winced sympathetically: he knew all too well the weight of his father's stern hand.

"Don’t grow up to be a fool like your brother, you hear, Miguel?” Carlos's words were tinged with a mocking severity as he gazed down at his younger son. Miguel nodded, his eyes wide with the earnestness of youth that feared the sting of his father's disapproval more than any ghostly tale.

"Papá, but they say..." the older son tried again, his voice a cautious thread beneath the looming threat of another reprimand.

"Enough!" The boys' father interjected firmly, his tone final. "We're just running around on the ground, and they? Sent by God, they are. They can’t die." The man’s gaze then drifted across the gathered crowd to settle on Álva...

Please subscribe to keep reading.