Bruno looked back on his day and could say with absolute certainty that this was not the way he thought that his day would go. But, then again, who would expect to get into a knock down, drag out fight with a large alley cat because Frida was too curious and confident for her own good? It was a weird looking thing, an almost too long body, reddish brown fur, and a face that always made it look angry. It had a fat, long tail, and was very agile, as most cats are.
"You can't eat her!" He yelled, kicking out. "Antonio! ¿Dónde estás chico? ¡Te necesito! Dolores!"
The animal hissed at him, making noises that almost sounded like a demonic monkey as it launched itself forward. Bruno had long ago tucked Frida away beneath his ruana but apparently out of sight out of mind was not working here. It dug its' teeth into his shin and he yelped before giving it another kick that the animal sprung back from in an instant and then it was on him.
No, really in was on him. The rats hiding in his hair hissed and squeaked before darting underneath his ruana and darn it if that stupid cat didn't notice exactly where all of those rats went. It gave another possessed monkey noise and Bruno found a pawful of claws digging into his face as it tried to separate his head from the ruana, not seeming to understand that he was in the ruana and therefore it was attempting to sever his head from his shoulders. He screamed, grabbed the animal by the scruff and launched it away as far as he could.
He ran, but didn't get far before it bit at his legs and the stumbled into the dirt with this angry thing scrabbling on top of him. It was like trying to fight a bundle of angry razor blades. Why couldn't he have had a vision about this instead of a vision of the guavas Mirabel was going to sneak out from the kitchen. What is up with that? He grabbed the thing by the neck and threw it away again, watching it flip and right itself mid-air as cats do. He flung his arm out to shield himself when the thing leaped at him and shrieked when it bit into his arm. Oh he must be sight at this point.
Mirabel could certainly help repair his ruana...and get the blood out of it.
There were several things he could do to get out of this situation and none of them that he wanted to do…...ever. So, here he was wrestling an absolutely insane cat because it wanted to eat his rats. It slashed at his face again and caught him across the eye. Sending deep gashes over his brow, down his cheek, and across his lips. The animal's claws had cut so deep that it exposed his teeth. Blood dripping from his chin, he kicked at it and managed to get back on his feet. It hissed at him and made that same demonic scream as it launched itself forward again and this time Bruno's reflexes were fast enough that he managed to kick the thing right under the chin as hard as he could. It flipped the thing over to land on its' back. It stood and shook itself before turning back with a calculating gaze, finally trying to decide if this was worth it.
At the sound of a gunshot the animal bolted away and Bruno nearly followed suit. He gasped for breath just as he heard a voice behind him.
"You! Are! Insane!" Hilariously enough it was the same farmer he'd stolen that horse from.
"T-that was a r-really mean cat." He gasped for breath as the man ran forward, pressing a cloth to the side of Bruno's face.
"That wasn't a cat!" Bruno was pretty sure they were walking, but where he didn't know. "It was a jaguarundi, idiota! That was a wild animal! ¡¿Realmente no sales mucho, verdad?!"
"That would explain why it was so mean." Bruno slurred through his sliced lips and responded casually like this sort of thing happened to him all the time.
Well…..it kind of did.
"First you steal a Stallion that almost killed me and now I find you fighting a jaguarundi with your bare hands." The man groaned. "How are you still alive?"
Bruno just gave a shrug and a garbled. "I don't know."
Needless to say Julieta was not pleased at having her brother guided back into town, covered in gashes, blood dripping down his face while he casually asked her how her day had been. He heard the farmer slap his forehead behind him.
Why did he keep leaving the house again? Oh, yeah because people wanted him to and he was far too much of a people pleaser. It had taken a while to mend and scrub the blood out of his ruana but, soon enough, it had been fixed. A few of Bruno's rats had been hurt in the fight and he was heartbroken over it.
The farmer had actually started, rather irritably, sharing those two stories with a great many people and rolled his eyes at even the idea that he'd been dubbed "Bad Luck Bruno" when it was obviously the other way around. He really couldn't figure out if the man liked him, was irritated by him, hated him, or a combination of the three. Usually when the two met he was screaming at Bruno over some ridiculous thing that was definitely not Bruno's fault.
Like that time he'd fallen twenty feet out of a tree, because Marco had decided to be his mischievous little self, climb up a tree, and get himself stuck. What else was Bruno supposed to do? Leave him there? Nope, not happening. So, up the tree he went. It had been on the way down that he had slipped, cradled the rat to his chest, and fell. His back hit a branch hard on the way down and he felt it snap, or maybe that was his spine he wasn't sure. The final branch caught him directly under the knees that had him flipping over and landing squarely on his feet. He pretended it was intentional.
