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MAYAN LAND,
6 YEARS BEFORE THE BREACH
I have a new machete and I love swinging it around. It makes me feel safe between the spiders and snakes and scorpions that live around me.
The sat-com crackles to life while I'm sharpening it. Angel's voice cuts through static: "Slayer Healing Command to Chanchen Base. Request intel update on regional demon activity."
Professional. Like he doesn't know who’s on the other line.
"Copy," I say to the radio, not to him.
Static fills the pause. Then his breath catches on something, worry maybe, or words he's swallowing. I can’t picture him. He’s probably holding the handset, maybe even running a hand through the back of his head like he does when he's thinking too hard. But I can’t imagine his expression.
"Buffy,"
I switch off the sat-com before he can finish, before I even realize I’ve made the decision to switch it off. The light blinks once, twice, then goes dark and I flip the power completely off.
Doesn't he know he's my untouchable perfect happiness?
My hands feel steady on the machete's edge. That's something, at least. Six months in Chanchen and I've stopped shaking when I think about him while holding sharp things. Progress.
The jungle swallows the electronic silence. I’ll go for a jog. The trees don't expect any answers. The sat-com stays dark.
World adventures trade for slicing, sweat, leaf-rot, silence. Nights under stars brighter than streetlamps. I float between hunger and a strange, rinsed emptiness.
Is this peace?
Food appears, fruit and tortillas, water that tastes like earth, and I eat because the Keepers watch me with tender resolve. But the wanting is gone. The dream journal they gave me sits empty beside my mat.
Write what comes, they say. Nothing comes except the sound of breathing.
I spar with the local fighters instead. Win every round without breaking a sweat, pin them so fast it's boring. They tap out with respect in their eyes, but I feel nothing. Victory used to fill the hollow spaces, at least temporarily. Now it's just a joke.
Is this self-hate masquerading as discipline?
The question follows me. I pin another sparring partner, a teenager who reminds me of myself at fifteen, all elbows and confidence, and watch him dust off. He enjoys it. The fight, the challenge, even losing.
Can’t I enjoy myself unless I crack bones or splatter blood?
I help him to his feet, show him the hip throw that dropped him. He tries it on me, fails, tries again. His enthusiasm is exhausting.
Patience, one of the Keepers murmurs from the shade. Seeds grow in dark soil.
I want to tell her that some seeds rot instead of growing. But my Spanish isn't good enough for clichés.
The teenager attempts the throw a third time. This time, I let him succeed.
The purge lasts a week. Everything I've eaten, thought, or believed for the past year comes up and out until I'm hollow. The Keepers bring broths and teas and sit next to me while I shake, but they don't try to fix anything.
On the eighth day, they bring a mango.
I hold it in both hands like something precious, lean down to breathe it in. My nose touches the soft hardness. The skin is perfect, red-gold and unmarked, cool despite the sun. When I bite into it the sharp, floral juice floods my mouth. I squeeze my eyes shut.
Real sweetness, not the kind I've been choking down in energy bars and protein shakes. Somewhere between the third bite and the fourth, I cry from joy.
It turns into some real crying. It starts in my stomach and works its way up, choppy and loud. I wail, maybe theatrical, into the green cathedral of trees surrounding me.
The trees are indifferent. They've seen worse. Self-pity dissolves into something softer. Self-mercy, maybe. Acceptance that fruit makes you remember you're human, and humans have big emotions. It is what it is.
The mango disappears but the crying doesn't stop, it keeps coming like a dam broke somewhere.
Day two: still crying.
Different tears now, something older. I cry for every decision I've ever made that I didn't want to make. For not feeling my mom anymore. For Dawn and how distant we've become, how she probably thinks I've disappeared again. For Angel and the way we keep missing each other by inches and years. For being so lame, needing someone else's love to feel whole. For all the killing, even when it was necessary.
The trees absorb it all. Rain falls and I can't tell where it ends and my tears begin. I might as well be outside.
Day three: I wake up empty, face so swollen I have to feel my way to the water jug. My body aches like I've been in a fight, but I feel lighter. Almost clean.
Better? Asks the young Keeper with a happy smile, appearing suddenly from behind the frame of the hut.
I start laughing, a low chuckle that turns into a throaty, almost delirious laughter. I don’t recognise this laughter. It sounds harsh at first, but I know in my heart it belongs to me.
Good, he says. Tomorrow we begin.
MAYAN LAND,
5 YEARS BEFORE THE BREACH
I sit in the hammock for hours. After my garden chores my day is spent staring out at the trees from my balcony. It's been months since I've heard any music, but now there's a melody playing in my head since morning. Maybe it's time to get a speaker.
Things begin to feel lighter. I can feel the plants and insects around me working with the rhythm of light. Their presence is comforting. I never feel alone anymore.
It's never really silent, always some thought blossoming into life. I've been sleeping well, having dreams I can actually remember. I journal constantly now, and I start to see patterns between my dreams and waking moments. I'm getting visions. Like training sets, showing me small clues to what is 'Truth' and what means 'Look Deeper.'
Last night there was another ceremony and I danced with them around the fire. I couldn't stop laughing. This new laugh, I'm getting used to it. It's loud and it almost always catches me off guard.
