The emotions of the scene were almost too much for Layla to bear, and she wondered why she was being forcibly subjected to live through all this again when in an instant, the scene changed. She was in the same room, but it was light out, and Layla's nine-year-old self was lying on her bed, pretending to read a book, as rain pelted the window outside. Busy eavesdropping on the conversation between her mother and the stern but compassionate voice of Sheriff Stevenson, coming from the living room down the hall.
"... Beth, I don't know how she's doing it, but she found another one, just this afternoon."
"Just like the others?"
"Afraid so. Damn near ritualistic. The sick bastard's cutting out those poor kids' hearts, and just dumping them out there in the woods. Burying 'em shallow enough that it's like he's taunting us with it!"
"And Alex? My boy?"
"Sorry, Beth. Still nothing... It might... Well, it might be time to start considering the possibilities..."
"No! No, he's alive!"
"Beth..."
"You get back out there, and you find my boy! You make her find my boy!"
Layla looked over to the windbreaker hanging on the handle of the closet and thoughtfully ran her fingers over the wet material before the scene suddenly changed again. And the bedroom dissolved onto nothing, and she found herself in the forest, surrounded by trees.
Her forest.
There was a commotion up ahead, and a high pitched scream, and Layla instinctively ran towards the disturbance. Even though she knew where she was. And when she was. And what she would find. Even though, a part of her hoped she was wrong.
She broke through the last patch of trees, into an open clearing of grass and blue wildflowers. A crowd of men and police officers has crowded around, and her nine-year-old self was sobbing uncontrollably into the jacket of the kind-eyed Sheriff Stevenson. Layla walked past them, and slowly over to where the rest of the search party were gathered around. She had to know. She looked down into the freshly dug pit beneath them, and shuddered at a sight she hoped never to see again.
"Alex?"
"Five little ducks went out to play,
Over the hills and far away,
Mother duck said "Quack, quack, quack, quack,"
But only one little duck came back...
"Hmm... interesting... not exactly what I had expected to see, Miss Marin, but... I think I understand now..."
Layla instantly spun around to the unexpected voice, as a familiar figure stepped out from behind a fading tree, that was slowly beginning to morph back into a cracked stone pillar at the corner of the great hall of the Mayan pyramid.
"Dr. Ruiz?" Layla was more than a little dumbstruck by the presence of what she had assumed at first to be a ghost. Still a little dizzy, she stammered, "what... what the hell did you do to me?"
"A hallucinogenic neurotoxic compound, used by Mayan priests in rituals such as this. It reveals your true path and your connection to gods," he smirked, "I just didn't realize we shared the same path."
"What... the hell are you talking about? Where's Becca?" Layla's head was spinning, as she stumbled attempting to get to her feet.
"Oh, take it easy, Miss Marin. The effects of the neurotoxin will take a while to wear off. You'll feel considerably woozy until then, so I'd recommend against trying anything stupid," he cocked his head to the side quizzically, before continuing, "but I have to ask, just because the curiosity is killing me... the date you entered into the calendar, on the wall behind us... it corresponds to a real date, you know? July 26, 2005. But I have to ask, why that particular date? What's the significance?"
Layla searched through her mind, before realizing the importance of the date herself. And like that, it all suddenly made sense. "That... that was the day, I found the first boy. The boy you killed. The first time I even knew I could."
"Interesting..."Ruiz mused, smiling menacingly, "so, it was really you, then? I must say, you did make things difficult for a while. After all, I thought I'd be safe way up there. Who's going to look for a Mayan sacrificial cult in the Pacific Northwest! But you... You're the one who was just a little too good at finding my handy work back then. You're the reason I had to move my base of operations and flee to New Mexico. You're the reason I had to wait fifteen years before I could finally finish my work to the Great War Serpent, Kukulkan," he twirled the ebony blade of the obsidian knife in his hand, "and in the end, it was you who set me on the path to fixing all of it. I suppose I should be thanking you. Do you know how long it took me to find this blade? Do you know what I went through to find the nine sacrificial souls necessary to complete the ritual?"
"Nine?" Layla coughed, still trying to get her bearings and wrap her whirring mind around everything that was happening.
"Yes, there were those five children from fifteen years ago, of course, and now," he motioned over to a stone slab residing in front of the massive red Chac-Mool statue, where Layla finally could see the body of Becca. She was still breathing, but unconscious, and bound to the platform. "And now, the deaths of you and your colleagues will complete the fated ritual, and free the great Kukulkan to reign once more! In his glory, he is the beginning of everything, and now, he will be the end!"
"You're insane! Even your own daughter?!" Layla sputtered in a level of rage that was still quite painful.
"Lanie... was an unfortunate sacrifice, to be sure, but one that the Great Feathered Serpent demanded," he seemed in a trance of obsession, unphased by Layla's words, "and James, that poor fool... well, whatever mauled him out there in the jungle left
