...
After the gunshot, Martha opened her eyes, only to see a layer of white mist pass through her body.
There was no physical sensation at all, as if passing through a piece of the thinnest white veil in the world.
The hideous human face gradually became illusory.
The shadow of the woman in white dissipated into the dense reeds, as if she had never existed.
The weeping vanished along with her.
Silence returned to the river valley.
Martha held her gun, breathing heavily, as the ringing in her ears slowly subsided.
Her back was drenched in cold sweat.
That was absolutely not a human.
Nor was it any creature she recognized.
“Mis hijos!” (My children!)
The man cried out, throwing himself into the river to pull the two children out and carry them to the flat ground on the bank.
His eldest son, Diego, seven years old, was already dead.
His lips were blue and purple, his stomach bloated; he had stopped breathing long ago.
His little daughter, Sofia, five years old, still had a faint breath, her chest rising and falling slightly, though she was unconscious.
The man held his child's corpse, weeping heart-wrenchingly.
He had originally wanted to bring his children to America to live a good life.
Now, one child was gone, and he didn't even know if the other would wake up.
Martha stood nearby, her hand holding the gun still shaking.
She took several deep breaths to steady her mind, then pulled out her phone to call the police.
...
It took over half an hour for the Border Patrol and the county sheriff's department to arrive.
Sheriff Rodriguez was of Mexican descent and had lived in this small town for over twenty years.
The child had already been rushed to the hospital for emergency treatment.
Seeing the scene and hearing Martha's description, Rodriguez's expression grew increasingly grim.
Especially when he heard Carlos mention the “weeping woman in white,” the corner of his mouth twitched instinctively:
“Stop, stop, stop, my dear Martha. Do you know what you are saying? ‘La Llorona’ is just a silly legend—you know that.”
La Llorona, the weeping woman in white.
Every child of Mexican descent grew up listening to this story.
There were many versions of this tale.
In legend, a woman named Maria married a nobleman and gave birth to two sons.
Later, her husband had a change of heart, abandoned Maria, and married another woman.
In her fury, Maria drowned her two sons in the river. Afterward, consumed by regret, she threw herself into the river and drowned.
After her death, her soul could not rest, turning into a woman in a white dress who wandered the riverbanks, weeping day and night.
If she encountered children playing by the river, she would mistake them for her own and drown them.
Of course, there was another version.
The Spanish explorer Hernán Cortés united with his Aztec translator and fathered a child.
But to marry another Spanish woman, the explorer abandoned his poor mistress.
Driven by pride, the mistress killed the child in revenge.
...
“Of course, these are all cliché legends, my dear Martha.
Adults always use this story to scare children, warning them not to go near the river.”
As Rodriguez spoke, he noticed the expression on Martha's face, and he too became serious:
“...Oh my God.”
Martha never lied and was highly trustworthy. She sometimes even helped town residents find lost cattle and foals on her own initiative.
If she said she saw “La Llorona” with her own eyes, it meant the thing that killed that poor child must exist.
“Are you sure the bullets passed right through her and she was completely unharmed?”
Rodriguez confirmed with Martha again: “I know your marksmanship—you're a good hunter. At such a close range, it's impossible for you to miss.”
“I'm sure.”
Martha nodded, her tone firm:
“It was like shooting into thin air. She had no physical form at all. And her weeping was incredibly distressing; it shook me so much that my head is still throbbing.”
Rodriguez squatted down to check the footprints by the river.
There were only the footprints of the man and the small footprints of the two children.
There were no female footprints whatsoever.
It was completely clean, as if no one had ever stood there.
The shotgun pellets had all fallen into the river, with not a single trace of hitting a physical body.
Rodriguez wiped away his sweat.
He had worked in this small town for over twenty years. He had seen cultists and high teenagers—those guys would do anything.
But “the weeping La Llorona”?
No footprints.
Bullets passing through her body.
Weeping that caused ringing ears and even nausea.
And finally passing through a person's body to vanish at extreme speed.
This was absolutely not something a human could do.
“I'd rather have encountered a serial killer.”
The sheriff took off his hat and exchanged a look with Martha.
A solemn look arose in both of their eyes.
...
Social circles in the border region were small to begin with, so even a minor event spread rapidly.
The supernatural incident by the river was instantly spread far and wide.
The local Spanish-language media was the first to report it, with a simple and direct headline:
【Child Drowning Incident Occurs Along the Rio Grande; Survivor Claims Attacker Was the “Weeping Woman in White—La Llorona”】
The comment section below the report was overrun by Mexican netizens:
【@Maria_Guadalupe: God bless that poor little girl. No wonder my grandmother never let us play near the river.】
【@Ranchero_Texas: La Llorona is real!】
【@Skeptic_Paco: Stop joking. It was definitely a human trafficker who took the kids. The incompetent police department is just using a local legend as an excuse.】
【@Tejano_User: Wait, did you guys see the news? The Jersey Devil appeared in New Jersey, and now the weeping woman in Texas? What's going on? Has the gate of Hell been opened?】
【@Paranormal_Fan: This is God's will, to guide the lost sheep.】
【@[■××■]: Hey guys, lighten up. Don't worry, it's just a test subject from a government human experiment that escaped!】
...
