The Depths of Xibalba

Pablo and his team slowly descended into the dark cenote. The local assistants up on land carefully lowered their cameras, dive, and exploration equipment.

Communicating to his team through his transmitter, he chuckled and jokingly said, "Woah, I understand now why the ancient Maya referred to these places as the underworld. This place is creepy."

The Limestone was translucent, with roots and vines hugging the cavern walls throughout. The sound of dripping water lent a comforting sound, but the bats fluttering away extinguished the comfort and replaced the overall feeling with that of a lonely cave.

Once in the green shinning water Pablo and his team swam further into the cave where the sunlight no longer reached them.

With only their helmet lights illuminating, they made their way into a chamber where hieroglyphs appeared on the stone walls. Pablo leading the way, inspected the writing and reminded himself that the cenote they were in was used exclusively by the Maya for human sacrifice.

Pablo puzzled over the idea of how that writing made it so deep into the abyss, and he looked over at his mate Roland who was snapping pictures of the writing.

A strange feeling suddenly came over Pablo, stranger still when he noticed a field of well-preserved skulls; keeping in mind the location he was in, he shouldn't have given it so much thought. The hollow eyes seemed to stare at him as if they wanted to tell the secrets of their watery grave.

A sudden shiver passed through Pablo, and an eerie sensation of an inhuman presence swimming close to him shook his composure, but he was quickly distracted from that thought when he noticed there was something shiny on the cave floor.

A ghost-like allure beckoned for his attention, and there next to one of the skulls lay a shiny jade mask, and it resembled a crocodile whose teeth had been fashioned in red coral.

Pablo spoke to his team through his transmitter, "guys, this cave gets creepier by the minute, watch my back. I found something looks to be valuable", as he swam in further, the cave got darker, and an air of eeriness permeated through the crystal-clear water.

Roland and Jim responded with an affirmative to his request and stayed behind as Pablo swam deeper still to inspect the artifact. The team had been instructed not to disturb anything in the cave, but Pablo felt compelled to pick it up and make it his own. As he swam closer to the relic, he realized the mask was balancing off a steep precipice.

Pablo curiously took a look at the decline and felt a sudden pressure envelope him pulling him down; he tried to resist, but the force was like that of an underwater vortex sucking him in. He looked down at his oxygen meter and noticed it was quickly approaching 1.4 atmospheres.

He slowly felt his self slipping out of consciousness; his eyes closed, and behind him, a multitude of spirits removed his scuba tank and mask, and a small group led it to where Roland and Jim stood in wait.

Surprised at seeing Pablo's air tank and snorkel, Roland and Jim became afraid, and they swam near the location where they last saw their friend. They acted quickly and sent out a drone to survey the perimeter for any sign of Pablo. The fear had overtaken Roland and Jim, and it was not the same ghostly fear that Pablo had felt instead a fear of not knowing their friends' fate.

"What in the world" exclaimed Roland "he couldn't just disappear into thin air leaving his equipment behind," he added.

Jim, with a look of concern, thought the worst. He was at a loss for words and shook his head in confusion.

They floated in place in the water for a bit and recalled how before venturing into the cenote, the local Shaman had assured them that there was nothing to fear from the watery grave. It seemed like a venture to the team, but now their friend was missing.

Jim and Roland settled for a few more minutes, looking at the radar, waiting to see if the drone returned with any news of Pablo, but there was nothing.

After some time, Roland and Jim decided to head back up, their oxygen was beginning to run low, and they felt uneasy about the disappearance of their friend.

On land, Roland and Jim looked to the Shaman for answers.

The Shaman stared intently into space, deciding if he should speak what he knew. He shook his head, dusted his trousers, and made ready to share a relative legend that his ancestors had passed down to him.

The Shaman, in a calm tone, began his storytelling"our grandfathers said that their grandfathers before were of an indigenous race that consisted of only ether and fire; they required human sacrifice to keep the fire of their essence burning. After the first baktun, the patriarchs retreated into a separate space-time dimension parallel to our own. They knew how to influence human emotions and thoughts, so they bargained with the humans and facilitated the resources of the material world in exchange for blood offerings. The ancient high priests believed they had successfully traced a path leading to the cenotes that served as a gateway. Thus, the offerings were entered into the sinkhole to be delivered to the patriarchs.

Roland and Jim turned to look at each other in disbelief, dismissing the Shaman's words as folklore; it did not help explain their friend's disappearance nor alleviate their concern.

