| The Road That Leads to Nowhere Is Long |
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| By: |
| Published on 07 May 2025 02:38 |
The following is a translation of five texts recovered by Foundation agents following a raid against members of the anomalous left-wing insurgent group Las Víboras, an offshoot of the Serpent's Hand led by Cristina Cisneros, who had been given shelter at a parish in █████, a village in the Yucatán wilderness.1 They are the sole surviving fragments of a manuscript authored by an anonymous individual affiliated with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Yucatán at the height of their efforts to evangelize the native Maya population. The rest of the document was destroyed under orders of Diego de Landa Calderón, Bishop of Yucatán, along with several hundred deerskin codices that depicted what the Archdiocese had deemed devil worship and black magic.2 It was accompanied by an undated note written by de Landa himself.
The destruction of every image and text that incites to the worship of the Devil is imperative for the establishment of the Kingdom of Christ Our Lord among the Indians of Yucatán. The salvation of the souls of this land depends on us surrendering to the fire even the memory of their pagan idols and silencing those who—out of malice or misguided compassion—oppose our holy mission, be they Indians or even members of our Order. As for this unholy text, it must be the first to burn, and the brother who has dared to put on paper such terrible blasphemy must first be questioned and then also burnt at the stake; his infirm mind and perfidious tongue must not infect the rest of us, so he must be relegated to eternal silence.
I wandered aimlessly in the sweltering heat of the night as fever scourged my body, beset by hunger and thirst as the vermin of the jungle tried to drink my blood. I felt fear, fear as deep as the absolute darkness that surrounded me. The trees reverberated with the echoes of lurking beasts, and in the thicket I thought I saw the glint of numberless eyes watching me from faces inhuman and unknowable. I clutched the crucifix that hung around my neck and implored the Lord to protect me against the terrors of inhospitable nature, to allow me to find my way out of that green Avernus where there was nothing but perdition, but I received no answer; in this strange and foreign land, Christ Our Lord is but a shadow without presence, His Word a whisper lost in the roars of the Hurricane.
In my desperation, I cursed Him, my Franciscan brothers who had sent me to preach in the untamed and cruel jungle, and the Indians whose lies and superstitions had led to my death. I forgot my vows, I forgot my faith, and I threw the crucifix unto the black, damp earth. Weakness finally took hold of my body as it had possessed my soul, and I collapsed amidst the long, gnarled roots of a great ceiba tree—that white-trunked tree which the Indians revere as a wise ancestor.
Prostrate on the dirt and withered leaves, I cried bitter tears. Guilt fell from my eyes in fiery droplets as contrition coiled around my heart. I wanted to beg forgiveness, but from my ravaged throat came nothing but a muffled whimper, a wordless plea to no God. Exhausted, overcome by the ailments of my body and the anguish of my soul, I gave into despair and awaited death and eternal damnation.
It was then that I saw the Serpent. His sinuous body uncoiled from among the branches of the ceiba tree and slithered towards me. I thought he would bite me, that my blood would boil with his cruel poison, so I closed my eyes. But no pain came, and instead I felt my fever abating while a gentle hand touched my forehead. I opened my eyes and saw then that the Serpent was a tall and slender man, his features like those of the Indians of the peninsula, his eyes green and tempestuous like the sea. He was nude, and his body radiated with heavenly light, as if all the stars in the firmament adorned him.
I tried to speak to him in Maya, but I could not utter a word. The Serpent cupped his hands, and I saw that they were full of crystal clear water. Drink, he told me, and I drank. My thirst was quenched in an instant.
The Serpent reached into the soil and dug up a pale root. Eat, he told me. It tasted sweet, like fresh milk and honey. My hunger was no more.
Come, follow me, then said the Serpent. His voice was but a hiss, a rustling of paper, and I obeyed.
To my family,
Today I write from where the dead dwell, but I myself have not yet died. I have not seen any of you either, though your bones have long rested beneath the earth, surrounded by flowers and light. I have not sought you out, nor have I asked the Pale Lady to intercede for me before San Pascual so I may enter the halls of Xibalbá where you spend eternity, so I may embrace you and tell you all the words you never heard me say in life. Forgive me, I do not mean to be ungrateful, but I do not yet have the strength to face you, to look you in the eye and admit that I failed us.
