The Desert Bloom

Cruising, on a warm summer night. 

Ridin dirty, trying to stay out of sight. 

Bumpin some old school tunes with a smooth melody. 

We stay saying RIP sweet Melanie. 

Every choice we make keeps haunting us. 

Should've told them to stay, made more of a fuss. 

It's too late for my dearly departed. 

I keep going, unaware of what I started. 

How this ends I won't know till I'm done. 

I keep moving forward chasing the rising sun. 

Just another day to live in serendipity. 

We pray for the fallen but please don't you pity me.

After his guilt-ridden epiphany, Cenotlatlacatl shakes his head, grounding himself.

"Alright… I need to get back to Kamelotl somehow. It's still strange how this journey brought us together so quickly… and in such depth," he mutters aloud, his voice cracking with the weight of reflection.

A sharp voice cuts through the silence: 

"Yeah, it's almost like you're entwined or something."

His breath catches. His eyes dart around.

"That… wasn't me mocking myself," he says, heart racing, slipping into a combat stance.

Suddenly, wild laughter bursts around him — high, slurred, echoing from the nopales like the land itself is drunk.

With wary steps, he approaches the nearest cactus, blades at the ready. "Is it you…? No. That's impossible."

More laughter. 

"He thinks the cacti are talking to him!" 

"This fool — what a dumb dumb!" 

"Hey smart ass, why don't you join us closer to the center of the—"

"Quiet!" another voice snaps, slightly more composed. "You know she wants him to figure it out for himself. If you piss her off again, we won't be allowed to gather here for our weekly pulque parties. Though… he might be entertaining." 

A pause. 

"Hey, foolish axolotl! Come find us! We'll be waiting closer to the center."

Irritated — but unable to shake his curiosity (or his thirst) — Cenotlatlacatl narrows his eyes. "Which way should I go?"

The chorus of voices chuckles like wind through cracked agave leaves. 

"Why in the Mictlan would we tell you that?" 

"It's your riddle to solve, güey." 

One of them hiccups out a final clue: 

"I'll give you a hint… climb up and see if you can spot our fire."

Then— 

Nothing. 

The laughter died in an instant.

A sudden hush blanketed the desert, so pure and heavy it made Cenotlatlacatl doubt if the voices were ever truly there at all. Only the wind moved now, brushing through the cacti like the breath of an ancient god watching in silence.

He turned slowly, scanning his surroundings. 

One thing stood out. 

The Tetecho — towering, spiny, resolute.

"Looks like I've got some climbing to do," he muttered, his voice low, dry.

He turned toward the cactus with a scowl, raising his voice as if daring the silence to break again. 

"Thanks for your help… tlacatlayohqueh!"

With that, he stepped up to the Tetecho, claws extended, and placed his hands against its thick flesh. The warmth of the sun baked against his back, but the Tetecho's surface was cool and bristling with energy.

He dug his claws into the thick hide of the Tetecho and began his ascent.

Hand over hand, claw over claw — his limbs moved with a fluidity he hadn't felt in ages. Strength surged through him. His breath steadied. His vision sharpened. The sun hit his face as he climbed, and for a moment, it felt like triumph.

Was he healing? Was he rising again?

But then— 

A deep crack echoed from within the cactus.

The Tetecho shuddered beneath him.

He paused, claws instinctively digging in harder. A mistake.

The cactus began to sag, its once-firm body wrinkling, deflating like a great beast exhaling its final breath. The flesh beneath his hands turned soft, brittle. Spines fell away like old hairs from a dying elder.

"No… not again," he whispered.

The realization stabbed him: 

He was draining it. 

Just as he had drained the others. 

Even in ascent, he left decay in his wake.

The Tetecho groaned as it gave way beneath him, splinters and juice bursting from deep inside. He had climbed halfway — but now the ground beckoned with a threat.

The Tetecho groaned, beginning its slow collapse.

Thinking fast, Cenotlatlacatl shifted his weight and sprinted upward along its falling spine — a desperate gamble to leap onto a neighboring cactus before the whole thing gave way.

He kicked off. 

But the flesh beneath his foot buckled. 

The leap failed.

Instead of soaring, he stumbled. 

His body pitched forward, arms flailing. 

He fell face-first into a tangle of needles and broken cactus limbs — 

thud—snap—crunch.

"Tlāzcamati!" he cursed into the earth, his voice muffled by dirt and humiliation.

The needles pierced him like tiny spears, his limbs tangled in a painful nest of thorns. He thrashed, growling through grit teeth, trying to unhook himself from the cactus that had betrayed him.

Finally free, he rolled onto his back, panting, bleeding, furious.

Then— 

The silence broke once more. 

A familiar chorus of drunken voices erupted like drums in a pulque hall.

"Don't give up! We believe in you!" one voice called with mocking sincerity.

The laughter followed — wild, wheezing, unfiltered. Like spirits who hadn't laughed that hard since they were still alive.

Cenotlatlacatl glared upward, his pride in tatters. 

"Shut the fuck up…" he muttered, spitting a spine from his lip. 

Another round of laughter answered him.

Cenotlatlacatl lay still, breath ragged, his body tangled in spines and shame. Dust clung to the wounds across his arms and face. The toppled Tetecho beside him groaned no more — just a silent corpse splayed across the earth, a monument to his instinctual hunger.

