forgot about the woman in the tree. However, at night, when I went out to throw away the garbage, I saw it up

33:46 in the tree, almost reaching the highest part, a face looked through the branches. That same dirty, smiling face. But the worst thing was that I knew he was smiling at me. I turned on all the lights in the house and left them on all night. The next day, I was tired of being like this in my work. Of course, I was already being brought down. Besides, since I almost didn’ t sleep, I felt tired. That had to be over and I only thought of one thing to throw at him a Molotov bomb made of a bottle of muratic acid plastic and aluminum balls. So when I refreshed my memory, I knew that, although it was a very dangerous idea and possibly a pretty stupid idea, that was what I had to do with that woman who was in the tree.

34:39 Some of the ingredients I had in my house. Nor was it very complicated to get already ready, I walked to a prudent distance and then dropped the bomb against the obvious tree. The bomb was not too strong, it did not damage the trunk of the tree, but it did cause a strong burst. The woman had to get off, yes or yes, because if she didn' t throw another one and this time it would be closer. Obviously, I didn' t mean to hurt you. What I wanted was for him to leave. However, it did not happen, neither the first nor the second. Something else happened that I didn' t have in mind and that I would never have imagined. From the tree. A huge black bird flew out. It looked like a very big crow. That bird gave a kind of squawk, very loud and squeaky before getting away and getting lost.

35:39 What was there riding on the tree was not a woman, it was a witch, the Witch Valley. This happened to me many years ago. Back then I had a note called Susana. We lived together in Victoria City, but then I got a better job, so we moved to the border, specifically to Reinosa. We both had a visa and as my Bride liked to do outdoor activities, we used to cross through Macalen to go to natural parks for hiking. Depending on the money there was, we could sometimes go to faraway places and sometimes to nearby places. On one occasion we planned to go to a park in Kentucky, which we had already gone to three times, so we packed and left. The trip lasted about twenty hours, but I didn' t drive all the way, so it took us two days to get there. Already exploring the park, we decided to take a different route than we had done before. We didn' t notice anything unusual until we saw a sign that said Witch Valley circuit four kilometers in a certain direction.

37:00 The sign was written in English, but translated, as well as the circuit of the Witch Valley. We had never heard of the Witch Valley circuit, but as the park was large and many grounds still had no trails, we thought they might have opened a new route. Susana was excited. This meant a new adventure. It was a place we hadn' t gone before. Anyway, we planned to take a different circuit, which was also four kilometers away, but in another direction. So we decided to try the new route. But finding the word" witch" naming a route was weird. The trail abruptly descended leading us to a valley as promised. I started feeling restless right away. Everything about the path made me feel like I was going into a strange place and I wasn' t sure where I was anymore. I felt like we got lost in the woods. With each step were the trees.

38:05 The trees changed at first, the path seemed normal, surrounded by oaks and leafy oaks gently rocking with the wind. However, as we progressed, I began to notice something strange. The oaks and oaks decreased in number, giving way to a vegetation that did not correspond to the known one of that forest. Instead, crooked old pines that seemed to be centuries old began to flank the path. As we continued, the change became more evident. The old pine trees rose impressively on both sides of the road. The sunlight barely filtered through the dense crown of the trees, submerging the path into a disquieting shadow. As we progressed, other elements of the environment began to subtly alter.

38:58 Apart from the trees, one of the first things we noticed was that the noise slowed down until everything was quiet. At first, the change was so subtle that we barely noticed it, but soon it became impossible to ignore the silence that enveloped us. Squirrels that used to jump from branch to branch were no longer seen. We looked for some sign of animal life, but everything we found was empty. We also began to notice a lack of wind. Before small breezes shook the leaves, but at some point the air remained completely static in the midst of that increasingly disconcerting environment. My nervousness increased every part of me telling me that something wasn' t right, that we had to back off while we could still find our way back. Her healthy decision to go on contrary to my instinct made me wonder what was really driving us to continue to delve into that light. We found a sign that seemed completely out of place at first glance. It was a worn tablet with letters that seemed to have been painted in haste, indicating that the area beyond was exclusive to children. Seeing this as an opportunity to persuade your sane to back off.

