Chapter 317

The sun beat down, unforgiving as it always did over the village of La Pantera. A rusted steel sign, buried in the thick heat, stood on the outskirts, faded from age and the harsh climate. Only a handful of homes dotted the landscape, their concrete walls cracked and gray from years of neglect. The roads, barely more than dirt paths, were interrupted by occasional rocks and holes, leaving little room for hope.

People lived there, and they died there. It was a place that seemed to exist on the edge of the world, forgotten, where even time struggled to move forward. No one asked for help; they had long ago learned the futility of such things. This was life for them—a dull existence with no chance of escape.

The new project started as rumors. They always did. The people weren't used to change, so when foreign contractors arrived, they didn't question it. They were promised better crops, richer soil, more efficient farming methods. It was all too easy to believe. People had nothing else to hold onto.

The first deaths came quietly. An old woman, Naira, who lived by the edge of the village, was the first to fall ill. No one thought much of it. She was old. Her body had been breaking down for years. But then came Tomas, the farmer with the soft laugh and the big hands, who was young and strong.

He stumbled in one evening, his face pale and fevered. His skin began to peel like paper, his eyes dull. By the morning, he was gone. The same happened to others—quick, unexpected, without warning.

The villagers tried to ignore the signs, to tell themselves it was just a coincidence. But it spread. Each death was marked by the same chilling symptom: something within their bodies was turning against them. Blood pooled under their skin, like a slow and suffocating tide.

Marisol, the young woman who helped care for the sick, noticed it first. She was the daughter of one of the village elders, and her concern grew as her father's health began to fail. His skin turned yellow, his eyes wide with confusion and fear. The doctors had no answers; they had seen the strange patterns but lacked the knowledge to understand them.

The project was still running, even as the sickness spread. The foreigners showed no sign of stopping. They pushed ahead, planting strange seeds in the soil, their trucks unloading giant containers of chemicals.

They said it was necessary, that it would make the land more fertile. But every time Marisol asked more questions, she saw the hard looks in their eyes. She started to suspect they weren't just changing the soil.

She'd seen it in her dreams, or maybe it was the sickness playing tricks on her. She couldn't tell anymore. But in the night, the stars outside her window seemed to twist and shift, as if they weren't the same stars that had watched over the village for centuries. In the morning, the soil outside her house looked darker. She wondered if it was just the heat playing tricks on her again.

One evening, while walking along the outskirts of the village, Marisol saw something that would haunt her forever. A group of men from the village—once strong, once full of life—were kneeling beside the newly planted fields, their hands sinking deep into the earth.

Their eyes were hollow, their bodies stiff. It looked as though they were pulling the dirt, not planting it, but pulling something from it.

Her heart raced, and she wanted to scream, but the sound died in her throat. She didn't know what was happening to them, to the land. She only knew that something was changing, and it was too late to stop it.

The sickness had taken hold of the village, and it was as if the land itself had begun to hunger. The soil no longer fed the crops; it fed the people. But it wasn't a nourishment. It was poison, slowly taking root inside them.

Marisol's father died a week later, his body bloated and pale, as if his own blood had become thick and putrid. He had been one of the first to welcome the contractors, believing in their promises. He had been proud to see something new for the village, a glimpse of what could be better.

But now it was clear that those promises were lies. Lies that came wrapped in pretty words, and sweet-smelling chemicals. Marisol, with her heart breaking, began to dig. She dug in the dirt by the field, pulling at the soil until her hands were raw and bleeding.

What she found only confirmed her worst fears. The seeds they had planted were not ordinary crops. They were something else—something that shouldn't have existed.

The soil around the roots was blackened, like it was cursed. The seeds themselves, once bright and colorful, had begun to rot, oozing something that looked like blood. The plants grew in twisted patterns, their leaves curling unnaturally.

Marisol realized that whatever the foreigners had introduced to the land was feeding on something else now—something darker, more insidious. And it was feeding on the people.

She tried to warn the others, but it was too late. The sickness had already spread too far, and the bodies kept piling up, one by one. The village, once full of people, was becoming a graveyard. The streets were quiet now, save for the occasional shriek of a child who had been left behind, orphaned, to grow up in a dying world.

Days turned into weeks, and Marisol grew weaker. She could feel the changes inside her body, the creeping sickness that had begun to consume her too. It wasn't just the fever; it was something deeper, something from the land itself. She knew she had only a few days left. But still, she couldn't stop.

She returned to the field, watching as the plants grew taller, their twisted forms nearly reaching the sky. The land seemed to throb with a low, rhythmic pulse, and Marisol could swear the earth was breathing. The foreigners had vanished, leaving nothing behind but their promises, now as empty as the village.

One night, in the midst of the chaos, Marisol stumbled upon something she hadn't seen before—an old man, withered and frail, sitting by the field. His eyes were glassy, as though his soul had long since been drained.

But when he looked at her, she saw something—something ancient and malevolent—in his gaze. He didn't speak, but his hand reached into the soil, pulling up a handful of the dark, twisted plants. He ate them.

Marisol felt her stomach turn, but she couldn't look away. The man didn't die; he only grew more still, as if he was part of the land now, tethered to it. She understood then that it wasn't just the people that the land wanted—it was their souls, their essence.

The plants were feeding on more than their blood. They were feeding on life itself.

She collapsed beside him, her body trembling with the realization of what had happened to her people. They were no longer human; they were part of something else, something far older and more terrifying. And it was too late to escape.

In the final hours, as her skin turned pale and her body began to rot from the inside, Marisol could feel the plants calling to her. They wanted her to join them. To become part of the land, just like everyone else.

But she didn't resist. There was nothing left to resist for. She felt her mind slipping, her thoughts fading as the earth consumed her. She felt herself sinking, sinking into the ground, becoming one with the twisted roots that had once been a promise of hope.

When she finally took the last breath, it was not in fear. It was in acceptance. The village of La Pantera had become a part of something far worse, and no one was left to mourn. The land had claimed them all.

And the project, still active, moved forward—its purpose fulfilled, its work done. The foreign contractors had long since moved on, leaving only the broken and rotting soil behind them. Nothing but the earth remained, hungry and patient.