Israel Centeno

Halloween Serie VII

At Coco’s corner, there’s a spot everyone knows but no one talks about. It’s not just a cursed place—it’s a corner where something impossible happens. Water falls. Always. But it’s not rain. It’s not the gurgle of a fountain, nor the drip of a spring. It’s an oily, slow, methodical drop that never stops. It’s like the heartbeat of something ancient lurking just out of sight. People say the drip has always been there. No one can say for sure where it comes from. No one knows when it’ll fall next, or on whom.

Everyone in the neighborhood knows the rules: you don’t walk near Coco’s corner without protection. Even on the brightest, clearest days, you’ll see people with umbrellas and raincoats, always watching the ground, always looking up nervously. They’re not protecting themselves from the weather; they’re protecting themselves from something far worse. That drop.

The drop doesn’t make a sound. It just falls silently, sliding down from somewhere above, nowhere in particular, and then hits. When it lands on you, it’s already too late.

At first, people don’t notice. There’s no pain. But something starts to change inside, slowly. It begins with the mind. Ideas that used to be sharp and clear turn into a swamp of confusion. Their thoughts slosh around, murky, sticky. Words come out wrong, slippery, like they’re coated in oil. People around them notice—they stumble, they lose focus, their eyes darken.

Then comes the physical change. They begin to lose weight, rapidly, like something is eating them from within. Their legs elongate grotesquely, bending into a strange shape, and their feet get trapped in high heels—long, spindly, sharp like knives. It doesn’t matter who they were before; their bodies shift into something unsettling, something inhuman. Their skin takes on a slick sheen, like they’re coated in grease, and their movements become erratic, twitchy. Wherever they go, a greasy trail follows them, a foul reminder of their transformation.

But the worst part? They get hungry. Not for food, but for chaos. For power. They start roaming the streets, attacking the beggars who haunt the corners. They don’t do it for money—they do it for the rush, for the feeling of domination. The thing inside them feeds off the suffering of others. They take what they can, leaving behind only whispers and oily footprints. The people they touch are left tainted, marked in some way, a corruption that starts to spread in their wake.

As the transformation progresses, the very environment around them begins to rot. The concrete cracks beneath their feet, the windows in nearby buildings splinter as they pass. Wooden doors creak and warp, the metal rusts. The world distorts, as if reality itself is pulling apart at the seams wherever they go. They’re no longer human, not really. They’re something else, something that shouldn’t exist.

And then there’s the corner. Coco’s corner isn’t just some cursed street in the city. It’s alive, in its own way. The locals don’t say it out loud, but they know something is watching from the shadows, something old, something that feeds off the misery of those who walk too close. There’s a force there, an ancient, lurking presence that conspires against anyone touched by the drop. It doesn’t want them there—it needs to get rid of them. The corner itself begins to work against them, warping, twisting. The walls lean in, shadows grow darker, and the streetlights flicker and die when the cursed ones walk by.

And eventually, inevitably, they disappear.

No one talks about where they go. Some say they’re taken to the catacombs beneath the city, where the bones of the forgotten rest. Others whisper about a mausoleum deep underground, hidden from sight, where the cursed ones are entombed, sitting in a line on stone benches, waiting for a judgment that never comes. They say the cursed sit there, forever conscious, forever rotting, waiting for an end that will never arrive.

The worst part? The drop doesn’t stop. It keeps falling, silently, stalking its next victim.

This is why, no matter how sunny or clear the day is, no one walks past Coco’s corner without an umbrella, without a raincoat. Not even children. They know what lurks there isn’t natural. The water that falls from nowhere, the drip that haunts the air, it’s more than just a curse. It’s a hunger, an ancient, insatiable thing that will take you, body and soul, if you let it.

And when it does, no one will speak your name again.

They’ll just open their umbrellas, put on their raincoats, and hope that they’re not next.