MAN, WAR. — WOMAN, COLD. — THE ELDER, THE PLEA. — LAYLA.
"Man never changes."
This is a saying as ancient as time itself — a truth, or something close to it, about the nature of human relationships across the long years we've walked this mosaic of soil and silence. Even if taken merely as a thought, if not as fact, it is not man but the climate that truly changes.
Until the early 1990s, the heartland of the Brazilian Northeast was a land of scorching sun and cracked soil — a dry, relentless heat, sometimes explosive, punishing all who dared to confront it. But from 1990 to 1993, nothing fell from the sky but rain; water, yes — but mostly acid, sometimes hail.
And from 1994 until the present day, the sun — much like a large part of humanity — had vanished. Ash and aerosols ruled the skies; just as war and violence ruled the eyes of children and women — and men alike.
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It was snowing.
Snowing hard.
Very hard.
Flakes fell from the sky like knives made of frost and despair —
and the cold only deepened…
Everything around was buried under a white, indifferent shroud: streets, sidewalks, corners, and shadows.
Except her.
The woman crossing the frozen landscape was a living antithesis to that pale vastness. Her skin, dark as night; her eyes, brown like aged wood.
Her hair, coarse and voluminous, was as black as storm-laden clouds.
The coat she wore was a deep reddish hue, though from afar, it could easily be mistaken for dull black.
Only her boots — once a vivid yellow — clung to any trace of brightness, though time and grime had long since dulled their defiance...
She walked like some kind of undead thing, arms folded across her chest, teeth chattering in the cold.
"Just another day..." she thought, tired, worn down.
"One more day, and it'll be Sunday."
"Wasn't so hard." She whispered to herself. "Not so hard, right?"
"Tomorrow's another day — I promise."
"I'll wake up earlier. I won't be late this time."
"Work, work, work..."
"How long has my life been like this?"
"Is this how it ends? Dying like this — invisible?"
Though it sounded like a fleeting thought, that question had followed her for twenty years now.
She was thirty-seven — but her shoulders carried the weight of two lifetimes.
She had started working at seventeen.
And since then, she never stopped...
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Few things have the power to interrupt the stride of a weathered woman — especially on a Friday, at the end of a long shift, on her way home.
Very few things.
But the sluggish shuffle of the old lady ahead, blocking the narrow stretch between her and a potential death by traffic, was undoubtedly one of them.
— "Hey, lady… move it along!" — she said with a tone so artificially polite it almost sounded sincere, though inside, she was growling with rage.
"What's this stupid old woman doing out in this cold, at this hour of night?" — she thought, wearing a smile as fake as the legend of unicorns.
"If she makes me late by one more minute, I'll miss the end of the soap opera."
She loved the heartthrobs most of all: men sold by their looks and souls to the audience — rich and poor, good and wicked alike.
She adored imagining herself married to one, having an affair with another, after breaking up with the first... Entangled in a cheesy melodrama that would embarrass even the laziest screenwriter.
Maybe her wild imagination came from never having been with anyone — no vows, no promises, not even pure human instinct.
Even at thirty-seven, she remained reclusive and shy.
Still, if properly provoked, she could talk for hours on end, dissolving with words the fragile balance of silence and noise that haunted those concrete and lonely streets.
But maybe — just maybe — her shyness was actually the sum of other, more tangible pressures:
the thickness of the air, the weight of rent, the numbness of bureaucracy, the cost of her mother's medication, her boss and his endless ordinary and extraordinary demands... and the list dragged on.
The condition that might've freed her, however — that ancient knot binding minds and hearts across the centuries — rarely favored her.
She only had one friend...
"What if I gave her a little push... maybe that'd get her moving again?" — Probably not. At that age, she barely had the strength to keep her feet on the ground.
— "Forgive me, child... I didn't see you there!" — The old woman looked her up and down with eyes that seemed to pierce not only the fabric of her coat but the innermost depths of her soul. Then, slipping into a strange and fleeting trance, she added:
— "If I had seen you, I wouldn't have gone after the woman ahead…"
When the old lady turned, she saw that her face — swollen with bruises — now bore a smile.
