In the verdant expanse of what would one day be called Central America, where the jaguar prowled and the quetzal soared, there existed a being not bound by the cycle of sun and moon. It was a time before the conquistadors’ sails blotted the horizon, a time when the world was a tapestry of myths woven by the gods themselves.
Xquic, they named her, the Blood Maiden, born from the breath of the underworld, Xibalba, and cradled by the lofty Ceiba tree. Her eyes, obsidian mirrors, reflected the ancient wisdom of a civilization that thrived beneath the watchful gaze of the Plumed Serpent.
She was not the vampire of European lore, no pale specter haunting the night. Xquic was the vitality of the earth, the whisper of the wind through the maize fields, and the silent guardian of the sacred cenotes. Her thirst was not for the lifeblood of mortals but for the essence of existence itself, the very chi’ibal of the soul.
As centuries passed, empires rose and fell, but Xquic remained, a relic of a time when the world was still a mystery, and humanity had not yet severed the umbilical cord to the divine. She watched the Mayan astronomers chart the heavens, the Olmec sculptors shape the colossal heads, and the Aztec warriors dance to the rhythm of the drum.
But with the arrival of foreign steel and cross, her existence, once revered, became a threat. The newcomers could not fathom her kind, beings that transcended the dichotomy of life and death. In their fear, they sought to purge the land of its ancient spirits.
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Xquic retreated into the shadows of history, her story etched into the stelae and codices, waiting for a time when the world would remember the beauty of its own genesis. She became a metaphor for the lost harmony between man and cosmos, a reminder of the eternal cycle of creation and destruction.
And so, the Blood Maiden lingers, a specter of a forgotten epoch, her legacy a haunting lullaby for those who dare to listen to the whispers of the past. In her silence lies the wisdom of the ages, and in her solitude, the poignant truth that we are but fleeting dreams in the eternal slumber of the universe.
Flash fiction work was written by Willy Martinez for Mind on Fire Books.
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