40:22 However, she kept walking and I could only follow her. After a time that seemed too long for the stretch that we had traveled from the sign, I suggested to her that it was time to return. I didn' t expect her to listen, but apparently she saw something she didn' t mention to me and agreed to turn around and walk back down the path. I want to emphasize that it was the only possible path. There were no other roads just that, but even though we walked back for twice as long as we did going into the forest, the sign did not appear. That made no sense in a forest, on a unique and clearly defined path, it should not be possible to get lost in that way. If there was only one path simply following it in the opposite direction. We should have been able to find the sign again. And yet it was not. It was in the midst of this growing despair that we both remembered almost at the same time that we were carrying our cell phones, which relaxed us a little, because now we just had to call the ranger and he would surely know how to find us when trying to use our devices. We realized that neither one of us had a signal. Susana and I had no choice but to keep moving forward. The frustration and annoyance were intermingled with the fear and uncertainty that

41:55 had already taken hold of us. As much as we walked. It seemed like we were trapped in some kind of endless loop. I' m saying that because all the old pines were the same, so we had the feeling that we weren' t moving, because every pine in front of each other looked like an exact copy of the previous one. In the midst of this hopeless situation, the tension between us, which had until then been contained, finally burst out of its health in an outburst of frustration. He reproached me by blaming us for losing us. However, the reality was different and I couldn' t help but remind her that she was the one to blame for keeping walking. Her. Of course, he was not willing to accept guilt so easily and found a way to change the subject quickly by avoiding responsibility and thus avoiding his error. As the sun began to hide, we realized that we did not have enough water and food and not a place to shelter ourselves during the night. We didn' t have a tent and our supplies were limited to what one would take for a few hours walk, not for a prolonged stay in the forest. Also, being aware that, at best, someone could start looking for us until Monday and being that moment on a Saturday, the prospect of having to survive on our own for at least two nights

43:29 was very distressing. In the face of this reality. The first decision I made was to stay as close as possible to the path. It was logical to think that if someone came looking for us they would follow the path. With this in mind I chose to lie on the trunk of one of the old pine trees, which was less than two meters from the trail. The night came as he tried to set up an improvised shelter with branches of nearby pine trees. With the half- armed refuse I got in to rest The fatigue of the day. In addition to the emotional stress of our situation, it caused her healthy to quickly fall into a deep sleep given to tiredness.

44:13 For my part, the restlessness and a persistent sense of vulnerability kept me in a state of alert, preventing me from sleeping the shelter, although not stable, offered a barrier between us and the vast and dark forest around us. However, that barrier seemed insufficient to calm my mind that kept going over our options and the possible consequences of our situation. For hours I stayed awake listening to the sounds of the night, every creaking and whispering of the forest, amplifying my anxiety. Finally, exhaustion began to overcome my resistance and I began to nod and fell asleep, but only for a few minutes, because I suddenly woke up an inexplicable sense of alertness. I had taken over a feeling of being watched. The shelter did not seem to offer any protection against that disturbing feeling. I tried to convince myself that it was just the product of the stressful situation. My heart accelerated when I realized something big was standing outside our shelter. At first, panic took over me. However, as I focused my eyes and calmed my breath, I noticed that it was a deer, so I decided to look out to see the best. For a moment I was about to let go of a sigh of relief, but as I

45:44 lit the deer with the lamp on my cell phone, he turned to look at me. I realized that the deer had a person' s eyes. That disturbing look held mine for what seemed to be hours, but it was actually just a few seconds before the deer decided to walk away and disappear among the trees. The encounter left me paralyzed, not only by fear, but by confusion. I went back inside our shelter trying to prosecute. What I had just experienced. Not even fifteen minutes passed, when once again, the disturbing feeling of being watched took hold of me. This time I wasn' t alone in my restlessness. Susana woke up because she also felt something was happening, something had disturbed her rest and I soon realized it was. We heard the sound of something moving around the pine where we had supported our refuge.

46:45 Then that stopped right in a place where both her healthy and I could see that what was outside were barefoot human feet with pale ankles. For a moment, the glare shone in his eyes when he thought that someone had come to meet us. That hope faded as quickly as it appeared when I made him see the improbability that someone was looking for us in the woods in the middle of the morning and much less barefoot before we could fully process the situation. A strong air current hit our shelter. The branches that we had entwined with so much effort could not withstand the force of the wind and fell upon us. We' re exposed to vulnerability. Under the look of what was hidden in the dark and then we saw it in front of us. A thin figure of too white, completely naked skin stood up, but that was the least. The woman' s head was that of a deer, the same deer as before. The figure remained motionless as a statue. His breathing was barely perceptible. His healing and me without words, we could only stare at the creature, unable to understand how such a thing could exist. The drop that spilled the glass was when that thing opened its snout, revealing a row of yellowish, sharp teeth, as well as a tongue that looked double