The effect was immediate. This time, the smile was truly sincere — but not at all pleasant to behold. Maybe because of the missing teeth — some gaps still tinted red, as if yanked out just hours ago. Or maybe because it wasn't really a kind smile, but something more unsettling: an ambiguous, unnerving grin.
Still, the smile struck the not-so-young woman deeply — because of what she'd just thought a moment earlier.
A storm of thoughts rose within her, and guilt weighed her down until she stepped back, overwhelmed by remorse.
— "Oh my God! Are you okay, ma'am? What happened to you?" — The young woman, now filled with regret even for her earlier petty thoughts, moved closer with gentle hands, placing one on the woman's shoulder like someone trying to hold back time before it slipped away for good.
— "Who did this to you?" —
The old woman, however, paid little mind to what the — still very young, in her eyes — girl was saying.
She knew her.
She had seen her before, yes, more than once.
She had touched that face, run her fingers through the softness of that hair, when it was still a child's — soft curls, unburdened eyes.
— "Name…" — the old woman murmured, in a voice so faint it barely held together. Her words were crushed by cracked lips and poorly healed bruises — the kind of sound that would inspire pity even in the vilest of men.
— "What? 'Name'?" — the young woman asked, unsure if she'd heard it right. Even with good ears, the whisper seemed to dissolve into the poisoned traffic of an urban Friday, as though no one in the world truly knew how to listen anymore.
— "Young girl… please tell me your name."
— "Layla. My name is Layla."
An Arabic name.
She had never really known why her mother chose it.
She suspected it was the name of some forgotten actress or a singer who was briefly popular back then.
She'd never thought much about it — until now.
Layla leaned closer, her face near the old woman's, and returned the question with a sweet and calm voice:
— "And you, ma'am? What's your name?"
Her phone was already calling emergency services. She tried to keep the old woman conscious until the good men could take her away from that cold.
— "Ah yes... Layla." — the old woman whispered, as if savoring a sacred name.
— "The most beautiful night, by the firelight, that forces your eyes to look upon it. The vast blackness that makes us ask why, in the face of such 'infinite-being', we still feel so alone…"
She knew.
She knew not only the name but all that it carried — the silence, the weight, the loneliness. And perhaps, she knew the soul of the young woman before her too, even if time had set them apart.
— "I knew I recognized you from somewhere…" — she said, with a truly genuine smile, the first real one that freezing night.
— "I held you in my arms when you still fit across them, end to end…"
Tears wanted to come, but couldn't. The thick, dry blood on her face made any trace of moisture impossible. Especially in that cold.
— "And now you've grown... you're bigger than what little is left of me in flesh and bone. Well... if there's even any bone left in this old, rotted flesh, huh dear?"
— "Please, sit down here. You're not well at all…" — said Layla, guiding her gently to the base of a concrete column, where they improvised a bench.
"Who in this world is cruel enough to do this to an old woman?" she thought.
— "You must be related to the Valverdes, aren't you?"
She knew it instantly. The memory clicked. Her mother always told stories about a woman who had cared for her in times of illness and inexperience.
It had to be her.
— "I know the mother and son. They're still my neighbors."
They lived in the favela, where the word "neighbor" meant something closer to family than in the rich neighborhoods.
There, neighbors were practically kin — though sometimes, a broken family built from scraps of affection and quiet obligations.
Layla, more than once, had found herself annoyed by the little boy who shouted while playing, disrupting her peace and her soap operas — or whatever nonsense she was watching.
— "So... you still live there?" — the old woman pressed her lips together with the few teeth she had left.
— "We spend our whole lives saying we'll get out of this life... and in the end, all that's left is to die after working ourselves to the bone, huh?"
Her gaze, clouded by the weight of memory, sank into her wrinkled hands, trembling slightly.
— "I could've taken them all out of there: daughter, grandson, even the dog… But you wouldn't understand!" — she said with a tone almost defiant, though her eyes avoided Layla's. It sounded more like a confession tossed to the wind — a quarrel with herself.
— "They would've come after them!" — she mourned.
— "And now, even after all I sacrificed, they're about to find out where they live…"
Catching her breath, she tried to rise with Layla's support. She collapsed instantly, but at least the effort was made.
