Twilight of the Llamas
I am so, so sorry for creating this but alas…it was better out in the world than forever in me.
I never gave much thought to how I would die. I just never imagined it would be like this.
Bellama twisted in her stable, her long neck craning toward the window. Dusk had fallen—thick and blue—over her little mountain village of Salt Lick, Peru. She sighed. She had always longed for something more. Something exciting. Something else. But some things just weren’t meant to be. Bellama had long since resigned herself to a quiet life with her single father, Charllama—the sheriff of Salt Lick.
She lowered her head, resting her neck against her lean, elegant haunches—
SNAP.
The sharp crack of a branch split the stillness. Her head shot up. For a moment, she didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. She was alone. Charllama was working late, investigating the recent puma attack. The world narrowed to stillness and adrenaline. Her heart pounded in her soft, wool-lined chest as she strained to hear anything—anything at all.
Nothing.
Too quiet.
After a long moment, she exhaled and began, cautiously, to settle back down—
“Hello, there.”
Bellama froze. That had not been her imagination.
“Hello,” the voice came again.
Above her.
Slowly—very slowly—she lifted her gaze to the rafters and blinked. Once. Twice. As if that might make it disappear.
It didn’t.
A ginger llama clung there, suspended upside down in the shadows, its body unnaturally still. Watching her. Its eyes did not blink.
And when it smiled—
it was hungry.
Vicama did not drop. She unfolded. Slowly—deliberately—her limbs loosened from the rafters, her body descending with a fluid, unnatural grace. She did not fall so much as unravel, landing without a sound in the packed earth of the stable.
Bellama stumbled back, her legs trembling beneath her.
“What… what are you?” she managed, backing into the corner.
The ginger figure straightened.
It smiled.
Too wide. Too sharp.
“You smell… different,” Vicama said, tilting her head slightly, as if studying something rare. “Different from the others.”
She stepped forward. Unhurried. Certain.
Bellama pressed herself against the wooden wall, her breath coming quick and shallow.
Vicama’s eyes held hers.
Unblinking.
“I am Vicama,” she said softly. “And you have nothing to fear from me, little one…”
She leaned closer.
Closer.
“…soon, you won’t feel anything at all.”
She was close now. Too close. Bellama could feel her breath—warm, wrong—against her neck.
“Close your eyes,” Vicama whispered. “It will be over quickly.”
Bellama tried to resist.
She couldn’t.
The words slipped through her like wine, heavy and sweet, pulling her under. Her eyes closed.
The last thing she saw was that smile—
and the glint of something sharp behind it.
“Hello, Vicama. Fancy meeting you here.”
The voice was calm. Warm in a way Vicama’s had not been. There was something else in it, too—something quieter. Something like sorrow.
The breath vanished from Bellama’s neck.
She drew in a shaky gasp, her eyes opening as if waking from a dream. The heaviness that had pressed on her mind lifted, though not entirely. Not yet.
Vicama straightened slowly.
For the first time, she did not look at Bellama.
She looked past her.
Toward the entrance of the stable.
“Well,” Vicama said lightly, though something in her tone had shifted, “if it isn’t you.”
Bellama followed her gaze.
At first, she saw nothing.
Then—
she realized he had been there all along.
Standing just inside the doorway.
Still.
Perfectly still.
Edama.
He did not step forward. Did not announce himself further. He simply stood, as though he had always been part of the shadow, waiting for the moment to be seen.
“Leave her,” he said quietly.
Not a command.
A certainty.
Vicama smiled again, but it had changed—sharper now, more interested than amused.
“And miss this?” she asked. “You always did have a flair for poor timing, Edama.”
Edama’s gaze did not waver.
“She’s not yours.”
A pause.
Then Vicama laughed, soft and delighted.
“Oh,” she said, almost fondly, “that’s where you’re wrong.”
Faster than Bellama thought possible, Vicama moved—a flash of red cutting through the dim light of the stable as she lunged straight for Edama.
Bellama tried to cry out, but the sound caught in her throat. He was already gone.
Not moved. Gone.
Vicama’s strike tore through empty space, splintering the wooden beam behind him with a crack that echoed through the stable. Dust and fragments rained down as she twisted mid-motion, landing lightly, already turning toward him.
Edama stood a few paces to the side, exactly where he needed to be, unruffled and untouched.
Vicama’s smile widened. “Yes,” she said softly. “That’s more like it.”
She struck again, faster this time—a blur of motion and intent—but Edama met her with equal precision. The impact sounded like thunder in the enclosed space, their forms colliding and separating in the same instant, circling one another in a rhythm Bellama could barely comprehend. One was all hunger and movement; the other impossibly still between motions, as if he chose exactly where the world would allow him to stand.
Bellama pressed herself against the wall, her breath shallow and uneven. She could not follow them—not fully—only flashes of motion, the sharp crack of wood, the rush of air as they moved too quickly for her eyes to hold.
But one thing was clear.
Vicama could not get past him.
Every lunge was turned. Every angle closed. Every path was blocked. Edama never advanced. He simply remained—and that was enough.
