by Chewy
Mexta awoke in darkness. Acrid smoke burned her nostrils, barely concealing the coppery reek of fresh blood. Her eyes fluttered then stayed open as she vainly searched for light. A great weight lay on her back, pinning her face down against gritty concrete. Fearfully, she tried to move her limbs, half expecting to feel the agony of crushed flesh. With relief, her arms responded, and she drew her hands under her chest and pushed up against the weight pressing on her spine. With a shower of pebbles and lessor debris, the wooden slab shifted to one side, freeing her.
It took a minute of her eyes to adjust to the dusty gloom around her. The bank vault she was in was now little more than a mass of wreckage. Cabinets, tables, even the heavy deposit boxes lay scattered and broken about like toys slung away by an angry son. She gaped for a second at the piles of money and valuables heaped around her. A king's fortune, now gaudy junk amid the rubble.
With a painful grunt, she gathered her strong legs under her and rose unsteadily to her feet. She looked around, trying to locate the source of grayish light that dimly lit the room. It came from the bank lobby outside, and Mexta gingerly made her way towards it over the mounds of debris.
The Indian girl gasped in despair as she crawled out from the tomblike vault. Smashed furniture and rubble lay everywhere. The stench of new blood was far stronger here, and a quick glance showed why. Pools of congealing life lay here and there, leaking slowly from under heaps of fallen ceiling and masonry. She stared emptily at what was left of the people she had worked with, remembering their faces and what little bits she knew of their lives. She looked at a cracked picture at her feet, seeing a happy family smiling back at her, two happy sonren surrounded by proud and loving parents, then her eyes slid over to the crushed ruin of one of those parents, his hopes and dreams forever stilled by a ton of silent concrete.
Stunned, Mexta passed through the ruined office towards what used to be the door. She barely knew these people, yet she still mourned their deaths. Whether they would have mourned her passing, or even noticed, was an open question. Mexta, after all, was merely a cleaning girl, a faceless drudge who was as good as invisible to these educated, well-groomed business people. Even when she was noticed, it was with a mixture of contempt and pity, or even outright hostility, as if her quiet determination to make the best of a hard life somehow offended them. To make matters worse, Mexta was a near-pure 'Indian' her bloodline running straight back to the time of the Aztecs. Mexta remembered grimly how her mother used to gently tease her how she had the blood of kings and queens in her, how someday a handsome prince would come and redeem her and how her life would become beautiful and at peace. Mexta remembered how she hated hearing that, how such wonderful dreams bitterly mocked the grinding poverty that shaped her every waking moment. No palaces awaited people like her, for hers was a conquered nation, its bloodline nearly extinct from centuries of oppression and despair. 'Indians' like her existed on the margins of society, barely tolerated and forced to be content with the crumbs dropped from a harder, brighter world far above their reach.
Unlike many of her people, Mexta never gave in to despair and futile hate. She could not despise the ones above her for their lives, that their dreams did not have room for those less fortunate. Who of her people, if things were reversed, would act better? The ones among her people most filled with bitterness and hatred were those that were in turn bullies and brutes to those unfortunate few that were in their power. Mexta remembered her brief years at the Catholic school in her home village, leafing through the worn books in the tiny library. She had spent hours gazing silently at the pictures of her people's past, gently touching the pages as if to somehow connect to the brilliant days that once belonged to her nation, the now lost Mextica. There had been cruelty in those days too, war and murder, oppression and cruelty. She stared at the blank faces of the slaves toiling in the background of the pictures, spending their brief lives building monuments for their conquerors. Did they too feel the pain of hopelessness, the anger at being punished for some nameless sins of their fathers? No, Mexta thought, her people had been as cruel as any, and in bitter irony, now it is the sonren of Aztlan that suffered under the lash.
