The Narrator
Heinrich could hear the voices of the two men debating from his capsule. He waited patiently for them to stop. An hour passed, and Sergio and Gallagher were still loudly discussing something. An hour passed after that, and Seagale came down and began talking with the two men.
Another hour passed, and at the end of that hour, Gallagher and Seagale returned to the bus.
Zwoop! Heinrich's capsule door flung open. He tossed himself towards the side of the bed facing the capsule door, and with his half-sleepy eyes, he saw Mr. Gallagher and Ms. Seagale staring at him.
He lost his voice entirely at that moment and was paralyzed. He feared that Gallagher and Seagale thought that he was eavesdropping.
"The light, Kirt," was all that Mr. Gallagher said, pointing to the light.
Heinrich nodded as Mr. Gallagher himself shut the capsule door on his and Ms. Seagale's ways to their respective capsules.
Heinrich couldn't sleep. He nevertheless waited for twenty minutes. After those twenty minutes, he quietly got out of bed, after turning off his capsule lights.
The aisle was dark, as Mr. Gallagher turned the walkway lights off. Everyone was asleep, and he could hear Mr. Gallagher snoring, albeit the capsule muffled the raw noise.
He turned towards the toilets and saw there was only a red light there. He then looked at the windshield and saw the portable lamp, which Sergio had set up on a pole to give light. All capsule doors were locked.
"Oww," someone behind him exclaimed, stifling their voice after he took three steps back. "Look where you're walking," he/she added
"Who are you?" Kirt asked. His voice was so loud that the person behind him covered his mouth with her hand.
The smell of perfume and the size of the hand helped Kirt recognize that it was a girl's. "Be quiet, Kirt. You're gonna get both of us in trouble," whispered the person.
"Okay," he said with his voice stifled by the hand on his mouth. "Would you let me go now, Alice?" he asked.
Kirt Heinrich
It was Alice Boe who was behind me.
"What are you doing down here?" I asked.
"Not so loud, dude," she said, prompting me to lower my voice so that no one would know that we were awake.
"I think I should be asking you what you're doing being awake at this hour," replied Alice.
"I'm going to see Sergio."
"Wow. Me too," said another figure who came from another side.
I was about to shriek in shock before Alice quickly closed my mouth.
"You have an inclination to pull us right into trouble, Heinrich," she said.
"What?" asked the other person, rather loudly. I discovered that this person was Timothy McAllister.
"You're so like him," Alice said, rolling her eyes and sighing.
"Are you going to see Sergio, too, Boe?" I asked Alice, calling her by her surname.
"Duh!" she said, "Do you think I" ll ever risk detention to do something unless it's essential."
"Okay, let's go then," I said.
We tiptoed through the aisle, making our way the cabin of Sergio.
"Ah! Heinrich, I was worried that I didn't invite you to come with me to where I wanted to take Alice and Tom to, but you came," said Sergio, expressing happiness that I came too, after opening his cabin's door to Alice's and McAllister's knocking.
Shifaly Udawatte
None of us could sleep that night. Not even the teachers.
So, we all hung out atop the terrace about three hours after Basura apologized to me.
Everyone was with their cliques. Basura was with Malindu and Agash, I was with Avanthi and Adesh, while Natalia Fernando was with Radeesha and Manelka.
Adesh was listening to Avanthi and me for a long time. He has two sisters, so he is familiar with drama.
"This Harshani girl, she is such a trouble, no?" said Avanthi, gossiping about a girl. "I don't know how many boyfriends that female has. Shaaa! It must be more than a fifty."
"She's better than Sukeena," I said, grabbing a Dorito from a pack of them Adesh opened and placed in front of me.
I strove hard to prevent myself from being tempted to gossip.
Avanthi began, "Each time Sukeena she tells me about her new boyfriend, she says 'I have bokeng love man.. bokeng love', and then I discover her 'bokeng love' is not only for one person. It's an 'open for all offer'."
"Anyway guys, I'm so sick of your girlish babble," said Adesh, interrupting Avanthi's report of Sukeena.
"Well, you entertain us then, man, telling that gossip is bad and all," said Avanthi.
"Okay," said Adesh, arising from the reclining position he took on the floor.
"Do you guys know about some horror stories from Bolivia? "asked Adesh.
"No idea, Aduu," I said, expressing facially that I had no idea.
Avanthi said the same words and did a similar facial expression.
"Do you know some, Aduuu?" I then asked.
"I was researching…," began Adesh before he was interrupted by a gluttonously eating Avanthi.
"Don't you have anything better to do than researching on vacation?" asked Avanthi.
Ignoring her, Adesh began: "There's this legend of La Mujer La Negra."
I bit my tongue when I heard the name 'La Mujer La Negra.'
I thought of different urban legends I heard all my life. I thought of the Legend of Kinduri. My grandmother used to tell me about a frightening spirit that is known to knock on doors disguised as a pregnant woman. If a woman opened the door, then that woman would be safe, but if a man opened the door, he's gone. My mind wandered to another legend: Riri Yaka. My friend Radeesha told me about it. There are different versions of the story. One legend has it that Riri Yaka was an Indian prince, who was born as an average child. However, as he grew up, Yaka developed a habit of drinking animal blood, which gave him the reputation of a demon-boy among people who knew of his addiction. Eventually, he became what people labeled him as. He is said to be red-colored and wandering around sitting on a pig carrying the heads of people.
