Chronicles of a Death Foretold - Best Synopsis Ever - Part II (The Incident)

Now here's where all the confusion happens. Santiago Nasar wakes up at 05:30 to get ready and greet the Bishop. After being grossed out by the dead rabbits, he leaves the house. It's 06:00, maybe five minutes past, and Pablo and Pedro see him walk out of the main door and get up to kill him.

However, they are dissuaded by Clotilde Armenta who tells them to "leave him for later, if only out of respect for his grace the bishop". So they simply sit around and wait again.

The bishop, not surprisingly, yet to everyone's disappointment, doesn't get off his boat. Just the customary blessing and he's gone.

People disperse. At 06:25, Margot, the narrator's sister, invites Nasar over for breakfast, and he promises to be there in fifteen minutes. He walks purposelessly with Cristo for a little distance and then bids him farewell.

Seconds later, Yamil Shaium tells Cristo about the twins' plan.

Cristo runs off to find his friend, but he has already disappeared. He goes to his house, but Divina Flor, the young maid, tells him Nasar has not come back yet.

The man in demand is, meanwhile, at his fiance Flora Miguel's place, at 06:45. Miguel's family usually sleeps till noon (lucky people, huh?) but woke up really early on this day because of the noise made by the bishop's boat. Flora is upset with Nasar, blah blah blah. Not important. What IS important is that Flora's father, Nahir Miguel (who is a wise old man - the one who orders everyone in the house to sleep until noon) tells Nasar to either stay in the house or exit with a revolver unless he wants to be killed. Nasar who has been blissfully unaware of everything, is shocked to the core.

In the meantime, Cristo feels he should be a good friend and at least prepare Nasar for what might happen. He goes up to his bedroom at 06:56 and a couple of minutes later (at 06:58, since they've mentioned it in the book) he takes Nasar's revolver to hand over to him whenever he is found.

He the heads out and passes by Armenta's shop where Pedro yells out to him to tell Nasar that they're waiting to kill him. Cristo also runs into Colonel Lazaro Aponte again and informs him about the recent developments. Aponte says he'll look into it but isn't too worried as he doubts that the twins will be back with weapons so soon after he took away their knives and told them to go home.

ADD/ADHD much?

Cristo Bedoya is still looking for his friend. He spends some time helping to move Prospero Arango's ailing dad who can't quite walk. Then he goes to Santiago's house again, and this time Divina Flor says she saw him going up to his room from the entrance facing the square.

Incorrect information. Hallucination? Sneaky plot?

Santiago has just received the news of the plot to kill him, and he stumbles out of Miguel's house, unarmed and still dazed. People all around him are shouting instructions and he doesn't know who to listen to.

He sees the twins running towards him and suddenly realizes what is happening. From her angle, his mother Placida Linero looks out the window and sees the twins running to the main door, but doesn't see her son in front of them. After Divina's reassurance that he is in his room upstairs, Linero runs to the door and bolts it so the twins can't go up to her son's room to kill him.

Isn't it ironic?

Linero has locked out her own son, and he is now trapped. Unarmed, he turns around to face his killers. They stab him over and over again, but the knives keep coming out clean and bloodless. That's the beauty of magical realism and supernatural elements...

...but not for long, because after all, they're all human. Poor Nasar is stabbed for what seems like forever, and finally he falls. 

Now comes the creepy part. The "dead" dude stands up and picks up his intestines (which are totally spilling out. Don't even ask about the blood). Then, carrying them in his hands, he walks around the house, goes through the house of his neighbours (weirdos who think he is glowing), walks into his house through the kitchen.   

Then he falls to the floor. Dead. Definitely so this time. And that, my friends, is how the story ends.

Part III is where less important things happen, but it's because of what happens then that the important stuff that happens until now is recorded.