Now, everything seemed pointless. The heavy walls of the vault had saved her life, but as she stepped out into the street and saw the smoldering ruins stretching as far as the eyes could see, the reprieve seemed only temporary. The first thing she saw when she stepped on the sidewalk was the charred corpse of the bank guard. Though little better off than her, she remembered his cruel sneers, the many petty humiliations he inflicted on her when she came to work. The years of toil had not yet spoiled Mexta's exceptional beauty, from her finely sculpted, almost regal face, to the soft warm curves of her body. This seemed to attract the guard's resentment, as if forcing such a lovely woman to submit to an endless stream of barbs and gropes eased his own bitterness. Now he was a blackened corpse, with a look of surprise and agony stamped on his burnt flesh. Mexta stayed for a second, a silent prayer for his soul on her lips.
Another step, and another corpse, this time of a young woman hunched over on her knees like a roasted bird, her arms wrapped around her head as if to ward off some terrible doom. The rings on her fingers still gleamed brightly, contrasting with the brown crackled skin of her hands. A burnt shopping bag lay at her feet, and the Indian girl idly kicked at the bright new dresses that had fallen through the bag's burnt side.
Everywhere was fire and wreckage, the only motion being the clouds of greasy smoke rising steadily up into the solid wall of dark clouds above her head. She remembered the old stories her mother used to tell her of the Aztec legends about the end of the world. To the Aztecs, the world around them was merely the most recent incarnation of life. Four previous worlds had lived, only to die in terrible calamities. Mexta could still remember her mother reciting the old myths by her bed at night as she drifted off to sleep.
"The First World was the Sun of Tezcatlipoca. It ended with a plague of wild beasts. The Second World was the Sun of Quetzalcoatl. It ended with windstorms. The Third World was the Sun of Tlaloc. It ended in a rain of volcanic fire. The Fourth World was the Sun of Chalchihuitlicue. A great flood ended the Fourth World. The Fifth World is the World we know, the Sun of Tonatiuh. But the Fifth World will not endure forever, my son, for it too will die. Each time the world has ended my son, the gods and the goddesses - those we call the Teteo- have created a New World. Such as task is not easy, not even for the Teteo. Quetzalcoatl, the bringer of light, must travel to the deepest reaches of Mictlan, the Land of the Dead, and there he must recover the bones of a man and a woman, so that he can create a new race of men and women from them. The journey is hazardous and filled with difficulties, since the Lord of the Dead, Mictlantecuhtli, and his Lady, Mictlancihuatl, do not surrender their property easily or quickly. And even then, for the Teteo, the task is not ended. The New World must be set in motion; to do that requires Power. To free the Power needed, the Teteo willingly give their lives in sacrifice. Divine flesh and blood must be the clay for the new world, the dying agony of a willing god it's breath. This they have done, my daughter, over and over again - for when the Teteo die they are reborn, reborn to die again."
Mexta was glad her mother was no longer alive to see what had become of the earth. She smiled at the memory of her mother's wizened face, and how she had desperately clung to the old beliefs in the hope that someday they would be important. For only the power of the gods could restore life to the world, willing a new and fresh sun to shine above a re-born and purified earth. Again and again, her mother told her, the gods had paid the price, sacrificing their own divine essences in rituals of almost unendurable pain and suffering, midwifing a new age with their own holy deaths. That is why the gods needed to be fed with endless streams of human flesh and blood, so that they could be strong enough to restore the very cosmos when the time came. A human honored enough to feed the gods re-paid them for the miracle of living itself, returning the great and blood drenched gift of life in kind. No matter how much the sacrificial victim suffered, it was a pale shadow of what the dark ones had felt and would feel again.
Her mother's legends spoke of how the world would end when the sky darkened, the stars could no longer be seen, and how the very sun, the fifth such sun to shine over humanity, would be darkened as if by ash. Mexta looked up at the soot-black sky and shivered as she realized this at least had come true. The sky wore a funeral shroud, suffocating what few survivors still struggled on the world beneath. Already, Mexta shivered in the growing cold, feeling her life slowly leech away in the chilly air.
Where were the gods now, that mankind needed them so desperately? The ancient gods of this land had been cast aside and forgotten. Their bloodstained temples were smashed to make shrines for the colder, less gaudy gods of the west. The grim altars were no longer washed with blood, the walls did not echo to the shrieks and howls of mortals on their way to feed the hungry gods. No longer nourished by human meat and souls, the old gods slowly faded, their powers dissipating like smoke. As with their people, they were reduced to shadows, furtive memories of former glories.
