The Orientation

Chapter Two

"Still out cold? Oh...how disappointing, I hate waiting for ceremonies to start." Ahote said with a pout, brandishing the bloody tip of an overly ornate knife.

The young woman he had captured was hanging by her wrists, tight rope leaving marks on the pale skin, hair limp in her face, obscuring her facial features. Her lower half was bare of clothing, blood dripping down her thighs. Ahote turns back to his work bench and hums, taking out a loaf of white bread. It wasn't exactly traditional flatbread he had been used to for years, but it would have to do. He hums, smearing the blood from the knife onto a slice and places it on a plate, dusting off his hands afterward.

"Oh! The suit, how could I forget?" He scolded himself, making his way to a nearby closet, opening it and leafing through the outfits within.

As he did so, the woman began to stir, clenching and unclenching her fists as her eyes slowly opened.

"Good Evening, Sunshine! Sleep well?" Ahote asked in a sing song tone.

Stacy looked at her wrists then down below her waist, opening her mouth to scream in horror. The professor holds up a hand.

"Save your breath, the room is under one of the busiest bars in the city. Way below, even if you scream, if the music doesn't cover it, the layers of earth will."

The girl shut her mouth after the older mans words. After considering her options, instead of screaming, she asks a question.

"What are you going to do to me? What...what kind of sick pervert are you?"

At that, Ahote threw his head back and laughed at such an accusation. He had no strange perversion towards her in the slightest. It wasn't a factor in looks or sexual preference that was in the way. Simply, he wasn't interested in soliciting with his sacrifice.

"Pervert?? Oh...oh my dear, you read too many adult stories, don't you?"

Ahote coos, taking a bite of the blood soaked bread, chewing quietly. Stacy gawked in disgust. Ahote holds out the bread to her and smirks.

"Would you care for some? Terribly sorry I couldn't prepare something more palatable for your last meal." He offers.

Stacy turned up her nose at his 'generous' offer of food.

"Is that my...blood?" Stacy asked, swallowing slightly, already guessing the answer.

Ahote nods and takes a bite from the bread and chews. "Correct, normally it was custom for blood shed once every moon for this, but I couldn't wait THAT long till your cycle. So I took a knife to your vagina. Slash, slash, scrape, bite." He explains, shoving the rest of the bread into his mouth and chews, ignoring the girl and her obvious dry heaving in the background.

"You...you're fucking sick." Stacy managed to say.

Ahote smirks, picking up the nearby costume, which appears to be a sheep, and walks over to her.

"Sick? No, no. I just love tradition, that's all."

He shoves the wooly cap onto her head, snapping it in place, maneuvering around her afterwards to toss the wool covered cloak around her shoulders, tying it in place with a thick piece of rope. He steps back and admires his work.

"Yes, this is completely, ewe." He exclaims joyfully, ignoring Stacys' confused expression.

"Ewe, get it? It's like you and the literal meaning is female sheep...oh come on, that joke would be a hit in my history class."

Ahote grumbles, turning his back on the girl.

"You clearly don't appreciate a good joke. Or perhaps your sense of humor has gone stale. Reminds me of that bread now that I think about it."

"God, shut up and let me go!" Stacy yelled in frustration, half from being dressed as a sheep, half being the reason she had to sit through her tormentor and his pathetic joke.

Ahote smiles, finally, some recognition. He saunters over to a nearby lever, wrapping his fingers around it firmly.

"Yes...that's correct. GOD. So nice of you to notice."

Ahote gives the girl a kind smile.

"And now my dear, this is where we part ways."

And with that, Ahote pulls the lever, her pleas falling deaf upon his ears. There was a click, like a mechanism starting to turn. The metal flooring from under his captive began to pry itself open, revealing a deep pit filled to the brim with boiling oil. The mayan death god grins and gives her a farewell salute as the hook attached to the rope holding her bound hands simply unlatched, dropping the screaming girl right in.

"I told you screaming doesn't work!", Ahote reminds her, leaning against the activated lever in displeasure.

"Children today ...it's so hard to get a competent one for a sacrifice nowadays."

Ahote shakes his head, watching as the human females skin started to burn and crisp, flaking off in sheets at a time, her mouth making an 'O' shape, the scream now silenced. He makes a face, how disgusting, even in death, most humans looked absolutely hideous. Such fragile beings, and at one point they truly believed they ruled the earth with an iron clad fist. And yet...and yet, they had the intuition to build whatever they saw fit, bringing impossible creations to light. Why, he didn't know how he had lived without the magical box they call television, or even a more noteworthy invention; microwavable pockets of meat and cheese that gives off steam of unbelievably high temperatures.

He eventually flips the lever back up, leaving the dead girl to decay in the boiling water bath. In a few days, he would retrieve the bones, perhaps he could make it into wind chimes, or a new cup holder. Yes...his old one was getting rather out of date anyway.

With his ceremony complete, Ahote grabbed his jacket from a nearby rack, slipping his arms through the sleeves. Sacrifices in Mayan culture were different than most people originally perceived, usually human sacrifice was a common practice in old cultures like the Hawaiian and Aztec. Human sacrifice for Mayans brought about death, disease, and overall nasty luck. Which is why he dressed the late Stacy in a wooly sheep costume, it lessened any guilt he may have for disregarding a main aspect in his culture. Though, either way, he was the embodiment of death and disease; this sort of sacrifice fueled him whether it was morally correct or incorrect.

Upon exiting his little hideaway, Ahote walks up the stairwell, opening the door at the top and leaves.

He then takes a moment and looks up at the stars, he never took being outside for granted, it was so free, not constricting and suffocating like the underworld. Ahote inhales deeply, then exhales slowly, relishing in the crisp night air.

"Where did it all go wrong...?" Ahote asks himself.

In truth, all those years ago, none of the Mayan Gods knew what had happened to their people, one morning they were there, but by the next crow of a rooster, they were gone. Ahote had searched with the other gods, but to no avail; it wasn't as if Itzamna, their presumed leader, helped much in the search.

No people meant no sacrifices, human or otherwise, they had no purpose without them.

The Death God just had to sit back and watch the others simply close in on themselves, some became relics themselves, old statues to watch the world age around them. The ones that remained had clung to the God of them all like a child clinging to their mother's skirt, desperate to hold on to what they had left of their world.

God's came and went, some left and in their wake sprouted extremists and groups of misguided individuals who would constantly misinterpret the texts of the Gods, often destroying what little dignity both parties had left. But those other cultures had Gods that knew what happened to their people, what they became, and were able to move on in peace.

Not the Mayan Gods.

Unable to stand becoming a relic to be forgotten, or one of Itzamnas' groupies, he left them for permanent residence within the human world, ignoring all of the warnings from his fellow deities.

Ahote smirks to himself, remembering all too clearly of the day he left them.