At the end of every moment she waits.
While life passes by, in the smoky obsidian we seem like wraiths.
Does the drum still beat in your chest?
Is silence a symbol of eternal rest?
Live every moment like it's your last dance.
We have one life, keep in mind it's your only chance.
He turned the bend.
The baby's cry echoed, bouncing from wall to wall like a cruel lullaby. Softer now, but still sharp—urgent, wet, alive.
It wasn't fear. Not exactly. It was something colder. Something ancient and mocking.
He paused, breathing through his gills and nose, letting instinct stretch its legs.
The air shifted.
He focused, cautiously mimicking how the vibrations slid across his skin, each one painting a picture. Every drop of water, every shift in airflow, every subtle tremor under his feet—he felt them. Learned them. Became fluent in their language.
There
A twitch in the stone beneath him. A beat in the air, another heart beating. He paused, a thought creeping up from the very depths. Do I even have a heartbeat anymore? Fortunately his thought process was interrupted by the next beat of this stranger's heart.
He crouched, the moss dimming under his weight. His pupils widened. Colors dulled into instinct.
The scent hit him then—pungent and sharp.
"Rotting fish," he whispered, almost gagging.
Whatever was around the bend, it wasn't right.
Still he crept forward. Slow. Quiet. One step at a time. Not because he was brave. But because part of him needed to know.
Maybe it was a baby. Maybe it wasn't.
And even if it was…
He froze.
A chill bloomed behind his eyes as a thought slithered up his spine: What if it's not my problem? What if I just walk away?
He swallowed hard, the taste of his own shame rising like bile.
The voices haunting him begin to chime in once again, tauntingly and ghastly. He chose to ignore them and focus instead on that thing ahead of him.
Let them make all the noise they want, he thought bitterly, repetitive dribble anyway. Echoing an old voice that once filled his chest with poison. It's all they can do now that they're dead and I'm still alive. No thanks to them anyway.
But still, he didn't move.
He clenched his jaw, claws just barely slipping from their sheathes.
Somewhere in the dark, a sound like wet breath or slithering skin scraped against stone.
The crying stopped.
He could finally see the creature, the thing he had feared it might have been. An Ahuizotl! His only thought was, I need to stop being so delusional. It should've been obvious from the smell of rotten fish and the baby's cry. He tensed himself ready to run. Maybe if I make it out of here alive I'll fully accept that I'm in the realm of gods and monsters.
The Ahuizotl sprang into action before any other thoughts could consume him.
A ripple in the dark. A splash. Then teeth.
He barely managed to raise his arms before the ahuizotl crashed into him—wet muscle, matted fur, the reek of rot and river sludge. Its tail lashed like a whip behind it, claws digging into his new flesh.
He screamed, not from fear—but from recognition.
This thing was made like him.
Not human. Not beast. Something else, primordial almost. If the legends could be believed, humanity once thrived but forsook worship to the gods The ahuizotl was no mere beast. Born when Tlaloc ruled the sky. When the world of the Fourth Sun drowned because the people no longer honored Tlaloc. They built canals, not altars. Harvested water, but gave no thanks. So he reminded them: all life flows from the gods—and can be taken back. The humans that managed to survive the ire of Tlaloc where not spared. Instead being transformed into fish and other aquatic beasts. It was a breath left behind by the Fourth Sun—a memory that refused to drown.
He twisted.
His gills burned.
His balance was all wrong—limbs still learning their weight, tail dragging like a chain.
The ahuizotl circled in jerks and feints, a chilling sound seeping from its throat—
the cry of a human infant.
But it laughed.
It dove.
Claws raked across his chest.
He struck back—sloppy, wild, but strong.
His webbed hand cracked against bone.
Then again.
Punch after punch.
Sometimes he used fists.
Sometimes claws.
He didn't know which felt more natural.
He slashed at its sides, its neck—trying to rip it apart.
The creature's tail-hand lashed upward—gripped one of his six gills and pulled.
