Dance of Death

A gust of wind rushes into the room, and I sit up, shivering. The velvet curtains twine themselves, dancing among each other as the wind howls. The old wooden windows creak, a reminder of how this hacienda holds on to its last breath. The old, lumpy mattress groans as I move, and my feet curl at the coldness of the floor.

The moonlight bathes the room in a blue glow as I search for my slippers, but they are nowhere to be found. Barefoot, I tiptoe across the room to the window, holding the curtains in my hands. I reach for the doors; a sharp gust slamming into my face. My eyes sting, and as the cold wind rakes over me, I see the valley spread out in the distance—towering mountains looming over a dark lake. The moon’s pale, haunting light shimmers on the water, hiding the whispers of long-forgotten souls. I catch a glimpse of something—no, someone—a man standing near the shore, barely discernible in the distance. My heart thumps in my chest, and I jerk back before slamming the windows shut. Had I imagined it? Or had the ghostly figure? I close the old Spanish-style panes that creak under my grip, pulling them tight, but my unease lingers. When I turn back, the door is open. I stare at it for a long, breathless moment. 

A shadow darts past the doorway, slipping through the crack. The figure moves quietly, gliding between rooms, heading toward the courtyard. The shadow flickers, briefly lit by the warm glow of distant lanterns. I freeze. A cold shiver falls through my body as I remember my brother's body found frozen by the lake some weeks ago. I think back to the haunting stillness of that morning. Papa had found him, lifeless in the bitter water, drowned by the very lake that had always been so beautiful—his last refuge. My brother had always come home late, too, after wandering in the night, sneaking in with the same fluid motions, a man draped in shadows, ever distant even while among us. And I had tried so hard to forget how his life had unraveled, how Papa’s pride, his hopes for the heir to the family name, had come to nothing, consumed by the weight of my brother’s tragic end.

Now the shadow flickered in the lantern light, reminding me of the last image I had of my brother's lifeless, bloated body pulled from the water. The chill of the past clung to my skin, cold like the night air, thick with grief. But tonight, more than any other, it felt as though the ghost of my brother had come to visit.

I held my breath, feeling the weight of it all, and stepped forward, hesitant but drawn to the door, the shadow still pulling me toward whatever waited in the dark.

A chill creeps over me as I step out of the room, the cold air tearing through the walls of the hacienda, our family home. The cobblestones outside are slick with dew, slowly turning to ice beneath my feet as I walk toward the light. It flickers like a dying candle. The walls of the hacienda loom above me, high, heavy with age. The stone is overgrown with moss, ivy creeping into every crevice. Generations have lived and died in this house. My father inherited it from his father, a place thick with history, layered in memory like the cemetery where we buried my brother—an inheritance of sorrow that rests beneath the ground, like the bones of our ancestors.

My arms hug tightly against my body, shivering as the warmth begins to fade. My room was once open to the courtyard, facing the cross perched atop the main gate. But that was before. After my brother’s death, Papa locked the doors, boarded us in. His obsession to protect us grew stronger each day, especially when I turned eighteen. Our lives grew quieter—fewer people, fewer visitors.

I tiptoe through the halls toward the courtyard, in the center stands a great christmas tree—one that towers higher than the second floor of the hacienda. The angel at the top is crooked, its wings forever off-balance. The poinsettias decorating it are a dark bloody red. This christmas tree has been passed down through generations. My great-great-great-grandfather planted the pine. He built our hacienda around it, He said it brought life into our family. The roots sprawling deep into the earth, carving through the stone, weaving like old spider legs beneath the foundation. It seems to watch over us, growing larger each year. As a child, our grandmother would warn us to stay away from the roots, swore its roots would swallow us whole, and pull us down into hell if we got too close.

My father proposed to my mother over its towering branches. And when my grandfather lay dying, he begged my father to carry him and place him under the tree until his final breath. It cradled him, as it had cradled the little brother my mother miscarried. Her womb would not stop bleeding; her screams echoed through the courtyard that night, drowning out everything except her pain. The roots seemed to drink the blood from her, as if the earth itself were absorbing the life she could not give.

I approach the fire still burning from the Noche Buena party. The guests, once an extravagant crowd, have gone. It was no longer the grand event it once was. We had only been joined by a nearby rancher and his family, including their eldest son—the boy Papa wants me to marry. With my brother’s death, my freedom to choose love died with him and the heaviness of carrying out my father’s legacy fell on to me.

