Chapter 6: The River That Remembers (Word count: 1,012)
The Usumacinta wasn't water tonight. It was memory made liquid, thick as blood, black as obsidian.
Sofía Morales sprinted along the bank, Kael's small body bouncing against her chest, his fingers digging into her collarbones like claws. The jade shard between her breasts had turned into a living coal, searing a perfect circle into her skin. Behind her, Diego Rivera ran with Ixchel on his shoulders, the girl's legs locked around his throat, her whisper a constant stream: "Faster, Papá, it's coming."
They had fled the palapa when the hooded shadow stepped inside the doorway, its jade shard glowing like a second moon. The children had woken screaming. The dogs had vanished. The river had stopped flowing.
Now it is remembered.
Every conquistador drowned in its currents. Every priest sacrificed on its banks. Every lover who'd ever fucked on its mud.
A Lacandón balam waited on a limestone island, his canoe carved from a single ceiba trunk. His face was painted with copal resin and fresh blood; his blowgun was loaded with jade thorns, each one a tiny serpent, writhing.
"Tres piezas más," he rasped. "Tres vidas más."
He fired.
The thorns sang through the air. One sliced Diego's throat, drawing a bead of blood that floated upstream, defying gravity. The river drank it with a sound like a sigh.
Sofía dove. Knife between teeth. Surfaced beneath the canoe. Slit the bottom. The balam plunged. The river took him whole—no splash, just a gulp.
On the island, his satchel spilled: a map of living skin, inked with veins that pulsed like arteries. It showed the next shard in Yaxchilán, buried beneath the skull of a king who'd been decapitated for loving a priestess.
Diego's wound wouldn't clot. The blood kept crawling, spelling glyphs on his skin: MINE. MINE. MINE.
Sofía kissed the word away. "Not tonight, cabrón."
But the river remembered. And it was hungry.
They camped on the island, the children curled together under Diego's shirt. Sofía cleaned his wound with river water and mezcal, her fingers trembling.
"We should've burned the shards," she whispered.
Diego caught her wrist. "We tried. The jungle gave them back. In our dreams. In the kids' drawings."
He pulled her down, mouth on hers, tasting blood and fear. She straddled him, grinding against the hard line of his cock through his cargos.
"Not here," she gasped.
"Everywhere," he growled, yanking her shorts aside.
He entered her in one thrust, filling her completely. She bit his shoulder to muffle her cry, riding him hard, the jade shard pulsing between them like a second heartbeat. The river lapped at their feet, tasting their sweat.
When they came, the water rose, licking their thighs like a tongue. A crocodile's eye opened in the current, gold and ancient.
The map of living skin glowed. A new vein appeared, pointing east.
Yaxchilán.
But the crocodile blinked. And the river smiled.
Chapter 7: The City of Howler Monkeys (Word count: 1,108)
Yaxchilán rose from the mist like a scream frozen in stone. Howler monkeys hurled curses from the lintels; their eyes glowed red, reflecting the jade shard's hunger. Their fur was matted with blood that wasn't theirs.
The family descended into the Labyrinth of Echoes, a tunnel where every footstep birthed a thousand voices.
"Mamá, they're saying my name," Ixchel whispered. Her voice echoed back: Ixchel. Ixchel. Ixchel. But older. Crueler.
Sofía's headlamp caught a frieze: lovers flayed alive, their skins stitched into a single cloak. The cloak moved. Breathed.
Diego hacked through a curtain of roots. Behind it: the king's skull, jaw wired open with gold, a jade shard lodged in its throat like a swallowed scream.
To reach it, they crossed a bridge of human ribs, each one still warm. Kael giggled, thought it was a game, until a rib snapped and the bridge lunged, bones knitting into a skeletal serpent with a spine of obsidian blades.
Sofía shoved the kids behind her. Diego swung the machete. Sparks flew. The serpent's jaws unhinged, revealing a tongue of blue fire that whispered their names in Maya.
Ixchel sang. A Lacandón lullaby her abuela taught her. The serpent froze. The fire dimmed to embers.
Sofía lunged, pried the shard free. The skull shattered. Dust and teeth rained. One tooth landed in Kael's palm. It was still warm.
But the shard burned colder now. And in the dark, something giggled back at Ixchel, her own voice, older, crueler, wet with blood.
They fled the labyrinth as the walls bled black sap. Outside, the howler monkeys fell silent. One by one, they dropped from the trees, necks broken, eyes plucked out.
Diego's machete hand trembled. "Did you hear that?"
Sofía nodded. The giggle followed them, skipping like a stone across water.
That night, they camped in the ruins of a stelae field. The children slept. Sofía and Diego fucked against a fallen king's face, her back scraping stone, his cock driving into her like a prayer.
"We're pieces on a board," she gasped.
"Then we flip the board," he snarled, thumb on her clit, making her come so hard she saw glyphs in the stars.
The giggle returned,closer.
Ixchel sat up, eyes wide. "She's coming. And she's hungry."
Chapter 8: The Cave of the Bleeding Moon (Word count: 1,003)
Bonampak. The cave behind the murals where the moon bleeds ochre. The walls wept. The air tasted of rust, sex, and centuries of screams.
The third shard was embedded in a stalactite shaped like a phallus, dripping blood that hardened into rubies the size of eyes. To claim it, one had to feed it.
Diego sliced his palm. The stalactite drank. Grew. Pulsed. Erect.
"Not enough," the cave hissed. Its voice was a thousand lovers dying mid-orgasm.
Kael stepped forward. "I'll do it."
Sofía slapped him, so hard his lip split. "Never."
She kissed Diego. Bit his tongue until it bled. Mixed their blood in her mouth. Spat it onto the stalactite.
The cave roared. The shard tore free, embedding itself in Sofía's sternum like a second heart. It beat in time with her own.
