It was not uncommon to find people shocked at Llegadas; shocked, confused and even in denial, especially if they were young. People began to expect death, quizás think about it more often, when they were older (Imelda had felt her own health beginning to deteriorate for a year before she had died), but the young…ay, they did not think of death and rightly so. Youth was a time to live, to experience, to have a life, it was not a time to think about the end of that life, to think of death.
Pero, the sad reality was that the young could die, as had, evidently, this mujer joven before her. Setting the caja de zapatos aside for now, carefully putting it down on a bench, Imelda turned her full attention to the newcomer.
“La Tierra de los Recordados,” Imelda told her, “A place for the dead, a place for us to live our….our lives” Afterlives, technically, but Imelda felt as much alive in the Land of the Dead as she did in the Land of the Living, so she did not see the need to make the distinction.
“Lo siento,” She continued, “But you can only be aquí if you are dead también” Imelda put her hand on the niña’s shoulder in reassurance. The girl seemed to be lost as well as newly dead, which would only make the shock of it all worse. “¿Cómo te llamas?” She asked, “¿Tu nombre? What is your name, mija?”
As somber as the skeletal woman before her’s tone seemed, Moana was clearly still struggling to process the events that had happened to her. She ran the words that had just been spoken to her over and over again in her head- it was like she was trying to figure out a complicated equation, even though in reality, it was nothing more than a few simple sentences. And, although she didn’t speak Spanish, it wasn’t terribly difficult to guess what was going on based on what she could understand here.
La Tierra de los Recordados.
You can only be here if you are dead too.
A cold, empty numbness began to fill Moana’s very being. The girl was in shock- she simply couldn’t accept that she had failed, both her people and her mission. The question of her name seemed like a distant whisper, one to which she shook her head quietly to; trying to ignore the tears that were once again beading up and burning in her vision, she spoke, voice sounding hoarse and cracked from emotion.
“M... Moana. My name’s Moana. I... I can’t be dead, I have to save my people, I...”
“T-The ocean chose me for a reason. I can’t... I couldn’t have failed.”
amandla
dailybridgerton
jimmyeatworldofficial
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
yousharknotpass
