Recuérdame: What if Miguel's Curse Was Different?

Niño Perdido

After Miguel gave the guitar one strum, he froze as he had the strange feeling of his insides jiggling around, like when you ride a Rollercoaster. Then a strange tingling, numbing like that of needles. 

He gasps and sits down leaning against the tomb and waiting for the sensation to subside. Muffled voices echo from outside and his head turns to the window he broke into. A figure of a man shines a torch into it, blinding Miguel for a second. 

"Who's in there?" the man walks into the building, footsteps ringing in the air. Miguel threw his hands up. 

"Espera, señor, I-I can explain, Mr. de la Cruz is my--" the groundskeeper walks straight through Miguel, not even giving a sign that he saw him. He tries to chase after him but pauses when he sees a glimpse of white in the window. 

His eyes were met with the sight of bones. His bones, in fact. It seemed that he was merely a skeleton, no skin, no muscle, a skeleton. He yelped as he ran outside of the building, panicked and disoriented, trying to figure out what was going on. 

Suddenly he hears a familiar voice. His Mamá. "Miguel!" She looks over to the building, face in a pained grimace. Her fingers lace into her husband's. 

"Mamá!" 

His Papá turns his gaze from his mother to the distance. "Miguel. Come home!" Miguel reaches for them but his skeletal hands simply pass through them. His father jolts straight up, rubbing the place where he touched him with his palm. 

Tears start to well up into his father's eyes. "Where are you Miguel?!" he cries out. 

Frantically Miguel walks backwards and falls into an open grave. "Oh Dios, are you okay, little boy?" a feminine voice said to him. The figure reaches out her gloved hand and Miguel grasps onto it. 

"Thanks, I'm--" he yells when he sees her face. She's a skeleton. 

Given his current situation, he shouldn't really be surprised, should he? He chuckles and rubs the back of his arm, struggling to maintain composure. He bolts off. 

As he looks around, he sees there are skeletons everywhere you look. In fact, he actually bumped into one and knocked its head off. "Ahhh!" he tosses it off into the distances like it was too warm to hold onto. 

He watches them walk around the cemetery like this was simply something the skeletons did every year. He nearly falls down again when something wet comes in contact with his cheek. We'll, where his cheek used to be, anyways. 

"Dante? You can see me?" the dog simply looked up into his eyes, giving no response to him. He sighs. "Come on. We have to find out--" Dante barks and runs like the wind. "Wait! What the--" he chases him through the skeletal crowd and bumps into a mustached skeleton. 

It shatters into peices at touch and its head pops up. It looks offended. 

"I'm so sorry, wait--" he starts to pick up the bones on the ground. 

"Miguel?!" 

"Miguel?" 

"Miguel?"  the boy drops the bones in his arms, which magically reconstruct into the mustached skeleton man. "You're here?" 

A skeleton woman charges through he man and hugs Miguel, squeezing him. "Miguelititititito! You're here!" 

Miguel struggles and wiggles out of her grasp. "How do you know who I am?" 

The woman puts her hands his shoulders. "we're your family, remember, mijo?" 

The black and white pictures that were put on the ofrenda flashes through his memory. Tía Rosita. Tía Victoria. Papá Julio. "Oh." 

"Is he dead?" Tía Victoria asks, crossing her arms. 

Tía Rosita frowns. "He can't be. He's too young." 

"But only the dead are skeletons. He can't be alive and be meatless at the same time." 

Was he really dead? A cold feeling washed over him, mixed with regret. Papá Julio grabbed his wrist and smiled gently. "I'm sure Mamá Imelda can fix this. We're going to her, you just have to follow l, okay?" 

"Yes. Right."