— "You have to stop them, Layla! There's no one else in this world who can… only you!"
— "Hello?! Please, I need an ambulance right away!" — Layla was yelling into the phone, consumed by rising panic.
— "There's an elderly woman here, badly hurt... I think she was attacked!"
— "Hang in there, ma'am... the ambulance is coming, okay?" — she whispered, brushing the old woman's face gently, trying to keep her conscious and upright.
— "You said they're after your daughter and grandson, right? I'm calling the police right now!"
The elderly woman, mustering her last fragments of strength, cried out:
— "Don't do that!"
— "The police are with them, Layla. Please, listen to me! Everyone's on their side… But you can stop them!"
Then, from her pocket, the old woman pulled out a syringe.
Inside, a shimmering blue liquid gleamed under the dim streetlight.
At the end, the needle pointed toward Layla like the fang of a cornered beast.
— "What is that?"
— "This serum… will turn you into a mutant. Yes. Like the ones on television."
Mutants, like in those old American comic books, were humans with extraordinary abilities. In Brazil, in certain towns, certain states — their birth wasn't unheard of.
But reality here was far from the caped fantasy of American heroes.
They weren't masked saviors rescuing innocents, not out of altruism…
They were tools of the State — living weapons, propaganda molded into flesh to serve the hunger of the powerful.
They served the government — the men in green-and-yellow suits.
And just as the United States once imposed its will on the world with the shadow of the atomic bomb, Brazil now flaunted its own scythe of death.
In short, the mutants weren't symbols of hope.
They were engines of war, vessels of violence.
Limbs, eyes — and most of all, fear — placed in service of power.
— "A while ago, I was one of them." — Her eyes bore into Layla's. She leaned in, resting her forehead against the younger woman's chin.
— "But I was special!" — she declared. — "Out of all of them, I was the most singular... the most feared, the most essential."
— "I spent a lifetime hiding this cursed truth... suffocating it day by day. But now you know."
And in the creases carved by time, for an instant, glimmered the faint silhouette of relief — something long absent from her face.
— "When the serum runs through your veins, you'll inherit what was once mine. And Layla, oh… these powers defy simple description.
You will never doubt yourself again — not once you feel that force burning through your flesh…"
— "I can't do this, Mrs. Valverde! I'm no hero. I'm not special!" — She said it with such certainty, with a shake of the head so intimate, it seemed like a line she'd rehearsed every morning before the mirror, trying to convince herself of her own mediocrity just to survive the routine.
— "Please... someone else can do this. But me... I can't."
The old woman no longer had the strength to stay upright.
She collapsed — and Layla, in a gentle reflex, let her head rest in her lap while waiting for help.
— "Only you…" — she whispered, eyes closed, her head resting on soft legs.
— "Only you…" — her voice melted into the wind.
— "I can't fight them anymore." — she insisted.
— "I'm old…" — the words faltered, stuttering, trembling.
— "But you are young. With my strength, and your courage… you will be invincible.
You will never have to be afraid again."
— "I beg you…" — she coughed weakly.
Her cough was barely audible; her words, even less so.
— "Hear… the plea of an old soul…"
And then... silence.
She had no strength left for words. Nor for movement.
Her eyes closed. Her mouth slightly ajar, releasing a final trace of fragility.
It was ironic.
The old woman, so aged she might well have been grandmother to the — not-so-young — Layla, now rested with the stillness of a newborn.
Whoever created humankind must have done so with full awareness of this cycle — untamable, eternal, as certain as the fading of stars.
There she stayed, waiting for the late hour, with the Valverde elder cradled in her lap.
The gray streets were emptying, and the streetlight spilled across the faces of both women, across the ground, the snow-covered sidewalks — now steeped in solitude and the hollow stillness of a post-chaos hush.
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Indeed, she had missed the soap opera.
She came home like someone returning from war: stressed, worn out. She sank into the couch and stared at the television. It was now airing some light Thursday night comedy — one of those shows desperate to blur the line between today and the oncoming midnight solitude.
"If I don't sleep now, I won't wake up tomorrow."
