Coco is my current favorite movie and I believe it is Pixar's greatest film yet! So I have decided to try my hand at writing fanfiction based on it. Hope that you enjoy it!

*Warning: There are some mild mentions of blood in this chapter.

Ernesto stands back as he watches his best friend stumble a few more feet before finally collapsing, first on his knees then face-planting into the hard ground. A small stab of grief and regret briefly strikes his heart before it's smothered.

This was necessary, he tells himself as he walks over to Héctor's dropped suitcase. He left me with no choice.

Ernesto sets the case containing Héctor's – now his – guitar on the ground as he begins to riffle through the suitcase's spilled contents, smiling slightly when he produces the red notebook that he'd been searching for.

He wanted to throw our dream away, so I did what I had to seize my moment.

Héctor wasn't completely at fault, though. Indeed, if there was someone to blame for his untimely demise, it was that maldita mujer who had used her wiles to bewitch Ernesto's poor hermanito into abandoning their childhood dreams, first by making Héctor marry her then ensnaring him further by birthing that spawn of theirs. And because of the hechizo that that woman had casted on Héctor, Ernesto had been forced to kill his little brother after Ernesto could no longer convince him to continue with the tour. Yes, it was all Imelda Rivera's fault.

All these thoughts cross Ernesto's mind as he opens the songbook on a random page, his eyebrows rising as he comes across a song he hadn't known about. This was not unusual as Héctor had the annoying habit of writing songs that he refused to play on their shows because they were "just" for his familia. I waste of Héctor's talents, in Ernesto's opinion as those "special songs" were some of his best. Well, they won't be kept from the world for much longer.

Ernesto's frowns slightly as he reads the words 'rubato, simply, tenderly' written on the upper left corner of the page.

Hmm, I'm going to have to make some adjustments to this song before I can use it, he thinks as he stashes the songbook into the inner pocket of his jacket and picks up the guitar case.

"Oye!"

Ernesto nearly drops the guitar case as he turns to toward the shout, eyes wide like a startled deer's. A short man and a somewhat 'beefy' woman stand at the entrance of a small alley between two houses a few feet away but he has no time to discern more details before the man speaks again.

"What do you think you're doing?"

Panic floods every fiber of Ernesto's being as he finds himself unable to answer, unable to think up any excuse that could believably explain why he was taking a dead man's belongings. And as the two witnesses quickly approach, Ernesto does the only thing a panicked man caught red-handed can do.

He runs.

As her husband curses and takes off after the fleeing mariachi, the woman kneels beside the prone young músico, turning him over unto his back to access any injuries. His face was a bloody mess, the impact with the ground breaking his nose and loosening various teeth. Still, she could see the faint rise and fall of his chest that indicates he's still breathing. Maybe it wasn't too late for him.

The woman startles when the músico makes a sudden choking noise, blood and bile sprouting from his mouth as his body convulses slightly. Before she can even think of doing something, the lanky man falls still once again, his chest no longer moving to draw in breath. The woman presses two fingers to the still man's wrist, dread filling her not at what she felt, but rather, what she didn't felt.

There was no pulse.

No, no, no! This CANNOT be happening!

These words repeat in Ernesto's frantic mind all over and over again as he rapidly weaves through the dark streets of Mexico City, trying in vain to lose his pursuer. Despite his short legs the man chasing him has no trouble keeping up with Ernesto and was in fact gaining on the fleeing murderer.

This ISN'T how thing were supposed to go!

There shouldn't have been anyone else in the streets that late at night, everyone else was supposed to be asleep inside their houses. No one was supposed to have seen him just stand there watching his best friend die, to see him take his songbook and guitar, to see him about to just leave Héctor's body behind. No one was supposed to see because if there were no witnesses, then there was no crime. He could eventually forget if he had been the only one to know. He could forget about what he had done. And if he forgot about it then it no longer existed.

But he had been seen, not by one but two other people, two witnesses to his dark deed. And because he had been seen, he wouldn't be able to forget what he did to Héctor. He wouldn't be able to convince himself that it hadn't happened. All because he had had been seen.

"Stop, you hijo de puta!"

The short man's voice is much closer than before. Glancing over his shoulder, Ernesto sees that his pursuer is just a few feet behind him now, that distance shrinking by the second. It won't be long before Ernesto was caught... unless he thinks of something quick.

A desperate plan forms in his panic-addled brain and while a part of him screams to not do it, his sense of survival drowns it out. So, with only a second of hesitation, Ernesto throws the guitar case at his hunter's feet, the shorter man tripping over it and crashing into the ground. By the time the man manages to pick himself up, groaning, there was no sign of his quarry.

Ernesto de la Cruz has escape.

So, here you have it! Updates might be done frequently since I'm feeling very inspired by this story but that depends on what happens in my real life. If you wish to know more about my Witness(es) Au, then check out my Tumblr: