The Cave of Souls was quiet. Every candle flickered with the flame of someone's life, new and old souls cast shadows along the sides of the cave. A translucent cloud of mist, from the three separate waterfalls, hung in the cavern and acted like a flooring around the floating stone that was the only hard piece that someone could stand on. The only things standing on this floating stone was a man that glowed like the sun and a marble pedestal holding up one object, a book.
This book was a sterling amber with a gold pattern of swirls and in the center of this book was an upside maroon spade. The book's pages looked a bit tattered in the front but the pages' conditions seemed to look better the farther back they were. This was the Book of Life. All of life's stories were contained on these pages. From the goods to the bads, this book had it all. Stories of how things came to be like The Legend of the Cempasuchil Flower and The Culture of the Sun, along with stories of immortals such as Tlaloc's Favorite Tears. But most importantly, there were stories of mortals like the story of Manolo Sanchez and the story of Miguel Rivera. Stories that were thought to be myths when passed around by tongue but they were all true on the pages of the Book of Life.
The man standing on this floating stone stared at all the candles that showed the life every soul out there. Every now and then, a candle would blow out telling him that that soul has passed on. He never felt much sadness whenever a candle's light dimmed and finally went out. He knew that the soul would move on to the Land of the Remembered, to spend decades maybe even centuries there until they were forgotten and moved on. He knew they would be reunited with past family members and be happy once more. This man knew all of this because he was the Candle Maker. He watched over the souls and created new ones when it was their time to be apart of the Land of the Living. He knew all of this because he saw all of this. Every day of every year, he watched. Most days were boring and quiet just watching the souls, but every now and then something amazing would happen.
The first greatest thing to happen to his Cave of Souls was the very first wager between the rulers of the two realms. La Muerte and Xibalba. It was something stupid obviously for it only caused them to separate themselves but it entertained the Candle Maker for a few years as they would come to him to rant about each other. It was long needed conversation, even if they were really only talking about their problems. After that, he read the stories from the Book of Life. Then once again, another wager between the two immortal beings. But this wager was different, it was on mortals. Three to be exact. Two young boys and a girl. The Candle Maker knew everything about these souls but he never knew which boy would marry the girl. Soon enough, this wager brought Manolo Sanchez to him and in the span of a day, the most amazing events occurred to the Candle Maker. And all of it came from one mortal. Nothing could compete to that event and since the Sanchez's nothing else could cure his boredom. He missed a major event of a young boy traveling to the Land of the Dead named Miguel Rivera, but he heard all about it and wept for it was just the type of marathon he would've loved to be apart of.
So here he was again, his only choice was to read from the book or watch the candles some more. He chose the book. There could be new stories so he thought that he might as well read. The Candle Maker picked up the book in his huge, wax hands and started carefully flipping through the pages, being careful not to damage a page. The most recent story was of the Rivera family which just made him sigh in disappointment. Nothing new, that meant he was back to watching candles flicker or fade or get blown away by the whisper of death.
But to his curiosity the book rattled in his hands and the pages of Miguel's story flipped to a brand new page, a blank page. His eyes widened in amazement.
"Santa Gordita!",he yelled out, his voice echoing in the cave. A new story was slowly starting to form in front of his eyes. This is what he needed. A new story with new people. A new adventure. As inked words started to form on the paper, he raised an eyebrow. He shook his head in disappointment.
"Ay yi yi…",the Candle Maker murmured a little disappointedly though deep in his heart, he was starting to surge with excitement.
It all began with Miguel Rivera…