In the heart of ancient Tenochtitlán, where the moonlight itself seemed to carry the scent of death, there walked Baauk—a vampire, cursed with an eternity of unholy existence, doomed to wander the dark corridors of time while all that was pure and beautiful crumbled and decayed. He was the shadow of a man, cursed to stand as a monument to all that was lost. No gods answered his cries, no solace could be found in the endless stretch of centuries he had witnessed. His immortal soul, rotting beneath a mask of stone, knew only the bitter taste of time's indifference. Yet, once, in the thick of his despair, he had known something more—a love, fragile and fleeting as a dying ember in the darkest of nights.

Her name was Xitllali. She was a star—a celestial being with skin that shone like the finest obsidian, with eyes that glittered like the heavens themselves. She was alive. She was life, in its purest and most excruciating form, and she had touched him with a tenderness he could never have imagined in his cursed state. She had loved him in a way no mortal ever had, casting aside the shadows of fear and disgust that naturally followed him, the beast he had become. He had clung to her like a drowning man clinging to a splinter, his existence now wrapped in her warmth, her laughter, her breath.

But the gods are cruel.

Their time together had been a brief flicker in the abyss—a spark of light snuffed out by the insatiable void. She was human, and she aged. And time—ever so relentless, ever so unforgiving—devoured her like it devours all things. Baauk could do nothing but watch. He, a wretched creature of the night, helpless before the natural cycle of life and death. How could he, a monster of eternal dusk, stand against the tide of time that would claim her? She, who had once been so bright, now grew dull. Her body, once as lithe and graceful as a delicate flower, began to wither, sagging under the weight of years, of death.

And Baauk—he could only weep.

He could only watch with hollow, cursed eyes as her skin paled, her breath grew labored, and her laughter was swallowed by the silence of an inevitable end. She was fading before him, like a flame consumed by wind. And he could do nothing.

Her body grew frail, delicate, and Baauk, in his infinite sorrow, was left powerless in the face of her slow, agonizing decay. It was as if the very world turned against her, as if it wished to punish her for loving him, for daring to see something in him that no mortal could. The sickness took her, slowly but surely, until there was nothing left but the shell of the woman he had once held in his arms.

And the gods, in their infinite malice, did not answer.

When she finally passed, when her breath ceased to rise and fall beneath the heavy weight of death, Baauk was left alone. The room was silent, save for the sounds of his shallow, despairing breaths. He had held her hand as she slipped away, his fingers tracing the lines of her palm as though it would somehow bring her back, as though the touch of his cold, dead skin could restore her. But it couldn't. It never could.

Her last words, so faint, so fragile, echoed in his mind. "Do not mourn me, my love... for I am a star, and stars are meant to burn bright... but not forever."

Her body, once so vibrant, now lay in his arms like a lifeless doll, cold and still. The empty room seemed to echo with the sound of her absence, the silence growing louder with every passing second. He whispered her name over and over, each utterance more desperate than the last, each syllable like a death knell for what could never be again.

"Xitllali... Xitllali..."

And yet, in the depths of the night, something stirred.

Outside, the birds began to chirp. Their calls, shrill and innocent, echoed through the hollow air. Baauk, the vampire who had watched empires rise and fall, whose eyes had seen the world change in ways unimaginable to mortal men, felt the cruel mocking of their song. He, the creature of eternal night, cursed to never age, to never know rest, stood there in the darkness, listening to the sound of life continuing—continuing without him, continuing without her.

How foolish they were, those birds, to sing in the face of such sorrow, such suffering. They chirped, fluttering about in their brief, fleeting lives, ignorant of the eternal torment that clung to Baauk's soul like a second skin. They did not know what it was like to walk alone through the centuries, to never taste the joy of seeing the sun rise, to never feel the warmth of love again. They did not know what it was to be an immortal monster, cursed to outlive everything he had ever cared for.

The birds mocked him. The sun mocked him. The very earth mocked him, as it had always mocked him. And yet, despite it all, he stood there, rooted to the spot, his cold, dead heart aching with the absence of the one who had made him feel human, if only for a moment.

And when the first light of dawn broke across the sky, Baauk, the vampire, turned away from the window. He could not look upon the daylight—so bright, so unrelenting—without feeling the bitter sting of loss, the cruel irony of his endless existence. He walked outside, feeling the first rays of morning against his skin like a thousand daggers.

The light, so bright, so warm, would never touch his heart again. It could never touch him. He had been forsaken by everything he had ever known. His life had become a pitiful, endless echo, an unyielding scream into the void. The birds still sang their carefree song, oblivious to his suffering.

Baauk walked on, aimless, broken, pathetic—a vampire lost in a world that had long since ceased to care. He walked, knowing that he would never again feel the warmth of her touch, never again hear her laugh, never again bask in the light of her love.

And the birds, the wretched birds, chirped as if the world was still whole.