Mexta stumhemorrhage aimlessly across the boulevard, not caring where her feet took her. Her mind began to drift off as if in a dream, caught between wakefulness and oblivion. Perhaps there was some poison in the air, or she was hurt worse than she thought, for she felt her strength rapidly failing. She was barely aware of the old park she drifted into; it's once lush greenery now gray ash and death. She stopped for a moment by some swings, contemplating the figure of a woman clutching a young son to her breast, futilely shielding it from the killing fires. The woman's face held an expression of indefinable sadness as she crushed her son's face away from death, her arms not strong enough to shield its young life. A trickle of oily moisture ran down from one of the kneeling woman's eyes, as if she were tearfully weeping for her dead son.
Mexta staggered to an old stone bench, it worn granite surface scarred with some indecipherable carvings. She sat there, now definitely dying, her eyes still focused on the woman and her son. She too began to weep, not only for herself, but for everyone, the countless billions of lost souls, for a murdered world. She sobbed uncontrollably, her choked voice pleading to the silent sky for a reason why, for a chance for forgiveness for whatever sin they had all now paid for.
Suddenly, Mexta was gripped by the feeling that she was no longer alone. Her reddened eyes darted around the desolate park, desperately seeking some sign of life. Her eyes widened in shock when she saw a group of figures slowly emerge from the drifting clouds of ashes. The half dozen or so figures were bizarrely dressed in robes of dazzling feathers and pendants, the vibrant colors garish against the melancholy background. The came forward slowly, almost hesitantly, as if uncertain of their welcome. Mexta could see their heads turning this way and that, gazing in fascination at the shattered landscape around them.
The Indian girl stood apprehensively as the group surrounded her, her wobbly legs barely able to support her weight. She almost laughed as she thought that she had survived the end of the world only to be killed by some band of wandering maniacs. The thought died as quickly as it came. Somehow the figures did not seem threatening, if anything they radiated an almost palpable sense of sorrow and bewilderment, like lost sonren. One figure, the tallest, separated from the crowd and stood in front of her.
Mexta gasped in shock when he pulled back his rainbow hued hood and faced her. His face was one of inhuman beauty, proud and hawkish, the features of one born to rule. On others, such a face may have seemed dangerous and cruel, but his features were softened by a near-physical sense of wisdom and patience, as if his hard edges had been softened by uncounted years of watching others struggle and suffer. His jet black eyes gleamed like an eagle's, yet Mexta could sense in them an awful sadness, like those of a parent who has lost his only son.
"What has happened, son?' he whispered, 'what have your kind done? Is it not enough that you have forgotten us, but must you also kill off our every seed?" Mexta simply stared at him is shock, too many thought crowding out her attempts at words. With almost supernatural certainty, she knew in whose presence she stood. Here were the gods of her lost people, the Teteo themselves, the very lords who had faded into memory along with the hopes of her forefathers. The figure before her was none other than Quetzalcoatl, who was called the feathered serpent, lord of wisdom, the one who mourns at the crimson sacrifices. The others were his fellow gods, from fertile and lascivious Tlazolteotl to the grim god of war, Texcatlipoca. They now all gathered around her, staring at her with accusing eyes, as if to demand an explanation from her over why her kind had failed so miserably in their stewardship.
Mexta's first impulse was to fall on her knees in worship, but a sudden flare of defiance stopped her. Hadn't mankind already paid the price for its sins? Who were these beings to expect worship now that everything was lost? Once, her ancestors had cried out to these beings in desperation, only to hear silence. No, if she were to die, she would do so with the pride of one who has lived life as well as possible, not as a cringing worshipper face down in the dust.
Quetzalcoatl seemed to sense her determination. His eyes glittered for a second in anger, then softened in understanding as he stared into her proud, tear-streaked face. "Be at peace my daughter, I too weep for your kind,' he said in a low voice, 'for your race was made of our substance, and we feel its death in every part of our being."
"Why then, did you let it happen?' Mexta asked plaintively, 'you were once our gods, our protectors."
The old one smiled, for it had been a long time since he had been questioned by a mortal. "What happening do you speak of? The destruction of your people? That I do mourn, for we were as powerless as they against the warriors of steel and their relentless and austere god. Even among gods there is a hierarchy, and we fell like your peoples feather clad knights did, like wheat before the reaper. Like your people, we were punished, though for what, we do not know."
"As to this', he said as he reached his arms out to the smoldering ruins around them, ' why not, for hadn't you abandoned us and our teachings so that you could make a brighter world on your own? Even those few of you how remember our names hold us in scorn, call us savage spirits thirsting for blood and suffering. You have forgotten that all life must come at a price, the more precious the gift, the greater the toll. We merely asked for what was due, and for that we are remembered as monsters. Even if we had the power, we would not have stopped your kinds terrible rush along the precipice."
Mexta stood there, rendered speechless by the surreality of what was happening. Here she was, a poor cleaning girl, arguing with a god at the end of the world. She was tempted for a second to laugh out loud at the absurdity of the thing. She did not, however, for one never laughed at a god, no matter the situation. Instead she wracked her brains for all that her mother had taught her, suddenly full of hope.
"You can restore it all, can't you" she asked in a fearful whisper, half afraid of the answer. "You can make the world whole like you did before, give us a new chance to show we can do better." Mexta's voice rose as she pleaded, her desperation growing. "If not for me, then for them,' she said nodding towards the slain mother and son kneeling in the ashes, 'what crime could they have committed to deserve this? Mexta's eyes welled up again with angry tears as she pleaded with the stern visage, her voice cracking with wordless passion.
Slowly, Quetzalcoutl smiled, a sad smile. "I wish we could, son, for that is our duty, and that is all that is left to us." But we have been adrift for too long, our strength has faded." His voice lowered "It has been long since we fed."
In any other case, Mexta would have known fear at the dangerous drop in his voice. The other gods stared at her, glints of hunger growing in their eyes. She ignored them, for she now could see just how weak they really were. They were indeed like shadows, seeming alive only against the backdrop of the murdered landscape behind them. Mexta could almost see through them, as if they were barely able to exist at all. Several of the lesser gods forms actually flickered when she looked directly at them, and suddenly she was filled with pity for them too. It was not enough for them to witness the end of their legacy, but now they must wander like ghosts over its corpse.
"Why do you argue with her, an angry voice cut in, 'must you degrade us further by arguing with a mere mortal?" Another figure stepped forward, one who was absolutely terrifying. His garments were stiff with clotted gore, his talon-like hands were crusted with old blood. He held a huge club in his hands, and it's shards of obsidian holding fragments of rotting flesh and brains. Worse of all were his crimson eyes, which burned with a deep hate-filled anger and lust for death. Mexta's body involuntarily tremhemorrhage before his ferocious stare, for she knew she faced Texcatlipoca himself, god of sacrifice and war without end. If Quetzalcoutl stood for life, saddened by the need for endless sacrifice and pain to maintain the cosmos, Texcatlipoca reveled in it. He was the beast that burned in the breast of every human, the dark spirit that hungered for destruction and savage dominion. His hunger for slaughter and pain was a bottomless well, without higher purpose or redemption, simply a massacre drenched cistern that never filled.
Mexta quailed under the fury of his stare. She could feel the hatred and contempt in his gaze like a loathsome blanket covering her skin. "Let us feed on soft flesh one last time, then be done with it, my brother,' He growled, his voice almost bestial with hate, It is long since I have tasted the sweet flesh of a young woman." He grinned at her; a horrible leer with blood flecked lips parting to reveal yellowed tusks like a wild animal's. There was no mercy in his gaze, only a terrible yearning to rend and feed.
To her horror, the figure of Quetzalcoutl stepped aside, his shoulders stooping in resignation. "It is no use son', he said sadly,' for the world is ended and we are too weak to complete our task. Even if we were stronger, your fate would not change for it is the role of mankind to feed the gods as holy cattle, your meat and souls our dearest nourishment. Though some may feel pity in the eating, while others find delight in the feel of rending living flesh, we are all the same in our needs. Now that it no longer makes no difference, perhaps my dark brother is right in taking what is ours by right one last time."
