Accidentally…Cimil? (Accidentally Yours #4.5)(14)
Author: Mimi Jean Pamfiloff

I’d bet my life that he’d put the evil priest up to the entire thing. A trap. Well, I would never fall for that again. Never. And I would have my revenge. That I vowed.

I crawled from the cenote and flopped down onto the moist dirt of the jungle floor. I listened to the sound of my breath, the sound of my heart, the birds chirping noisily above. I will find a way back, and I will kill him. Yes, this time I will come prepared.

Crossing that frigging ocean again in a stolen dinghy?

Ugh. I groaned. Why couldn’t humans invent faster? I’d happily take the frigging Christopher Columbus Santa Maria special! And that ship would be a rat-infested piece of crap once it came along.

I should’ve gone back to my realm to find out what Kinich really knew.

I rolled over onto my back.

“Hello.”

I yelped as my eyes registered… Me?

“What the hell?” I scrambled back doing a strange little crab crawl as I looked her over. Her dress was pink, shiny, and clearly from the future.

“Yeah,” the Other-me said, with one fist cocked on her hip. “I figured you’d freak out. But let me assure you, it only goes downhill from here.”

“What the hell?” Maybe I’d tripped through the cenote one too many times, or there’d been a malfunction. “What the hell?”

“I think you said that already, so why don’t you shut your piehole so I can explain. Can you do that?”

I nodded slowly.

“Good, because I’m only going to tell you this once. You have f**ked up. Big. Time. You stupid, horrible, pathetic goddess.” She cackled. “I’ve always wanted to say that.”

This had to be the most twisted thing I’d ever done to myself.

Okay. Time to end this little imaginary chat. I stood up and started to back away.

“Don’t make me pull out the big guns, Cimil. ’Cause I will. You know I will,” Other-me said.

“I don’t have time for this! I’ve got a bloodsucking pharaoh to kill. I’m going back to the cenote—” I looked at the watery portal, but instead of seeing a greenish pool, I saw bodies. Thousands of them piled high and overflowing.

I gasped and turned, only to see a wall of people staring right through me with extremely unhappy faces. Mixed in these faces were… “Guy? Chaam? Kinich… Ixtab!” What were all thirteen gods doing there?

I waved my hands in front of their faces, but they didn’t seem to acknowledge my presence.

“I’m losing my crazy-loca head,” I whispered.

“Nope. They can’t see you, they’re all dead,” Other-me said.

“Nope,” I argued. “I’m crazy. Do you know how I know that? Because I’m standing here talking to myself!”

Other-me held out her hand and hit me with a powerful surge of numbing light. Every major muscle froze.

Dammit. That’s one of my best tricks!

“Cimil. You will listen very carefully. Do you understand? Make like a dashboard hula girl if you do.”

“Huh?”

She rolled her eyes. “Nod! Nod if you understand.”

I managed to make a little nod.

“Good,” she said, “because as you are aware, the souls of the dead reside in a place beyond the confines of time and space.”

She released her grip, and I sucked in some air. “Yes. And I am the only one who can open a portal between the worlds…”

The Other-me jumped up and down, clapping. “Ding, ding, ding! You got it! I opened it up so we could have a little chat.”

I pointed to her. “Wait. So this isn’t a dream?”

“Nope. I’m dead! So is everyone else.” She looked at my brethren whose empty eyes made it easy to see that something horrible had happened to them. “And it was all your fault!” She looked up at the sky and kept on looking.

“Hello?” I snapped my fingers. “Helloooo?”

She didn’t respond.

Gods, the future version of me was so annoying. What happened?

“Hey! Wake up!” She snapped to.

“Hi there!” She smiled with wide eyes.

“You were explaining that I did something wrong?” I asked.

“Aha!” She flicked up her index finger. “Therein lies the question.” She shook her head and let out a whoosh. “I don’t have a clue.”

“You don’t know?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I know we all went crazy and basically blew up the planet. Oh! And that it’s your fault.”

Just like the vision I’d seen in Narmer’s eyes! Except for the it-being-my-fault part.

“You’re trying to tell me,” I said, “that I did something wrong, but you don’t know what. And that whatever this thing is, I destroyed the planet? So how do you know it was me?

“I remember dancing around the large hall, singing, ‘I won! It’s finally over!’ Other than that, it’s pretty much a blank.”

“That’s not proof! Come on!”

She stared with a deep frown. “Okay, I do remember one more thing—well, two really—but one is pretty depressing. Not sure I should go there.”

“Please, go there.”

“Okay.” She clapped excitedly. “I remember sleeping with a lot of strange creatures. What did you call that pharaoh?”

“A bloodsucker.”

She touched her nose. “That’s it! I remember sleeping with a lot of bloodsuckers. I mean”—she fanned her face—“a lot! But something was always missing.”

A soul, perhaps? “So this is your big depressing clue?” I asked.

“No. That’s the happy memory. Several thousand years from now, you discover that you are actually the bringer of the apocalypse.” She sighed. “This is how the Creator designed you.”

That couldn’t be right. I always protected humanity, safeguarded them from destruction. Except when I felt the need to deliver pain to the stupid, humiliate the weak, destroy all things imperfect—gasp! That’s, like, everyone. Except for me. And Minky, of course.

I covered my mouth, unable to believe it. “I am the bringer of the apocalypse?” I whispered.

“See. I told you. Completely sucks. I didn’t want to go there,” said Other-me.

“But why? Why would the Creator want this? Why would he-she make me evil?”

She shrugged. “How the hell am I supposed to know? That’s like asking why evil even exists. Or why lions like to chow down on baby gazelles. It’s like asking why humans created Teen Mom and call it entertaining. Bad, tasteless things are simply a part of the equation. Evil is a necessary ingredient.”