Chapter 3: Sempervivum arachnoideum

Nine years had passed since orphan Ángela María Belmonte felt safe and whole, sheltered by her first home. Six anniversaries were enough for that dream to crumble with the loss of the Montoyas, the only family she had ever known. Eleven months, and their attempted kidnapping made it clear to her that she would no longer live in her world, again. She had gone seventy days without hearing from the last family member she had left. In the confinement of the Bondel Foundation, she feared being forgotten, trapped in her nightmare that had been going on for over a thousand days.

— I'm sorry. No, they didn't make it —. She heard an exhausted paramedic say, his reflection in the mirror that was her mask. The night his family would never return.

— Oh no, no! — The news brought desperate tears to her face, crisscrossing her terrified eleven-year-old face, reflecting the great need to preserve the last piece of her home. Beside her, a stunned, pale, blond girl, her older sister, collapsed. When she wrapped her long hair around her, in a cocoon of black as heavy as that night.

— It's like... like she decided to jump into the ravine. It doesn't make sense —, the police officers holding them whispered, hidden behind their masks, while they searched for the cause of her accident. — Hey, do you think it was that little hybrid girl? — They suspected, furtively glancing toward the girl with metallic irises. Because of her malicious reaction, a nurse ran toward the little girls to get them away from the group.

— Princesses. Do you have family around here? — She tried to ask several times, but to no avail. Neither of them could utter a word, trapped in their profound sadness.

— Yeah. There's no other way —, said a young detective, throwing away his cigarette and pushing the worker away. When he saw the lights of a municipal patrol car approaching, he declared, — We have to separate them —, as he took Angela's arm. Despite being Iberian and stationed at her country's embassy, ​​Aztec law wouldn't allow a disturbed woman to walk free. It didn't matter what permit she had on her.

As she felt her little sister being pulled away, Angela's face suddenly dried up. An intense explosion of bright green erupted from her pupils, completely obscuring her gaze. A violent clamor erupted from within her, reverberating to her very foundations.

— Don't touch her! — He ordered, reliving the shock of her life as she remembered the terrible moment of her arrest.

Ilstration Process: https://youtube.com/shorts/LCU6p9ZDnao?si=Hhxl8zKj8_IPTSFe

— Amaya? Comadrita? — She searched for her, drenched in cold sweat, only to find her own body, anchored by her fingertips, firmly glued to the ceiling of her room. On the cot assigned to her, she looked like an elegant white frog about to jump, but against gravity. — Holy Virgin! —, she exclaimed as she plummeted to the floor, losing control of her adhesive force.

— Ow, ow. I've hit myself again —, she said, tossing her morning mane of hair, rubbing her head, pieces of the ceiling stuck in the microscopic hooks of her fingers.