Agony screamed through his head.
The ahuizotl's fingers tried to tear it clean off.
Baldemar roared.
He lashed back, clawing the nubs along its head and neck—six of them, just like his own.
Blood spilled—his, red and steaming.
Theirs, sludgy brown, thick like drowned rot.
The floor turned slick beneath them.
Sacred water stained with sacrilege.
He lunged in.
Headfirst.
Bulbous skull meeting bone.
A headbutt.
Not elegant.
Not trained.
Just rage and weight.
The impact knocked them both back—stumbling, slipping in blood.
But the ahuizotl—more practiced, more primal—recovered faster.
It lowered its stance, fangs bared, eyes wild.
And then—
It struck.
Snap.
The sound was soft.
The pain was not.
Its teeth sank into his leg.
He roared.
Rage pulsed through him—hot, electric, holy.
He didn't think.
He moved.
Grabbed the tail.
Dug in with both hands.
"You want me? I refuse to have my fate be put into someone else's hands ever again!"
He spun.
The beast screamed, limbs flailing, tail twisting to break free—
He flung it.
All his new strength behind the throw.
But his hands—slick with ichor, cursed flesh or scales or whatever the gods had given him—slipped.
Still, it flew.
The ahuizotl slammed against stone with a crack.
Slid.
Vanished over the ledge.
The air stilled.
He dropped to his knees, panting. Blood darkened the water around him. His leg trembled—gone from the knee down.
But then—
He watched it grow.
Flesh bubbled. Nerves stitched. Bone spiraled downward like roots to the cenote floor. His gill, having been victim to the scratching of the Ahuizotl, itched as it reformed post mutilation.
He shivered. Not from the pain. From the realization:
This body does not die easily.
Then thunder split the cave like a war drum.
The gods had seen him.
Having collapsed against the edge, gasping. Blood pooled. But his leg—it was growing. Flesh knitting, bone stretching, sinew snapping back into place. His gill, looking like a snapped branch on a tree, bubbled at the edge of his head, already straightening out, regaining its proper place among the five other feathered gills on his head.
Shock and awe gripped him as he looked up.
The storm was alive.
Black clouds churned like gods in combat. Thunder boomed like the Huehuetl, each strike shaking his bones. The Tlaloque had bared witness to his desperate struggle—and they were laughing.
For one dazzling breath, they parted the sky. And there it was.
Tlalocan.
Lush. Verdant. Eternal. A paradise drenched in sunlight and rainbows and everything he remembered from dreams he didn't know he had. For a second he could see several Ahuizotl, he could hear the howl of the Xoloitzcuintl in mictlan. His soul ached.
And then—gone.
The sky slammed shut. Lightning howled like serpents. Thunder turned violent. The storm returned with vengeance, and the cave behind him wept as rain flooded its throat. Stepping back he realized he could no longer even hear the storm. Only silence
The silence was worse than any curse.
He dragged himself back inside. Bloodied. Ashamed. The voices returned. Whispers of the drowned. Echoes of the men he'd killed. The weight of what he was. Of what he wasn't.
He sat against the wall and let the misery devour him.
Until the music began.
The thunder softened—The Huehuetl beat drummed. The rain danced—Carimba cascading. The wind howled in melody—Tlapitzalli notes curling through the cave.
It was beautiful.
His foot tapped. His fingers curled. His hips swayed. He was dancing.
Lost in it. The rhythm. The release.
A xylophone sound chimed behind him—glass and bone, joyful and eerie. He turned, laughing.
And then the sound tore open.
A scream.
The Aztec death whistle.
The temperature dropping. All the vibrant colors in his new form of vision seemed to turn pale, except for an eerie glow behind him.
He spun around.
There, standing in the shadows cast by candleless fire, was a skeleton. No mask. No disguise. Jewels in her teeth. Black hair braided with bone and marigolds.
Mictecacihuatl.
La Señora de la Muerte.
Watching him.
Waiting