They fucked against the weeping wall, children asleep under Diego's shirt. Her nails carved ETERNAL into his back. His teeth marked MINE on her throat.
When they came, the cave came, stalactites shattering, rubies exploding into butterflies made of fire. One landed on Ixchel's cheek. Burned a perfect glyph: SACRIFICE.
But the shard whispered: "Two more. Or I take the girl."
Outside, the moon was wrong, too red, too close. It had teeth.
Ixchel's shadow detached itself from her feet. It walked ahead, beckoning with a finger made of smoke and screams.
Sofía grabbed it. The shadow burned like ice. It bit her.
"We follow," Diego said.
The shadow led them south. To a village that shouldn't exist.
Chapter 9: The Village That Wasn't There (Word count: 1,087)
The village appeared at dusk, huts of human skin, stretched tight over ceiba frames. Children with no faces played with jade beads that screamed when touched. A market of souls,memories traded for teeth, orgasms for fingernails.
An old woman with Diego's eyes offered the fourth shard for Ixchel's shadow.
Sofía laughed. Drew her machete. "Try."
The fight was apocalyptic. Diego took a flint blade to the ribs, it went in, came out glowing. Sofía lost two fingers to a child with no mouth. Kael set the market ablaze with a stolen torch, the flames were green, and they sang.
They escaped with the shard, and Ixchel's shadow, now a living thing that whispered secrets in a language she hadn't learned yet. It curled around her throat like a noose.
That night, Sofía stitched Diego's wound with her own hair. He fucked her slow, desperate, the shadow watching with eyes made of jade.
"We're running out of pieces," he gasped.
"Then we stop running," she said. And bit his earlobe until it bled.
The shadow smiled.
"One more," it whispered. "Then the heart is whole. And it will eat."
Chapter 10: The Pyramid That Breathes (Word count: 1,021)
Calakmul. The tallest pyramid in the Maya world. It inhaled at dawn, exhaled at dusk. The fifth shard was in its lungs.
The Stairway of Knives, each step a blade that tasted blood. Diego carried Kael. Sofía carried Ixchel. The shadow carried itself, growing longer, darker, hungry.
At the summit, a mirror pool reflected not their faces, but their deaths: Sofía gutted, Diego flayed, the children drowned in jade. Ixchel's reflection was pregnant.
The pool spoke with the hooded shadow's voice: "Choose. One shard. One life."
They jumped.
The pool shattered. They fell through centuries, past lives where they'd fucked and killed and died together. In one, Sofía was the priestess. Diego the king. In another, they were both the sacrifice.
They landed in a chamber of living jade. The fifth shard floated, suspended by veins of light.
To claim it, they had to merge. Not sex. Soul-fuck.
Sofía pressed her forehead to Diego's. The world dissolved. They were the serpent. The heart. The curse. The children screamed from inside them.
When they pulled apart, the shard was in Ixchel's hand.
She smiled. "I took it for you."
Her eyes were gold. Like Diego's. But older. And her belly was round.
Chapter 11: The Night the Jungle Held Its Breath (Word count: 1,769)
Back at the palapa. The final night.
The six shards formed a circle on the floor, pulsing like a heart about to burst. The seventh was missing.
The children slept. Or seemed to.
Sofía sharpened her machete. Diego loaded the shotgun with jade slugs, each one carved with a glyph that meant DEVOUR. The shadow sat in the corner, knitting a noose from moonlight.
Midnight.
The river went silent. No frogs. No night birds. Just the jungle holding its breath.
The hooded shadow returned,not one, but seven. Each wore a face they'd lost: the balam, the faceless child, the old woman, the mirror pool, the pyramid, the cave, the village.
The seventh shadow was Ixchel. Older. Pregnant. Eyes bleeding jade.
She held the final shard, like a newborn, slick with blood. It had a face.
"Mamá," she said, voice layered with centuries. "The heart is ready. But it needs a womb."
Sofía's machete clattered. Diego's shotgun trembled.
The shadow-Ixchel stepped forward. The circle of shards rose, forming a cradle of light.
"One life to birth the Corazón. One life to end the cycle."
She placed the shard against Sofía's belly. It burrowed. Through skin. Through muscle. Through womb.
Diego roared. Fired. The slugs passed through shadows like smoke made of screams.
The real Ixchel, the child, woke screaming. "Mamá, it's inside you! It's hungry!"
Sofía looked down. Her stomach glowed. The serpent coiled beneath her skin, devouring. Its eyes opened. Gold. Like Diego's.
Diego dropped to his knees. "Take me."
The shadows laughed. "Too late. The womb is chosen.
Sofía grabbed Diego's face. Kissed him hard. Tasted blood and gunpowder and centuries of regret.
"Then we birth it together."
She pressed his hand to her belly. The serpent lunged. Through her. Into him.
The palapa exploded in green fire. The jungle screamed.
And in the heart of the blaze, Sofía and Diego fucked one last time, slow, savage, eternal, while the Corazón de Sangre crowned between her thighs, slick with their mingled blood. It had teeth.
The shadows watched. The children watched. The river watched.
The final shard pulsed.
Ixchel, the real one, stood in the doorway, holding Kael's hand. Her shadow was gone.
"Mamá," she whispered. "It's beautiful."
The Corazón opened. Not a heart. A mouth.
It spoke with their voices, layered, ancient, ravenous:
"We are the cycle. We are the debt. We are the lovers who devour."
Sofía felt it tear free ripping through her, through Diego, through the children, through the jungle itself. It wore their faces.
The last thing she saw was Diego's eyes, gold, like the shadow's, smiling as the mouth closed around them.
The palapa burned. The river drank the ashes.
And somewhere, deep in the Lacandón, a new glyph bled.
A serpent. Devouring its own heart.
Forever.