Chapter 1 – Don’t Look Back
I lived in a wooden house made of uneven, time-worn boards.
Through the cracks, my eyes could see everything happening outside…
...Yet no one could see me, because the darkness of the room covered me like a cloak.
It was there, in that old house, where my story began.
I was twelve years old, and among the towering mountains, beside a river of calm waters, I lived one of my many near-death adventures.
What was I doing there?
I earned my first bills working as a cook for a group of unknown men. They were all older—none older than twenty-four.
And what did they do?
That… will be another story.
One night, at two in the morning, I woke up. Not because of the discomfort of my makeshift bed bed, but because of voices I heard in the distance.
I opened my eyes.
My bunkmate wasn’t there.
I climbed down slowly, careful not to make a sound, and approached the door.
Through a crack I saw a group of men.
The moonlight fell across their faces, and from their expressions, from the objects they carried in their hands, I knew nothing good was about to happen.
I trembled.
I trembled with fear, although deep in my mind I knew I had done nothing wrong. Thinking about that gave me a little calm.
“Ay, mamá,” I thought, “if you were here, I’d hide under your skirt…”
Creeeeak…
The door opened. I froze.
“One of them!” I thought.
But no. It was one of the twenty-four.
He came close—so close I felt his warm breath against my ear.
“You must run,” he whispered. “Slip out quietly, go down through the woods until you reach the riverbank. Run between the trees until you find the path home. Don’t look back.”
I ran without looking back… but I still didn’t know what I was running from.
I survived, and the proof is that I’m here today, telling you my story…
Half of a story, because the other half… perhaps I am still living it.
