Description

The dead do not rest in Santa Dolores.

By day, the town swelled with color, laughter, and the scent of fresh pan de muerto. Families built their ofrendas with loving hands, placing marigolds, candles, and sugar skulls before faded photographs of those who had passed. By night, the cemetery glowed under a thousand flickering flames, a golden bridge between the living and the dead.

But some spirits did not return to be honored. Some had never left at all.

A hush settled over the graveyard in the deep hours before dawn. The final revelers had gone home, leaving the altars to burn down to wax and smoke. In the dark, among the tombstones, a shadow moved.

Deliberate. Silent.

The thief worked quickly, plucking heirlooms from their places—silver rings, lockets, carved wooden saints. Offerings meant for the dead. Their fingers trembled as they worked, glancing over their shoulder as if expecting to be caught.

Or worse—watched.

A gust of wind slithered through the cemetery, carrying whispers that did not belong to the living. The thief shuddered, shaking it off. It was just a story, they told themselves. A legend.

El Coleccionista de Almas—the Collector of Souls.

A spirit who stole from the living as they had stolen from the dead.

It was only a story.

Until the cold hands wrapped around their throat.

Until the night swallowed their screams.

Until, hours later, the first body was found—propped against a mausoleum, skull bared to the night, a mocking ofrenda built around their lifeless form.

And in the centre of the altar, a single stolen heirloom.

A warning.

The dead remember. And this time, they would not be ignored.