He became the opposite of Agustin. He kept getting himself into these crazy scenarios and coming out of it relatively fine, aside from the jaguarundi. That animal was insane. He'd never seen anything so angry. He'd rather fight Pepa than tangle with that creature again. He slowly was becoming more comfortable going into the village, though he still had someone with him most of the time, and it came with its' consequences. The main one being that Bruno still tended to keep his visions to himself, despite his family's reassurances. One could still find him doing something odd on any given day of the week.
Like how he'd spent an entire day digging a rock out of the main road and packing the dirt down hard. The people who were curious enough as to what he was doing got their answer when a donkey came barreling down the street, Luisa on its' heels, and stomped down right where the protruding rock had been. The animal would've slipped and probably broken a leg. Bruno had simply stood off to the side as his sobrina chased after the escaped donkey and gave a nod before walking back to Casita.
That evening had not gone so well for him.
He decided not to fight the vision this time. He excused himself from the conversation, he hadn't been involved much anyway, and retreated to his room. He made the trek to his vision cave and began to put things together for his ritual. He didn't really need the ritual but it helped ground him in the moment and take away outside thoughts. He sat down, took a deep breath, and focused.
Shortly after he wished that he had just slammed his head into the wall until the vision went away. There was a mother and her two children. They were by the river. The kids played in the shallows, splashing and laughing and just being kids. The mother was reclined beneath a tree, watching her children with a soft smile on her face. It stayed like that for a while but not forever.
Without a sound a great jaguar leaped from the tree and on top of the mother. Its' teeth clamped down on her head and she screamed as it clawed and tore at her face. It was only a few seconds before her face….it was almost not there anymore from the violent clawing of the spotted beast. She screamed and howled as blood streamed from her body onto the ground. The children froze, not sure of what to do and paralyzed with fear.
The jaguar savaged her head, shaking its' own back and forth and clamping down until Bruno heard a crunch that he was certain was her neck snapping from the violent attack. Instead the jaguar stumbled back a bit, something dripping red and barely showing white underneath. She yelled something garbled with blood to her children who ran. She desperately tried to crawl her way to safety but the beast was on her again. She turned her head and Bruno gagged before vomiting into the sand. The giant cat had ripped off a chunk of her skull and he could see her brain pulsing and throbbing with her rapid heartbeat. When it grabbed her head again and shook its' teeth pierced her brain and her neck snapped before it dragged her off and beyond Bruno's sight.
The sand fell over him and a tablet formed in his hands. It was that same bright emerald green but with wisps of black smoke drifting through the graphic image of the jaguar biting her head, pulling her neck back and exposing her terrified and agonized expression, if you could see it through the mutilation. The way the tablet looked. The way the vision had felt.
This was a scarred prophecy.
There was nothing he could do, nothing anyone could do. This woman's fate had been sealed, bound to the hunger of one of the greatest predators of the lands. It would change something. It would be a drastic change and Bruno didn't know if that change would be for better or worse. He stared at the image and curled in on himself as he cried.
"I'm sorry." He whispered. "I'm sorry. I-I can't help you. I-I can-can't. I can't! I'm sorry!" He wailed, rocking back and forth in the sand as he held the tablet tight to his chest,
No one could know about this. No one could ever learn of the scarred prophecies. No one. Not even his family. He crumbled away the sandstone wall that hid the shelf he kept these prophecies in, placed the tablet with the others, and reformed the stone wall. He stood there for a moment so silent and so still one might mistake him for a statue. Suddenly he gave a loud howl of rage and despair before slamming his head against the wall.
"Stop it!" He hit himself again. "Stop it!" Again. "Stop it! I can't do this anymore!" There was blood on the wall.
Bruno didn't notice.
"Just stop it!" He wailed, pulling at his hair and crying.
He ran all the way back down the stairs and into his room. He didn't come out, he didn't let anyone in, and he refused to sleep because he knew what he would see behind his closed lids. He just curled in on himself, trembling and spouting apologies to someone he knew he couldn't save. It was always him to grieve for a loss that hadn't even happened yet.
The next day, at dinner when it came time for the serious talk of the night, he didn't say a word and just made something up, all the while hoping that Camilo wouldn't call him on it. He couldn't share this. He just couldn't.
Not now. Not ever. No matter what his family said. This had always been his burden to bear and he wasn't going to force it on anyone else.