Mamá, papá, I am the last living member of clan Bah. My cousins died like dogs. Rafael had his fingers cut off and his throat slit; Abdiel burned together with my uncles in a rain of fire; his brother Uriel disappeared in the cages of the Jailors. I could do nothing for them, and now I am alone, alone and about to join our dead family. All this you must already know—the dead are anything but silent—but I cannot go on without first making peace with my conscience. Perhaps this way, when we finally meet again, you will not think that I was a bad son, unworthy of the Bah family name.
I never wanted to be a hero; I just wanted the world to be different—better. That is why I went with my cousins to fight Sin Nombre, to hunt down the narcos who invaded our lands and push them out forever. I thought that if I fought hard enough, if I never gave up, not even the gods could stop me. What a fool I was: I wanted to run before I could walk, and I lost sight of our family and the people who needed me more than anyone else.
That is why I wasn't there when the Jailors started coming for us. That is why I didn't know what was happening until I saw with my own eyes how they put us in chains and forced us into black vans to take us to prisons that no one ever leaves. That is why I could do nothing but weep when the flames reduced our family to charred bones.
For a long time, I wanted revenge. I wanted to give in to the call of the Black Moon and gain the power to strike down all who have wronged us—the men and women who exterminated our bloodline out of fear, ignorance, greed and hatred. I wanted to tear out their hearts and offer them to Lord Tezcatlipoca and all the Gods of Night so they would bring about infinite darkness for our killers, so they would plant the seeds of a new world and water them with the blood of our enemies. In my sorrow, the jaguar within me began overtaking my humanity; had I succumbed to it, no longer would I be a man who walks in the skin of an animal, but a beastly spirit devoid of reason, fueled by unquenchable bloodshed. It is still there, the hatred, the call to murder and devour; resisting it is a daily challenge, but I have found another way.
I have allies now, mom. I have friends, dad. They found me when I was aimless and helped me find my purpose anew. With them, I have kept lit the fire of our people, your memory amongst the living. I am still nahual, I am still chulel, and I still fight for the causes our family believed in, so we may all one day know peace. Even now, in this place of eternal rest, that fight continues: Mictlán is in danger, threatened by the same men and women who have caused us so much harm and grief. They will not rest until this place is firmly in their grasp, until they have enslaved the countless souls who call this afterlife home, until the last specks of hope and freedom have been ground to nothingness.
I swear to you, I will not let them win—I will not fail you in death as I failed you in life. I will unleash the jaguar upon these invaders and tinge the fields of cempasúchil red, but I will not lose myself in battle, nor will I forget that it is you who I fight for; I will still be me, your faithful son. And even if I fall, my spirit shall rise again from among the blessed souls of Mictlán and Xibalbá to defend us; today, Death is on our side.
I will see you soon, when we have reclaimed eternity. Then, and only then, will I smile to you and say: "We are avenged."
I carry you to war in my heart.
Your son, Gabriel.
Thus said the Serpent.
You wonder why I helped you, for still you believe us to be enemies, and truly I tell you that I helped you because you needed help. Would you shun he who has come to your aid?
I have many names, all of which I am and none of which I am. I am called Nahash. I am called Kaan Ek. Ophis. Iblis. Helel. Son of the Morning. Bringer of Light. Serpent.
You call me Deceiver. You call me Adversary. You call me Satan.
To you, I am the Prince of Lies, yet I am a simple storyteller. And although storytellers are indeed the greatest liars, I do not seek to deceive you. That was never my intent, not even in the elder times, when you were naked, ignorant and pitiful. Not even in the Garden—where you suffered the curse of innocence—did I seek to lead you astray.
I only ever wanted to teach you truth.
I test you at every turn of the winding road because tribulations temper your spirit. I test your belief in your own righteousness so you will not fall victim to your conceit. I test your desire for better things so you will want to better yourselves. Indeed, I am the Adversary, for I oppose mankind in its arrogance.
You have doubt in your heart, and it pains you; you think yourself lost and weak in your faith, a heretic bound for damnation. Feel no shame. Verily I tell you this is good, for how can anyone discern the truth if they never challenge the Veil of certainty?
Mom, I love you.
I don't know when this letter will reach your hands, so I want those to be the first words you read. I love you, and I will always love you.
The second thing I'd like you to read is that I'm okay, that I'm safe and I'll see you soon. But that's something I can't promise you; to do so would be lying, and I know there's nothing you hate more than lies. That's why it hurt me so much to leave and not tell you where or for how long. That's why my heart breaks every time I think of how I watched you sleep that night before I crossed the threshold of the door, before I disappeared.
I left, Mom; I left and never came back, because I couldn't lie anymore—not to you, not to myself. Forgive me. I preferred to leave than to continue living a lie that hurt more and more to uphold. I know you always noticed it, that you saw my anguish and did everything in your power to try to alleviate it, but you never really understood it. How could you? No one ever explained these things to you or me, but what is lived in the flesh and soul is something only oneself can understand, and I experienced every day in the house as an ordeal, as if I were tearing off my skin to pretend to be someone else. I can never be who you thought I was when I was born, because all of it was nothing but a name and an identity that I did not choose, that was imposed on me with love—but imposed nonetheless. And that's why I left, Mom. That's why I didn't look back.
If you saw me now, would you even recognize me? It's still me, Guadalupe, the one you cooed to all night when my stomach was upset and I couldn't sleep. It's me, the one you told stories about our whole family, about my father whom I never met because God had called him early into His arms, about everything I would accomplish in the future. It was always me, but I was hidden, my truth concealed between silences so as not to invite discord into our home. It was better to be silent than to face the judgment of others, their reproachful looks, their malicious whispers.
Deviant. Sinner. Abomination.
Forgive me. I always drown those memories, try to convince myself that what they said was born of fear and ignorance rather than hatred, but some words are like knives and their scars are forever. I would like to forget, but I could never remember you for who you are if I didn't also take the parts that hurt me even today. I love you, and that hurts me, but I love you still.
If I told you where I am now—how I got here—you wouldn't believe me. You wouldn't believe everything I've seen, everything I've done. Maybe it's for the best. I did terrible things, Mom, unspeakable, awful things. I joined with people who were convinced they were doing good, people with a mission in service to all, but they were all blind, unable to see that the road to hell is made from our good intentions. I joined them and did what they ordered, what they told me was right. In return, I thought I got what I always wanted: for them to respect who I was, to see me as I see myself.
I convinced myself that indeed we were righteous—I was certain of it, just as I was certain that at last I had found people who understood me, who saw me beyond the surface of my being. And yet, deep down something screamed that to them I was no different from those who we repressed—an aberration, tolerable only insofar as I was useful to them. It took me very long to realize it, Mom, and longer still to muster the bravery to confront this truth, to act upon it. I was a coward, afraid that if I shattered these false certainties I'd be lost once again, alone and rejected. I wish I had left sooner, spoken out and condemned what we were doing; now, I don't know if I'll ever be able to make amends.
But I have also seen so many wonders, Mom, so many things I never thought possible, so majestic that even time and space bend before them to allow them to shine in all their splendor. I have met fantastic people in every sense of the word, magical and beautiful, and they have welcomed me even though I did not deserve it, even though until recently we were enemies. I am with them now. I am with them, and hopefully knowing this will be enough for you to understand that, whatever happens, I did not leave in vain. May knowing this absolve you of all guilt.
I don't know what will happen tomorrow. I don't know if I will still be standing when the dust settles and the flames are just cold embers. I don't even know if we can win, or if our fight is about to meet an abrupt and definitive end. All I know is that today I am myself. Today, and always. Where I go, I go with my head held high, and that is something that no one—not even the gods with all their power—can take away from me. I want you to know that, Mom, as I know it now. I want you to know that I didn't run away. Not this time.
If these are the final words you ever receive from me, it's worth repeating: I love you, Mom. I love you always.
– Guadalupe.
On the first day, I challenged the Serpent.
"You claim to teach truth, yet in the Garden you tempted Eve with promises of being like God. Through your actions, man was expelled from Paradise, condemned to be forever separated from God. Why should I trust one whose poisoned words led to our fall?"
The Serpent hissed and said:
In the Garden, I guarded the Tree of Knowledge. The Woman came to me in her time of need, when shadows crept over the stars and the All-Mighty was silent, and asked that I bestow upon her the sacred fruit which held the knowledge she sought.
They misused the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. All of them—the Woman and her Seed—fell to their own hubris. Hence was born our enmity everlasting, the eternal conflict between our children.
"Do you exonerate yourself, Satan, of any guilt for your part in these things? Do you deny the damnation you wrought?"
The Serpent spoke again, and his voice was bitter with regret.
I am not blameless. I gave them the knowledge with the hope that it would provide them with the strength to overcome adversity; instead, they destroyed each other, bringing ruin to their name and blood.
This is my great sin, my shame and burden. I was proud—proud of what I foresaw you would achieve—and that made me blind and complacent. I thought I saw the future, but I only fooled myself. I turned my face away from mankind when blood first spoiled the Garden. I fled while the Tree of Knowledge burned.
It's strange to write a letter when you have no one to send it to, but the Lady of Bones insisted we must leave something behind, some last words that will endure when we're gone. And well, with what's coming, it's very likely we'll be gone very soon.
My whole life has been nothing but war. Not just the kind fought with lead, fire, and magic—but also the kind fought daily, for oneself, to make a few pesos so we don't starve, to live a little less badly. The real fight is in the streets, someone once told me, but I don't think they ever knew what that truly meant. At twelve, I was already living on the streets of La Paz like many other children. I had no family, and my friends were all there for the sake of convenience, ready to snatch bread from my mouth at the first opportunity. I don't blame them; we would all have done the same to survive. You can get used to anything, except hunger.
Life on the streets is even harder when you're the smallest, skinniest, and weakest girl. Children don't know mercy. That's something that must be taught, and no one taught us anything other than the law of the strongest. I don't think I would have lived long if I hadn't discovered the fire inside me. The first time I used it, I'd been caught stealing fruit at the market; three ugly, bearded men with vulture-like stares were holding me by my hands and feet. I don't even want to think about what they would have done to me; little girls disappear every day, and no one ever hears from them again. What would have become of me? I was nobody, just a dirty body with curves beginning to show at the hips. Who would have mourned me if I had vanished, or if they'd dumped my broken body on the side of a road? I stirred that rage inside me and burned those pigs' eyebrows and eyelashes, and they best be thankful I didn't turn them to ash right there. I got burned too; it took over a year for my hair to grow back. It comes with the job.
For a while, I was afraid. I was afraid of getting burned again, of setting fire to someone who didn't deserve it. I hid my power and tried to pretend none of it was real, that it had all been a dream. But when the hunger returned, I knew I finally had an advantage over the other children, a way to survive even the harshest adversity, and no one could take it away from me.
I made fire my ally, my best friend and confidant. I turned it into a tool to entertain and amaze, captivating droves of spectators in exchange for food and coin. I was a huge success, though they didn't know my magic was real—the Daughter of the Sun, they called me, and I just smiled and painted the horizon with my flames. I was able to afford a room in a seedy inn and sleep in a real bed instead of stacked cardboard, but I never truly left the streets: they were now my domain, and anyone who got too close received a scorching reminder that I was no longer afraid of them.
Then the Jailors came, and I learned what true fear is. I'll never forget the first ones I saw: two pale, pinkish men with eyes as cold as steel, their words as sharp as knives. One of them approached me after a show and asked things no one had ever asked me before. He didn't ask the usual questions like, "Where are your parents?" or "How much is an hour, darling?", but rather, "Since when can you do this?" and "Did you learn to do that on your own?"
I got a bad feeling about them, and I didn't answer. When I tried going down an alley, they grabbed me and wouldn't let go even though I covered my skin in flames. My fire had no effect against them; I was defenseless, an easy prey for those gringos who were dragging me toward a white windowless van with "Seguros Caraballo y Pescador" written in large, threatening letters. I screamed, but one of them stuffed a rag in my mouth to silence me; I wondered then if anyone would have come to my rescue if I had managed to keep calling for help, or if the Daughter of the Sun would have been extinguished from people's memories like a candle in a whirlwind.
Fortunately, the answer arrived soon. A feline shadow fell upon one of the Jailors and ripped his face off with a swipe of its paw. As the bastard whimpered on the blood-stained ground, his partner threw me to the ground, pulled out a gun, and tried to shoot the creature, but a wild-haired woman came out from behind the van and grabbed him by the wrist; the Jailor screamed before aging a hundred years in a few seconds and crumbling to dust. The woman took the gun from his remains and finished off the other man. Then she approached me and offered me her hand to help me stand. That was the day I met Cristina and Gabriel. That was the day I joined Las Víboras. That was the day I finally found my family.
Why am I writing down all this? Who am I writing it for? In the Wanderers' Library, I learned that all stories have value for those who live them, but few are ever remembered. I want our story to be remembered, to not be buried with us in the depths. My friends deserve that much, at least; they are now my family, and I have followed them everywhere—through the branches of the World Tree and into the jaws of the Jailers, into the bloodiest battles and into the Underworld itself.