Then, movement. 

Soft. Subtle. Blooming.

From the withered cactus, a dozen flowers began to emerge. At first, small buds—plump and trembling with moisture. Then they erupted open in sudden, vivid bursts. Rings of pink and white flared from their centers, delicate yet defiant against the harsh desert light.

Cenotlatlacatl blinked in awe. He staggered upright, drawn in like a moth. "Maybe… maybe something good came of this," he thought aloud. "I didn't mean to kill it. But look…"

He took slow steps toward the blooms, his shadow spilling over them. 

The flowers pulsed slightly — almost breathing. 

The air thickened.

Then the growths began.

Small lumps rose from beneath the flowers, ballooning like swollen blisters from the dead cactus flesh. The flowers remained perched atop them, like strange ceremonial crowns. 

He froze.

One… two… three… they grew faster now, pushing through the cactus like newborn limbs. Each one round, green, and barbed — cactus flesh shaped into something watching.

And then—

Twelve pairs of eyes opened. 

All at once. 

Black, bottomless, and unblinking.

They stared directly at him. 

Not with malice — not yet. 

But with a knowing that pierced deeper than any spine.

The dozen eyes held him frozen. 

Wide. Dark. Endless.

Then, a rustling—like the whisper of desert wind through feathers. 

They began to twitch. 

Their cactus bodies flexed, unfurling small limbs hidden beneath the blooming crowns. 

Fwoom. 

Wings burst outward from their sides — jagged and veined like agave leaves, with thin feathers made of cactus flesh and spine.

With a sudden gust, they took to the air. 

One by one, they lifted off the fallen Tetecho, wings beating heavy with the weight of the desert sun. 

They circled him overhead like a storm of vultures. 

Cenotlatlacatl watched, stunned — unsure if he was being blessed, judged, or both. 

He slowly backed away, claws tightening. "I didn't mean to—"

SKREEEEEEEEE!!!

A unified screech split the sky.

Pandemonium.

The bloom-spirits dove as one, cutting through the air like obsidian arrows. Their eyes locked onto him. Their beaks glinted. Some cried out in warped laughter, others in shrill battle screeches that made his gills twitch.

He threw himself to the ground just in time— 

whoosh! 

One dove past his head, narrowly missing his ear. 

Another grazed his shoulder, slicing it open with a sharp beak. 

Blood hit the sand. 

He growled, low and animalistic.

The sky was chaos now — wings, spines, petals, shrieks. The sacred had become savage.

The air was thick with wings and fury. Petals and needles rained from above as the bloom-spirits screeched and dove again.

Cenotlatlacatl threw his arms up, flailing wildly — not to strike, but to defend. His claws swiped through the air, catching nothing but wind and feathers. One spirit clipped his shoulder, another scratched across his back.

Still, he didn't fight back.

Maybe they're right, he thought. Maybe I deserve this.

His mind flashed with the image of Kamelotl — calm, grounded, roots weaving through the chaos of battle like dance.

Clever bastard, he thought. He wouldn't fight them head-on. He'd build something. Protect, not destroy.

He gritted his teeth and bolted — weaving between the cacti, trying to outrun the storm of screeches.

"I just need to get to another Tetecho," he muttered through clenched fangs. "Just one more—just hold together this time—"

He reached the base of another massive cactus and began to climb, his claws slipping against the tough skin. The bloom-spirits shrieked above him, furious and relentless. But he climbed anyway.

And then… he felt it.

The surge. 

That cursed warmth rushing through his limbs. 

Strength. Vitality. 

The Tetecho began to shudder.

"Xālhuia!" he cursed aloud. Damn it.

He tried to pull away. 

Tried to stop. 

But the moisture answered him like an old lover — rushing into his veins whether he wanted it or not.

The cactus began to groan. Its surface wrinkled beneath his touch.

"No, no, no—come on!" he hissed.

In desperation, he scrambled higher— 

And then, without thinking, he leapt.

His body twisted mid-air. 

The cactus crumpled beneath him.

He landed in the sand, rolling through thorns and dust, heart pounding, lungs burning.

"How the fuck do I stop this?" he thought. "How do I stop being a curse?"

He fell— 

Not with panic, but with memory.

Flashes of his journey seared across his mind: 

The whispers of the desert, the blood-soaked dances, the laughter of trickster spirits, and the grief etched in every step since his transformation.

Then—her.

Xarátenga.

He remembered her blessing. 

That moment beneath her gaze, when time slowed and his mind cleared like the calm after a summer storm.

As the earth rushed to meet him, he whispered a prayer:

"Tlāzohkamati, Xarátenga. Tlazohkamati…"

The crescent on his chest flickered. 

Then pulsed. 

A surge of coolness flooded his skull, washing through his mind like the first splash of water after wandering the desert too long. It cut through the haze — burned away the panic.

His claws met the ground. 

And he rolled.

Smooth. Controlled. A warrior's landing.

The bloom-spirits shrieked overhead, but he didn't look back.

His legs found rhythm, breath synced to each stride. 

He ran — not aimlessly — but with focus. 

Toward the center. 

Toward the heart of the cacti forest. 

Where answers might bloom as violently as the spirits that chased him.

The wind roared past his ears, and still he ran. 

The prayer still on his lips, the crescent still aglow, and for the first time in a long time… 

his thoughts were his own.