He was 6 years old and learned, in seconds, how to disappear.
When the man took the elevator up in the building in Atizapán de Zaragoza, Mexico, 21-year-old nanny Aleyda Romero managed to tell the boy to hide and not leave the room. It was the last thing she did for him. Then came the gunshots, the screams, the silence. Jonathan Meléndez, keyboardist for the band Camilo Séptimo, died alongside his wife, Ana Paola, who was four months pregnant, his 3-year-old daughter, Aleyda herself, and even the family dog.
The boy did not come out. He stayed there, crouched, while outside his hiding place lay the bodies of everyone who cared for him. More than three hours passed until, well into midnight, the Navy and the police entered the apartment and found him alive, without a single injury. “We have a child,” the agents said when they found him. It was the only phrase that night that did not announce a tragedy.