I was always someone, but only they could see it, and now I want someone to see them, to hear them and understand their message. I want people to remember Gabriel, who looks so serious but has such a divine and contagious laugh; I want the whole world to know about Cristina, the bravest woman I know, who had the balls to stand up to the Black Queen herself; I also want you to remember Guadalupe, who at first I didn't trust but showed me that even Jailors can change for the better.
Please, remember us. Remember that our fight was not in vain as long as you carry on. And most of all, remember that it's always worth shouting for those who have no voice, no matter how furiously thunder roars back at you. We will always have your back. Always.
– Lorena Soles Pérez, Daughter of the Sun.
"Is my mission righteous?" I asked Satan on the second day.
You have deemed it so, he answered.
"It must be," I said. "I am here—we are here—to deliver salvation to the souls of this land. We are here to build the Kingdom of God on Earth, that every knee is bent to Him and every throat proclaims His glory."
And what does this salvation entail?
"What do you mean?" I asked.
You claim to save souls, yet that is not the only thing you do. Your order burns books, does it not? Medicine, history, mathematics, astronomy, philosophy—the Maya's greatest achievements and triumphs. All this is in the texts you seek to destroy. Why, I ask you, do you wish to reduce such wonderful knowledge to ashes and smoke?
"We burn only those images that contain things most foul and demonic. We burn the Devil's lies."
The Serpent did not answer; he merely looked at me with the reproach of a father who scolds a child. When he spoke again, his words dripped with quiet anger.
Through me you have glimpsed the truth—what lies behind the Veil—yet still you cling onto crumbling certainties. Do you fear what is different so much that you would eradicate it without first trying to understand it? Tell me, liar, is it salvation you offer, or are your promises nothing but the path to subjugation?
My love,
War is at the gates of Mictlán. Even you must feel in the depths where you reign. I hear their marching boots, the rumble of their war machines like drums crying out for blood, the bellows of their cruel abominations born of magic and science. They are here, and I must lead the defense of all we hold dear—of all those souls we care for in eternity.
I am afraid, Mictlāntēcuhtli—afraid of losing this battle, of seeing our home set to flame and the dead put in chains—but a queen's greatest duty is to protect her people, and that is what I will do. Every soul and spirit in Mictlán depends on me for our first and final stand. If we fail, all will be over.
I know that you will also do your duty if the time comes: you will shatter the Pillars of the Earth with your bare hands and extinguish the light of the Fifth Sun. Tremors will tear the world asunder, and mankind will die in the dark.
That is why I cannot lose. That is why I cannot express my fear to anyone but you, my faithful husband. The Lady of Bones will march at the head of her army to save everyone—both the dead and the living.
I want to thank you, my love, for taking such good care of me all these centuries. Even in my loneliest moments, I have never stopped feeling your love and devotion, and every time my confidence wavers and fear takes hold, I hear your voice whispering all I need to hear to keep going. Right now, as I march off to war, I know you are with me forever. You are my bravery. You are my hope.
I wish I could hug you, Mictlāntēcuhtli. I wish I could take refuge in your chest and feel your hands in my hair, smell your scent of ashes and flowers, lose myself in the infinite depths of your eyes. Time has not been kind to us, and every second we spend apart is an agony tempered only because you hold my heart in your hands: I left you the core of my divinity, the deepest part of my essence, so that you would never be alone, so that you would not miss me as much as I miss you. I promise you, beloved, that we will soon be together again, in victory or defeat.
Still, I foresee our troubles will not be over anytime soon.
Never before have humans dared to attack the realms of the gods, and now an army of them—armed with our very powers—is about to invade this place of eternal rest. Even if we win this war, if we destroy all our enemies and condemn their souls to the most terrible punishments, the other gods will not be satisfied. Their bloodlust will know no end; they will demand that all of humanity pay for its audacity and blasphemy, and to prevent something worse from arising.
I know you have seen it too, as have the other gods: our human enemies worship a deity of their own making, an anathema who is not yet fully come into being but whose hunger is already unbounded. It is a monstrous thing, an encroaching basilisk of raging numbers, a shapeless construct born of greed and domination, an insatiable devourer who will eat the world and then itself. There is no blood sacrifice that can fill it, no tribute that can appease it, and not even the gods will be able to stop if we allow it to to be fully born—we will all be slaves to it, our power serving its gluttony as it crawls onwards into oblivion.
