For years I believed my brother died in his sleep.
That his heart simply stopped.
That's what they told us. That's what we believed.
That's how we mourned.
But the crack doesn't lie, right?
It only waits for us to be ready to listen.
⸻
That night, I returned to the old tree with the codex open.
Not to close it, not yet.
I wanted answers.
And the crack gave them to me.
The earth split silently. The air stopped.
And then I saw him.
A vision, not a memory.
Not mine, but his.
My brother, as a child. In the cemetery. Playing alone.
He was digging beside a nameless grave.
Laughing.
Until he found something.
A black stone.
Not just any stone.
The same one I now wear around my neck.
He touched it…
and screamed.
A shadow surrounded him. It did not attack. It entered him.
His laughter stopped.
And when he looked up…
his eyes were no longer those of a child.
They were ancient.
⸻
—"It was never a heart attack," whispered the gravedigger behind me.
—"What was it?" I asked, my voice breaking.
—"He died… when he found that.
What was buried there wasn't a stone.
It was a fragment of what you had sealed… before you were born again."
I turned slowly.
—"Again?"
The gravedigger nodded.
—"It's not your first life, Citlali.
And this isn't the first crack you've opened."
The tree's roots creaked.
From them emerged an ancient coffin, covered in dry branches.
It opened by itself.
And inside…
Was me.
Another version of me.
Older.
With ritual marks on her face.
Holding an extinguished torch.
—"He didn't die," said the gravedigger.
—"He was your first guardian.
The only one who tried to stop you."
Tears burned my eyes.
—"Is that why he's in the crack?"
—"Because you locked him there."
The earth groaned.
My brother's corpse, the one that chased me, rose from the bones.
But this time… he didn't come to scare me.
He came to look at me.
His eyes were no longer empty.
They were filled with fire.
—"There's still time," he whispered.
—"Time for what?"
—"To choose what you leave behind… and what you let in."
⸻
And then I understood:
The crack doesn't close with force.
Nor with songs.
Nor with someone else's blood.
It closes with renunciation.
And I… wasn't ready yet.
But soon I would have to be.
Because what comes next doesn't wait.
And has already crossed once.