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Bones

“ She was a very beautiful lady that fell in love with a handsome man she met by the river,”

Neo said. ” They fell in love that whole summer but he left her for a more attractive, more

wealthy woman. When he went away he left the lady and her two kids in the same pueblo he had

met her. She was devastated. Legend says that she went completely mad at the loss of her lover.

She decided to kill herself and her children. Her family had turned her away after they found out

she had been living with a man without a ring. She knew that her children would have no one to

protect them and raise them...so one night….she decided she would take them by the river and

drown them along with herself. ‘Life is pretty terrible anyway,’ she told herself. ‘They shouldn’t

go through that pain.’ So on a murky night she woke up her children from their sleep and she

walked over to the river. She looked around to make sure that no one was watching as she

approached the side of the river and dipped her toe in. She told the children ‘come play!’ as she

went inside the water. First she grabbed her oldest child who was about 6 years old. She forced

his face into the water as she cried silently yet uncontrollably. The child shook his body in

desperation and he tried to set himself loose. It no use...within 3 minutes he was...dead. She then

took her second child, a little girl of only 3 years of age. This was much easier physically. She

cried as she held her tiny body under the water. Two floating bodies lay next to her and she felt

like screaming as she pulled them closer to her. She kissed each child on the forehead before she

finally let them go and walked ashore. On this particular night she had chosen to wear a thin

white dress. It stuck close to her body and let’s just say she had a really nice body. Her skin sunk

into the fabric as she walked out of the water. She then grabbed a heavy rock and tied it onto

herself with part of her dress...she walked in the water, grabbed the two bodies and...sank,” Neo

said very quietly,” people in the village say that every night around 11pm they hear her crying

near the river, ‘ay mis hijos!’” Neo laughed at his children’s reaction to the scary story. Five of

his children were sitting with him in a small dark room. Their eyes widened as he finished the

story, their pupils dilated with terror. Neo did not exactly enjoy making his kids scared but he

rarely made time for them and this is what they most enjoyed from their absent father. He partly

felt guilty for not being there for his children as much as he wish he could be but he felt as

though their bond had already been tainted by his absence that it did not matter if he spent “one”

more night at the bar. He figured the scary stories were not that bad since he had grown up

listening to his father go on and on about la Llorona. Storytelling is a popular custom all over

Mexico and the tale about La Llorona is a classic.

Neo was a hardworking man during the day but that didn't mean he didn't enjoy the

occasional drink. Of course that meant that every day after work he needed his whiskey. He did

have 7 daughters and 2 sons. He deserved a drink. Neo worked in the sugar cane factory slicing

long sugar cane sticks in the hot boiling sun. He would go to the factory every day at 6 am sharp

and kept slicing until 5 in the afternoon. When he got out of work he would go home, drop off

his uniform, and shower only to go out to the bar with his friends. His typical Mexican wife

would wait patiently at home with the children and have hot food waiting for him right away

with a clean house. His life was set in stone and Neo only had the nights at the bar to look

forward to. The jokes would lighten his mood and the alcohol helped him forget about all the

dreams he had let go off when he decided to marry at such an early age. He knew he had a good

wife that took good care of him but that did not matter when he didn’t love her. Neo had been

pressured into marriage by his parents like most of his friends in the bar. It was strange when a

man his age loved his wife or had followed his dreams and had a good career. In this bar the fact

that he had handed off his life, didn’t seem like such a bad thing.

“Give me a glass of whiskey,” Neo told his friend the bartender as he pulled a bowl of peanuts

from the counter. He broke the peanut shells carelessly and held his cups tightly while he

listened to his coworkers speak. Neo rarely had friends because he liked to keep to himself most

of the time. The ones he did have tended to follow the same routine. They all had wives to come

home to and many children to feed so they spent their nights trash-talking their wives and talking

about what they could've done if they finished college and did what they wanted to do for their

careers. All of it was bar talk and they all knew they had to come home and provide for their

families with their hard labor at the sugar cane factory. Hours after hours the stories got shorter

and quieter as the men got drunk enough to slur their words.

The night was murky on December 3rd, 1982. The fog was light but thick enough not to

be able to see the next block. “How the hell am I supposed to get back home if I can't see the

street names,” Neo talked to himself as he walked. His legs were beginning to lock and he barely

had any fuel left for balance. He struggled to set one foot in front of the other but each time he

managed to get a step in, he smirked with confidence. He had one too many drinks as he walked

back home from the bar slurring his words thinking they were only in his head.

