When was that updated?!
2 Likes
Where?
2 Likes
What do you think of this mess?
HERE WE GO AGAIN
The flashes turned into a bright light, that became a dark hole of nothingness. He was moving around inside the nothingness, spinning upside down, rocking back and forth, and shooting downwards until he almost became sick.
Seconds later, a song was playing, echoing and becoming clearer the closer he got to it. Until, another flash happened.
This time, he saw a bunch of Chacmool sculptures singing an eerie song and slithering their heads and bodies around in a circle with bloody hearts in bowls on their chest.
Some of them were spilling blood, and others kept it up.
In the center of the circle, the ground began to crack. Out of nowhere, Tlaloc rose up from the core of the earth.
He kept growing bigger, and bigger, making the Chacmool look like ants.
The ground started to shake like crazy. The Chacmool spilled the blood and the hearts. Tlaloc got angry and absorbed the hearts, but he wasn’t happy.
He spat out one of them, and started to approach Atl, who was a transparent, glowing outline, frozen in time as an observer, chained to his destiny.
He couldn’t do anything, even if he wanted to.
Tlaloc started to glow red and heat up the earth. Atl dropped down onto the scorched earth, burning up on the spot.
Tlaloc exploded, but the chacmool stayed, chanting.
The fire spread and absorbed Atl completely, before a gust of wind blew his ashes down to the next level, where he found ‘Mike’ again. This time, he was a translucent shade of red, with pure black eyes and a white outline of the bones.
Atl felt cold as ‘Mike’ made his way towards him.
The core of his being was being stripped by his soulless eyes, which were flashing red, yellow, blue and green. He touched Atl, and he came back to his previous form, and he could move this time.
“Ximopanōltih.” The figure boomed as a gust of wind brought him through another passage that Mike lit the way down. They travelled down for the next thirty seconds, until they reached a river of pure gold.
Mike disappeared and left Atl there, but moments later, the pool turned to lava and another figure rose from it. A giant head, adorning a massive colourful headband with many feathers on the top, and around the sides.
He looked human, and god at the same time. His skin was glowing a golden hue, and he had large golden disks hanging from his ears. His large, white eyes were glowing red in the pupils. He had a nose plug made out of bone and was holding two torches in his hands.
Red paint covered the bottom of his face, and his large tongue hung down, revealing a void of constellations, galaxies, the sun, the moon and the stars in his mouth.
His neckplate was gold, with feathers on the end, and he had another gold disk hanging down his chest connected to it, held up by red ribbons, and finished off with a gold chain link on the outside of it.
His groin area was adorned with a slab of gold, which finished off the bottom of the armor. In the middle of it was a large square of crystalized hematite, and a circle of obsidian.
He had jade stones and other gems around his wrists.
It was Tōnacātēcuhtli.
He really wasn’t happy to see Atl.
He spat several fireballs out of his mouth.
One of them hit Atl, and he felt the wrath of half a millenia in one moment.
His body stung for a whole minute. His body had a hole in it, and he could see Tōnacātēcuhtli approaching him, and dwarfing his entire core.
Tōnacātēcuhtli clicked his fingers and Atl was made into a whole human once again. He fell to the ground and Tōnacātēcuhtli blew in his direction and the gust carried Atl back to a steel wall far away.
It hurt like hell when he crashed into it.
Tōnacātēcuhtli brought him back again with another breath and slammed him against the wall once again.
He made Atl crawl back to him by making him unable to do anything else.
His eyes had hypnotized him and made Atl bow down on the spot when he got close enough to Tōnacātēcuhtl.
Before he could do anything else, he electrocuted Atl and let out a low growl, then let him move an inch to the left, but nowhere else.
“Are-are you done yet?” Atl asked.
Tōnacātēcuhtli sighed, then shook the ground several times until Atl was dizzy. He made him vomit up bile three times.
Atl looked up at him.
Before he could say anything, Tōnacātēcuhtli burned up and exploded before turning into his human form; a tall, imposing muscular warrior with a jaguar headdress, a gold loincloth, jade and gold breastplates; one side of his face coated in obsidian paint, and the other in gold, gold bracelets, gold disks in his ears, and a belt of twinkling stars wrapped around his waist.
He was just as majestic.
Atl was admiring him as he stood beside him.
He must have been about seven feet tall.
Atl looked like a child, even when he stood at six feet, with an athletic build.
“Ahmo titonāmiqui ye huehcāuh,” Tōnacātēcuhtli bellowed to Atl.
His voice box trembled when he replied back. “Quema.”
“I never thought we’d ever meet again,” Tōnacātēcuhtli said. “You seemed to be dodging me for an eternity.”
“It-it was only five-five centuries. Surely you didn’t miss me that much?”
“Fool! You cost us a lot by opening that damn portal!” Tōnacātēcuhtli yelled.
Lava bubbled up around them and left a lonely circle where they both stood. In his anger, Tōnacātēcuhtli pushed Atl into the lava. Moments later, he bubbled back up to the surface and was coughing out fire and blood.
Tōnacātēcuhtli brought him back over.
Atl was restored, but he had gold chains wrapped around his mouth. “You can only speak when I allow you to, understand?”
Atl nodded.
“Answer me this, honestly. Have you developed any superpowers since you came through the portal, anything unusual happened to you?”
Atl shrugged as Tōnacātēcuhtli unlocked his mouth. “Apparently common sense is one.”
Tōnacātēcuhtli sighed. “The bar is low for humanity these days. This is not what I had in mind when I created you. You’ve fallen far in such a short amount of time.”
“Technology has regressed us as a species. Everyone has become lazy. There are even ‘return to monke’ memes, to say we’ve evolved backwards.”
