In a cave hidden beneath a crumbling shrine to Saint Rafael, where the roots of ceiba trees broke through stone like the fingers of the dead, a man in priest's robes knelt beside a cauldron not seen by sunlight in centuries.
His name was Father Tomás—but no one in the village would recognize him now.
The robes he wore were still the pale cloth of the Church, but stained and ragged, torn at the hem. Around his neck hung not a crucifix, but an obsidian charm etched with serpents and waves—symbols forbidden since the conquistadors first dragged fire and fear into these lands.
The coals beneath the cauldron hissed and spat as if they disliked the taste of what was being fed to them. Bones, feathers, salt from the drowned caves of Yucatán. The priest chanted in Nahuatl—poorly, but with a sick devotion. His body rocked with each phrase, bones cracking in rhythm, muscles spasming with every wrong syllable that still somehow worked.
The cauldron boiled black.
From the smoke rose visions.
Not dreams. Not prophecy.
Memories.
A city of coral spires, broken and sunken. Eyes like stars glaring from beneath the sea. A throne of shell and bone rising from a trench no map dared name. Creatures that were not men, but wore their faces. Gods who were not gods, but remembered being worshipped.
A voice—low and layered, like many mouths speaking through one—slithered from the smoke.
"She dreams. She sees. She wakes."
Father Tomás did not stop. He could not. His limbs moved of their own accord, pulled by puppet strings soaked in brine and blood.
The voice laughed. Then growled.
"You have called us again, little priest. And your offering is not enough."
He sobbed as his hands reached into the smoke and burned. He screamed but did not resist. From his palm, the skin flaked away—revealing bone carved with unfamiliar runes.
"The bloodline remembers," said the voice. "Even if they do not."
Suddenly, the smoke burst outward, coating the cave walls in black soot shaped like claws and faces. The cauldron cracked down the middle. From within, a heart beat—once, twice—then fell still.
Father Tomás collapsed, convulsing.
When he awoke, hours later, his eyes were as dark as the tide. He did not remember his name. Only his purpose.
And the words now burned into his mind:
"The sea will rise. The land will drown. The girl must fall."