She pulled the syringe from her pocket. Its blue glow softly stained the wood of the table nearby.
"If I don't sleep now, I won't wake up tomorrow."
She stood, walked to the curtain, parted it, and looked toward the Valverdes' house.
"If I don't sleep now, I won't wake up tomorrow."
There was nothing there. Nothing...
Until she turned — and heard a harsh, jarring rattle coming from the fresh shadows.
"If I don't sleep now, I won't wake up tomorrow."
The phrase kept repeating in her mind, but the sound — unplaceable and deeply disturbing — made Layla grip the syringe tight.
— "Lay, what's going on? What's that noise?" — It was her mother, Dalva. She had woken up with the clamor outside.
At that hour, it couldn't be the militia or drug gangs. They didn't usually act at night.
Well... sometimes they did. But no one would notice them at that hour.
What was that?
It was the kind of doubt that dried the throat of anyone living in a place abandoned by the State.
Like Schrödinger's cat, the cruelty could be anything until revealed.
Maybe drunk teenagers mocking the noise and chaos.
Or maybe drunk teenagers within the brutality.
But that only happened during party seasons… or maybe a rare weekend.
Tonight?
A Thursday?
Besides, those voices weren't teenage voices — at least not normal ones.
They were deep, chaotic, mature — and perverse.
Not the dumb, erratic malice of youth — no.
These voices dripped with the sinister in its purest form.
"If I don't sleep now, I won't wake up tomorrow."
She peeked quietly through a slit in the curtain.
She saw two men.
Both wore overcoats. Both wore pork pie hats.
One of them was huge — taller than the doorway itself. His muscles bulged even under the coat.
He held an axe in his hands.
The other was tall too, but looked small next to the first.
He was thin — a sickly, unnatural thinness.
His arms were so long they seemed to stretch wider than the giant's.
He was the one knocking on the door with his fist, over and over.
— "It's nothing, mom. I saw two men in coats and hats. Probably just collectors, you know? Electric bill, water bill… This front here still gets visits, and the Valverdes are going through hell this year. The kind of folks they target."
— "Come to think of it, it'd be less scary if it were some low-life crook — at least the law wouldn't be on his side."
Layla joked as she walked her mother back to bed.
But she knew.
She knew these weren't people protected by the law.
The axe in the giant's hands spelled tragedy.
And she had to do something — before it struck.
By then, the door was already creaking open.
Since then, silence had only sharpened — dark, cutting.
Layla looked again through the window — the door was open.
The two men were no longer there.
She grabbed her phone.
Called the police.
Told them everything that had happened in the past few hours.
Described the two men.
Said she suspected they were the ones who assaulted the elder Valverde.
And now they were threatening her daughter's home.
She begged them to come quickly.
They had already gotten in...
She thought it was over.
Thought she'd saved the two poor innocents — the mother and child.
But then she heard a scream.
The scream was cut off a second later.
She knew that voice.
Without a doubt, it belonged to the boy who'd always disrupted her with his noisy play.
That was his voice.
But that scream…
That scream was no game.
It was pure panic.
It was raw terror.
"If I don't sleep now, I won't wake up tomorrow."
Layla wanted to ignore it.
Wanted to pretend it was a sleep-deprived hallucination. That the police would arrive soon.
But she couldn't lie to herself.
The scream was real.
As real as her racing heart.
Her hands trembled so violently she nearly dropped the syringe — which now stared back at her from the table.
Her eyes filled with tears.
Her stomach clenched.
Her legs, shaking, almost buckled.
She wanted to pee, vomit, vanish — run from her own reality.
"I can't stay here."
"I have to help them!"
She repeated it over and over.
The same instinct that once paralyzed her, now pushed her forward.
She couldn't stay.
She couldn't watch.
She couldn't feel sorry for herself.
She traded the syringe for a knife — large, sharp, one of those used for opening boxes.
She walked to the door with long strides.
But opened it — and closed it — as softly as a whisper.
She stepped out.
The syringe, unlike her, stayed behind.
It remained there, glowing faintly on the wooden table under the light — untouched.
Still full of promises.
Promises that fate — or perhaps sheer chance —
had left behind.
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