48:21 or perhaps two tongues. Without thinking about it. His Sana and I stood up driven by fear and began to run away as quickly as possible from that abomination. The creature didn' t chase us. Instead, he uttered a macabre cry, a sound that seemed to come from the deepest corner of hell. And then, as if that scream had been a sign, the forest took life from among the pines began to leave animals crossing from one side to another at great speed, deer, raccoons, squirrels, etc. We were bumping into the animals. While we were trying not to fall. We received many scratches in the midst of the chaos caused by animals that were frantically emerging around us. I made an impulsive decision that at that time seemed the only viable option. By grasping the hand of his healthy, we deviated from the main path, determined to find a way out through the thickness of the old pines. Moving through the dry branches of the pines was difficult. Some thick, razor- sharp branches hurt our skin as if they were thorns, but we continued to run almost as suddenly as our nightmare had begun. In front of me was a path and on the other side the normal trees of the forest, when turning the old pine trees had disappeared as if they had never

49:54 been there. The relief of having found known ground disappeared as quickly as it had arrived. When I realized a chilling detail, Susana was no longer by my side. My heart stopped for a moment unable to understand why it wasn ' t there with me. I started calling her by her name, but it was in vain. During the flight, I didn' t notice the exact moment when our hands separated. I thought I' d come back for her, but the fear of getting lost again in that cursed place and the doubt of whether I could find her paralyzed me torn by the decision, I decided to run down the path to the direction, where I knew there were people. I thought asking for help was the best option at the time.

50:43 After a few minutes that seemed eternal, I found a large group of breathless and desperate people. I begged them to help me find her healthy and quickly some offered to accompany me in the search, while others called the ranger and at nine hundred eleven, an hour later, the official search began with the help of the police, but by nightfall, Susana had not appeared. The most disconcerting thing was when I tried to show the police the sign that had initially diverted us, but there was no trace of him or the area of the old pine trees. This lack of physical evidence caused the police to start suspecting me, believing that the whole story could be an elaborate fourth. When the situation seemed to turn against me and the police were about to arrest me, a scream cut the tension. Someone had found the sign, not in its original place, but buried and hidden under stones, as if someone had wanted to hide it. By the way. This finding dismissed the suspicion about me and although what I told the police sounded as much as possible the existence of that sign, at least it made the police believe that there was some truth in my story. Temporarily removing suspicions about me. The search for her healthy continued for a while, but no whispering forest ever appeared. I bought

52:27 a one- story house on the edge of a mountain, in a city I' d rather not mention. The house was made of rugged stone and dark wood. The place was slightly damaged by the weather, covered in some places by thick moss with a roof that was tilted at a pronounced angle. Most of my stuff was still in cardboard boxes in my living room three days after I moved, but I had unpacked the mountable bed and liquor cabinet, and that seemed to me to be a good progress. I spent those first few days drinking and talking to the dog Mushu. Honestly, I couldn' t tell you the breed It was a big dog about a foot tall.

53:12 It weighed more than 50 kilos of sand- colored fur. His skull was long and flat, with small, dark eyes. Her ears were small, too. His tail was pretty long. Mushu was a dog of good character who only became aggressive if provoked. He was always friendly with children. Mushu had already become my best friend. The move was good for both of us. He provided Mushu with the space he needed to stretch his long legs. Most of the mornings started with me making a breakfast attempt while I was drinking drinks that I hadn' t finished the night before. I would crawl in my robe until I saw my reflection on something and notice how worn out it was starting to appear. I' d lost weight. I needed a haircut and I hadn' t been able to sleep every night. The only productive activity I did every day was to go out for a walk with the dog.

54:15 The view of the mountain was spectacular, although my terrible state of mind did not allow me to appreciate it. Those first weeks a lot and I spent hours outside finding new cliffs, rocky roads or quiet ponds. The mountain was huge and little by little I discovered that while I was there I felt at peace. That feeling disappeared as soon as he returned to the house. My nights were made of alcohol and TV shows. When I was finally sleeping. I often spent my time looking at the roof and thinking about my ex if I fell asleep I would dream about her. Dreams were the worst because these stayed with me. I could spend weeks without thinking about her and then I had a dream that affected me deeply. So I tried to drink until I fainted every night a lot and I had been living on the edge of the mountain for many months. When one autumn day, without a cloud in the sky, we walked about ten kilometers into the mountain, the trees became thinner and we saw what was left of a hut much older and worn out than the house where he lived. I went to investigate inside, but a lot of acting weird. He stayed close to the tree line as he grunted.

