Disclaimer: Most of my characters are original, although I'm sure you'll recognize when they aren't mine. I'm not making any money from this story, so there is no copywrite infringement going on.
A/N: I have written countless (19) other versions of this story, and I think I have finally settled on a way to best tell it. Please leave reviews! If you have any questions, I'll be happy to clear things up for you. Been writing about these characters since I was 10 or 11, so I know a bit about them.
A/N2: The beginning of this story has a bit of a dark a theme, I think, but it will lighten up.
Jaguar Brazil
Prologue
As she stood in silence on her balcony, it seemed to Nivea Cortez that the world gave out beneath her. The walls of the old castle began to crumble, and her mouth opened in shock, as her white knuckled hands gripped the stone railing. And that railing began to break off in pieces, unbeknownst to Nivea, who was standing with her back to the world, looking back into the castle.
"What's going on?" a boy asked, moving into Nivea's line of sight, standing in the doorway. As he caught sight of what was going on, he gasped, jaw dropping.
Terrified, Nivea whirled around, fighting her sudden nausea. The sea was black, writing, like a living being. The forest was howling, trees yanking themselves out of the earth by their roots, animals fleeing. The sky was the dark purple colour of a bruise, vomiting orange clouds across the landscape. The grass was the worst to behold. It was turning yellow before Nivea's eyes, like a stain on white cloth. The earth was churning, spitting out particles or dirt and rocks.
Nivea cried out in horror and shock, taking several rapid steps backwards. Then she caught sight of the railing she had been grasping, seeing how it had crumbled and broken beneath her hands. Tears flew to her eyes, and she ran toward the door, toward the boy in the doorway.
Something was wrong with the sun.
It flared up suddenly, blinding Nivea, and the boy who yelled an expletive. Nivea threw her arm over her eyes, and bent double, to keep the sun away. She thought in terror that she might be going blind. Nothing made sense. This had to be a dream.
It could have been the apocalypse, the way the earth was suddenly bathed in darkness. Nivea stood up slowly, gasping for air. Dust was floating all around her. She couldn't see, but she could taste it.
"Nivea!" the boy called out. "Are you alright?"
The shaking had stopped. She fell to her knees, sobbing.
The boy moved toward her, and the light flared back up. Nivea reached out for him, as the castle gave up its struggle against the forces of nature, and caved in. The supports failed, and he disappeared into a pile of rubble.
"No!" Nivea screamed. It was a bloodcurdling scream of anguish, of disbelief, of how could this be happening? And in that scream, out fled a bit of her sanity, her reason. Everything that had been right and true was now wrong and corrupt. The ground was supposed to be stationary, the sky was supposed to be blue. The heavy rocks, material from which the castle had been built centuries before, had pressed the life out of the boy. That was wrong. No, no, that couldn't have happened. Nivea's heart stopped in a fit of panic, as the earth began to shake harder than before. She kept screaming, invoking the Goddess. The balcony tilted, and she tumbled, almost in slow motion, toward the ground. She didn't care anymore. Hell could swallow her whole. He can't be dead, he can't. Cycling through her head, until it became dizzying, the sinking feeling overwhelmed her, and the scream subsided, all in the space of a couple of seconds.
Impact.