I am The Whistler.

i wasn't always the specter that roams the Venezuelan plains, with a sack of bones on my shoulder and a whistle that chills even the bravest blood. I was once a young man of flesh and blood, one among many, raised under the blazing sun of the plains, where the night sings with crickets and the wind keeps secrets. However, something dark germinated inside me. Something I didn't know how to recognize until it was too late.

My story began on a seemingly ordinary day. The sun weighed down on the ranch, and my empty stomach cried out for food. I returned from the field sweaty and furious, only to find the pot empty. The meat I was waiting for wasn't there. Rage exploded inside me like a wild animal. I screamed, swore, and banged the table. My mother, terrified, tremblingly told me to wait; that my father was in the woods hunting and would soon bring food.

But I couldn't wait.

Blinded by my rage, I went out into the fields in search of him. I found him with his prey on his shoulder, but at that moment I didn't see my father: I saw only an obstacle. The argument was swift, violent... and then, in a monstrous rage, I killed him with my own hands. I opened his belly and looted his entrails as if they hadn't been human. I stuffed them into a sack and returned to the ranch. I handed the sack to my mother and declared, "Here is the meat."

She obeyed at first, but when she opened the pot and perceived the indescribable stench, something changed in her eyes. She fell to her knees and let out a heartbreaking scream before cursing me with all the pain in her soul. Her words were pure condemnation; an eternal sentence meant to punish me for my abominable act.

Then my grandfather arrived. Upon learning what had happened, he tied me to a post, stripped me of my clothes, and whipped me mercilessly with a braided whip that tore my skin with each blow. To top it off, he unleashed the dogs and ordered them to chase me. I ran, wounded and bleeding like a cornered animal, begging for help in vain... but there was no one to save me.