55:37 The roof of the cabin was half collapsed and the floor was covered with dry leaves. I turned them aside to reveal a wood floor that was almost completely rotten. Some pieces of furniture were scattered. I found a strange carved symbol just above the door. When I turned out, it looked like an inverted trident. I thought it was very strange. He was still sitting in the same place outside a lot, but now he had his hair pointed and he was licking his fangs and I thought it would be best if we left. As I walked away, I noticed something strange in the trees. I couldn' t explain what it was, but there was something disturbing. On my way home, I started drinking whiskey. The wind was blowing loudly and it seemed like a storm would break out. As I looked out of a window, I distinguished a tree I had not seen before. I didn' t dare say the tree wasn' t there before. I' ve always chosen to think I just hadn' t noticed. At that moment I decided not to pay too much attention to that tree because I was puzzled to notice it for the first time So as not to get paranoid, I stopped looking at it and watched the sky that was clear. The full moon and the stars were shining. The morning followed I went to town for supplies. I was a few miles away by car. I wasn' t far, but

57:08 as I was walking, it took me about two hours to get to a lot. He liked to go to town already back in the bush. The curiosity about that tree I hadn' t noticed invaded me, so I went to the back of the house, to the area I could see from the window and there was the tree, but not exactly this may sound weird. The tree was there, but it wasn' t the same tree. The branches looked very different. It was weird. I walked to the tree out of curiosity and noticed that the grass under the shade of the tree seemed burned and fired an unpleasant smell. Like a dirty diaper, I was very focused on that tree, so much so that I was startled when I heard Mushu barking frantically. I turned towards the house and saw Mushu barking at something in the direction of the mountain. I looked where he was barking and that' s when I saw her about nine meters from Mushu, there was a woman.

58:08 The first thing I noticed was that she was completely naked. His skin was pale and his hair was long and black. His eyes were too pale and outstanding. His mouth wide and red. At first glance it seemed normal, but after looking at it for a few seconds, it became clear that something was not right, not only in its appearance, but the atmosphere changed. The woman turned her head to the left and then disappeared into the trees. That was definitely not normal. I needed to make a call, but for that I had to go back to town and I didn' t have time to go. It was already too late, so I' d have to wait until the next day. Neither Mushu nor I were able to sleep well the next day. Very early. In the morning I went out into town and called the person I bought the house from. I' ve never been one to evade things, so I asked him directly why he' d decided to sell the house. His response was evasive and ambiguous, so I asked him if he had ever seen a naked woman near the property. The man was silent for a few seconds. Then he said he didn' t know what he saw in that house and that if it was me, I ' d pack up my things and leave before something worse happened. I couldn ' t get any more words out of him after that, so he finished

59:45 the call as the weeks passed. Mushu became more and more nervous, no longer wanted to enter the mountain with me, so I walked him through the large open fields in front of my house, which made Mushu nervous. It also affected me, though differently. In those weeks I began to have more intense and suffocating nightmares. During that time, my health got worse, I had lost more weight and it looked almost skeletal going out to walk the mountain every day seemed to be of no use to me. I guess the damage I had to drink too much didn' t make up for the walks on the mountain. There came a point where it was hard for me to get out of the cot where I slept a night of rain, but without thunder.

1:00:36 Mushu was crazy. I was barking at the door. That night I hadn' t had anything to drink, because the alcohol had run out a day earlier. So, as I wanted to drink, I was in a bad mood. That added to how much I kept barking, as I was so upset that I opened the door abruptly and went out to see what was barking at them. Mushu was raining very hard and Mushu never liked getting wet in the rain. I went with him and stood next to him a lot seemed to be barking at the tree that had caught my attention the other day. So, assuming someone was there, maybe a person with the intention of stealing me started screaming and letting go of insults, challenging whoever was there to approach. The moment the sky lit up by lightning, I saw a woman standing who was not wearing clothes. I really think it was the same woman last time. Mushu began barking with more courage. Then the lightnings began to illuminate the sky one after another. Every two or three seconds, every time there was lightning, I saw that the woman was closer. I didn' t see her walking just from one lightning bolt to the other was getting closer.

