IN ALL LIVING things, there is a desire to belong. To be understood, to be accepted. It was a fundamental part of community based survival, and the results of the deprivation of it could be devastating. If we were all born with that deep, sensitive instinct —then why were we so selfish? Why did we never look at the whole; the bigger picture and those around us?

If it was just as ingrained to be greedy, what a shameless paradox we were. To want company, and only at our convenience. Choosing to be removed from the world was so frowned upon; but yet we still fought to be together. Over simple, stupid things.

Love was like that.

It wasn't gentle, or understanding. Love was like people; brash and needy. Dependent. Or maybe it was such among those who didn't understand it. Maybe love could be unconditional, warm and immeasurable.

But not in this life.

Wars were waged over boundaries —either to keep people out or to keep people in, or both —and leaders still spoke of one people. One world. Undivided.

Perhaps if we were as we had been before —simple beings with simple needs, we wouldn't find the reasons to fight. We wouldn't find the reason to run an non-officiated race. There would be no finish line. Nothing to get to, nothing to which we would aspire.

If our advancement was such a hindrance, then maybe everything simply needed to be reset.

Reborn.

And done anew.

But was that a deserved reward? Or an unwarranted punishment? Who was I to say.

I would never understand why Huehuecoyotl wanted me —why he had relentlessly pursued me for all of those years. Or why he had cursed me in the first place.

"It wasn't a curse," the god of mischief told me. "It was a gift. I gifted you with the ability to find things. I hoped...that one day, you would find me."

I could hear him now, in English. We all could —perhaps due to the visions of our past lives. Maybe I had always understood the gods and that ancient language. Maybe I had simply chosen to be selective.

"You wanted me even though you knew that I had a soulmate?" I asked. "Why?"

He shrugged. "Vengeance," he settled for. "I resented Quetzalcoatl for being your mother's soulmate. I had wanted it to be me. So, I made him swear you to me, if I could win your heart."

This time I gasped. "That's unbelievable."

"What about me?" Lorenne then asked. She appeared nervous. "What part do I have in all of this, besides being Maya's soulmate?"

"You are no human soul," Huehuecoyotl sighed. "You are a human-like spirit that was created by the goddess Chantico as a...form of compensation. From the fires of loving households. It is your fate to follow Maya."

"Compensation?" she frowned.

I found it interesting that her focus was not on the fact that she wasn't actually human.

"She saw how Maya was with her family —she wanted to lighten things a bit," answered Huehuecoyotl.

The goddess of fires and the hearth had thought that love would deplete my misery? Had she realised that this would happen —repeating history?

"And what about Valdez?" I spoke up.

"Valdez is my son," Huehuecoyotl said. "Is half of my blood, as you are to your father."

"I still think it's bullshit," Valdez mumbled. "How could you drag me into this mess? I didn't ask for you to be my father. I didn't ask to be Maya's sidekick."

"Sidekick?" I repeated.

Valdez tsked and glared at the wall. "I was assigned as your protector. Whether I liked it or not."

"I'm sorry," I felt the urge to say. "I didn't ask for that either. It was out of my control."

"I know," was all he said.

My eyebrows furrowed as I looked at Huehuecoyotl. "...That's why you apologised to him earlier."

He nodded.

Man, the gods suck.

I glanced at Lorenne. She slowly laced her fingers through mine. There were too many things to process, and I had had enough of this cave. "How do we get out of here?" I demanded from the god.

Huehuecoyotl suddenly shifted back to his human form, his eyes still aglow but dark and deadly. He gripped his spear. "Did you not read the signs? Heed the warnings? You are trapped down here, you silly things."

"What?"

"Do you remember what I told you earlier?" he mused, lazily twirling the spear. "I reward those whom I favour. And I punish the unworthy."

I took a protective step in front of Lorenne. "You would punish us just for finding out all of this?"

"Of course not," he scoffed. "You have found out before, and it has changed nothing. What you know in this life will never be carried into the next. It doesn't matter what I do —this will repeat. For as long as I wish."

Valdez abruptly backed away, and came to stand beside Lorenne and me, his face in a scowl.

"Do you really want to oppose me?" he quipped, pointing the spear towards us.

"What good would it do to kill me?" I hissed.

"It would ensure that you are immediately reborn into your next life," Huehuecoyotl smiled, those long, pointy teeth meshing and overlapping.

Fear chilled my bones. There was no way out of here, and we had no weapons with which to fight.

Then I felt it —a tingling in the balls of my feet. An inkling of hope, because of my curse. The curse he gave me. I shifted my foot slightly, feeling out whatever was below. It was big. Hollow. And scalding.

A pocket of magma.

I had never felt anything natural like this before. I wondered if Chantico was guiding me —trying to make up for her twisted good intentions.

