Chapter 46 The Temple That Should Not Exist

The stillness inside the temple was almost too perfect.

Kai stepped forward, boots crunching over a thin layer of obsidian dust that clung to the seams of ancient stone. The sound was sharp in the silence, every step echoing like it was the only movement the place had heard in centuries.

Above him, the stone archway shimmered faintly—not with torchlight or the glow of magic, but with the dull gray light of the eclipse seeping in through high, narrow slits in the wall. It painted faint bands across the floor, dim and unnatural.

The girls were gone. The entrance had vanished.

And Kai was alone.

Not alone the way you feel walking an empty hallway at night. Alone in a way that had presence—like the quiet itself was a living thing, watching, waiting.

The air was colder than stone this deep should allow. His breath came out in pale threads. The floor beneath him was smooth but interrupted by sharp golden inlays forming jagged symbols.

He knew them.

Too well.

The shapes matched the etched brass plate his mother had hung in their living room when he was a boy—an heirloom from one of their trips to visit family in Mexico. A jaguar and a serpent, locked forever in a struggle where neither was clearly winning. Devouring each other. Becoming each other.

Kai’s chest tightened.

The smell hit him next—sweet and bitter, grounding him in a flood of memory. Copal resin. The exact scent his grandmother burned in a chipped ceramic bowl on her altar to the Virgin of Guadalupe. The same scent that clung to his clothes after every visit. Sacred. Heavy.

He placed his hand against the nearest wall. The stone was cool, almost wet, and carved with patterns no fantasy world could have invented. These weren’t designs from a made-up game map.

They were Aztec.

The Temple of the Feathered Sun.

A place that should not exist here.

At the temple’s heart stood a massive obsidian mirror. It caught the eclipse light in fractured gleams, reflecting not just him—but versions of him that slid and shifted in the glass like oil in water.

A younger Kai—hair thicker, eyes brighter.
Kai carrying groceries in one arm, holding his son’s hand with the other.
Kai standing over a sink, washing dishes while his wife scrolled her phone behind him.
Kai curled in a dark corner, shaking, holding back sobs.

And then—

A man with golden eyes, standing exactly where he stood now.

That one didn’t mimic him. Didn’t move. Didn’t blink. It only stared.

Kai’s stomach twisted. He turned away, moving deeper into the chamber.

An altar waited at the far wall, draped in age and shadow. Resting atop it was an obsidian blade—flawless, sharp enough to drink the light.

He didn’t have to touch it to know.

“It’s mine,” he whispered, voice raw. “I brought it here.”

His knees hit the cold floor. Fingers trembled as he stared at the weapon.

“You weren’t supposed to come with me,” he said, almost to himself. “I left you all behind.”

The air shifted—not with sound, but with meaning. The faint scent of sage curled into the room, ghosting around him like an unseen hand.

On the wall beside the altar, a mural shimmered into view:
A faceless man kneeling before a deity wrapped in feathers and fire.
Behind him—shapes. Women. Children. Beasts. Warriors. All waiting. All watching.

And then a voice—not echoing in the room, but in his bones.

“You are the Dream Walker.”

It was not hostile. Not warm. Just tired.

“You brought this place here. But it will not be yours alone. Others now dream within your dream.”

Kai’s head snapped up. “Why am I seeing this now?”

“Because you no longer believe this is only a dream. And so… the truth bleeds in.”

The ground trembled. Dust shook loose from the ceiling, floating down in slow drifts.

A new hallway split open to his right, glowing faintly. He followed.

This part of the temple was wrong—too familiar. The walls here carried scenes from his own life. His childhood kitchen. The sketch he’d drawn in middle school. A red scarf he’d once given away. His Akita’s foam bed.

This wasn’t history. It was memory.

His memory.

The realization cut deep—this world was no longer just built around him. It was growing out of him.

He pressed his palm against one of the mirror-walls. A ripple spread across its surface, and a silhouette stepped forward. Cloaked. Slender. A mask painted with a wide, bone-white grin. Feathers trailing.

The mask rippled—and shifted into her. Not her face exactly, but her weight. His wife’s tone. Her judgments. The kind of presence that crushed rather than touched.

“You left everything,” it said. “Your vows. Your pain. Your shame.”

“I died,” Kai shot back.

“No. You escaped.”

The air closed in around him like a fist.

It went on, tearing into him. Every flaw. Every wound. Every memory of being told he wasn’t enough.

“You wanted to be needed,” the voice hissed. “And now they bleed for your dream.”

Kai’s jaw locked. He turned toward one of the mirrors.

The man looking back wasn’t quite him. Taller. Leaner. Stoic. A version of himself without the receding hairline, the worn body, the tired eyes. A mask of what he wished he could be.

But it was still him enough to hurt.

He thought of his scars. The callouses on his hands. The weight of every breath.

“I didn’t ask for this,” he said.

“But you wanted it.”

Behind the conjurer, a mural cracked into being.

A man in bed, clutching his chest.
The final breath.
The fade.

“You died in your world, Kai. And in dying… you brought this place into being.”

His stomach dropped.

“Then I’m not dreaming.”

“No. But you still think you are. And that belief… gives you power.”

He swallowed. “What happens when I stop believing?”

The mask split in a grin.

“Then the world will truly test if you belong in it.”

Kai sat back against the altar, staring at the knife. Memories crashed into him—his wife’s voice, his son’s small arms around his neck, the garage on that worst night, the quiet betrayal of someone who had asked about his day.

And then the guilt.

The shame.

The fact that some part of him had wanted to stay in this new place since the moment he arrived.

He stood.

“I made this temple,” he said quietly. “But I didn’t make them.”

His hand wrapped around the obsidian blade.

Behind him, the mural shifted again—no jaguar, no warrior. A black raven with wings outstretched before a rising sun. Cacalotl. Trickster and messenger. Shadow and light.

It felt… right.

Kai stepped toward the darkness ahead.

The girls were waiting for him.

And this time… he’d tell them everything.