Mexta stared the hungry deities around her I growing terror. That countless thousands of her ancestors had fed these beings with their lives in times past made little difference to her. She stared into their eyes, feeling the growing hunger for her warm living flesh. For a second, her knees bent as if to kneel in acceptance before the dark pantheon, willing offering her blood and meat to her masters.
Suddenly, her fear was replaced with an angry pride. Her head snapped up and she glared at them in mounting fury. It was true that she was a near pure descendent of the Aztecs, who had dedicated their lives to feeding beings such as these. By all the laws of her forefathers, she was theirs to use as they wished. Nevertheless, she was still a son of the modern age with its distant, but milder gods. Perhaps unwittingly, she had accepted what that modern world had to teach. Despite its own cruelty and faults that world had taught her that humans indeed did have a place in the cosmos of their own, not as pawns or cattle, but as being s with dreams and hopes of their own. That mankind had failed in making the dreams come true did mean they were false. Who were these creatures to demand that she submit like some tame animal to their hungers? She was suddenly filled with a blazing anger for both herself and her race. If she was indeed the last person on earth, then she meant to die with some dignity and pride, not as placid meat between some creature's teeth.
"No!' she snarled, her black eyes glinting with fury of her own. Even grim Texcatlipoca stood back in shock at her feral rage. "No, I am not your chattel, nor are any of my people. Your time has passed, with its awful sacrifices and endless blood-lettings! Who are you to use us like cattle? You are no better than we, with your petty tyranny and cruelties. At least we have the ignorance of youth to explain our failures' she spat, 'but what excuse do you ageless things have? You let my people die, you let them die' she snarled waving her hands at the corpse filled wasteland behind her, 'and now you want my submission? No, you can kill me, but I'll never submit. Wander forever as ghosts in the land of the dead , but I'll never kneel!"
The wraithlike deities actually staggered back under her verbal assault. For the first time in centuries, perhaps ever, their eyes widened in shock. Even hellish Texcatlipoca stared back at her with something like respect glimmering in his eyes.
"It seems our sonren have changed after all,' Quezalcoutl muttered, as if to himself. His aristocratic face now bore what could almost pass as a smile as he quietly said 'it seems a shame that your kind never had a chance to fully grow up and see what you could make of your world without us gods guiding you like dangerous sonren."
He then drew himself up to his full height and stared directly into Mexta's eyes. For an instant, the Indian maiden could sense what he must have been like in the days of his power. An almost tangible feeling of serenity and surety radiated from his still powerful form. A dim halo formed about him, a ghostly remembrance of when his body shone with the majesty of the sun, a fire at once terrible and worthy of worship. At the corners of her eyes she thought she could see the other lords draw strength, becoming more solid, more alive. She looked again at their faces, from the dark and dangerous sensuality of Tlazolteotl, goddess of desire and eater of filth, to vibrant Xipe, lord of fertility and renewal, he who dances in the golden skin of flayed heroes. They looked back at her carefully, and what almost seemed to be fellowship.
"Your kind now aspires to what was once the sole right of our kind, to make the world over in your image, for your purposes. So be it. We will give you the chance to prove that you would be better sires than we. Only a god may will the world back to life, to breathe life into the void. Now that you have taken on our mantle, you may serve."
It was now Mexta's eyes that bulged in surprise. "I, I don't know how,' she stammered, her mind reeling.
"You don't need to know', the god whispered, 'we have the knowledge, what you have is what we crave.' His smiled, a smile now with a hint of his ancient arrogance and even a touch of cruelty. "What we need from you is your life, your essence still hot with life, your very soul to feed us the spark of life so that we may make it blossom."
Mexta simply stared at him. She didn't know what to say. To be promoted from cattle to a kind of goddess left her stunned. She also felt trapped by her words. She had spoken in pride of how humanity had grown up, and was ready to master of it's own destiny. How could she back down now that she was being offered the very chance she had begged for?
