The sun was not dead. Not here. It was eternal. But it chose to grace no longer the stepped pyramids that had always housed its light since the first age of man.
From the apex of the temple in the city’s heart, men vanished into the smudge of darkness cold. Then the morbid night spread like a swollen colossus. Even the most hallowed of xiu serpents’ flames were quenched within its black coils. The man daring to breach in to fetch his brother lost his voice in his throat. This was the darkness most true. The one that everyone always envisioned when told to think of it. Black, silent, void, suffocating. And it spread.
Panic-laden howls and cries infiltrated even the faintest of cracks, piercing the ears of a lady who had just fallen hard onto the red brick slab after dislodging the barrier door. Struggling to rise, her limbs trembled, her clothes soaked in all sorts of fluids, knots burning her legs like a rabbit ensnared. She scorched the rattan at her feet with a rush of fury and shed the wet cloth that cleaved her lips before limping into a grand hall built in the glories of red brick and bloodied saga.
Yet, she found not even spectres occupying the bleachers. Torches lay fallen in the ring arena and flames licked the sand. The scream, however, still gnawed at the lady's ears. This was not the spine-chilling scream of the epic power play she had hoped to be in. Her shudder begat another shudder.
And it was the first time she was afraid to look outside.
But a torrent of inspiration immediately kicked that feeling to the curb. "Whoever is afraid is not worthy," that was engraved in her mind from the adages of her parents, the teachings of her teachers, and the readings of scripture. So she looked outside. Right at that moment mixed emotions made a riot in her chest. Relief was one, for if she had not looked out, she and the building would have melded into the expansive darkness.
Heat still lingered in her heels, but she cared not and continued to torture her way down the stairs with her right hand firmly grasping a serpent staff already tied around her waist. With a frightened look on her face, she scanned one by one the other horrified faces running in the opposite direction, the number growing more and more discouraging the closer she neared the city gates. There was no way she could battle her way through that sea of men and machine chariots. On top of that, a platoon of soldiers in snake-scaled jumpsuits and feathered helmets acted as statues to the scurrying hordes, intervening only if any anomaly defied the current.
So she skirted the wall until she found an opening for her passage. She marvelled that her legs still bore her weight while climbing despite the near numbness from the groin, though that thought was dismissed in short order. Her life had been a preparation for this. To walk in spite of a burnt leg, to climb in spite of a sprained ankle, and to swim in spite of a broken foot.
Just as she managed to vault to the other side, an abrupt, stabbing grip on her arm made her wince.
"What madness crazes you that you must run to that darkness?”
The lady turned her head to the origin of the sound in the local tongue, and she saw another snake-scaled and feather-headed soldier. No, not one. Three others came to heed his summons.
"Nantli! My sanity will fray if I don't find nantli!”
"Don't venture there!" the soldier argued. "Rest assured your nantli is out of this city! You should leave as well!"
However, her eyes had already wandered again towards the throng at the gate. The twine on her eyelashes held firm.
"Nantli remained within these walls! Let me pass!"
"Don't be obstinate, ichpocatl! What lies yonder is an invitation to death!" The soldier immediately waved his hand behind him. "Assist me in removing this girl!"
Two other soldiers responded to his call, restraining the lady by her waist and arms.
Why are these soldiers so stubborn for a mere young girl? thought the maiden. Little did she realise that her shaking hands and guilt-ridden screams were making the soldiers ponder the same. But the girl paid no attention to their thoughts. She kicked one soldier's shin and used her free hand to grab the dragon staff, smashing it into the other's temple and felling him. The last soldier around her waist tightened his grip, and slowly the girl was hoisted up. The tumultuous struggle did little to subdue this one trooper.
"You're in enough trouble for attacking two soldiers, ichpocatl!"
"I have no regrets! But if I fail to find nantli, then you will regret it along with me!"
"Being a potential champion doesn't grant you license to flout the rules!"
"My nature has flouted the moment fate moulded me in the womb!"
Both of her hands clamped onto the soldier's arms, and his entire body was instantly ignited by flames!
“You wretched Tzitzimtl!” screamed the soldier in anguish.
