Stories that Don't Sleep

     Summer ended the way summers do—quietly, with dusty suitcases and half-packed sketchbooks. Liz watched the sun lean toward autumn as Abuela Rosa hummed by the kitchen window, steeping hibiscus and mint.

     The nights stayed warm, but the canyon felt empty. No rustles, no glowing eyes. Just wind sighing across rocks that had seen too many stories.

     Liz didn’t talk about the creature anymore. She wrote instead.

     Her sketchbook had changed—less fear, more empathy. Each drawing was a step deeper into something ancient and aching. She added color, lore, questions with no answers. The chupacabra was there, but not alone. She imagined others like it—forgotten things with voices shaped like hunger and grief.

     Before she left, Abuela Rosa handed her a bundle: old journals wrapped in twine, smelling of cedar and time.

     “You saw what needed seeing,” Rosa said, touching Liz’s shoulder like anointing. “Now go write what others forget.”

     Liz nodded. Her fingers traced the frayed edges of the pages—notes of moons and bones, sketches resembling her own. Not all stories came from books. Some came from summer nights, whispered between cricket songs and the hush of wild eyes meeting hers.

     Back home, the city felt louder, faster, less magical. But when Liz opened her sketchbook, she didn’t feel far from the canyon. The creature was still there, somewhere between pages—not hunted, not monstrous. Just remembered.

     One night, she wrote by lamplight until dawn. The final sentence came easy.

     “It never wanted blood. It wanted to be known.”

     And maybe, Luz thought as the sky lightened, that’s what all stories want.