Soon, the hashtags #JerseyDevil and #LaLlorona shot up the trending lists on foreign social media.
Meanwhile, the TikTok video filmed by Fei Meng, like a drop of water splashed into a pan of boiling oil, instantly blew up the entire North American internet.
The hashtag #JerseyDevil reached the top of Twitter's trending list in just two hours.
Accompanied by a bright red “TRENDING” tag, the topic's views surpassed 600 million, and this figure was still climbing frantically.
The views for related videos and topics on TikTok directly broke one billion.
Countless people forwarded, commented on, and made derivative content from the video.
【@SkepticSam_99: Nice CGI. People these days are really crazy for clout. Hey, is Bigfoot next?】
【@FilmStudentJake: The lighting and shadows are all wrong. It's obviously composited in post-production. This is too clumsy.】
【@ComedianLou: This is so cool.】
But as more and more eyewitnesses posted photos and videos from the scene, along with leaked footage of the police cordoning off the area—
the voices of doubt gradually quieted down, replaced by a carnival for supernatural enthusiasts.
The Paranormal board was completely flooded.
OP PineBarrensLocal:
My house is right on the edge of the Pine Barrens. My grandfather has always believed in the devil, and he told me that was indeed the Jersey Devil.
Now here's the question: if this thing really exists in reality, why did it suddenly appear and kill an innocent person?
1st Floor: “I live in New Jersey, and I've already packed my bags to move to New York.”
2nd Floor: “It's not just the Jersey Devil. My mom lives in Texas and said weird things are happening by the river there too. The weeping La Llorona killed an illegal immigrant's child...”
3rd Floor: “Are all myths and legends real? Then shouldn't Cthulhu be chilling in the damn ocean too?”
4th Floor: “Are there any exorcists out there who can tell us what this thing is actually afraid of? Silver bullets? Crosses? Or can a normal gun kill it?”
5th Floor: “Don't panic. It's highly likely a biological leak from a secret government experiment. It has nothing to do with the supernatural.”
...
All kinds of conspiracy theories were flying around.
Some said it was the product of a government genetic experiment.
Some said the gates of Hell had opened.
Others said the end of the world was coming, and this was just part of the Apocalypse.
The New Jersey Times was the first to publish formal breaking news.
The front-page headline used the largest bold font, accompanied by a long-shot photo of the police tape at the scene:
stretched caution tape, panicked tourists, scattered flesh and blood everywhere, and a police officer bending over to vomit.
...
【BREAKING HEADLINE】 Fatal Attack Occurs Along the Bathgate River; Dozens of Eyewitnesses Claim Attacker Was an “Unknown Flying Creature” Highly Consistent with the Jersey Devil Legend
【Our Dispatch】 Reporter Emily Watson
...At 10:17 AM, a fatal attack occurred on the public trail along the Bathgate River in Atlantic County...
...Todd Henderson, a 42-year-old local resident, died on the scene. No other serious injuries were reported.
According to the descriptions of dozens of eyewitnesses at the scene:
The attacker was an unknown flying creature with a horse's head, bat-like membranous wings, and a forked tail.
Measuring about 1.2 meters long with a wingspan of over 2 meters, this “monster” circled above the crowd, dived to snatch the victim into mid-air, and then brutally killed Todd Henderson.
It finally disappeared in the direction of the Pine Barrens.
The Atlantic County Sheriff's Office has fully cordoned off the scene, and the FBI's Philadelphia field office has dispatched agents to join the investigation.
The police have not yet confirmed the attacker's species. Their initial official statement was a “suspected attack by a large bird of prey,” and they have issued a surrounding safety warning.
...Residents are urged to avoid the Pine Barrens and remote riverbank areas for the time being, and to minimize going out at night.
...Notably, the biological characteristics described by eyewitnesses are highly consistent with the “Jersey Devil” urban legend that has circulated in New Jersey for over two hundred years.
The legend dates back to the 18th century, with records of a certain place's thirteenth family giving birth to a thirteenth child who was born a devil and fled into the Pine Barrens.
This newspaper will continue to follow the development of the incident. All information is subject to official reports. Poor Henderson, oh, God.
...
Once the report was published, it was immediately reprinted by major media outlets such as The New York Times and The Washington Post.
Although the mainstream media used cautious wording and did not directly acknowledge the existence of the “Jersey Devil” and “La Llorona,”
the descriptions of an “unknown flying creature” and being “consistent with legends” were enough to spark the public's imagination.
Panic buying erupted in several small towns across New Jersey and Texas that very day.
Canned food, drinking water, and flashlights in supermarkets were cleared out, and foot traffic at gun stores tripled.
An invisible fear quietly accumulated and fermented in people's hearts.
...
Rate on N.U.