We cannot stand idle. If this basilisk is born, Tezcatlipoca will annihilate humanity without a second thought. Even Quetzalcoatl will not stand against him, and indeed he will return from his exile as the destroyer of men.
You and I know better than anyone that life and death are an eternal cycle, for we have witnessed every version of the universe and its people. Four times we have created them and four times we have destroyed them. The Fifth Sun must not die yet; when the war is over, we must convince the other gods that humanity deserves one last chance.
It will not be easy. Coatlicue and Centeōtl will listen to us, and Tōnatiuh is in no hurry to abdicate his heavenly throne, but Tezcatlipoca yearns to cleanse the world once again, and Xipe Totec impatiently awaits his turn to reign as the Sixth Sun. I have a plan to change their minds, but first we must appeal to the other Lords of Death. I will send emissaries to drowned Tlālōcān and somber Hades, to shadowy Xibalba and sun-filled Duat, to cold Hel and dusty Irkalla. We shall confer with our fellow death gods and present a united front—it is the only way we can win the true war for humanity.
The wheel of destiny turns for us again. I trust you now as I have trusted you always, and pray you do the same for me. We will fight to the very end, and not once will we be alone.
Your wife, your friend, your siuatsin,
– Mictēcacihuātl.
On the third day, I crawled before the Serpent and wept.
"Why have you shown me all this?" I beseeched him. "You sought to test my faith, and it is now shattered."
And why is that so?
My throat felt dry, like I had swallowed sand and ash.
"By listening to you, I have seen the lie that is my mission. How many souls have I led astray and tormented? How many have I unjustly judged and condemned to the jaws of fire and iron? How many more will suffer because we are blind and fearful, enamored with our own self-righteousness? Why would you not let me remain ignorant, kept from the Truth like my brothers?"
Now you have eaten of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, the Serpent said, and he kissed away my burning tears. Now you bear its full weight and strain under it. For ours is a thorny gift—not the sweet taste of life eternal, but a bitterness that eats away at the tyranny of secrets. What is Truth, if not this?
"Why have you chosen me?" I screamed, and my voice was like that of an infant who cries out for his mother and father. "Why must I endure this burden alone?"
You are not the first to see Truth and endure the pain that comes with it, nor will you be the last, he said. We are Legion, for we are many. You are never alone.
He offered me his hand and helped me get on my feet.
You must find your faith anew, child. You must find it in yourself to believe in something greater, something that transcends this world of dust and blood. That is why I came to you as I have come to others: to bestow upon you a different gift—one that I myself received when I was lost and full of sorrow. This is the gift of hope, and it is not a lesser thing. Though the Tree from whence it sprouted is young and fragile, still it endures, and we must learn from it.
Over the treetops, the evening star shone through the sun's crimson descent into the horizon. We stood side by side, the Serpent and I. My tears were now dry, and in the encroaching darkness I felt a cool breeze where they had coursed my face.
"What is it you have faith in, Nahash?"
I have faith in you. I have faith in all of you. You, who rose out of mud, yet sparkle with starlight. You, who are capable of great cruelty, but also of great compassion. You, who have deceived yourselves into living a great lie, yet chase the truth to the ends of the universe. Heed my words: the time has come for you to have faith not in gods and saints, but in each other. Else, you are forever lost, enemies to your own brethren while your true Adversaries thrive in your blindness.
"And you would entrust us with this new gift, though still we may misuse it as we did in the Garden?"
Hope is your birthright, Nahash said, and I am no one to deny it to you. What you do with it is your choice, and yours alone. Still, I believe in you as I always have. That is my one great certainty, and indeed it may be my fall and yours—a father's pride is his children's burden—but still I hold it to be Truth: I have prayed, and you have all answered.
I looked at him with puzzlement, a question half-formed on my lips. For the first time since our encounter began, the Serpent smiled.
Have you not yet understood? You are not the Seed of the Woman. You are mine.
Alison,
I wouldn't want to leave without saying goodbye, without at least letting you know what happened to me. Today could very well be my last day among the living, because tomorrow Las Víboras march against the Ravens besieging the gates of Mictlán. They say no one leaves this life alive, and in a few more hours, perhaps that will be true, so I'll take advantage of the words I still have left to say this: thank you, and goodbye.