The woman was freed. She poured all her strength into her legs to disappear from the soldiers' pursuit.
Hope that soldier really didn't burn to death. The woman's lips turned wry. No. It would be foolishness on his part if he died by fire!
When her eyes found herself in the devastated market district, she quickened her pace without caring that a bump on the shoulder might knock someone over. She spotted one middle-class engine carriage that seemed to be functional.
That one practically took all my mana for magic. It can't be helped.
Whoever owned the carriage must be a fool for preferring to escape on foot, she assumed. But she also considered the carriage as a slight respite, so she made a litany to let the owner reach safety. Upon entering, she pounded on the lock guard under the steering wheel with her dragon staff and ignited the power through the cables. The carriage shuddered, and the engine began to roar. The expanse of darkness was widening, she noticed, and if she insisted on finding her mother by pedalling, she might as well idly wait for it gorging her.
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The lady had one or two experiences driving an engine carriage—she had watched drivers drive them and wrecked a relative's carriage on a pretence of trial. With the first turn of the steering wheel and an unmitigated step on the accelerator, the battered carriage whirled and sped towards the scurrying citizens. Her mind was already muddied to consider the stunned passers-by jumping here and there. She trusted their common sense not to run into her.
The machine carriage weaved its way through the alley, following the colossal snake statue winding from building to building, from the city gates to its snout overlooking a housing estate with a vast white alabaster field. That was where the girl stopped. The black and empty landscape was right in front of her. The hurricane winds rushed in unbidden thanks to the advancing darkness that voraciously consumed the world, closing in inch by inch.
She broke down the door of the humble building that appeared to be her home, calling out "nantli" multiple times **as her body darted into every room and her eyes into every crevice. How the Divine had cursed her. There was only her in that building.
She went back out, shouting the same name, and her reply was met only by the panicked screams and desperate cries of those fleeing. This search was a lost cause. Perhaps she should have heeded the soldier's request—her mother might have already escaped.
However, she was already here, and a commotion on the marble court somehow caught her attention.
There was still a hive of folks who were daring enough to stand on the brink of strolling death. Who else but the journalists and news reporters. Those armed with papers and stationery, large image recorders, and reporters trying to imitate the macabre atmosphere with their urgent, stern voices. Not far from them, an elderly man seemed to have just keeled over, attended by staff in colourful overalls, but the man seemed unwilling to be saved. The lady hurried to his side and when their gazes met, the man's eyes widened.
He said not a word. His lips even showed a reluctance to speak.
"Did you see nantli?”
The lady's query felt like an impale through the heart. The elder man's face grew even more pained. His eyes were turned to the manifestation of lost hope: the expanse of darkness.
The young woman followed his gaze and the looks on her face drained away. Her eyes started to leak, but she refused to let a single drop fall out. Shedding tears openly before the sun was anathema to someone like her. She endeavoured to keep the principle by turning her head the other way, and every breath out of her mouth brought with it a heavy groan.
"You couldn't save her?" The woman demanded again.
"The darkness came... before the parents of the future champions... bringing the sacrifice....," the old man finally replied weakly, equally anguished.
“Tzitzimimeh,” Izel guessed. “Those accursed insurgents are sure the ones behind this! Always all the mishaps in times of celebration stem from them!”
“There are no Tzitzimimeh.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“I’m not… but I saw no Tzizimitl… I… I too don’t fathom all this…”
"Then why would Citlalicoatl desire this? In the midst of his grandest of celebrations?" The woman snapped, but cursed herself again shortly thereafter, bowing her forehead to the alabaster floor. "No, Citlalicoatl. Your servant begs forgiveness," she said again, her voice dropping. "You never bring misfortune without cause. Your trials strengthen people stronger, not render them to desperation—"
"Nantli! Oh, no, nantli! Tlaltli!"
An ear-piercing scream jolted the woman from her prayers and she turned her head. Another, a man, her age, dashed towards the expanse of darkness, chased by a number of soldiers only to stop and kneel shortly after. His roars were long, uninterrupted wails, trembling at the edge.
