Breathe in the break of dawn, hear the sounds of animals that mourn the dead.  Take a glance at your new surroundings. Walk around feel the cool earth beneath you. Wearing no shoes, walk along the path of trees and broken bridges. There is no sign of modern technology, no mark of industry across the land. Listen to the steady rhythm of the pulsating land beneath, above, and all around you. Listen to the music playing through the wind, reminding you of your native land and tongue. Whispers of the melodies that make mornings go swiftly. Walk along the broken paths and bridges, through the jungle in the brisk of the afternoon. Days were long, feel the excruciating heat beat down your back, harvesting for your next meal. Hear your people hum, “ Esto es mi tierra, asi es mi Perú….”  Smile, because even in a sense of solitude and isolation, your belonging to a home is what keeps you sane.  Hum along, and pick at the grass, find the right place to plant the seeds of the Sancha Inchi. Look up, the sky is fading hues of red, and you hear your mother call in the distance, “ Es hora de venir a casa, es hora de esconderte de la noche.” Is it silly to think your mother still chides you, even at the age of 18? She believes all those ghost stories, said to be true. A reminder of what the villagers say comes to your mind as you take every step. Feel the cool earth beneath you, every crook, every crack, every smoosh of a leaf. Feel the coolness of the breeze caress your already sunburnt skin. Do you feel the cold graze of fingers slide down your spine, as if taunting your soul to come out and play? “ Mi amor apurate!” Your mother’s voice takes you out of your trance, walk a little faster now. Hear the sinister  whisper behind your ear as you reach your door, “ No te preocupes chiquita, no tengas miedo del equivocado.” Shaking your head, you come to a home, to the smell of greasy aromas, garlic steam, and freshly brewed grass. Welcomed by your mother, you seek comfort by her embrace. “ Mamá, tengo miedo, los espiritus estan por salir..” pleading to your mother for a reminder of reality, because the night will trigger all your fears. Fears that connect to a piece of truth that keeps you awake at night.

As you settle down, after a meal cooked over an open fire, you head to your straw made bed.  Hide under your covers and remind yourself of the story that the villagers tell to keep you home after a certain hour at night. You simply laugh and yet slowly your laugh becomes a mere whimper in the night, as you hide under your bed, silent prayers running in your head.
“ Howls , howls, howls of the dead!” In the dead of night, a rippling scream pierces your veil of sanity,  and you know then, that the story isn’t just a story after all.
  There is a ghost that wanders with a purpose through the shadows of the night. It steals the light in the eyes of those who were never meant to survive. Steals the life it once had, grabbing every inch of humanity as it has lost its own. The body shaped like a human, dressed like a man, draped with armory - listen. The voice that makes no sound, yet the vital pitch of the breath will deafen you and paralyze you with fear. Every cell and muscle will fall under the control of the spirit that taunts your own. Stay under your covers, stay within your homes, don’t step outside to see who the screams belong to, or you'll be captured too. Yet, are you even safe in your own  home? Feel the veins of your own, run cold, as the chilling of it’s fingers stroke your face. Don’t scream little one, for its screams will be its feast, giving it the power to open it’s eyes to reveal- nothingness. The empty eyes with no humanity, dead soul, will suck in every last drop of life within you. Remember that there will be nights it taunts, it haunts, and there will be nights that dead animals will arrive as a sacrifice by your door. Do not mock it’s existence, do not doubt the truth, for when it deems you wrong, the silence of the night becomes a song of your screams that lets everyone know, souls have been devoured.
The story sends shivers through your body, and you try to laugh. You go outside… needing a breath of fresh air. Hear the chorus of the wild river pushing against the rocks beneath it, hear the bristling of the trees. Hear the footsteps that come towards you. Thinking its the ghost, you pray. Pray that you will live the next day. Think of your mother and her sense of embrace and comfort. Think of your home that you should have never left. The ghost, the spaniard, wrapping its arms around you, stifling your screams before the break of dawn. You give your best fight, needing to be free. This fate you have been given, knowing that you’ll never return home. The soldier pushes a cold metal on your back, taunting your sense of survival. Stand still, become limp, your fate has been sealed.
As you have been captured, you are thrown on the ground with others who stepped out of their homes in the black of night. Black as your skin that defined this destiny. You hear the spanish curse in the night, evil laughs to be heard. They chain you all to one another. This is the cold caress of metal grazing your skin. These are the pair of eyes that take all the life within you, yet reveal nothing. Those are the sounds that send chills down the spine. The sound of silence that not even the sound of your own breath is comforting. This is the ghost story.  Truth remaining, the ghost roams in the night, stealing the life of those, stealing the humanity the ghost once had.
There will be a chain that will bind with the ghost and the freedom of the soul it has taken.  The binding of no humanity, and only an exchange of a one-sided profit.  Stories that were meant to keep you away were meant to keep you alive but blissfully ignorant of the truth behind it.  Tukuy kay pachaman paqarimujkuna libres nasekuntu tukuypunitaj kikin obligacionesniycjllataj, jinakamalla honorniyojtaj atiyniyojtaj, chantaqa razonwantaj concienciawantaj dotasqa kasqankurayku, kawsaqe masipura jina, tukuy uj munakuyllapi kansakunnan tian.  If only this were to be true.