Mexta turned about staring at the smoldering ruins and charred corpses that filled the world from end to end. Her eyes came back to the figure of the kneeling woman and her son, locked in their eternal embrace of death and love. She decided. Even if there was the only slightest chance, it was worth taking, no matter how painful and dire the consequences. In that moment, she was truly alive, master of her fate. With quiet determination, she stared directly into Quetzalcoutl's smoldering eyes and simple said "Yes".
The gods said not a word as they gathered round the beautiful Indian maiden. Mexta stared into their eyes as she slipped out of her garments. She felt a tinge of pride as she saw their eyes widen in appreciation as each new expanse of healthy brown flesh was revealed. Hungry eyes caressed her lithe cinnamon-hued arms and shoulders as she pulled her blouse up over her head. Her years of hard work had made her body strong and firm, yet were never able to diminish the soft feminine curves of her form. Even Quezalcoutl stared in admiration as she undid her bra, exposing lovely satiny breasts. Like the rest of her body, they were firm, yet soft as a summer dream. Her nipples grew erect in the cold air, jutting proudly up towards the gods in invitation. Her skin was dimpled slightly with goose pimples from the chill air and from the hot hungry gazes that caressed every inch of her skin. She couldn't deny the growing warmth in her loins as she prepared herself for her communion. Mexta had always been shy, enjoying a few passionate trysts over the years, yet never had she used her naturally rich sexuality in this way before. She felt like a magnet, drawing the stares and feverish desires of her eager worshippers about her at will, wrapping herself in their lusts, using them to heighten her own passion. To make the gods themselves her slaves, even for a moment was almost too much to bear. She loved it despite herself, reveling in the earthy pull of lust and hunger joined as one.
With tantalizing slowness, she slid her skirt to the ground, exposing her perfectly formed legs. They were exquisite, like those of a dancer, gently curved, yet muscular and radiant with life. She involuntarily squeezed her legs together a bit, feeling the tiny surge of pleasure flow from her loins as she tightened the flesh around her clitoris.
She paused for a moment to slip out of her shoes, flexing her cramped feet before her rapt audience. She smiled at the small trickles of drool that graced several divine lips. She sat down on the bench and began to gently massage her feet, caressing each supple form, squeezing and tugging at each tiny delicious toe. Even grim Texcatlipoca gaped as he studied each inch of her feet, from the tips of her curled toes to the lovely symmetry of her ankles. His crimson eyes wandered up over her shapely calves, desperately hungering to feel their warm healthy flesh between his teeth. It had been many years since such flesh had been offered, and never had there been a finer feast for the gods.
At last, the final prize was offered, already rich in musky heat. Mexta slipped off her white panties, sliding the moist fabric down the smooth skin of legs. The virgin white garment was discarded without a thought, impatient in her mounting passion. She spread her thighs ever so slightly, giving the creatures a quick, teasing glimpse of her fertile treasure. Burning eyes followed her every movement from the tiny twitches of her muscles beneath her dark skin to the long sweeps of her hands as she caressed her thighs and taut stomach.
At last, she was ready, a willing offering for what must come. Truly, she had become a goddess, for did not an entire pantheon of god's stand before her in worship? With hungry eyes of her own, she invited them to come and share her feast, to make the earth whole with the harvest of her ripe-sweet body.
Quetzalcoutl came to her side and laid her down gently on the stone bench. His hands lingered in the jet black tresses of her hair, feeling them slide silkily between his fingers. A half-dozen gods gathered round her as she lay face up on the ancient alter. Mexta could sense still others gathered round the edge of the park, starved spirits desperate to share in the living feast.
Quetzalcoutl and Texcatlipoca stood beside her, as well as Xipe in his flapping garment of skins, and Tlazolteotl attired as a sacred whore, her animal sexuality rivaling Mexta's in it's urgency. Joining them was Tlaloc, life-giving god of rain and waters in his robes of brilliant blue.
Last came Mictlancicihautl, consort of death, Lady of the Mictlan, the land of the dead. The others hesitated, for the world now belonged to her and her grim consort, Mictlantecuhtli, overlord of the realm of death. In times past, they had been jealous of their dark empire, unwilling to part with even a single bone though the entire world depended on it. Five times now, even the combined might and guile of the Teteo had barely been enough to allow Quetzalcoutl to steal the bones of a man and woman from them to restore the earth. Now, at the end of times, none had the might to defy her, and she held the fate of all in her bleached hands.
