A God’s Heart

450 AD. Deep in the jungles of the Yucatán, beneath a temple untouched by time, High Priest Ixkanul knelt before the obsidian altar of Ch'ulel, the Soul Star. He had seen it in his visions—a relic buried by the gods, veiled in silence and blood.

The glyphs on the temple walls pulsed faintly with celestial light. He wasn't alone. Warriors of the Jaguar Guard stood ready, faces painted with bone. Below, drums thundered, masking the unease that clung to the sacred air.

"The gods speak," Ixkanul whispered, placing his hand on the altar. It hissed, then opened like a blooming flower of volcanic stone.

Inside rested a sphere—smooth, black, and pulsing with a heartbeat not of this world. The relic.

Suddenly, the sky wept darkness. The sun dimmed. The earth trembled.

"It awakens," said Chimal, his fiercest warrior. "Is it divine, or a curse?"

The sphere levitated, cracks forming along its surface, spilling out strands of anti-light—darkness so deep it bled into the soul. A scream echoed, not in the air, but in the minds of every living thing.

From the jungle, beasts howled. Birds fell dead mid-flight. The temple began to change—stone writhing like flesh, carvings twisting into symbols no Mayan scribe had ever etched.

"It is not a god," Ixkanul realized. "It is what the gods fled from."

A being emerged—formless, a shifting mass of limbs, stars, and eyes. Time bent. One of the warriors aged a thousand years in seconds, crumbling to dust. Another wept blood and begged for dreams to stop.

"We must seal it!" Ixkanul shouted, cutting his own hand and flinging blood onto the altar. The sphere responded, groaning, pulling at the entity.

"Chimal! Hold it back!"

With a war cry, Chimal charged the horror, obsidian blade flashing. He was swallowed whole, but his sacrifice gave Ixkanul time to finish the blood rite.

The relic shattered.

Light exploded. The jungle fell silent.

Ixkanul collapsed, vision blurred. The entity was gone—but the temple still pulsed faintly. Beneath the stone, the heartbeat continued.

He had not destroyed it.

He had only lulled it back to sleep.

And gods help the world when it dreams again.