"Shifaly… Shifaly?" called Adesh, noticing that I was lost deep in thought.
"Scared?" asked Avanthi.
"No," I lied, for, I was scared indeed, thinking about the different urban legends I had heard before.
"Okay, Adesh, you tell us about the urban legends you know about Bolivia," I said.
Adesh began, "First there's the Legend of La Viudita."
"What's that, Aduu?" I asked, being genuinely interested.
"Wait, and don't interrupt me, girls," said Adesh as he chuckled.
He continued:
"La Viudita or Black Widow is known to be a woman, a widow, beautifully dressed from head to toe like a bride with a veil, but in black. She lingers in the streets when it's dark and escorts drunk men to a mansion far away. That's when Viudita reveals her face by taking off her veil. She hysterically laughs at the poor, drunk men (drunk men searching for one-night stands and fly-by dates are her usual victims) who get shocked at the revelation of her hideous face. Now, this is where the Legend diverges: one variant says that she chokes them to death and leaves them back in the streets near the bars in a way that their deaths would be considered to be caused by alcohol-overdose; and, another variant says that she just scares them till they faint. "
"What happens after they faint?" asked Avanthi.
"They wake up in a filthy puddle of mud, and resolve to never go home late again," answered Adesh.
The hairs at the back of my neck were raised. More than the story ait was the way he told it, with gestures, intonation, and facial ts expressions, that frightened me the most.
"Do you want to hear another one? "asked Adesh.
We didn't respond.
He held his arms and looked at the trees and took a deep breath, and in a worried voice, he told me, "I don't know if I could say this to you. I feel so strange. I feel like someone is watching us".
He looked around at the trees and the forest. "Legend has it that whoever speaks of the being I'm gonna talk about, becomes its next victim."
"What do you mean?" asked Avanthi, visibly frightened by what Adesh was saying. Adesh gulped, looked around the terrace, and the trees worriedly and said in a low voice, "No one. No one lives to tell the tale of La Negra."
"What is La Negra? "inquired a concerned Avanthi, sweating so profusely that her forehead appeared metallic.
My breathing became visibly heavy, and I began sweating.
"This story, my dear friends, is the story of La Mujer La Negra," whispered Adesh, who swooped closer.
"Before the Spanish arrived in Bolivia…" he began after glancing around his environment.
"Before the Spanish arrived in Bolivia…" he said once again, looking at the trees.
He finally took a deep breath and narrated, "Before the Spanish arrived in Bolivia, the Incas ruled swathes of land in South America." He gulped. He shivered a bit, and his eyes twitched. He took another deep breath and swallowed once more. He then narrated the story:
"There was an Inca chieftain with the name of Acahuana. He had a wife known as Nayra. Nayra was the most beautiful woman in the land. She was desired by all: from 17-year-olds to 70-year-olds.
Acahuana's fellow chieftains were so jealous of Acahuana's wife's splendid beauty that they poisoned Acahuana after inviting him for dinner to a gathering one day.
Nayra was pregnant for 2 months then. She did not know about her husband's murder.
All she was told that her husband was cursed by a witch. She believed it.
She then married her husband's murderer, and he treated her very well until she gave birth. That's when he began to torture here, out of jealousy that the woman he married showed more love to the baby of her former husband (that he had slain).
He tortured her to madness, and, one day in a fit of rage, cut the woman's baby and offered her the baby to eat. She being mad ate it, realizing only later what she had done.
She was even more mad, depressed, and furious. She then wanted the blood of her second husband. He kept her locked, however, so he wasn't harmed. By that time, her skin had rotted, and she began to look hideous. She was disfigured by the whippings of her second husband.
Three months later, she disappeared from her second husband's house after he left the door open when he went out of the house to meet with the Inca emperor, who was visiting the province he helped the emperor administer.
People began reporting sightings of a black-clad, hooded figure that roamed the forest eating and drinking the blood of whatever person came her way. Slowly people began disappearing in that village. Bodies were never found. One day a child reported that he saw Nayra dressed in black eating brains from the dead body of her second husband. The next day, even he was snatched by her. One by all, all the men who conspired to kill her husband were eaten by her. No corpses were found. Disappearances like that continued and haunted the village and those that neighbored it.
So, one day, the villagers fled away from that village towards modern-day Peru, trying to protect themselves from the danger of La Negra. In no time, even the neighboring tribes migrated from the vicinity of Negra's hunting grounds.
Now the region is fully reclaimed by the rainforest.
However, Legend has it that she's still roaming the jungle to this day…. hungry and thirsty for more. Did you know she was so feared that when the Spanish arrived, the Inca emperor never sent his troops to that region she was known to inhabit, resulting in the Spanish quickly conquering it? She came to be known as La Negra when the Spanish arrived, and they too reported sightings. Today many people have forgotten about La Negra and her story, but some still believe that she's out there….craving for more".
A chill ran down my spine as I was listening to the tale to that tale. I was breathing slowly and heavily, and my hand was sweating so much that a paper I was clutching became wet and soggy.
"Negra! Negra!" yelled Adesh pointing his finger towards our back. We screamed and turned back.
There was nothing.
We almost had a heart attack.
"These are just old wives tales passed from generation to generation, children. Do you believe them? Ghosts don't exist. They just play a good role in entertaining us better than how gossip entertains us when we are camping in the jungle," he said, mocking our reaction.
"It.. it..is not funny", said a freaked out Avanthi, before she began hitting Adesh.