The accidents begin like rumors: small, whispered, easily dismissed until they line up. An old storage shed catches fire in the night, flames licking up the wood as if the building had been waiting to burn. A peón is injured when a beam falls, and Baltasar claims it was carelessness, though you notice the beam’s rope looks cut. A well collapses after Baltasar ignored a warning about its unstable wall, and the panic that follows tastes like dust and guilt. The workers start crossing themselves when Nahuel walks by, the way people do when they need a simple villain for complicated fear. “He carries a shadow,” they whisper, and you hate how quickly human minds reach for superstition when truth is dangerous. Baltasar uses the murmurs like fuel, stepping closer to you with each incident, voice low and urgent. “This is why they refused him,” he insists, eyes gleaming with something that feels like satisfaction. You refuse to be bullied by whispers, yet a chill crawls up your neck anyway, because the pattern is too neat.
“DON’T TOUCH HIM,” THEY WARNED YOU. YOU BOUGHT HIM ANYWAY… AND THAT NIGHT YOU LEARNED WHY MEN WOULD RATHER BURN THEIR SILVER THAN KEEP HIM CLOSE.
