The Aftermath

The Narrative

What happened after an unexpected tropical storm wreaked havoc on the northeast coastline of the Caribbean, taking the lives of six anguished souls?

It had been two weeks since the unexpected storm wreaked havoc on the northeastern Caribbean coastline. It surged and subsided in a matter of minutes, giving no time for preparation and left behind a powerful reminder of the preciousness of the landscape. Planks were stripped away from the docks as the boats were tossed up against the wood and exposed nails and screws impaled the fiberglass hulls. 

Storm shutters were ripped from their hinges leaving behind wet shards of glass strewn throughout interior floors. Coconuts, propelled through 150 mph gusts of wind into zinc roofs and fences, echoing the chaotic symphony cast by the unexplainable tempest. The mangrove was the one saving grace as the sea had transcended into a whirlpool, 250 nautical miles in diameter, that even experts from NOAA couldn’t explain.  From Tulum to Punta Gorda, the waters showed no mercy.

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A couple of young fishermen from Hopkins, a small fishing community in southern Belize, had taken their skiff a  mile from the shore, hoping to rake and scrape the reef for a few pounds of spiny tail lobster. There was a small, uninhabited caye where they would set up camp for the day.

The air grew heavy as they approached. The caye had been stripped of most of its vegetation. Palm fronds, ripped from the trees by the heavy winds, lined the beach and rocks and coconuts were strewn about. Mosquitoes and doctor flies created an ominous cacophony of buzzes and hums that grew louder as the hull of their boat met the shoreline. The two young men waded into the water and pulled their skiff farther into the sand. Never having witnessed the destruction from hurricanes like Hattie and Keith, they hadn’t seen what mother nature was capable of. 

As they stepped over the wreckage with their bare feet, they both shuddered as an unexplainable cold breeze swept across their skin. To their horror, they stood before a pile of skulls, decapitated, and skeletal remains were scattered in a Maya infiniti formation around them. There were six skulls in total, resting in the middle of the formation, five in a circle and one on top—hollow eye sockets and exposed teeth, ceremoniously displayed amidst the desolate island jungle.

The fishermen stood, jaws agape, and without uttering even a whisper, they returned to the skiff and made their way, in silence, back to Hopkins. It would be several weeks before word of their discovery was received by Vanessa Navarro, a Mexican American archaeologist who was in Belize studying land preservation through the history of Maya civilization.
She had written a thesis about the Enchantment of K’iche, seeking to uncover the validity of a spell that a Maya priestess cast seconds before her life was taken by a Spanish Conquistador. It was on January second, two thousand twenty-one, that a storm would sacrifice the lives of six people living against their truest virtues, so that a "chosen one" could be guided by their souls and save the once-sacred land.