The First Story
366 Words
The top notebook was deep red, the color of dried chile. A symbol was drawn on the cover: a circle with three lines crossing through it, like a compass that had lost its sense of direction.
Marisol ran her thumb over the symbol. The ink felt raised, as if it had been burned into the cover rather than drawn.
She opened the notebook.
Her mother’s handwriting filled the first page—familiar loops and slants, but sharper, rushed, like she’d been writing while looking over her shoulder.
The story began in Spanish:
“La niña que desapareció no se fue sola.”
The girl who disappeared did not leave alone.
Marisol’s breath hitched.
She knew this story.
Everyone in town did.
Lety Ramos. Fourteen years old. Vanished on her way home from school. No clues. No body. No answers. Her mother had been a teenager when it happened.
But her mother had never written about it.
Never spoken about it.
Never even hinted she knew more than anyone else.
Marisol turned the page.
The story slipped between Spanish and English, then into something else—symbols, spirals, geometric shapes that looked like they belonged in a math textbook or a spellbook. Some lines were written in ink so dark it looked almost wet. Others were faint, like her mother had been running out of time.
The details were too specific—Lety’s chipped tooth, the way she braided her hair with mismatched ribbons, the exact street where she was last seen.
Things only someone close would know.
A chill crawled up Marisol’s arms.
She flipped to the margins.
Her mother had scribbled frantic notes:
“No abrir sin la llave.”
“Not safe after dusk.”
“If she finds this—run.”
The handwriting grew shakier as the pages went on. The same symbol from the cover appeared again and again, drawn darker each time.
Marisol swallowed hard.
Her mother had been afraid.
Of what?
Or who?
She closed the notebook, hands trembling.
The room felt smaller now. The air heavier. The shadows longer.
Something in the house creaked.
She spun around.
Nothing.
But she couldn’t shake the feeling that she wasn’t alone.
- Writer