But instead of being shrouded in empathy, the woman was awash in flaming outrage. "There are no Tzitzimimeh,” she said in a murmur, “I fathom, o Citlalicoatl. I know what caused this." She then walked towards the young man with her dragon staff in hand.
"You!" The woman yelped. All heads turned. The man also looked over, face showing surprise. Her body began to redden and steam billowed from her pores. Her dragon's staff rose and breathed out flames like a true dragon. "How dare you yell the word ‘mother’ with your foul tongue, you tzitzimitl's bastard! Citlalicoatl will bestow upon you not the fire of power, but blood-red embers that eat away at your skin and flesh! I am the embers!"
As her hand prepared to cast fiery havoc, another foreign power grazed her from the side. A five-man force, and the woman who had her strength drained by traps and useless quests fell. She saw what had hit her. It was indeed five soldiers, one of them with the head of a rooster.
"Let go! Let go of me!" the crazed girl was picked up again by the soldiers. Her body was still seething, yet they seemed unperturbed by the literal sizzling on their hands. "He's the culprit! It's his fault! Blasphemer! Blasphemer of the Sun! How could he expect his foul hands to wish to touch the sun? This is what we gain!"
"No one is at fault here, reign yourself in! This is not the conduct of a champion!" admonished a rooster-headed, shirtless soldier who was pushing the woman closer to the engine carriage.
"You understand my cause better than anyone! Spare me your moralising! I demand a duel! Elder! Atone for your sins by sanctioning my duel! I'll beat him to death in this profane spread of his making!"
The Rooster launched a jab at the woman's face!
"Watch your mouth when making a request to the elders!" The Rooster Head pulled at the woman's shirt collar. Despite the resounding thud, her teeth were still chattering, and her nose flared. "Mighty humans like us still need the law for guidance. A trial will be held if possible. If he is judged guilty, you will have your duel!"
"Our courts have flaws. I don't have the luxury of time to gather evidence!"
"Then cast aside prejudice and keep your mouth shut!"
The woman's eyes bore into the man of her hunt. His skin bore a deeper hue than the rest. His frame was like that of a bear on two legs. Bare-chested and neck-length hair, with a tuft tied up. The man responded with nought but tightened eyebrows.
But again, their gazes were interrupted by the clamour of galloping soldiers. "The darkness is spreading faster! We must depart!"
"I refuse to share a carriage with him,” the lady told the Rooster Head again whilst being dragged into the carriage. At least the soldier granted her request, all so that the carriage would not explode with her wrath in the road. Oh, they indeed could do that with a little anger.
The elder and the alleged man were put into different carriages. Five carriages in all, chased by the savage darkness, and they no longer dared to look back. Gone was their chance to bid farewell as black tendrils devoured the buildings. The unquick cattle and birds were as if singing a final cadence. Even as they passed through the city gates, bands of men were still running on their feet, begging for help, blocking their way to make room. The chariots did not care. The foolish ones got the loud and final message—they were crushed or knocked over, and their families gathered around to welcome the everlasting dark.
The young woman was the only one who looked back for a moment and she regretted it. Her breathing sounded quivering. Her eyes closed only made them more swollen. Punishment from her god? Practical magic blunders? A premeditated invasion from another country? From Tzitzimimeh? Whatever it was, all those citizens lost their land, their families, their faith and their pride once feted to the outside world.
They were entering a highway with dense forest all around, accompanied by newly-landed and oncoming flying ships—other refugees who had made it to military bases, according to Rooster Head's explanation. The shroud of darkness still had not settled, and it had been five hours. No one was guarding the border post to the nation of Paititi when they broke through, and only after crossing the border did the black expanse cease its relentless advance. It remained still ever since.
And there, in the soil of strangers, the bravest soldiers could witness a spectacle that drove their spines to relapse like old friends and their hearts race like mad. There was nothing to do but stare in defeat, forced to acknowledge the triumph of a monstrous black expanse that consumed even the highest heavens. It was as if the sunlight could not shed any light on that part of the world because there was nothing there to shine on. A gap between daylight and nothingness. A missing piece of the world… []