Published: 2025-10-12

Yafreisy sat at her desk, hitting the keys of her keyboard as hard as she could. Her long nails, decorated with bright color polish, had little animal faces painted on them: cats, dogs, parrots, and even pigs. After each key push, the once blank page filled a little more with black letters in Times New Roman. “200 more words and I finish.” She said to herself as she cracked her fingers. The document's title read “A Brief History of Santo Domingo” and was Yafreisy’s overdue History 101 homework. The clickity-clackity of the keyboard stopped; her fingers didn’t move anymore. She stood up, as if in a trance, and left the room, the house, then the neighborhood…

At the same time and 200 kilometers away from Yafreisy’s home, Yafreisy stood in front of the stove. With one hand, she gripped the handle of the non-stick pan while tossing the pasta with a wooden spoon. Her five-year-old, who sat at the kitchen table, wouldn’t stop asking the same question: “Is it ready, Mom? Is it ready? Is it ready?” Yafreisy was too busy cooking; she had tuned out the little boy. The child found himself asking another, which suddenly felt more important to him: “Mom, where are you going? Mom?” But his mother offered no answer; she just kept moving towards the door. The boy clung to her leg, but she didn’t seem to notice. Dragging her leg with all her might, his son crying from the top of his lungs, Yafreisy left the house…

Yafreisy was working on the auto service when she stood up and left. Yafreisy was babysitting her little neighbor when she stood up and left. Yafreisy was playing volleyball when she stopped and left. Yafreisy was in the middle of a class when she stood up and left…

All over the country, every child, girl, or woman named Yafreisy was marching in the same direction, towards the same objective, but nobody knew what that objective was.

First, it was hard to notice. A woman disappeared here, a teenager left their younger siblings alone there. “They probably snapped.” People thought, but soon the streets were flooded. They could not be contained; they could not be stopped.

The news took long to travel, everybody brushed it off at first. Some, seeing them march, thought it was the gay parade; others thought it was a protest against the government. It wasn't until they started to notice children among the crowd that they started worrying. Not only children, infants, and toddlers crawled in between the synchronized women, the skin on their knees peeling on the asphalt. They didn’t seem to mind. Whatever was calling to them was more powerful.

Yafreisy stopped in the middle of the rice field by the highway. Yafreisy joined her, and soon Yafreisy too. They were stopping, first there were only three women, then Yafreisy came, and then Yafreisy, and Yafreisy. A crowd was starting to form. Dozens, hundreds, and after that thousands of children, girls, and women, congregating at the same place, looking dead inside.

The press and police arrived shortly after. It was chaos. People who drove by had started to stop to look at the scene, cars started to pile up, and the horns of angry drivers who wanted to reach their destination started honking. It was madness.

Yafreisy joined the crowd, and they all raised their arms into the air. Something had changed. The sky went dark. Police agents started to approach at the same time when a gust of wind made them fall to their knees. Then, a sonic boom. Bystanders covered their ears and eyes as much as they could. Some fell to their knees. I didn’t seem to affect Yafreisy nor Yafreisy or Yafreisy. Their ears bled, but they stood firm.

“Holy Jesus!” Said a man who watched from his truck while pointing at the sky.

It was Yafreisy; she had been lifted from the earth and was now floating upwards toward the sky. Then Yafreisy was lifted, and then Yafreisy, and then Yafreisy…

“I—It’s the rapture! The end of times. God has come to claim his people.” Said a woman who watched the scene next to her car.

All children, girls, and women were lifted until not one was left. Bystanders looked at it with amazement; some thought it was an act of God, others thought they were dreaming.

An eerie silence took over the highway. No horns, no whispers, no talk. Everyone stood in place trying to process what had just happened. A loud, whistling sound broke the calm. People looked at each other, trying to figure out where the sound was coming from. Someone screamed.

“T—The sky. The sky is falling. The sky is falling.” Said a woman. Her finger pointed to the sky; her jaw open.

Something fell from the sky; the ground shattered. A cloud of dust engulfed the rice field.

“It’s an earthquake!” Someone shouted while trying to hold onto a car.

The highway split. Cars and people were swallowed. Then silence.

“Is it over?” Someone asked.

A loud noise was heard, the earth trembled, and a shadowy figure emerged from the rice field. A freight truck started to elevate in the air as if it were a feather. Then it went flying for kilometers as if someone had thrown it. Someone screamed.

“It’s a monster!”

A deafening roar was heard as the earth trembled more and more violently. People abandoned their cars and ran, but it was too late. Nobody escaped the wrath of Yafreisy…

It’s been 21 days since the Yafreisy incident. Thousands have died, and others have been displaced. The highway that connects Santo Domingo with the north has been destroyed. Yafreisy has been sighted heading towards the capital. Some pray she never made it, others have all their hopes put on her. Yafreisy is a reminder that the real problem was never nationality or skin color. It was our inability to look at the real problems and be willing to fix them.

THE END.