I feel the fire's heat biting at my face, but the cold seizes my bones. Snowflakes fall gently, hissing as they meet the fire. I search for something to put out the flames, and as the water hits the logs a sickly smoke rises, swallowing me. I step back and fall onto the ground. The fire crackles, mocking me. I push through the roots of the tree, the twigs snapping beneath me. As I lie there, the dirt exhaling an odor of decay, my eyes catch it—his gift. Tucked within the roots, wrapped in a black cloth like a mourning handkerchief it stares back at me, unyielding. My breath falters as the memory resurfaces.  

Papa had chosen him— Alejandro, the perfect match for our family. Mami had explained it to me that morning, her words cold as the rosary clutched in her hands: “Es un buen hombre, hija. He’s a good man, the words breaking my dreams of love and replaced by duty.  

When Alejandro arrived that evening with his parents, I barely looked at him, my face hot with resentment. His gift—small and wrapped in cloth—hung awkwardly between us. “For you, Victoria,” he said. His voice was calm, patient, even kind, but I recoiled. Mamá laughed it off, taking it on my behalf. “My daughter is shy,” she said with an embarrassed smile.  

Later, during the posada, I saw the gift again. It stood out against the vibrant colors under the tree, its black color looking more like a funeral offering than a Christmas present. Guilt simmered in my chest, but I shoved it to the back of the pile, determined to forget it. Alejandro excused himself to bed early, pausing by the tree to glance at the gifts. His eyes lingered briefly before he looked at me and said, “Feliz Navidad”, his tone warm yet unreadable. 

Now, there it is, still waiting, like it always belonged in the shadows. Swallowing my pride, I reached for it, my fingers trembling, but it was too far into the roots. I start crawling on my stomach and elbows through the twisted roots, the earth exudes a sickly smell—a mixture of rot and wet decay. I push forward, inching closer to the gift. My fingertips graze the surface, and just as I feel the silk touch fingers, the roots seize me.

They tighten around my waist, and the earth rips open beneath me. With a sickening jolt, I fall, dragged down by the roots into the depths below.

My body crashes hard against the dirt, but my chest rises, my breath shallow. The air reeks of sap and sickly sweet decay, clinging to me like a thick fog. The ground seems to breathe as though alive, exhaling a wet, foul scent that fills my lungs. Around me, the walls pulse, damp with an unnatural life. The earth moves, groaning as if it can feel my presence. Among the jagged, yellowed bones of long-forgotten things embedded in the walls, I catch sight of something faint—a faint blue light flickers from the tunnel ahead, beckoning me forward.

I don’t want to go, but the eerie glow urges me onward, the sound of something—or someone—waiting just beyond. As I step forward, the narrow tunnel opens into a vast, haunting space. It's not a room—more of a large cave-like space, which somehow carries the eerie resemblance of a grand ballroom. Above water, barely visible, ripples like a dark, liquid mirror, its surface broken only by the soft, slow drip of water from somewhere above. In the center, a chandelier hangs low, its crystal droplets frozen in mid-fall, shimmering with a ghostly, sickly green glow. They glint like rain captured in ice, each facet flickering with unnatural light as if caught between the living and the dead.

The air is thick, heavy, with the scent of damp earth and decay, but somehow, it still holds an undeniable beauty—an enchantment. My eyes are drawn to the chandelier, my feet moving of their own accord toward the captivating sight. Each droplet appears to suspend time, like moments held in eternal stasis.

Then, from the shadows, a voice cuts through the stillness—a whisper, soft but undeniable, imbued with a weight of ancient truth. 

“It’s the lake.”

I turn. A figure materializes from the darkness, stepping slowly into the dim light. A man—his boots making no sound on the smooth, wet stone floor. His coat is deep red, like the petals of a dried poinsettia,vibrant yet faded, as though it has absorbed centuries of time. As his face catches the faint light, I freeze.

He looks like a nutcracker, there is something strange about his presence—handsome, unnervingly perfect, like the ghost of a memory I can't recall. The air chills further, pulling me deeper into this spectral world.

“We are under it,” he says, his voice low and reverberating, as if the water itself carried his words. He points upward, and I follow his finger to see a fish swimming by, I can’t move—my body paralyzed, like a ballerina trapped in a music box, spinning endlessly in someone else’s control.

He stands before me, radiant and otherworldly, his figure illuminated by faint moonlight filtering through the shifting waters above. And there I am, sunk in mud and grime. Yet, when I look down, I see my nightgown is no longer the simple white fabric I wore to bed. It has transformed into something both magnificent and unsettling—a gown forged from the essence of the lake itself. 