But if I opened up the Earth, if I let it swallow us up —we would be taken with him. Just as Huehuecoyotl said: if I died, this would all restart again.

"Resistance is futile," said the god of mischief.

Was it worth it?

Lorenne gently squeezed my hand. I...I didn't want this to repeat. I didn't want to put her or Valdez through this again. For my sake, or my parents'.

I wanted to end this.

I glanced at the tip of Huehuecoyotl's spear. "What's that made of?" I asked quickly.

"This?" he mused, comically waving it, "It's made of Brazilian walnut wood, and the tip is made of iron." Then he smiled wickedly. "And it's laced with Terciopelo¹ Viper poison. But aside from that, it has been blessed by Mictlantecuhtl. If you are struck with it even once, your soul will go straight to Xibalba²."

I tensed. Instant death.

But if the tip of the spear struck him, pierced his chest —he would be the one to go to Xibalba, and the lowest underworld. If I was lucky, I could ask Quetzalcoatl to force him to remove my curse.

But how was I supposed to go against that spear?

"We need to get that spear away from him," I hissed.

I took a step to the left as Huehuecoyotl started circling in on our right. A large crack suddenly split the ground near the fountain in between us, and the granite structure burst, spraying water and debris.

We all turned away and coughed, disorientated. Then the dust settled, and Huehuecoyotl jumped upwards, spear poised and glistening.

Valdez and Lorenne scattered, leaving me to tuck and roll out of the way and emerge from behind him. On some kind of instinct I grabbed the god's neck, my grip fast and crushing. He choked, and by pure luck the spear clattered out of his hand onto the ground.

"Grab the spear!" I yelled. "I'll hold him still!"

Valdez immediately went for it, but as he met the gaze of the god of mischief and trickery he seemed to hesitate. He held the spear up towards the god's chest, but he couldn't thrust it forward.

"What are you waiting for?" Lorenne cried, grabbing the handle behind him.

Valdez looked at me. And I understood.

"He's not...going to be gone forever," I assured, struggling to keep Huehuecoyotl in my grip. He snarled and roared, while his hands clawed at my arms.

"I...can't," Valdez admitted. "I can't do it."

Lorenne yanked the spear out of his hands. "I can."

And she thrust it forward, into his heart.

The roaring stopped. Veins around where the spear had struck began to glow a warm green —quickly followed by the rest of him. Then in a flash of light, and a piercing scream, the god turned to dust. And blew away, like a skeleton once had in my vision.

I stumbled forward, thrown off balance.

Gone. He was gone.

We shared weary looks, uncertain of what had happened within the last few seconds. Valdez fell to his knees, and his flashlight dropped and rolled aside.

Lorenne threw the spear as though it might then turn her to dust as well, and moved to come to my side. She crouched beside me, and brushed my hair aside. "So," she said softly as I blushed bashfully, "We were always destined to be together, huh?"

"I guess so," I whispered.

"You know, it might be the curse or something talking," she went on, "but I'd follow you into any life."

"I don't care either way," I breathed. "I'd do the same."

She leaned in, her lips a breath away, before we were interrupted by a loud cough.

"We need to get out of here," Valdez then said gruffly. "The ground is very unstable, and Maya already took out the fountain. This place could collapse."

I gasped as I remembered what was underneath us. "There's magma below. We need to be careful."

But as we stood up, the cracks that had destroyed the fountain suddenly split open further —and the ground abruptly fell away beneath us.

There wasn't even a moment to react. Just like that, everything I had known was gone; burned up.

I felt weightless.

I wondered if this was what souls felt like. It was as though nothing but darkness and stars existed. I was floating through space, aimless and numb.

Something odd had happened, I was sure. But I didn't know what, and I couldn't really grasp the sharp jagged feeling that was associated with it. It was far off, and unimportant now.

This is it. It's finished. It couldn't end the way you had wanted, but there will be no more suffering.

Something —a bigger presence was telling me that. Warm and safe, like...love. I decided to call it Love. Patient and good and unconditional. There was nothing around me but night and shape and colour.

And then...something warm.

It wasn't tangible; it was more of a feeling. A sensation. And a smell —cedar wood and honey. It enveloped me, whatever or whoever I was. Filled me.

I was lulled into a sense of calm. It was familiar, and comforting. For the first time in what felt like forever, it felt like I could rest. Like I could just...exist.

Your reward, said Love.

And whoever was there with me, dancing a dance, holding me and laughing, felt the same. We were one; we were light, and air and gentle rain.

And we were the stardust in the sky.

¹ spanish for 'velvet'. the most dangerous snake in the neotropical rainforests.
² the spirit realm.

author's note |
20k word goal reached!!