Welcome to Tiny Worlds!
We’re shifting our focus to explore Mexico's eastern coast with twelve-year-old George Perez in the serialized novel: ISLA.
For longer fiction visit Stories, and for flash fiction go to Sketchbook.
The sound came first: a rasping gag, a last breath clawing for air.
This was when they prayed to whatever god they believed in, she thought. And they never got an answer in time.
Nicte brushed at the mosquito whining near her ear, her eyes still on the boy above the cenote. On her hand the smear of sap was now tacky in the heat, carrying its faint bitter-sweet scent.
He—it was always a he—was no different than the ones before, drifting in from some other latitude. Usually white men. Always wanting. Always taking. Sin respeto.
But this boy was alone.
Boys never came alone. Never. From the rocks she had watched the boat—he had not been the only one in it. They arrived with fathers and uncles, older ones with maps in their hands and greed in their hearts. Boys, if they came at all, trailed behind—too young to face the island by themselves.
This boy, close to her age—maybe younger by a year—carried nothing but a pack. That emptiness unsettled her as she watched him now, hanging, choking, saying his prayers—sometimes aloud with words she didn’t understand, sometimes only with grunts. For a moment she almost pitied him—a boy without help, alone where no one should be alone.
She was alone, too. Though her solitude was not the same as his. The stone under her palms reminded her that she belonged here.
Day pressed on her eyes, the world leaned instead of steadying. The light was too sharp, the air felt unsettled. She had been awake all night watching from the brush, following the boy’s stumbles in the dark. When he climbed atop the building he lay, ears covered, mouth open, gawking. He looked soft up there, and later, in daylight, like a baby not ready for the weight of the island.
But the stars had been bright, hadn’t they—brighter than she could remember—and the long white blade of the comet cut open the sky. She had never seen that before.
When… when had she stopped looking up?
Her view had narrowed, drawn down to earth and tide, everything pulled inward, to the work she was meant for. The words she whispered came back to her: crawl, swim, guard. Spoken so often she no longer thought about them, yet the rhythm of them pressed against her tongue now.
Still, both of them looking at the sky, at the same brilliant shape, felt like a secret—small and vanishing, the hush before dawn, a tortuga she had cared for turning to the tide one final time.
She held the thought for a moment, the quiet of it, the weight of being the only witness. Then it slipped, as such things always did.
Those moments never lasted. Like eggs hidden beneath sand, their warmth fragile in her palm—gone if she did not guard them. Always caring, always silence. And always alone. Her hands bore the weight, but never shared it.
She thought of the hatchlings she had carried, shells no bigger than her palm, flippers beating at the air as if already reaching for the sea. Again and again she had seen them off, some slipping quickly into the tide, others pausing before the water claimed them.
She drew a slow breath. That was her purpose here. But this cenote was not the nest, not the pen. And the island did not forgive hands that meddled.
So she stayed still, watching the boy, doing nothing.
The restless ones of the island, the Alux, had driven him to the edge of the water.
They did most of the work—seen or unseen—and usually left her alone. Her net might get dragged halfway up the rocks, or vegetables scattered down the trail while she wasn’t watching—irritations, reminders. Always near, though.
The sap kept them at bay. The honey-thick smear from the calabash tree made them circle at the edges, rattling branches, tugging baskets, but never touch her. Unless they chose to test her. Sometimes they did, forcing the mark to prove itself.
But the boy?
Why hadn’t they driven him off—frightened him, sunk his boat, sent shadows across his path? They’d had all night. Instead, they herded him here, to the lip of the cenote.
And then stopped.
Waiting.
Still, they were older than tricks. Their mischief always bent toward something larger, though what it was she could never see. Keepers of thresholds—caves, waters, places no one crossed without permission. The Aluxo’ob were sprites of stone and soil, balance-keepers, or so the old stories said.
For those who belonged, they were companions—restless, mischievous, always reminding you they were near. For outsiders, they wore sharper faces: a pit of vipers beneath rock, a black jaguar shadowing whole groups until they fled the island. Their reach was said to end at the water’s edge. But inside those borders… she knew better than to think anyone was safe, not unless the island allowed it.
Nicte eased to her knees at the rim, eyes on the boy as he pulled at the straps of his pack. Shoulders up, head tipped to the sky—another prayer, maybe.
She almost smiled, the kind that held no joy. Too late, she thought. It is always too late here.
Instead of going slack, though, he wriggled free, turned, and hung by one hand. He twirled once beneath the pack, a toy with no string—then let go.
He dropped. His eyes watched the water rush up to meet him, a strange expression—half terror, half wonder, as if he didn’t know which it was.
She stood, watching him fall through the air and splash into the pool below.
A damp chill rose from the cenote, wrapping around her calves. With no way to climb out, his body tired from being strangled, he would quickly succumb to the water.
Nothing left to watch, Nicte turned to make her way back through the jungle. Just a few steps from the edge, she felt the vines wrapping the trees reach for her arms. They grew closer, blocking her path.
With a wry smile for the Alux and their mischief, she held up her hand, the smear of sap across the back. This was how it usually went—her reminder that she was not to be detained or toyed with.
Then, a whisper brushed her ear, soft as breath on her left: “Guardian.”
She turned—nothing there.
On her right: “Tortuga taught your hands.”
This time she turned and saw a boy, a few years younger than she was, holding her wrist where the vines had been.