Months on a mat on the wooden floor, sharing space with scorpions that blend into the wood until they move. I love my new bed. It's king-sized and swings from ropes hanging from strong wooden beams. I can see the moon from here, and the swinging is nice except when I need to get up at night without stepping on the scorpions.
I barely think about him anymore. Not more than three times a day, tops. Well, depends on the season, I guess.
I lay in bed and put on binaural beats before sleep. Set intention: see Angel.
The jungle dissolves around me as I sink deeper into my heartbeat. Buzzing begins. Breath becomes current, current becomes light, light becomes the space between thoughts where everything connects.
We meet mid-sky over an ocean that exists nowhere on Earth. No land in sight, just color shifting from blue to gold to silver, breathing with its own tide. No bodies either, just consciousness touching consciousness across impossible distance.
I miss you, he thinks at me, and the words arrive without sound, settling in my chest.
I know, I think back. I miss you too.
The elements, air, water, the fire of missing someone, the earth-weight of love, merge into a single light that explodes through everything. Through the ocean below us, through the space between atoms, through the walls I've built around the part of me that still hopes.
Luminosity fills me from the inside, warm and electric and complete. For a moment, we breathe together across hundreds of miles.
I feel him linger, reluctant to break this connection, both of us holding onto this as long as we can. The jungle calls me back.
Then I wake gasping on my bed but it’s still, no swinging. My hand is pressed to my chest where the light went in. The jungle night is quiet but I can still feel the echo of that brightness. Still feel him, somehow.
The sat-com sits silent on the wooden crate beside my bed. I could turn it on, call him back, try to explain what just happened. But some things don't translate into words.
Instead, I close my eyes and feel for that frequency again. It's still there, faint but steady. A connection that doesn't need satellites or explanations. Just two people who love each other, learning to do it across space and time.
I don't remember what appetite feels like anymore.
The thought hits me while I'm staring at a bag of rice that's been sitting on the little kitchen counter for three weeks. When did I last feel appetite? Actual appetite like stomach growling, mouth watering, craving something specific?
It might as well be decoration. Same with the wilted vegetables in my mini fridge, the emergency rations that could keep me alive but won't make me want to live.
I watch Archie eat her raw meat and legumes mix, the careful way she chews, like food still surprises her. She's gained weight since I found her by the ruins, but I remember how she looked then. Skeletal. Resigned to fading.
If nothing changes, I'll look like that soon.
No energy to cook. No desire to drive twenty minutes to the big supermarket in Tulum. No passion for anything that requires chewing.
I'm becoming weak, and worse, I'm becoming scared.
That night I lie in my bed, hands pressed together like I'm suddenly religious.
I need help, I send out to whatever's listening. I miss eating. I miss smelling, tasting, wanting food in my mouth. I need this back.
“Please,” The words scrape my throat. Desperate doesn't cover it.
I wake to the smell of my mom's mac and cheese tuna casserole.
Impossible. She's been dead for years, and I'm in the middle of a jungle. But the scent fills my hut anyway, sharp cheddar and cream sauce and that specific tang of tuna she used to mix in.
I sprint to the kitchen area, following my nose. Nothing on the stove, obviously. But the smell sticks, and with it comes something else:
Her laugh.
Not a memory, it’s an actual sound, bright and delighted, echoing in my head like she's standing right in front of me. Oh, honey, I just love this mac and cheese tuna casserole!
Another laugh joins hers, lighter, older. Grandma's giggle, more radiant than any laugh I remember from her earthly self. They're both here somehow, giddy with the memory of food, of taste, of the joy of eating something loved.
Their happiness hits me like sunlight. They miss the ritual of cooking, the first bite. It’s pure delight, like they're dreaming of eating it again through me.
My stomach clenches. With actual hunger.
I grab my keys.
The tourist supermarket in Tulum is fluorescent bright and overstocked with everything. I fill my cart like I'm provisioning for siege: butter, three different kinds of pasta, three different kinds of cheddar, two kinds of canned tuna, two types of cream, some more cheese. My hands know what they're reaching for before my brain catches up.
The checkout girl smiles at my haul. "Fiesta!"
"Something like that," I appreciate her noticing.
By the time I pull into my driveway, my stomach is actually growling. The sound makes me want to cry with relief.
I throw everything together in the casserole dish, pasta, cheese sauce, tuna, breadcrumbs on top. I'm not worried about getting it right, I just need it in my mouth.
The oven takes forever. I eat an apple while I wait, the first food that's tasted like itself in months. Sweet, crisp, so sour it hurts the insides of my cheeks. I follow it with hot water steeped with mint from my garden. It soothes my stomach, preparing it for an actual meal.
When the timer goes off, the casserole is golden and bubbling. I cut a square, blow on it, take the first bite.
Flavor explodes across my tongue, salty, creamy, comforting. My eyes water just a bit and I breathe several deep breaths. The heat, the taste, the love.
Isn’t that just the best? Mom's voice whispers in awe.
I take another bite, then another. My stomach accepts it gratefully. Archie settles beside me, patiently waiting for a crumb to fall.
I close my eyes and feel grateful to whatever brought this feeling and Mom's laugh back to me. I’ll remember to say thank you tonight.