Ear to the Serpent | ONC 2020 WINNER ✓ [ PUBLISHED ]

chapter 3

MY FEET SUDDENLY moved forward of their own accord, but before I could plummet to my ambiguous death, a very real hand yanked on the back of my dress and pulled me away from the edge.

I whirled around, coming face to face with...something different. It wasn't a skeleton, but a man, with dark brown skin at his hands but black and yellow on his legs and arms and face. I couldn't quite make out his features, but I could see that he was adorned with live wild birds and vibrant green and yellow and red. The black parts of him, it seemed, were pure night.

An eagle in his white belt gave a sharp cry.

The man spoke, in a language similar to the Spanish of long ago but there were words I did not recognise. Roughly translated, he said to me, "He...waiting...for you. Go. You are...eyes...ears."

I opened my mouth to respond, but nothing, not even air, came out. My lungs protested.

"Do not...say...breakable mortal," he frowned. "Maya."

I clapped my hands over my mouth.

"Far...from air."

My eyes widened. He told me to go one more time, before it was not him who blew away to ash, but myself. The scene shifted as I disappeared, and I gasped as I suddenly fell onto the floor of a café.