Chapter 4 - THE BRACELET AND THE KEY
The second floor was wrapped in an eerie,
suffocating stillness.
Andrés did not go straight to his mother’s room,
knowing the door was locked tight.
Instead,
he walked into the master bedroom,
a space that felt foreign and cold.
He approached Renata’s elegant dresser,
where her expensive perfumes were lined up like soldiers.
He began to search through the drawers,
his movements silent and methodical.
Underneath a heavy gold bracelet,
one he had gifted her before his deployment,
he found it.
A small,
silver key rested in the velvet lining,
gleaming under the dim light.
He picked it up,
feeling the cold metal against his palm.
This key was the boundary between a lie and the truth,
and his hand shook slightly.
He walked back into the hallway,
approaching the locked door at the end of the corridor.
He inserted the key into the lock,
the sound surprisingly loud in the empty house.
The mechanism turned smoothly,
and the door swung open.
Immediately,
the smell of forced lockdown hit his senses,
stale air mixed with neglect.
The room was completely dark,
the heavy curtains drawn shut to block out the sun.
There were no lights on,
leaving the space shrouded in deep shadows.
In the center of the room stood a bare mattress,
stripped of its comfortable sheets.
A single,
thin blanket lay crumpled on the floor,
insufficient for the cold nights.
On a small wooden table sat a plastic cup,
filled with warm,
cloudy water.
Against the far wall sat Mrs. Teresa,
her small frame looking fragile and defeated.
Her beautiful white hair was completely uncombed,
tangled and wild.
Her shirt was wrinkled and stained,
a stark contrast to her usual neat appearance.
Around her wrists,
dark purple bruises were visible,
circling like sinister bracelets.
She clutched a small,
May you like
tattered doll to her chest,
her knuckles white from the grip.