1:01:58 At one point, a lot stopped barking and stuck to my leg screaming like I was afraid. Suddenly, the woman jumped and into the air she turned into a bird that flew away as she let go of horrible laughter. A lot and I ran and locked ourselves in the house. I went back to live in the city. The next day ring my name is Zacharias and I am a taxi driver in Santo Domingo. My life isn' t easy. After the death of my wife three years ago because of a disease that slowly consumed her, I was left alone with the responsibility of raising our two children, Camila and I kill to see her leave. It was a blow I' m still trying to recover from. From dawn until the sun falls, I become a full- time father, taking them to school, helping them with their homework, preparing their food. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed, tired, but looking at their faces, I find the strength to move on.

1:03:12 Despite the difficulties. I' m trying to make sure they don' t miss anything. Already during the night I spend driving my taxi from eight o ' clock in the evening to five o' clock in the morning. One of the advantages of working at night is that there is not so much traffic and when there is it is mild. That night was a particularly quiet night, or at least it was until it was time to finish my day, just when I was thinking of heading home. A signal from my radio alerted me to one last passenger. Upon arriving at the right place I saw a woman of unusual appearance, with a lost but intense look, who seemed to be waiting for me without saying a word, climbed into my taxi and gave me an address on the other side of the city, an area that even in the darkness of the night emanated an atmosphere of mystery and desolation. The journey took place in silence, a tomb broken only by the occasional murmur of the woman who seemed to pray something strange that the truth I did not understand.

1:04:19 Upon arriving at his destination, he got out of the taxi without looking at me disappearing into the shadows of the old structures of the place. Something in the air felt different, as if its presence had altered the very essence of the night. When I got home, I got ready to finish the night and rest. However, when I checked the back seat to make sure everything was in order, I found a wooden ring. It was not an ordinary ring, it had strange engravings, symbols that it could not recognize and its texture was different from any wood that it had touched before. It was light and its wood had a dark tone. Something in him captured my curiosity, perhaps the way it seemed to subtly vibrate to touch, as if it contained an energy of its own carried by an impulse that I could not explain.

1:05:12 I decided not to get rid of him. As I entered the house, I placed the ring in a living room furniture from the next day and days later, when I returned from work to wake my children and take them to school, they began to tell me strange stories about nighttime events in the room, objects that changed places without explanation the focus of the lamp that lit and went out. Only at first did I take their stories as the product of the imagination of two children, but their stories became more and more frequent and the seriousness with which they told me about those events made me question my initial skepticism. Although I personally never witnessed these phenomena. The concern reflected in my children' s eyes. It was impossible to ignore the atmosphere in our house. It began to change once. I had five very good days in a row and decided not to work the next weekend and spend time with my kids at home playing video games and watching movies. Already in the night, when the pizzas we ordered for dinner arrived, when we were already sitting down putting the movie we were going to see, the chair in front of me crawled back on its own, as if someone invisible were going to sit paralyzed.

1:06:32 I could hardly believe what my eyes saw my children, although they did react, it did not impact them so much. That' s when I realized that everything they' d been telling me was real. Since that night the idea of leaving my children alone while I was working became intolerable. The concern for his safety and well- being became a constant, a shadow that accompanied me during my night shifts. The following nights were loaded with a tension I had never experienced. The phenomena my children had described began to manifest with an alarming, ever more intense frequency. They were not violent, but intimidating, as if the presence that had invaded our house sought to make us aware of their existence. One afternoon, while the children were playing in their rooms, I set out to do a deep cleaning of the house. That' s when I witnessed the most disturbing incident of all. I was reorganizing some books and photo frames on the living room furniture, the one where I had placed the ring that night. Suddenly, without warning, the furniture shook violently and collapsed in front of my eyes, as if an invisible force had pushed him in anger. The objects he housed crashed into the ground. Books and photographs spread in chaos mixing with broken glass. However, in the midst of

1:08:08 the disorder, the wooden ring remained intact, resting on the carpet without the slightest damage. It wasn' t carved, it wasn' t stained with the ink from a boat that stained the carpet. The pieces of glass were nowhere near the ring. In addition to the fact that the ring, instead of falling down lying down, fell on its feet that peculiar moment, I realized that it had all started after the ring brought it into the house. Therefore, considering the peculiar appearance of the woman to whom the ring belonged, the place where I picked it up, the place to which I took it and the strange behavior that she had inside the taxi, it seemed logical to me to assume that that woman was a witch and that, therefore, the ring of the witch, being charged with such negative energies, was what had been causing all the disturbing things that were happening in the house. So what I did was just take the ring, walk seven blocks to a vacant lot.