At last, Vicama slowed, just slightly. Her smile did not fade, but something else entered it now—something sharper than hunger.
Recognition.
Interest.
Her gaze drifted past him, settling once more on Bellama, and for the first time, she hesitated.
“Well,” Vicama murmured, almost to herself, “he’ll want to hear about you.”
Edama’s stillness shifted, just a fraction. “Leave,” he said.
Vicama’s eyes flicked back to him, and then she smiled again—bright, dangerous, delighted. “Another time, then.”
In the next instant, she was gone.
The stable fell silent.
Dust drifted slowly through the air, catching what little light remained, turning it soft and hazy. The broken beam creaked once, then settled. Outside, the night pressed in again, as though nothing had happened at all.
Bellama did not move.
Her breath came in shallow pulls, each one a little steadier than the last, though her legs still trembled beneath her. The place where Vicama had stood felt wrong now—empty, but not safe. As if something had been torn away, leaving the air itself unsettled.
Edama remained where he was, his back still to her, his gaze fixed on the dark opening of the stable.
Waiting.
Listening.
Only when the silence held—when even the memory of motion seemed to fade—did something in him ease. Not much. Just enough.
Slowly, he turned.
Bellama flinched before she could stop herself.
Up close, he did not look like Vicama. There was no wildness in him, no restless hunger pressing at the edges. If anything, it was the opposite—everything about him felt held back, contained, as though whatever strength he possessed was being deliberately restrained.
His eyes met hers.
They were not what she expected.
In the dim light, they caught and held it, reflecting it back in a way that felt almost deliberate. Not bright, not glowing—but steady. Deep. As though there were layers beneath what she could see, something older, something measured. They did not dart or flicker.
They did not search.
They simply knew. Knew things about her no one could possibly know. Her heart began to race in her cashmere chest. Edama’s eyes showed emotion as if he knew this too.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
The question caught her off guard. Bellama blinked, as if she had forgotten how to answer something so simple.
“I—no,” she said finally, though her voice came out unsteady. “I don’t think so.”
He nodded once, as though that had been the only answer he needed.
Silence settled again between them, thinner now, uncertain.
“What… was that?” she asked, her voice quieter this time. “What is she?”
Edama’s gaze shifted, just slightly, toward the rafters where Vicama had been.
“Someone you should never have met,” he said, tinged with regret.
That didn’t feel like an answer.
Bellama swallowed, her eyes flicking to the doorway, then back to him. “And you?” she asked. “What are you?”
For the first time, something in his expression changed.
Not much.
But enough.
“I’m the reason you’re still alive,” he said.
It wasn’t pride.
It wasn’t threat.
It was simply… true.
Bellama held his gaze, her heart still racing, though for reasons she didn’t entirely understand anymore.
Outside, the wind stirred again, brushing softly against the stable walls, as if the night itself had begun to breathe once more.
And for the first time since the voice had called down from the rafters, Bellama realized something had changed.
The world hadn’t become safer.
Only different.
And somehow—
she had stepped into it. And she would never be the same.
The silence lingered between them, thin and uncertain, as though the world itself was waiting to see what would happen next.
Bellama opened her mouth to speak, but the words never came.
Footsteps.
Faint at first, then clearer—crunching softly over the dirt outside the stable.
Edama heard them too. Something in him shifted—not fear, not urgency, but decision. He stepped back, not away from her, but away from the light, letting the shadows take him.
“Wait,” Bellama said, the word barely leaving her lips.
His gaze held hers for a brief moment longer. Whatever she meant to ask, whatever she didn’t understand, he seemed to see all of it.
“Not tonight,” he said quietly.
The footsteps drew closer, accompanied now by a familiar voice, low and worn from a long night.
“Nothing out there but tracks and bad luck…”
Charllama.
Bellama’s heart jumped, and when she looked back, Edama was gone. Not moved—gone.
The stable door creaked open, lantern light spilling into the dim interior as Charllama stepped inside. Dust clung to his coat, and the wear of a long shift lined his face, but his eyes were sharp, already searching.
“Bellama?” he called, lifting the lantern slightly. “You alright in here?”
She stared at him for a moment, her thoughts scrambling to catch up with what had just happened. “I—I’m fine,” she said, though the words felt distant, like they belonged to someone else.
Charllama stepped further inside, the lantern casting long, shifting shadows across the stable. The broken beam caught the light. The gouged wood. The disturbed earth.
His expression hardened.
“That don’t look fine,” he said.
He moved slowly through the space, each step deliberate, his posture shifting as the sheriff overtook the father. He crouched near the splintered wood, running a practiced eye over the damage, then glanced toward the rafters.
“Something was here,” he muttered. “And it wasn’t any puma.”
Bellama’s gaze flicked, almost against her will, toward the doorway—toward the darkness beyond, where the night pressed close and silent.
Toward where Edama had been.
She said nothing.
What am I doing with my life?
This is the end of part [DEEP SIGH] 1. We will return to Salt Lick and Bellama…whenever. I don’t know. I hate myself for bringing this into the world. I’m sorry, I really am. I need help. Please help me. The llamas…they…they call to me!