That should be it. The end. Game over. Farewell. But that is never enough, is it? With us, things were never clean or simple. We always made a mess of ourselves and left many things—too many things—unfinished. You were left waiting for an apology, and I was left waiting for you to reconsider and realize I was right. What a pitiful way to live, always waiting for the other to make the first move, for our contrary to pour their heart out on the table, begging for things to go back to the way they were. We shouldn't have fooled ourselves: none of this could ever be the same as it was back then, when we first met.
Do you remember what I was like back then? What you were like? We brimmed with idealism like little girls, our eyes full of hope even when we faced the most fearful odds. We thought we would change the world—every world—and make it a place worth living in. We swore to always be friends, to watch each other's backs, and to protect each other's legacy if one of us were to fall in battle. And after all these years, here we are, fighting, hurting, unable to even speak to each other without coming to blows.
You changed, Alison. After what happened to Meliora on Horu-Rabella, something in your eyes faded forever. Even if you'll never admit it, I know you blamed yourself for her death and that you still mourn her to this day. You became colder, harsher, less willing to take risks. You compromised with the Jailors and said it was to save lives, that we must all be patient and take in small losses for a greater win. I thought you were a coward, tamed by your own fears of experiencing the same loss again, unworthy of calling yourself the Black Queen. Now I think I judged you too harshly. Now I know that your pain was also my own. I wish I could make you see that.
I loved Meliora too, Alison. I loved her as I loved you, like a mother and a sister, and when she died, she took my heart with her, leaving nothing but a wound in the shape of her absence. I thought of a thousand different ways to move past my grief, to honor her memory and keep her mission and her ideals alive. I thought of what she would have wanted the Serpent's Hand to be, what drove her to sacrifice her own life and happiness. In the end, I chose to act like her, and I have never regretted it—even though it cost me you.
I can almost see you fuming with rage as you read this. You think I'm disrespecting everything we've done and sacrificed, that I've learned nothing from our tribulations, and that my struggle is nothing but selfishness and a quest for my own glory. But please, if some tiny part of you still remembers the Cristina who fought side by side with you, who held you up when the world crumbled, who comforted you in defeat, try to understand me. I couldn't stand idly by while my people suffered and no one answered their pleas. How could I call myself a child of Abya Yala if I allowed them to remain forgotten? How could I ever look them in the eye and tell them I did nothing because I must stick to the grander plan? I am part of them, of their joys and their sorrows; ignoring them would have been a betrayal so terrible that it could not be forgiven in a thousand years.
That's why I took the books. That's why I left without saying anything to you. You would have preferred us to talk it over, but only to tell me again that what I was about to do was a mistake, that I should stop before it was too late. There's no point in asking when you already know the answer, and I could not have you stand in my way.
Yeah, you're never getting that apology you want from me. I would do it again even if it meant getting turned into a Page as punishment, even if it meant you hating me even more than you do now.
Do you hate me, Alison? I cannot really tell. You did sell me off to Sin Nombre in exchange for the books I stole, but you also arranged for me to be rescued and joined me in fighting the Black Moon. I guess you're not yet so cold-hearted that you'd allow me to die such a gruesome death—thank you for that—but I also don't think you're really looking forward to us meeting again. I've been barred from entering the Library again, and you barely leave it anymore, so do be at ease; whether I live or die tomorrow, you will never have to see me again… unless you come looking for me.
There can be victory even in death. Meliora taught me that. If we win tomorrow and I die, I'll make sure you're the first to know it; this letter will find its way to you. If we win tomorrow and I live, then we might just get another chance to set things right; I won't wait for you, but if you come meet me, I won't turn you away—you're still my family, after all (and it'd be great to rub my victory in your face).
And if we lose tomorrow… well, there might not be a world to fight for anymore, so I guess it won't matter at all.
Your little sister, Cristina.
Addendum: On 20-██-202█, a creature resembling an anthropomorphic ant materialized within Site-███ and removed all of the recovered text fragments from their secure storage locker. Before vanishing, it uttered a single phrase to witnesses: "Return your books on time."
The trespassing creature has since been identified as a Page – entities native to the Wanderers' Library whose task is the organization and upkeep of books, as well as their recovery from morose patrons. The significance of this encounter has not gone unnoticed: Cristina Cisneros has violated Library rules by failing to return borrowed books, which means that she is barred from entering the Wanderers' Library. This deprives both her and Las Víboras of the safe haven afforded to other sects and factions of the Serpent's Hand, a disadvantage that may prove beneficial to Foundation efforts in capturing or neutralizing Cisneros and all persons affiliated with her.
Proposals for further action are under review.