One minute she's able to move perfectly... and the next, time stops. In an incredibly harsh, numb, painful way.
Imelda doesn't know how it happens or what caused it. All she feels is the intolerable dull ache that materializes in her heart and wastes no time shooting up and through her limbs. A ringing starts to form in her ears as one hand flies to her chest, the current shoe that she's working on clattering on the table in front of her. She can hear her own breathing in her ears against the horrible ringing sound, which has grown louder within just a few seconds. A sudden wave of tiredness shocks her and she staggers back, knocking her chair to the ground as she struggles for balance.
As she does, she realizes she's shaking. Her mind is encased with fear and confusion as she lunges forward and grabs the table's edge, her vision blurring as her eyes sting with tears.
Terrified voices sound in the courtyard as Imelda wipes her eyes.
"Imelda?"
"Mamá!"
"Mamá Imelda, what's going on?"
Imelda's sight and ears clear up just enough that she can hear the worried words of her family members and see them charge into the back door, banging it open, Coco in the lead and Julio, Oscar, and Felipe not that far behind. Coco's hairstyle is lopsided, her braids dangling on her shoulders at uneven angles and her pink dress wrinkled in all areas. Julio has circles under his eyes. And quickly Imelda notices the tension in her brother's shoulders, theirs and Julio's signature clothes not faring much better than Coco's. The sunshine that outlines their bodies glares more than usual.
Imelda wants to ask them what they're doing, why they rushed in here so fast, but once again the noise in her ears stops her from speaking as she groans, trying to supress it but finding out she doesn't have the energy when she tries to bring her shaking hands to her temples to rub them and ends up dropping them back to their positions. Her entire body feels like deadweight, a sensation she is neither familiar nor at ease with.
Against her wishes, she remembers her last time seeing Héctor sick and she realizes that this is how he must've felt, like he was beaten and had all the air knocked out of him in the process.
Just as the thought of crosses her mind, she finds herself letting go of the table she desperately needs to grasp for balance and falling backward, expecting to hit the ground but feeling slightly better and more pained at the same time when she feels arms underneath her back and holding up her head.
Coco's teary face comes into Imelda's once again blurry range of sight, her weeping and the vague murmur of Julio's and her brother's soft voices hitting Imelda's ears just barely.
It's more and more of a struggle each passing second to keep her eyes open, wanting so much to lean into Coco's touch as Coco strokes her hair and stares down at her with eyes so watery that Imelda's heart, which had slowed its beating pattern, aches against the painful spasms it seems to make.
Her ears tune in just enough that finally Coco's shaking voice registers as Imelda's eyes pull downward again.
"Te amo, Mamá. I'm sorry. For everything."
Imelda has no idea what Coco is apologizing for, but she cherishes the words nonetheless as she feels her heart finally stop, her lungs give out, and her shaking finally subside.
I love you too, mija, she wants to say, but at this moment her strength finally deserts her and she feels sharp pain... then nothing but blackness as her eyes close.
Imelda has never felt anything more peaceful and frightening at the same time than this.
This state for a few more seconds or minutes-- Imelda briefly loses snese of time-- before she opens her eyes to blinding light and finds herself on hard cobblestone ground that reminds her of the streets of Santa Cecilia. Only this ground is sharper, and instead of sandy yellow, this type of stone layout is a strange purple, the same shade that Héctor would like.
Imelda lifts her head from her strange discovery to find an even more perplexing sight-- a massive cityscape of buildings in all colors stands before her, shrouded in an oddly violet mist (this place really meets Héctor's color standards, Imelda muses) that seems to sparkle with the lights of the buildings behind it.
It takes a few seconds before Imelda finds it in her to stand, as her earlier state of pain and blissful darkness alike had taken a lot out of her, but she's pleased to find she can stand upright again without tembling.
She stands gaping at the view for a few moments, wondering where she is.
"Señora Rivera?"
A crisp but timid voice interrupts Imelda's daze. She startles but doesn't turn. "Sí. Imelda."
The voice grows closer as the figure steps up behind her. "Señora, would you please turn around?"
"Why?"
But the voice doesn't respond, so Imelda doesn't protest and gives into the command, turning around to find a young woman in a dark blue offical-looking suit with a matching hat staring at her, but instead of skin, the woman's structure is made up of strikingly white bones, odd colorful and swirly markings skirting across her face and stopping at her chin.
Imelda gasps and brings her hand to her mouth, only to feel a smooth, sandpapery structure when she does. Glancing down at her hands, Imelda wants to scream. Her hands, as well as her arms and legs and neck are all made of bones instead of the caramel skin that Imelda is used to. She can feel her ribs through her dress, too, the sensation a lot more vivid and not as warm as it normally is.
Imelda stares the woman straight in the face as she speaks the question she's pondered since ending up here.
"Where am I?"
The woman smiles.
"Welcome to the Land of the Dead, Señora Imelda!" she says.
She died, Imelda realizes as the words sink in.
She had died and left her family behind. She'd left Coco sobbing. She'd followed in Héctor's footsteps and left her family.
Imelda barely chokes out a "gracias, Señora" as she turns around stumbles forward, the realization of what this means hitting her hard. As she walks toward the majestic city, she stares up at the buildings, apartments, and shops stacked on top of each other, shouldering her way through the bustling crowds of people and wondering how she would ever adjust to a place like this, the shame of just how much she's becoming like Héctor in this moment leaving her heavy and numb as she walks on in a daze.