1:09:13 I threw it in there on the ground, put on a cigarette and then burned that wooden ring. After that, nothing unusual happened again in the Gypsy Witch House. What I' m going to tell you happened too many years ago, when I went to the center of the city where I' ve lived my whole life. One afternoon I passed by the center, I noticed several women trying to attract people. At first I thought they were women working on something doubtful, but as I approached I saw that they were gypsies.

1:09:54 The gypsies were scattered along the avenue trying to convince me to let them read my hand. I didn' t believe in gypsy predictions. To me it was all a hoax to get money. For a month I continued passing the avenue of the Roma until one day, at their insistence, I agreed to be read my hand. The person who was going to read my hand was a very beautiful woman of about twenty- five. But suddenly he told me that his mother would be the one who would really read my hand, as he had more experience. I had no choice but to accept. As usual, the gypsy predicted success at work, good health, a close encounter with a beautiful woman, great trips and other general things that they often say.

1:10:45 At the end of the reading, it was time to pay. Usually the hand reading cost between twenty and thirty pesos, but when offering thirty, the gypsy told me that there were a hundred. Surprised. I asked him how he could charge more than the others. The gypsy explained to me that the others were apprentices and therefore they paid little, but she, being a professional, charged at least a hundred. At that time I discussed with the gypsy about the high cost for just a few minutes of reading. I finally paid him fifty and left before I left. The gypsy is visibly annoying. He muttered a few words in a language I didn' t understand. Days after that meeting, my luck changed dramatically. At my job, where I had been for five years, I was suddenly fired claiming financial problems at the company. A few days later, someone crashed into my car and ran away.

1:11:44 The next day they stole my car. My bad luck continued, so, a few days after the robbery, I was almost run over by another car. I jumped just in time to avoid impact and the car walked away without stopping to help me. The next day, when I went to a job interview, some people stole me and I was unpresentable, so I couldn ' t attend the interview. At that moment. I didn' t understand why those things happened to me, since I hadn' t hurt anyone. Reflecting on it, I realized that everything started after the gypsy incident, I thought the strange words he had said to me were a curse for everything to go wrong. It barely dawned. I went to the place where the gypsies used to be to take away the curse, but for my bad luck, they were no longer there. A few days earlier, the municipality had removed all gypsy women from the site arguing that some used hand reading as an excuse to commit improper acts. I thought I' d have bad luck for the rest of my life. It took a few months before I got a job as a delivery boy. One day, while making a delivery, the lady who received me was surprised to see me and mentioned that she seemed to have a curse and that she could feel it. He proposed to help me get rid of the curse. If I visited your house on a Saturday or Sunday

1:13:15 afternoon. I didn' t know how to react, but I felt immense happiness when I thought my luck might change. I could only thank him with tears in my eyes. Saturday came and that day my bad luck was worse than other days. First, my boss called me to tell me that I needed to work on the afternoon shift that day and that if I didn' t attend, I would consider saying goodbye. Second, the bike I had didn' t start, despite my efforts. Third, my family told me they were coming to visit me that afternoon. Fourth, I lost the key to my house and didn' t know where I was. I decided to put everything aside and come to light, even if I had to walk.

1:14:02 When I arrived I could not believe what I saw was the same gypsy who had cast the curse on me at the time, although I was very angry, I refrained from confronting her. The gypsy when she saw me did not recognize me and commented that she felt something bad about me. He told me where the bathroom was. When he touched my hand, I didn' t understand the words he was saying, but I felt something was free inside me. When it was over, I felt an intense urge to throw up, so I ran to the bathroom. Now I understand why he told me where the bathroom was when I threw up, I expelled all the evil that had affected me, feeling a deep relief. After I recovered I returned to the gypsy and gave her two hundred as a precaution. The gypsy with a big smile. He warned me to take care of the people around you because they can throw a curse at you. But if something like that happens to you, don' t hesitate to visit us, we can help you. When I left, I was afraid to shake his hand, so I just said goodbye, thanking for everything. After that, everything started to get better at work, where it had been for about five years. They called me back saying that they needed me urgently and that I opened up a raise in my salary. My family said they' d better come next week because of an unforeseen and so everything bad that had happened to me. He began to improve

1:15:38 stories written and adapted by Ramiro contreras