Pablo drew open his eyes and tried to gasp in some air. Still, all he felt was the sensation of bubbles escaping him. Pablo tried to fight the asphyxiation, but the pressure continued to propel him through a passageway that resembled a miniature riverbed enclosed in white limestone walls, from which he saw the spirits of the dead lingering. He was dead, he thought to himself, his thoughts disrupted when he came to a sudden stop.

To Pablo's surprise, his head appeared above water, and to his relief was breathing in air. He noticed areas of dry rock around the pool enough for him to make his way out of the water and settle down. More surprising still, despite his near-death experience, the mask intact clung to his hand.

Pablo looked around the cave with no clue how he would get out of this cavernous prison. He grew worried the more he thought of it. His headlight flickered, and suddenly it went off.

A chill came over him, and he felt something slimy hop on his hand. He sat still, not wanting to perturb whatever creature be it poisonous or not. He closed his eyes and held his breath, thinking it would have been better for him to have drowned.

Pablo sat in complete silence, and something compelled him to open his eyes, for he sensed a glowing light. To his surprise, he saw an indigenous boy about 16 holding a torch in one hand and a spear in the other.

He signaled to Pablo to stay still and pierced the giant toad that had claimed territory on Pablo's hand with little effort.

Pablo had a strange feeling about this young man that suddenly appeared before him; he felt the air around him give off a peculiar vibe, almost as if this creature was nothing more than a ghoulish apparition.

Intent on his thoughts, Pablo was interrupted when the boy grabbed at the mask that Pablo held and gestured for Pablo to put it on. Pablo hesitated, but he took the mask and put it on as if in a state of hypnosis.

Pablo's visage burned, and he shrieked and convulsed in pain as the flesh thereupon shriveled and dried up.

As Pablo wriggled in pain, it transpired that the teenage boy had taken the shape of a crocodilian, and with him, he unleashed a leather whip on Pablo's chest, releasing a series of subsequent flagellations.

The demonic creature's yellow eyes glowed, reflecting the sedimentary deposits on the cavern walls, and when the monster spoke, its jaw contained a set of hideous stalactite-sized dentures. The stench of death escaped from his jowls.

The demon roared with laughter as he inflicted perpetual punishment on Pablo the dead, and all the treasures of the cave belonged to him,

Pablo fell in limbo in what seemed like an apparent effort of survival; he heard his friends Jim and Roland calling to him, the Shaman over him sprinkling some water and spreading smoke around him. Not sure if this was real or hallucinating, he scratched at his face; there was the demon again laughing at the sight of his torture.

"Roland," Pablo called out in pain, but then there was no more than a bright light that blinded him, and when he was able to break through the vision, he only found himself staring into the bright jaundiced eyes of the demon that burned a hole through his spirit.

It was late, and the night was quiet Roland and Jim, still confused by the events that had transpired, couldn't think of sleeping. The mysterious hoot of the owl and the croaking of the toads all around their campsite only made them feel worse. Wanting to cool down his emotions, Roland decided to walk over to the creek to throw some cold water on his face. As he was getting ready to bring the water towards him, he looked up, and there he saw a lifeless body hanging from a large tree that grew right out of the cenote.

Roland called out to Jim and the guides in the camp; they quickly rushed over, and though the corpse's face was charred, the dive suit was unmistakably Pablo's. Roland and Jim implored for their friend to be brought down. The guides, ever ready to assist, climbed up, cut the rope, and brought the body down.

Roland inspected his friend's lifeless body and noticed that he held a jade mask. He curiously poked at the mask, and in that instant, with the smell of a thousand rotting corpses, the reptilian demon sprung from the cenote, grabbed Roland by the neck, and made ready to throw him headfirst into the sinkhole. Jim noticing this tried to grab for Roland, but the demon struck him with his tail and let out a roar that unleashed an army of toads while he quickly disappeared into the sinkhole with Roland

The Shaman watched the scene from a distance, calculating his next move; he walked over and waved some smoke from a medicinal plant that he burned. Jim didn't think much of it. The Shaman, in a trance-like state, chanted some incantations in his native tongue and made a gesture to the guides to apprehend Jim. The Shaman put on a jaguar paw gauntlet which he used to pick up the jade mask.

Jim made futile attempts to fight his captors while the Shaman continued his chanting through it all, and with a quick jab, he thrust the claws of the jaguar paw into Jim's chest and pulled out his still-beating heart and fed it to the cenote followed by his body.

The Shaman looked over to his assistants, and with a yellow glow to his eyes, he said, "the gods are pleased for now; we shall enjoy good harvest for many moons."

The cenote was ordered inaccessible to the locals and would not open until the next group of explorers came inquiring.