They say the dead don't forget.
But what they don't tell you… is that they don't forgive either.
I had spent weeks alone in the cemetery.
Mute.
Faceless.
Waiting.
The empty tombstones seemed to mock me every night.
The candles went out by themselves.
The cats no longer came.
And the earth smelled of iron.
But then, one night, something changed.
The stars went out.
The wind stopped.
And for the first time in a long while… I heard a whisper.
It didn't come from the dead.
It didn't come from the general.
It was an older voice.
Deeper.
As if it rose from the very heart of the earth.
"Nahual…" it said. "This is not your end."
⸻
The roots moved away from my feet.
Cracks opened in the ground, forming wide circles.
And from them emerged a figure I had never seen before:
A woman made of obsidian, with eyes like glowing coals, covered by a mantle of snakes.
She was immense.
Unimaginable.
Impossible to look at directly.
I couldn't speak, but she heard me anyway.
"Do not be afraid," she said. "I know what they did to you."
Her voice was the roar of a volcano.
The tombstones trembled.
The graves cracked open.
"You are not his," she continued. "You are mine."
Her hand—made of stone and fire—descended toward me.
She touched my forehead.
And in that instant, an unbearable heat coursed through my body.
The roots that had bound me burned away.
The ground closed beneath my feet.
And the shadows the general had left behind turned to smoke.
In her eyes, I saw my face return to my skull, as if someone were sewing it back into my skin.
My tongue regenerated, and with it, my voice.
"Who… are you?" I asked, barely above a whisper.
The woman smiled—a gesture that seemed to split the earth itself.
"I am Tlaltecuhtli," she answered. "The one who devours flesh and blood. The mother of all that breathes."
I felt a tremor.
The roots of the trees began twisting again—not to trap me, but to bow before her.
The graves sank until only smooth, dark earth remained.
The candles lit one by one, with blue flames.
"The general broke his promise," she said. "He had no right to touch you. You belong to me."
"And… now what…?" I stammered.
Tlaltecuhtli knelt until her face was level with mine.
"Now, you will hunt him."
⸻
Her words cut through me like a blade.
"Me?" I whispered.
"Yes."
"But… how? He has an army. He has my face…"
"Your face is useless to him now," she growled. "Because now you wear mine."
She raised a hand and pressed it to my chest.
A scorching heat surged through me.
When I looked at my arms, my skin shimmered with a reddish glow—like lava.
My nails were obsidian.
And in my breath, I felt dust and ash.
"You are now my nahual," she declared. "You no longer just hear the dead. You will command them to return by your will."
"But…"
"Your task isn't finished," she said, rising once more. "Your war is only beginning."
⸻
Tlaltecuhtli slowly sank into the earth, leaving behind a steaming crater and the echo of her final words:
"Bring him back to me. Alive… or in pieces."
And when she vanished, I realized I wasn't alone.
All around me, dozens of figures emerged from the shadows.
They weren't the same dead as before.
They weren't the ones I'd heard during my sleepless nights.
These were different.
Darker.
Hungrier.
All of them looked at me with obedience.
An army.
My army.
⸻
So here I am, tonight, standing at the gates of the cemetery, the shawl draped over my shoulders, obsidian pulsing in my hands.
I'm no longer afraid.
I no longer wait.
Now I am the one who hunts.
The general thinks he won.
That he stripped me of everything.
That he marched toward his next war wearing my face as his mask.
But he doesn't know that the earth always reclaims what is hers.
And I am her claim.
⸻
If you ever come to the cemetery and see me, don't speak to me.
Don't look at me.
Don't even breathe near me.
Because I am no longer Citlali.
I am not the nahual I once was.
I am the emissary of the mother earth.
And until the general returns, my hunger will not be satisfied.
The next time I see him, there will be nothing left of him to tell the tale.
No bones.
No dust.
Only the echo of his scream beneath the stones.
And when I'm done with him…
I'll go on.
Because the earth is never satisfied.