A modern-day retelling of the legend of La Llorona
"The package on my doorstep had my name, but I definitely didn’t order it,” Lorna said into the phone.
“No, are you stupid? Why would I order this new-age bullshit?” Lorna complained, her voice dripping with disgust.
The open box of COVID testing kits sat on the kitchen counter, a crime scene to her senses.
“No, I don’t want to throw it away. What if someone goes through my garbage and discovers it? I don’t want people thinking I buy into this propaganda. Look, I don’t know who you are, but I know who you work for, and I know what you’re trying to enforce on me and my family. You’re messing with the wrong lady. My husband’s a police officer, and I can get you arrested!”
Milo peers round the kitchen door listening to his mother spew her conspiracy theorist nonsense. He sighs and tries to drown her out by cranking the volume on his headphones. It didn’t work. Her voice drilled through the music and directly into his skull. It had been months of lockdown together, and he was starting to think that freedom might just be worth catching a virus for.
He didn’t have to listen for long, though. The jingle of keys in the lock announced Dad’s arrival. Milo peeled himself off the couch, letting his father’s presence act as his shield.
“Mike!” Lorna called out, switching off her phone. “You’re just in time to see this!”
Mike walked into the kitchen, setting his work bag down on a chair.
Lorna thrust her phone into his face, TikTok open. On-screen, she was dropping pineapple juice onto one of the COVID test swabs.
“See? Positive! It’s a scam, Mike! They’re lying to us!” she said, triumphantly grinning like she’d just exposed the moon landing as fake.
Mike pinched the bridge of his nose. “Lorna, the tests aren’t a scam. I ordered them.”
“You *what?*”
“I ordered the tests,” he repeated.
Her grin disappeared, replaced by a sharp scowl. “Why would you do that? Are you brainwashed too?”
“Lorna, people are dying. I’ve seen it firsthand. A nurse I work with recommended—”
“A nurse?” she spat the word like it tasted foul. “Oh, I’ll bet she *recommended* them. What’s her name, Mike? Who is she?”
His jaw clenched. “You don’t know her. She’s just someone I met at work.”
But Lorna was already searching his Facebook friends, her fingers moving with practiced speed. It didn’t take long. A quick scroll led her to Karen Mitchell, whose profile picture was a smiling nurse in scrubs.
“You mean *Karen*?” Lorna said, her voice low and venomous. “I’ll show her.”
“Jesus Christ, how did you do that so fast?”
“Never underestimate the power I have with the internet at my fingertips.”
Mike didn’t answer. He grabbed his phone and left the room, leaving her to stew. Milo, sensing the building storm, crept up the stairs.
Karen was the first to notice the anonymous messages:
“You’re a murderer.”
“Hope your hospital burns down.”
“Stop lying to people.”
She deleted the comments but couldn’t shake the suspicion. When Mike called that evening, she asked, “Is your wife... okay?”
“What do you mean?”
Karen hesitated. “I’ve been getting hate online. Weird stuff. I thought it might be her.”
Mike rubbed his face. “Karen, I’m sorry. I think it might be.”
He didn’t go home that night. Or the next.
Lorna’s fury reached new heights. Mike’s betrayal only cemented her belief that she was the lone voice of truth in a world full of sheep. She threw herself into an online campaign, posting long rants about the dangers of lock-downs and vaccines. When the internet wasn’t enough, she went door to door, handing out flyers and lecturing anyone who opened their door.
“You don’t want to be tracked, do you?” she said to one neighbor, thrusting a pamphlet at them.
“No, of course not,” they said quickly, just to make her go away.
But not everyone was so receptive.
One day, while protesting outside a vaccine clinic, Lorna spotted her neighbor slipping inside.
“Traitor,” she muttered under her breath.
She needed to make a bigger statement. Something drastic.
The next day, she snuck into a known COVID ward with her two boys in tow.
“See?” she said, pushing one of them toward a coughing patient. “It’s not that dangerous.”
She live-streamed the whole thing, her tone smug as she documented the children running through the ward.
It didn’t take long for the consequences to unfold.
When the children started getting sick, Lorna spun it as proof that they were being poisoned. She didn’t get sick herself—at least, not badly—and crowed about her “immunity” to anyone who would listen.
But the kids didn’t recover. Milo was the first to go, his death hit the community hard. By the time her youngest, Tommy, followed suit parents were calling for her arrest.
Lorna was taken into custody and released on bail, her followers rallying online to declare her a martyr.
Sitting in her car, Lorna stared at a stolen box of vaccines.
“This is what they want,” she said into her phone camera. “They want to control us, to silence us. But they won’t silence me.”
She jabbed the needle into her chest, pushing the plunger down. Then another. And another.
Her breathing grew labored. Her hand trembled.
“This... this is proof,” she gasped. “I’m still standing—”
She collapsed forward, the camera capturing her final moments.
Her death became a rallying cry for her followers, who shared the video millions of times.
“She died proving the truth!” one post read.
“This is what the government doesn’t want you to see!” said another.
Despite the tragedy, her message spread further than ever before. People re-enacted her stunt, injecting themselves with vaccines in dangerous ways, believing her death was a hoax.
For Mike, it was the final straw. He deleted his social media accounts and left home, determined to build a life far away from his wife’s shadow.
But for Lorna’s followers, her voice lived on, a ghost haunting the corners of the internet, whispering to anyone willing to listen.