*** Chapter 22 Day 52 Liliana - Maira - Moses - David ***

“What’s with the scarf?” Liliana asked.

“It can double as a mask if I need it,” Maira replied, pulling up the light blue scarf for a second before tucking it back down on her neck. “You never know what it's going to be like riding horses.”

“That’s true,” her cousin nodded.

They had left early in the morning, Liliana found it strange that her cousin would wake her up early, but they both liked riding horses so she didn’t mind it much. There isn’t much use for the horses, except for trade, but they only needed two horses for that. That left four horses with nothing to do. It was Santos who wanted the horses, but no one knows why, he never explains his thoughts, not until he needs to anyways.

They were currently riding towards the second lake, the horses needed the exercise, but on their way two other people on horses appeared before them, seemingly out of nowhere.

“Moses!” Liliana said, calming her horse after his sudden appearance had startled him. Both of them were heavily geared up, but even then they hadn’t made much noise and had easily approached the girls stealthily. “Don’t do that!”

“You gotta stay alert,” Moses said, laughing. “Where are you going?”

“Nowhere,” she replied angrily. “We are just riding the horses.”

“We are about to explore this place we found,” David said. “It’s pretty cool.”

“Just because the family doesn’t get on your cases for going wherever you please doesn’t mean that we won’t get in any trouble either,” Maira stated.

“It's close to here,” Moses said. “With the horses it won’t take that long to get there.”

“Why do you want us to go?” Liliana asked, suspicious of them. The idea was intriguing, since coming to this world she had been confined to the house, the farthest she had ever explored was the small distances they started taking the horses. Though she wanted to go, the boys were never home and nobody really knows what they do except that they are making some sort of map with Samuel.

“We want to take Santos along,” Moses replied. “But, he can’t leave his forge. So if you two come along, y'all can tell him what we find there so we don’t have to stick around.”

“Alright fine,” Liliana said. “Lead the way.”

Maira appeared distracted, Liliana thought that maybe she was a little upset that she wanted to tag along with the guys and had decided for the both of them. She wanted to say something to her, but didn’t want her to be more upset.

“So what is it that you found?” Liliana asked, after a while, breaking the silence the group had fallen into.

“It’s a stone door,” David replied.

“A door?” she asked rather disappointed.

“Wait till you see it,” he said.

They made small talk on the way, the boys talked about some of the animals they had seen and about some of the hunts they had done. The stories that most intrigued Liliana were about the villages that they scouted, they never entered them, but did list up some data on the villages and placed them on the map as well.

Their destination was past the second lake, out into the forest beyond the mountains, towards the east between forest and mountain.

It was simply planted there, the way it existed felt completely out of place, as if it was just placed without thought. It was a slab of dark stone with a stone framing on top of an equally dark stone dias. This stone slab was about two people tall and one wide.

They dismounted to inspect the stone dias and the slab more clearly.

“There’s a handle on the stone door,” David explained, pointing at it.

“Have you tried pulling on it?” Liliana asked, reaching for the handle.

“Don’t pull it,” Moses said. “We wanted to get some gear before we headed in.”

“Shouldn’t we have come geared up?” Liliana asked. She knew that Santos was making armor and weapons for the entire family. She wondered if Santos had already finished her set. She knew Maira already had hers, she had already shown Liliana the set the very first day she received it. “Or is it ok that we get killed?”

“We were originally planning on bringing Santos along,” Moses replied. “But, someone took the other horses in the morning, so we had to track you two down.”

“We could have headed back,” she said.

“Well it didn’t cross my mind at the time,” Moses shrugged his shoulders. “But, don’t worry. Me and David had hunted enough that we can take care of almost anything.”

“Well,” Liliana said, impatiently. “Are we going in or not?”

“A couple of rules first,” Moses said. “We already went in, but we didn’t explore it. So both of you stay between the both of us at all times. If for some reason we have to leave quickly, follow David, I will be protecting us from behind. Do not touch anything, we don’t know what’s safe and what’s dangerous. Last of all, you will also do as we say. If we tell you to stay quiet, do it. If we tell you anything, do it. Stuff like that is a matter of life and death when you are hunting, this is no different.”

“Fine, fine,” Liliana agreed.

“Maira?” Moses said.

“Yeah?” she said.

“Did you hear me?” he asked.

“Yes,” she nodded, the distracted look not leaving her eyes. “Do as you say.”

“Ok,” he said. Then reached for the handle and moved the door like he was opening it. Instantly there was a gasp from Liliana. “Yeah, it's definitely shocking.”

Beyond the doorway was another world entirely different, it was darker and the trees larger, the foliage thicker and lusher. If you walked behind the door you would see nothing, as if this entrance did not exist except through the doorway.

“Let’s get on the horses and go in,” Moses said, mounting up. The others quickly did the same.

When they headed in something strange happened.

“Moses!” Liliana said, riding up to him. “You are smoking!”

True enough, not only Moses, but David and Maria were both smoking, Maria more than the other two.

“Don’t worry about it,” Moses said. “It happened a whole lot more when we first came in, like its happening to Maira.”

“Why isn’t it happening to me?” Liliana asked.

“My face!” Maira suddenly screamed. They all turned to look at her and there was fire coming from her neck. She immediately tore away the scarf revealing green fire burning on her neck, the shape was strangely in the form of a hand, as if the fire was choking her. At the same time marking began to develop on her face. Three lines formed on her face, two streaming down from her eyes and stopped at her jawline and the third started from her lower lip and stopped at the bottom of her chin. The lines weren’t solid, they were composed of intricate aztec designs.

“Oh no,” Liliana put a hand up to her mouth. “Oh no.”

“What?” Maria asked, scared. She touched her face thinking she might feel blisters and burned skin, but there was nothing.

“Here,” Liliana said, she searched through the satchel on the horse and brought out a small makeup mirror.

She took it and looked at her face and saw the markings that had never been there before, she was reminded of the tattoos that appeared on Santos, but then the terrible realization hit her. Her parents were going to be beyond pissed.

“What about you guys?” Maira asked, looking up mortified from the mirror.

“We didn’t see anything,” David replied.

“Did you check your backs?” She asked.

“No,” David replied, and started to unstrap his chest plate. It took a moment to take off the armor, but once it was off he too had a tattoo on his back. The tattoo was of an axolotl, an amphibious creature, designed in aztec art. Steam continued to rise from David and as it did the tattoo became darker and more defined.

“Hey,” Moses said, clapping David’s back making him wince slightly. “It's not bad.”

“It’s not bad?” Liliana said, angry. “It’s on her face! How is she going to hide it from the family?”

They boys didn’t know what to say, they didn’t expect any of this to happen. They quietly worked on getting David’s armor on, Liliana, on the other hand, turned towards her cousin with tears in her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she said, moving her horse next to hers and placed a hand on her thigh. “I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have agreed to come with them.”

Maira did not respond; she was still shocked by what just happened, her mind had been full of what had happened the day before, now this had happened. It was like life was trying to crap on her as hard as it could and trying to one up itself.