(Author's Note: Don't worry about the initial language barrier- that will be fixed in-universe quickly. Includes Pixar movies which have humans in them, excluding the Good Dinosaur. Enjoy!)
My cousin Dolores was having her engagement party this evening. It'd been three years since casa Madrigal was rebuilt by our family and the community. A lot has happened since then, and also nothing really. No one's gotten married or anything significant like that. We've just been getting closer as a family, especially me and Bruno. We made sure that he made up for lost time with everyone, but we spent the majority of our time together. He was eagerly helping with the party preparations downstairs with the others. It would soon be seven o'clock and Mariano- not to mention his family- would arrive.
Ascending the main staircase, I tried to hurry as fast I could. "Don't forget the table runners, Mirabel!" My grandmother hollered up from the bottom of the stairs. "On it, Abuela!" Yelling back, I put my hand on my bedroom's door; yes, I'm still in the nursery. Not that I mind; I like it in there, plus it feels like mine now. Plus whenever I got bored or wanted company, I went to Bruno or Antonio's room. The doorknob turned and I pushed the door open…..
It opened, and my eyes have never grown so wide before.
On the other side was not my familiar, comfortable nursery, but a cliffside overlooking the sea. It was warm but not as hot as Encanto. Maybe that's because this place, wherever it was, was nowhere near our home. Literally speechless and without a thought in my mind, I shut the door. Then, after a second, I reopened it, cautiously peering in to see the same oceanside view. My head shot over in the direction of the wall.
"Uh….. Casita? W-What is…? What is this?" My shaky, stunned voice inquired. Casita merely shrugged its wooden planks at me in a "I don't know" gesture. Not daring to move an inch for a second, the warm sea breeze swept in through the crack in the door, swaying my short curls a little. In awe, I summoned the courage to gaze back through the threshold into the scene outside. And man, was it beautiful! Everything about it called me forward; the fresh vibrant coastal colours, the seemingly endless cloud-free sky, the warmth of the humid air, and the pungent smell of sea salt. Before I consciously grasped what my feet were doing, they were crossing the doorframe, stepping out onto the soft grass. Once I realized what I was doing, I rationalized it that I would only be gone a minute- you know, before I go tell everyone about unexplainable occurrence. I was so lost in the moment that I failed to notice the door disappear behind me.
It was magical! Jaw-dropping! I'd never seen anything like it. I'd always wanted to see the ocean, but the mountains around Encanto were just too high to climb. Plus we wouldn't know how to get to the coast even if we were out. It never occurred to be that this wasn't Columbia, or even in South America. I just automatically took it to be the Columbia coast. Oh boy, was I wrong.
The first sign that something was off was when I reached the edge of the cliff. Down below off to the side along the beach was a town. Nothing abnormal stuck out at first, but soon I began to notice small, weird things. People were riding around on two-wheel metal cart thingys. Even stranger than that were the sea boats moving by themselves. The sailors in them didn't have to row to get anywhere in the water. I'd never seen anything like it before. Growing ever more curious, I came right up to the ledge so to sneak a peek down at the sea below. There was a fishing boat- or at least I think that's what it was doing. Two men were sitting in it; a tall, slender one with curly hair, and a broad older one with a missing arm. Both were staring back up at me like I was the strange individual here. What's really weird is both men- everyone around here actually- had really pale skin. Like really pale. That's when it started to dawn on me that maybe I wasn't in Columbia anymore…..
I guess I leaned a little too far for a look. To my sudden terror, my sandals started to shift on the grass. Letting out a blood-curdling scream, I slipped forward, just grasping onto the edge with seconds to spare. Now the two men in the boat were watching me very intently, wondering what they could do to help. Unfortunately, there was no help for me up here. I said a small prayer through clenched teeth, gripping onto the grass blades and dirt for dear life. But it was no use.
I heard myself cry out again as I went plummeting through the air down the side of the cliff. I don't remember feeling my body hit the water down below, but I'm sure it must have hurt. I can guess this because the impact was so great that I started to pass out. There I was, landing on the sea's surface and suddenly sinking down below it. My limbs flung up around me as my centre fell fastest. How my glasses stayed on and intact, I'll never know. All I remember is staring up above me to the blue sky, growing more and more distant. My brain was so racked, I didn't even have time to think of my family or how they would never know what happened to me. I'd drown like this, and they'd never know…. I guess that was a blessing, if I had to die in such an untimely way.
The last thing I remember consciously seeing were a pair of arms shooting down below the surface after me. I recognized them to be the younger man's arms; he must have been reaching over the side of their boat. That's when my vision grew hazy; my mind started to slip into a deep, dark, quiet place. I took one last look at the purple arms grabbing hold of my waist, and closed my eyes…
Wait, were his arms….. purple?