His dark eyes looked to the cenote, his brow open, pleading: “Use them.”
She regarded him for a moment, unsettled.
“But the boy is not an animal,” Nicte said.
Behind, she heard thrashing in the pool, the haphazard rhythm of treading water—quick gasps breaking to gurgles. She heard this knowing it would soon slow. Then only silence.
Now both her hands were held by two boys. Twins.
Barefoot, dirty, hair sticking up in uneven clumps. Their clothes were worn, as if they’d been running through the brush, and their eyes, though dark, were no stranger than any boy’s she might have known before. Their broad cheekbones and black hair marked them with the features of her own people.
Yet she had never seen them on the island, and Alux never took human form. Their presence lived in absences, the faint tug of unseen hands.
When they spoke, their words tangled together, voices slipping in and out until they became one: “Crawl, swim…” Nicte listened for the final word. It came but not the way she expected.
Instead, the boys said, “Guard. First tortuga–now all creatures. ”
She heard the vines loosen behind her, shifting in the dirt, uncoiling out and over the cliff’s edge.
From below came a groan—not man or boy, but the earth itself. There, water sloshed. It was followed by a hollow sucking sound, loud and long. Then silence.
Nicte leaned to look, the Twins still gripping her hands. Her breath caught as she saw: the water was gone. The stone floor glittered like stars. The boy lay slack across the rock, chest rising only slightly.
The vines thickened, then stretched further, braiding themselves down into a living ladder. The end of it lay down on the floor of the cenote, just a few inches from the boy’s body.
She thought of the turtles—the charge handed down to her, the work meant to keep them returning. Not the will of gods, but good magic made by people to hold the balance. That was her role. That was enough.
Nicte pulled back, whatever pity she had for the boy slipped away.
Her voice cut sharp: “My hands are for shells, for tide, for the island. The boy is not mine.”
The Twins did not answer. Their grip only tightened, pulling at her wrists.
They glanced at each other, and in that silence she felt a verdict: she had been given a choice, and she had refused. Judgment was theirs.
Above, the clear blue sky seemed to be flicked away as the Twins looked up. In its place, darkness and stars, as bright as the night before. And blazing in an arc in the blackness: the comet where it had risen last night, impossibly clear.
Heat flared through Nicte’s hand. She tried to wrench it free, but one boy turned it over. The sap that had been there boiled, turning to vapor before it touched the ground. Her skin seared, fine hairs curling to ash as the shape of the comet’s arc carved itself into her flesh. Overhead its tail rippled; in her hand, the same flame burned raw through the skin.
She cried out, a wail of pain that echoed through the empty cenote, returning doubled from the stone walls.
The Twins sang: “One above, one below. The same flame.”
The mark glowed ember-red, pulsing with each heartbeat. In her ears she heard the tick, tick, tick of a clock tightly wound, its spring uncoiling faster. Each pulse carried another ragged breath to her ears—not hers, but the boy’s.
On the floor of the cenote George’s head lolled against the stone, his chest gasped for air. Vision smeared, he saw shapes leaned over the rim above—two boys. His stomach dropped harder than the fall into the pool. The same faces. The alley. The boat. Their laughter had left him stranded on the shore.
And beside them, a girl—the same outline he had glimpsed once on the rocks, half-caught in glare and reflection. Closer, but watching him all the same.
Fury flared, brief and useless. He tried to lift a hand, to call them out, but only gurgles broke the surface. Darkness pressed closer, each breath heavier than the last.
With each pulse, the comet’s trail on her hand told her how long; the rhythm in her lungs told her what she must keep. Timer and breath, lashed together in her body.
Guardian, whether she willed it or not.
The Twins released her wrists, vines shifted all around. Their voices rose as one: “All creatures.”
In her ears the ticking deepened, her heartbeat yoked to something older.
Blackness pressed at the edges of her vision as the restless ones closed in. Branches rattled, stones shifted underfoot, a shadow darted between roots.
Between breaths Nicte offered a final plea: “But he is—”
Before she could finish the thought whispers rang up from the empty cenote, then from the brush at her back, mocking: “Not mine. Not mine.”
The Alux would not remember the years she had lived here. They served only the island.
The truth struck Nicte: her protection was gone.
Then—another gasp from the cenote floor. The boy.
Her lungs seized. She staggered, wheezing, her head spinning, the world collapsing toward black. She clawed at her chest.
The Twins stepped back, their faces unreadable. Watching.
Then, one spoke. The words came through clearly in the din of the noise, above the ragged breath: “Guardian and story, bound as one.”
Darkness fell hard over the cenote, swallowing the ledge, the vines, the stars.
She collapsed to her knees. The mark flared bright, guiding her eyes to the vines as she moved. Twisting, the dark, earthy plants braided themselves tightly as she lowered herself down.
Nicte’s hand brushed against the boy’s limp body, his skin damp and cold. His shallow breath rasped against hers, each exhale answering in her chest. The sound carried and came back doubled, echo upon echo, until she could not tell which belonged to him and which to her.
From the rim of the cenote, a last whisper floated down, sly as laughter from the Twins: “…the lords love games.”
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Music
The Killing Moon - Echo & The Bunnymen
George has a guardian. Is he the chosen one? Bringing back the chicken egg boys, brilliant! The supernatural is taking center stage. Looking forward to the next chapter, J. Keep 'em coming.
Excellent J. !