The Devil’s Throat on Misery’s Path was a jagged scar in the desert floor where the wind whistled like a dying man. El Silencio had been guiding migrants through the desert between the border of Lin and Saint Dice. He moved through the canyon’s belly with the fluid grace of a shadow, his hand signal sharp: Stay close. Keep moving.
Alma gripped her teenage daughter Sofia’s hand until her knuckles turned white. She had already lost so much to the cartels. Her home, her peace, and temporarily, her infant son, Leo, left behind with relatives until she could send for him. All she had left of him was the scent of lavender on a small, blue baby blanket tucked into her pack.
"The rules. If you hear a baby cry, do not stop. Do not look back. Do not help."
El Silencio hissed, his voice a dry rasp. They entered the smuggling tunnels, a suffocating labyrinth of damp earth and rotting timber. Ten minutes in, the sound began. It was a thin, high pitched wail that skipped off the walls. Alma froze. It wasn’t just a cry; it had the specific, hiccupping rhythm of Leo’s colic. It’s not him, she told herself, heart hammering. He’s miles away.
But then the sound shifted. The cry dissolved into a soft, gurgling "Ma ma," the exact pitch her son used when he woke from a nap. The creature—a pale, hairless thing burrowing in the darkness—had found a discarded blue blanket weeks ago. It didn't just hear voices; it felt the grief attached to them.
"Sofia, don't listen,"
Alma whispered, but Sofia was already lagging, her eyes glazed with a terrible, hypnotic sorrow. A sudden gust of stale air blew through the tunnel, extinguishing El Silencio’s lantern. In the suffocating blackness, a scream ripped through the air Sofia’s scream.
"Sofia!"
Alma shrieked. She ignored the smuggler’s warning and bolted back into the crawlspace.
“Sofia, where are you?"
"Mamá, help! It’s dark!"
Sofia’s voice echoed from a side passage.
Alma lunged toward the sound, her hands scrambling against the cold dirt until she felt a slumped figure. Relief flooded her as she pulled the girl into a sliver of moonlight filtering through a crack above. But as the face turned upward, Alma’s blood turned to ice.
The skin hung loose, draped over a jagged, inhuman bone structure like a wet mask. The eyes were milk white orbs. It opened its mouth and spoke with a chilling, dual toned resonance:
“Mamá, you left me. Why did you leave us?"
The creature didn't strike. It simply watched.
Deeper in the tunnel, a wet, snapping sound echoed. Alma looked past the monster to see the real Sofia huddled in a nest of old clothes. Her skin was already turning translucent, her fingers fusing into claws. The creature didn't eat its prey; it harvested them, rewriting their flesh into the silent, burrowing things of the canyon.
Alma reached out, but the thing wearing Sofia’s face tilted its head and began to cry not like a girl, but like a baby waiting for its mother.