All of his friends lived south of el pueblo and he had to venture out at 11 at night to get

back home to his sleeping family. On the way back he had to go through what was supposed to

be a park. In the middle of the park there was a small stream that had a small wooden bridge that

ran right over the water. The bridge did not look as beautiful it did in the day time and Neo had a

strong feeling in his gut that it wasn't a good idea to cross it with no one around. The gut feeling

ended up coming out of his body and onto the ground where it stayed there for the night bugs to

feast on.

Suddenly Neo noticed a white figure on the bridge. As he walked closer he noticed a

thin woman with a thin white dress walking slowly swaying her body from side to side. Her

curves almost as smooth as the currents of the stream and her hair seemed to follow the rhythm.

Her body played music as she walked and Neo did not take long to notice the beautiful woman.

“Wow,” he said as he tried walking closer to her.” You so so so beautiful! why are you

walking out this late at night?” he asked her as she kept swaying in her dress. Neo began to

become intrigued the closer he got to her. He noticed her dress was wet and he could see the line

that marked her glutes.Neo was instantly aroused. He called out,” Hey! Hey! Come back here

mami!”

He finally caught up to her on the bridge and stood about two yards behind her when he

heard her giggle. “She likes me,” Neo thought to himself. He reached his hand out and just when

he was about to touch her she turned around and he instantly snapped out of his drunkenness.

“Hey baby,” she whispered to Neo. She turned and her face was gushing with bright red

blood. It appeared that the front half of her body had been completely torn off. Some of her

insides were visible through her broken ribs. She had no eyes, no nose, no face. What was

supposed to be her face was just a fragmented skull with blood running over it. Blood dripped

into the holes where her eyes were to be on her skull. She seemed to smile at Neo. Her voice was

hoarse and scratchy. She picked up her bony arms and proceeded to embrace Neo. As she walked

him some of her organs spilled from her abdomen but that did not stop her from reaching for

Neo. Her dress was partly ripped in the frontal part of her dress and one of her breasts was

dangling in the soft wind. Neo looked to the other side of the bridge and there he could see two

small dead bodies on the floor. They were covered in mud but he could tell the bodies belonged

to two young children.

“ You-you’re not real! You can’t be real!” Neo screamed at the ghost. “Go away please

go away!” he continued to scream as he covered his eyes. He slapped himself on the face a

couple of times to wake himself up. His heart was beating so fast he could feel his heart pumping

the blood into his arms and legs.

“Do you know where my kids are?” the Llorona asked him politely. He managed to hold

his hand up and point at the two bodies on the other side of the bridge. The ghost turned and saw

her children on the ground. She began to cry loudly as Neo stood there, still frozen. She turned to

face Neo and, visibly angry, screamed loudly.

“Ay mis hijos!” she screamed making Neo’s ears ring. He covered his ears and dropped

to the ground in panic. He then felt himself rise from the ground and began running away from

the ghost as fast as he could. He couldn't feel his legs and he struggled to breathe but he was

sober enough to take a different path home.

“I JUST SAW LA LLORONA!”he yelled as hard as he could waking up his wife. “ She

was was walking on the bridge over the stream and she turned around and called me Baby and

she had a skeleton face but the back of her body seemed fine. She-she-she was a skeleton and she

looked at me. She had blood on her skull and-and she called me baby,” he stuttered as his wife

came into the room.

“Neo not again...look at you, you peed on your jeans,” his wife said in disappointment.

Her eyes were heavy on her face as she walked over to help her husband.

“I-I swear I saw her she had her white dress and it was wet,” he kept repeating in

confusion. “She's probably outside isn't she? She's coming for me.” He had not noticed the tears

running down his cheeks. His wife took him by the hand and walked him into the shower. She

made him shower with cold water and she boiled hot water for some coffee. He was still in shock

from what he had seen staring into space until he sobered up enough to decide that he had been

drunk and he had probably hallucinated. He stayed up all night thinking about what had

happened to him until the alarm clock hit 5:50 am and it was time for work. He performed his

usual routine and walked out the door. He brushed his teeth, washed his face, and put on his

uniform. As soon as he walked out he tripped over something and hit his face on the hard

cement.

“Fuck me,” he said staring back at the ground. There was a big rock sitting right outside.

It had a small piece of white thin fabric stuck to it.