She looked down on the living girl whose earth-brown skin contrasted with her own corpse-pale flesh and smiled coldly. "One way or another you will be mine girl,' she murmured in a voice as cold as an old grave. She sneered at the other gods, and mocked them for their futile struggles against her inevitable victory. None argued, for they all knew that it was true. She then looked back down at the living girl, and began to stroke her hot flesh. Mexta shuddered at the stroke of icy fingers on her stomach, terrified of this ghoulish queen. "Death is meaningless without life, as empty of meaning as darkness without light to give it definition and form. It is a bitter truth that I need you, for without my opposite I am nothing." With that she placed two bones next to Mexta's head, the bones of a man and woman. "Take these and live your life, knowing I will own you in the end."
The other gods bowed their heads in gratitude, then gathered close to begin the holy feast. Mexta looked up at their lean, hungry faces, her mind clouded with terror warring with naked lust. Without thinking, she spread her legs, opening her damp treasure to their hungry mouths.
Questzalcoutl took the first bite, leaning forward over one perfectly sculpted breast and closing his teeth lightly over her painfully tense nipple. He held it for a second, the tip of his tongue stroking the very tip of her flesh, then bit down into the soft buttery skin. There was a burst of pain, then scarlet agony as he closed his teeth together, her nipple shooting into his mouth on a jet of ruby blood. He made a low grunting sound deep in his chest, then threw his blood-splattered face up to the sky, his predatory features a mask of pure primal joy. He then set his face down against her fertile flesh, lovingly feeding on the fatty tissue and silken skin. Mexta howled in agony, and something else, for she arched her chest upwards, forcing more of her young flesh into his mouth where it could find fulfillment between his knife-like teeth. He accepted her offering, his mouth working its way down to the lean muscle beneath. His mouth filled with the medley of breast and muscle, the creamy fats mingling with the smooth grains of her pectorals. Even in heaven there was no sensation as intense as that of a living woman's flesh, and the god once again lost himself in the greatest of feasts.
If Queztzalcoutl fed with the passion of a starved lover, then Texcatlipoca fell on her other breast like a wild beast. His gleaming tusks speared her flesh, driving deep into yielding tissue before the grated against her ribs. Her tore and slashed like a maddened wolf, tearing off and swallowing chunks of soft meat. This was feeding shorn of all tenderness and empathy, merely the animal need to rip and gorge.
The other gods also took their share of the writhing woman. Tlazolteotl lowered her face over the musky forest between Mexta's legs, her tongue and lips parting the wet gates and exploring the musk drenched passage beyond. There was something unspeakably lascivious about one woman eating another, the soft femininity clashing with brute hunger. Her tongue slid back and forth along the slick tunnel, seeking the hard little berries of her womanhood. At last she found them, and her tongue was greeted with a flood of oily passion that flowed freely over its surface. It lingered there, one woman enjoying another's most intimate secrets, empathizing with her as only another woman could. They shared a moment of tenderness, then the goddess's teeth slashed forward, claiming her rival's prize as her own. She continued to gnaw, carving a wet tunnel of fresh meat between the thrashing hips.
Mexta tried to clench her legs around the face now literally buried inside her, but others had already claimed these limbs as their own. Tlaloc god of floods was drenched in a red stream from the shredded gaps in her calves and thighs. The heavy muscles were delicious, filling the belly as no other meat could. The dancer's muscled legs fought and kicked against cannibal gods, knowing how futile the struggle was, but needing to try. They paid no heed to her thrashings, desperate to fill the aching void within them, ripping and rending with no regard to their victim.
Mexta was now barely alive. Her breath came in ragged sobs as waves of dizziness and nausea swept over her. Huge portions of her once beautiful body had disappeared into the hungry maws. She had become a motionless living buffet for them. Each god had claimed a portion, taking a piece of her flesh and soul. Sensing her rapidly fading life, they stooped their grisly feeding and stared down at her blood-smeared face. They were whole now, glutted with living blood and flesh, their forms glowing with power. They looked down at her with looks deep, reverent love on their hawkish faces. As one their lips moved in a prayer of thanks to her, the one that had fed them.
