[center][color=6ecff6][h2]Ixhun[/h2][/color][/center][hr]

The stink of death permeated the air, a sharp smell of iron that filled Cuauhtl’s head with a dizzying uncertainty as he turned the corner of the passageway. He found himself witness to a charnel house of slaughter, the inner sanctum of the temple desecrated with the bodies and life-blood of its keepers. He ducked under a rope of intestine stretched from wall to wall, its owner's face contorted in a final scream of agony from where he was impaled some three meters up the side of the wall. He slipped as he crept forward, his footing giving way atop a worryingly soft object as the world tilted ninety degrees and pain filled the back of his head.

He scrambled to right himself, his hands sliding across the blood-soaked stones of the sanctum as he hauled himself back to his feet. He wretched, viscous fluid dripping from his hands and knees as he continued his slow movement toward the far end of the sanctum.

Cuauhtl gasped as he approached the sanctum’s pedestal, the haze of the room shifting before him to reveal the tortured form of one of the temple’s keepers strung above the flat surface of the holy altar. He gagged again, the sight of the keeper with their ribs spread wide and their innards missing causing the young boy to swallow down bile in the back of his throat as he inched past the sight.

He stopped dead in his tracks as he heard movement above him. With bated breath he turned his head upwards, following a streak of dried blood up the wall to an overhanging piece of mason work. It was there that his gaze locked eyes with the crazed eyes of the Easterner. The man, crouching on the outcropping, smiled back at Cuauhtl with teeth filed to fine points. 

Cuauhtl let out a surprised yell as the man leapt from above him, arms outstretched as if to hug the young boy. His feet carried him without thought from where he stood. He slid into a wall at the far side of the chamber, his hands slamming into the cool stone as he propelled himself down a small hallway and toward the dying light of dusk. 

He could hear the feral shrieks from the Easterner gaining on him as he sprinted down the passage, the guttural vocalizations of an animal gaining on him alarmingly fast.

The young man exploded out of the passage and into a new hell entirely. He had only a moment to take in the sight of the death of his home, the fires leaping into the night sky, the silhouettes of bodies on spikes atop the city walls, the feral chanting of the Easterners, the shadow of a savage standing before him.

He slammed into the shadow, his body careening around as he twisted from the impact. He hit the dirt and slid, dust filling his vision for a moment before he came to a stop. Laying there for a moment, staring at the night sky above him, he wondered how the Turquoise Prince could have abandoned him, abandoned his city. His thoughts were interrupted as the Easterner from within the temple sanctum took hold of his ankle and pulled.

Cuauhtl screamed, his fists coming up to beat uselessly on the feral man’s thighs as the Easterner knelt on the boy's chest and cackled like a jungle dog. The horrific stench death and decay of the Easterner brought tears to Cuauhtl’s eyes even as he beat at the man with all the might he could muster. He watched through cloudy vision as the Easterner raised a ritual knife above his head with a crazed grin on his face and could do nothing to stop the inevitable. He closed his eyes.

A crack followed, Cuauhtl gasped as he expected to feel his ribs torn from his chest and his heart ripped still beating to be offered to the moon, but he struggled to register such a horrific fate taking place. At once he realized that it had not. 

His eyes shot open, clarity filling them as the head of the Easterner was pulled clean from its body in a gout of dark blood. The savage he had ran into stood behind the Easterner’s body, a small hand, no bigger than his own, rested lightly on the Easterner’s shoulder propping up the lifeless body without effort as the savage, no, the [i]girl[/i], studied the head she held before her face.

“Thank the Turquoise Prince,” Cuauhtl whispered as he the girl tossed the head into the darkness with disinterest, followed by a simple shove to remove the Easterner’s body without effort from atop Cuauhtl, “We must leave this place, run west towa---.”

The girl mounted Cuauhtl just as the Easterner had, except that she was far stronger than the man had been. His eyes rested on the vacant brown eyes of the girl as she studied him now. A hand came down to the side of his cheek, and he felt his heart quicken faster than it had even as he ran for his life just moments earlier. Cold sweat beaded along his forehead as the girl's fingers traced the curve of his jawline, and he felt too hot as her fingers came to rest lightly around his neck.

“Please…” he whimpered as he felt the fingers tighten. 

His mind began to slip as the fingers dug deep into the skin of his neck, uncomfortable pressure turning to pain as he felt things within his throat shift to unnatural positions. Warmth spread between his legs. Tears leaked down his face. The pressure released. The weight on his chest disappeared.

He choked for air, his throat ablaze as he greedily sucked in breath. A voice rang out from above him.

“Take us west,” it said, the voice that carried them as sweet as honey, “I will protect you, I promise.”

He felt his heart drop in his stomach as he opened his eyes to find the girl standing over him, those lilting words spilling from her lips. She was lit now by the growing fires around them, and he was more terrified at that promise than he had ever been of anything in his life. The surety with which it was delivered twisted his guts into a knot, and he struggled to calm himself as he stared at the girl as firelight danced over her face before him. Her eyes were too knowing for her age, and her features so unconcerned as a city died around her that he felt nausea well inside him. But even more than these things, he was terrified that he had seen this all come to pass in fever dreams and nightmares, since as long as he could remember he had dreamt of this terrifyingly beautiful being standing over him, and he had seen what was to come next. He prayed to wake.