“Tletlatlcoatl, I didn’t say you could make extra comments.” Tōnacātēcuhtli relocked his mouth. “I said you could answer me.”
Atl tried to flip him off, but both his middle fingers fell from his hands. They were replaced with small fire ant nests. Several crawled out from the hole where his finger was. “They’ll sting you if you answer back, and don’t answer me properly.”
Atl tried to sigh but nodded his head instead. He wanted this ordeal to be over soon. Tōnacātēcuhtli agreed to unlock his mouth once more.
“Answer me this, Tletlatlcoatl, do you like your new life?”
“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t,” Atl admitted, “They renamed me Atl, took me and adopted me as a legend of the surf.”
“Go on…”
“At first, they actually thought that the world was going to end ten years ago.” Atl laughed. “When I ended up here, because my entrance was so obscure. They thought I was some sort of god, or divine messenger. I became a local celebrity.”
Tōnacātēcuhtli chuckled. “You mortals are cute. You’re just a misfit from another time period, who bluffed his way into a dream life, without realizing the consequences he’d caused.”
“Like what?”
The ants stung him twice. He wanted to yell out in pain, but he stuck it out.
“You know fine well.” Tōnacātēcuhtli hissed. “The conquistadors destroying our land and taking it over to make this country you now call Mexico.”
Oh. That. Don’t remind me of it, please.
Atl paused for a moment, and thought to himself, rationalizing: “If we’re conquered, then what’s the point in going back?”
“To fulfil your role in history, and be remembered for that role,” Tōnacātēcuhtli said, “if you don’t, then someone else will. And that someone dying could be detrimental for everyone, and for your family’s future.”
“But what if I don’t want to do it?”
“There is no don’t want to do it.” Tōnacātēcuhtl reminded him. “Anyway, I want to hear the rest of your story, in your words. Your ‘origin’ story when you got to San Diego.”
“I washed up on the shore. The news crews were there reporting about ‘the end of the Mayan calendar’ and we spooked them. They started to talk to me, and I became viral—is that the word—on the internet?” Atl explained. “And some crazy shaman took me in and taught me English and how to cope in the modern world, then I met Xochi.”
“Mictlan Mike was the shaman.”
Atl seemed surprised. “How do you know Mictlan Mike?”
Tōnacātēcuhtl rolled his eyes. “I am the god of creation, after all.”
“Appearing to me as a grim reaper with a skull mask.” Atl sighed. “And sending all sorts of other gods and visions to me.”
“It’s not just me.”
Atl raised his eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
“Mike isn’t who you think he is. He’s not just a shaman. He’s also a reincarnation of Mictlantecuhtli that I sent out to keep tabs on you. And to help me find the rest of the sacrifices you carelessly let roam the world—”
“—What the?” Atl exclaimed back as several more ants stung him and climbed down his arm.
“—Together we located a village of people in the Yucatan Peninsula, near the cost in the jungle who have started to build their own relics and have been convincing themselves that the Aztec empire is still the same as it was.”
“They don’t have any modern technology?”
Tōnacātēcuhtl shrugged. “They have radios, and some televisions, but they don’t have the internet like you do.”
Atl nodded. “I see—”
“—I need you to meet me at the beach tomorrow at midnight. I have something very important for you to do.”
“Or else what will happen?”
“You will cease to exist forever. Your entire legacy wiped out. I’ve been lenient enough to you. You better show tomorrow.”
That was appropriately crazy.
1 Like
I thought I sent that to you in DMs, but I am glad you think so.
I am gaining some momentum. Dude just travelled across to Mexico with his pregnant wife, and they arrived at her parents place… and the visions just decided to come back. To annoy him.
1 Like
I’m not panicking, you’re panicking.
I’m panicking.
2 Likes
Hang in there.
2 Likes
Just submitted my 2nd to make it. Im done with “competition polishing”, and can get back to finishing these suckers.
2 Likes
Did I say I finished my Onc entry 
4 Likes
2 days to finish.
I only need to write the climax and the ending scene. That’s all.
Piece of cake.
/sarcasm
3 Likes
My 4th one is going to be hard to finish 1st drsft over these 2 days, but Im going to try.
2 Likes
You finished 3 already? That is crazy. Mad props.
1 Like
I finished my ONC story! ᕕ( ᐕ )ᕗ
6 Likes
Im bowls deep in the 4th one, and I should have that done enough to push finished on it in time for their delayed deadline. The wuestion will be then if its under word count.
2 Likes
Curently, Maysie’s Galaxy is finished at 32,378 words. When I close it out, it will be complete. But Im going to have to move it out of the children’s category because it spans all the way uo into her mid-20s and that’s no longer a children’s story, at that point.
So, I finished 4 a d have 3 half-complete.
Safe estimate of 5 is doable next year. (Insane)
2 Likes
That is crazy. Congrats. That’s a lot of writing. And not just with the wordcount but in creating separate stories
1 Like
I hit that Complete switch at last.
My camp nano graph says it best how this month has gone. Nothing like a deadline to make the impossible possible.
5 Likes
May 19th is the longlist (per today’s ONC post).
Now we wait.
Does my book have a chance? I don’t know. It didn’t make it onto the amb picks and it didn’t get super popular. I think I had more views past years. It would be cool if it made the cut, but I’m happy with it no matter what happens next.
Good luck, everyone!
4 Likes
I didn’t complete my story but I did submit/reach the word count by the new deadline. So I guess I’ll get to use the fancy Schmancy 20k sticker. 
Now to continue writing it to completion. The hard part now that there isn’t an official deadline. 
3 Likes