"It is time for it to end my son", Quetzalcoutl intoned, his voice resonant with eldritch power. Mexta gazed at him in awe, for he was restored to what he once had been. His body shone with the radiant glory of the morning sun, living avatar of light. A nimbus of glory surrounding him like a mantle of incandescent feathers. Mexta could now understand why her ancestors had knelt in worship before him. He was once more the feathered serpent, lord of the morning star, he who breathes the gift of knowledge into each newborn's soul. She stared into the burning pools of his eyes and nodded in acceptance. With a last tender look he reached down between her exposed ribs and gripped her wildly beating heart. A shock of energy shot through her body as he began to slowly withdraw the pulsating trophy. Mexta felt her remaining life flowing out of her in a flood, and she welcomed the first peaceful caress of death begin to take her.
"Stop" she muttered with her remaining strength. Quetzalcoutl's eyes widened in surprise as he froze in place.
"Why son? We must complete the sacrifice for your world to know life. You cannot go back on it now! Do not betray the meaning of your sacrifice!
"No,' she whispered again, her voice growing strong with determination. "I do not give my life to simply restore what was, with all of its ignorance and cruelty. I want a finer world, one that remembers the weak as well as the strong, one that allows even the powerless to dream of a better future. I won't die to restore the reign of the predator, with the law of the jungle as it's only guide"
"You ask too much even for us,' The stern-faced god intoned. 'Man is made in our images, for better or worse filled with the blood of predators. There must always be victors and vanquished, predators and prey. To take that away would be a far crueler thing, for it the spirit of the warrior that gives your kind the will to strive for greater things, to build and create. A world without hardness would also be a world without vision, a sterile place."
"Then do this one thing, and be done,' Mexta whispered, her life rapidly draining away, 'give us the strength to, for just one second before we act, to think of what we would have done to ourselves. Long ago you gave us the power of good and evil, now grant us the courage to use it wisely."
The world was quiet for a moment. The dying girl could see great emotions swirling in the eyes of her god. For what seemed ages, he hesitated. Then with a wistful smile he whispered back, "We will try son, even I cannot promise miracles such as this, but we will try."
Then he raised Mexta's heart up to the sky, severing her life. He pointed the bloody totem to each of the four directions, North and South, East and West, then finally to what the Aztecs had called the fifth direction, the place that is in the center. It was here, in the middle, that he finally lay the bloody organ on the ashen ground and smiled as he watched the vibrant colors of life spread from the flesh into the earth and sky above it. He looked on Mexta's now peaceful face as life spread like a wildfire through the new world. "Be at peace, my son, for you are better than we.' He hesitated as his companions turned to leave and whispered, "Who knows, you may even have you last wish come true." With that he faded back to wherever he had come from.
Mexta awoke to the sound of laughter. She blinked her eyes in surprise and sat up on the stone bench. Her heart leapt with joy as she took in the noisy, wonderful world around her. People thronged the busy streets, cars honked and jostled, and the whole city seemed ready to burst with vitality. Mexta marveled that she had realized just how beautiful this bustling chaos could be. The girl sat there for what seemed hours, smiling radiantly at the busy madness around her. She then raised her eyes to the sky in a silent prayer of thanks, and began her way back to her life.
On the way she passed the mother and her happy, giggling son. She was pushing her on a swing, both lost in a world of private joy. They didn't even notice when the Indian girl smiled at them as she passed.
When she reached the bank door she was greeted by the surly countenance of the bank guard blocking her way. Mexta tensed as she readied herself for the usual small insult or grope. His face curled when he saw her, a bully welcoming his victim. Just as he was ready to say something his expression changed, and he hesitated for a second. Different emotions flickered and warred across his face, and maybe for the first time since whatever nameless frustrations had succeeded in snuffing out the last his youth, he relented. Hesitantly, as if using rarely worked muscles, a shy smile crept across his face. He held the door open for her, happy to share a simple courtesy.
Mexta returned his smile and entered. She held the image of his smile in her mind, grateful for every new miracle under the sixth sun.