The fabric is an iridescent midnight blue, rippling like the surface of still waters cloaked in moonlight—serene, yet harboring untold secrets beneath. The skirt blossoms outward with unnatural fullness, violent like waves crashing against jagged rocks, stopping at my knees in uneven, tattered edges. Sleeves trail from my arms, their flow soft like water’s surface but freezing to the touch, as if imbued with the frigid bite of forgotten winters. The material glistens, not with earthly beauty, but with the slick, eerie sheen of something submerged—something untouched by the warmth of the sun. 

Veins of sickly green, like withered vines, creep across my chest and shoulders, their tendrils rooting into my skin as though feeding on me. The delicate vines twist with an almost sentient hunger, making it impossible to distinguish where the dress ends and my flesh begins. I raise trembling fingers to my head, drawn to the weight there. My fingers brush against what feels like glass, smooth and sharp. A crown rests upon my head, its raindrop crystals dangling like frozen tears, glittering with a malevolence that feels alive. The tension on my scalp burns as though it, too, has become part of this strange, unholy transformation. 

The nutcracker steps closer, his polished boots leaving no impression in the muck. His smile is both kind and cruel, carved onto a face too smooth, too flawless, as if made of porcelain. Gently, he takes my hand and pulls me toward him. “I’ve been waiting for you, my love,” he whispers, his voice a serenade wrapped in mist and decay. I freeze as his hand tightens. My breath catches as he begins to hum a lullaby, the melody low and hypnotic, pulling me further into the shadows.

As I dance with him, my skin prickles—not from the sensation of touch, but from the sensation of decay seeping into my veins. His hands feel like dead wood, cold and splintered, pulling me deeper into the cursed dance, his eyes gleaming with the pale light of the moon.

"Stay with me," he hums, his voice both beautiful and haunting, like wind whispering through an empty church. The soldier’s face glows in the moonlight, but the shadows pull at it, like a mask coming undone. His eyes gleam with that eerie, unearthly light, cold as the water that surrounds us. I’m not in control. The music comes from nowhere, and yet everywhere, surrounding us like an ancient song trapped in the walls of this underground place. The nutcracker’s body glides with an unsettling grace, the shadows beneath his cloak darkening with each step, until he is consumed by the night.

Death.

That’s what he is. The truth hits me like a rush of cold air. His gaze seems to liquefy as he inches closer, his pale face now warped with decay. Behind his smile, there is no tenderness, only the sharpened edge of something ancient and vile. The truth snaps into my mind as his cracked lips speak with a low, guttural hum.

"I’ve waited for you… forever," he purrs, his voice scraping against my very soul.

I scream—but my mouth fills with water.The floor beneath us groans, as if the earth itself is alive, shifting in protest. Suddenly, everything is dark, no longer moving, yet oddly still. It’s a lake. A suffocating, deep lake.

I gasp for air—though, strangely, it doesn’t seem to matter if I breathe. The suffocating pressure on my chest keeps me paralyzed as I force my eyes open. I blink, dazed, feeling my body jerk free from the cold depths. My vision flares as I break through the surface. The light that lanced across the water shimmers faintly against my skin, coating me with cold clarity, like a bad omen pulling me to shore.

I’m dragged, limp and dripping, onto the black sand. Alejandro. His face, blurred by time but clear in the dimming light, hovers over me. Without a word, he places his coat over me, his warm skin rubbing against mine, and lifts me with ease. I tremble in his arms, aware that my body, shivering from the cold, feels unlike me, like I’m some decayed husk misplaced in this world.

He carries me back, his steps echoing softly in the waning light. When he reaches my room, he sets me down carefully beside the crackling fire and stokes the flames. I feel heat on my skin, but it does nothing to warm my frigid body. No warmth can reach me beneath the layers of this curse.

His eyes—those same eyes—flicker in the firelight, and something disturbs me in their depths. The soft, slow dance of the fire mimics the very motions of the dance from below—the twisting, the horrible spinning of lost souls moving eternally.

I turn away from his gaze, the weight of his presence heavy in the air.

And there it is.

The gift.

Sitting, beckoning on the table like a trap, its weight heavy in my hand as I retrieve it. With shaking fingers, I peel back the black cloth.

The nutcracker.

Its face is frozen, like porcelain, too perfect, too pristine—it is me. It wears the dress I’ve been forced to wear—the strange wedding gown—and even the crown that stings like thorns on my scalp.

And there, underneath the doll’s perfect form, is the note.

To my bride to be.