"Moons ago, we lost everything." Gal said, sorrow filled his gaze. "An army came, people from Maghada of course, they are the only one capable of having thousand of men fully equipped, and they're the only one that can come from the east. We doubt they come from the north, those in the mountains are peaceful people. And they can't come from the sea, they had horses and many other useless rides.
Our lands burnt, our village vanished under the flames' heat, our families died. Everyone is the same here. After we found ourselves alive, unwilling to give up on everything we had built back then, we joined forces and have made this village rise in the ashes of our previous lives."
Gal added more details to his story, explaining people's roles in the camp. Women doing house shores, cooking, sewing, farming, braiding, manage livestock and cattle while the men fetched water, cut wood, carved and hunted.
The women's work was essential and time consuming, they had yet to finish making comfortable beds and proper furnitures for their future babies before making themselves clothes. Cold season approached too.
The men's work made them walk all day, lift heavy weights, build houses and protect their village. Training was part of their daily basis and it made them grew in strength more that they already where. Under the ash that covered their body, stretching marks damaged their perfect skin, the crevices stacked sweat better, allowing the ash to hold better. It looked like a lightning blessing.
There wasn't much around them, no neighbours to fight with, no love, just work. The ashy soil allowed them to grow various fruits, vegetables and grain, their food stock grew at a steady pace, making them ready against everything but a new war. The fertile women they had at hand handled the next generation, one that would age as a unique generation, with the purpose to make more citizens and grew the village in size.
No one was too old to work, the elder, a man in his late thirties, was chosen as a chief because of his knowledge on task management but also community structuration.
Thus was created the black village, a new tribe was born.
"Welcome to Paragon, the perfect village." Said Gal, filling Keith's cup once more.
From the end of the table, he could see his chief's dark glare. It wasn't the first time he saw it, not all of the adults knew about alcohol's dangers. The kid wouldn't understand what was happening in his body as his brain felt dizzier each time he warmed his stomach with the fuzzy liquid.
Show knew what was alcohol's effects, but he did not think a young civilisation would prioritize a brewing as one of their first professions.
'I don't feel okay.' Thought Keith, alerting his two companions. 'My head is spinning, my movements are not as coordinated as usual, I'm not feeling okay, did they poison me?'
Ardi, with a hand on his chin, spoke. "No little one, it seems they know how to make some sort of beer with their fruits, I am not sure of which one, but if it has bubbles, it's a consequence of fermentation, therefore, this must be your first time drunk!" He was quite happy about it, it brought back many memories of himself ending up late in the night, organizing lobster fights with his crew. 'Good lords I had great moments in my life.' He thought.
Keith kept listening to Gal, while the man asked few question in return.
"How old are you?" "Did you get your eyes from your mother or from your father?" "Who taught you how to kill?" Nothing that concerned his loneliness, nor the fact he was running away.
More beverage. More bubbles to tickle his cheeks and tongue.
People's face begun to change. Their smile reached both sides of their head, sometimes, their heart was so light they begun to sing altogether, hitting the table to have a beat first, and looking at each other in amusement while using their charred voices.
Contrary to Keith, none had been touched by the fire, not directly. But their moon-long cries and the constant dust in the air had damaged their lungs and voices.
The kid's clumsy movement led him to add strength to his gestures, his stomach was fine, there was no vomiting urge, but he had no clear idea of what he was doing.
Answering question became harder to do. After one hour, anything he was asked became confusing. None of the questions were clear. He took his cup one last time and noticed it was empty. He wanted more of the fun-juice. He bit his cup, and ate a part of it in front of his hosts.
He didn't even notice his fault and continued his snack.
Gal scoffed at the weak boy before putting a whole beef leg in front of him. It was hot, the liquid fat escaped its cuts to colour the table.
Keith started with the crunchy part, the thing passing through the meat. He did not wait for it to stop steaming and ignored the hot temperature boiling the skin on his hands and lips.
The room suddenly fell silent. Only the crackling wood and the breaking bone could be heard.
"Wow... if he wanted a broth, he could've asked." One woman commented.
Seeing the ease the kid had to eat, and his darkening eyes, people hesitated to approach, the discomfort begun. The sound of bone being crushed under his teeth rather than the opposite, and the low growl he added when pulling the flesh with both arms and neck was blood curdling.
Nothing, no flavour, no pleasure. An argument strong enough to anger the little one, he accelerated his pace, cutting the inside of his mouth with bone shards multiple times. His aggressiveness grew with each bite, everyone around him now paid attention and worried.
"What is he doing?" They asked, it was the same thing resounding in the kid's head, Ardi and Show couldn't reach the kid, talking as loud as possible wouldn't even make him flinch, just add noise to the starting panic.
Twelve kilos of meat vanished in a few minutes, the cuts on the kid's cheeks widened with each impossible gap he tried to reach with his jaw.
First, people were astonished. Thanks to what they all had drunk that evening, they lacked common sense until they felt danger, which was not the easiest step to achieve in a tribe composed of muscular humans.
When there was nothing left on the table, the kid let out a deafening screech. Blood gushed out of his mouth, both his and his meal's juice. He jumped on the table to steal someone else's cup.
The situation wasn't under control, the men came close to him, hoping to catch him and block him somehow.
Mister Show did not react a bit, Keith needed to be calmed down, and the fire made too much light for him to get out.
While most women had been evacuated thanks to the village chief, three men stepped forward to stop the kid, now attacking things he had at hand.
"Nothing!" He shouted, tears running down his bloody cheeks. His voice's distortion made his wail incomprehensible. His tongue was damaged and his fake smile extended to his ears.
He was mad, the explanation was affected too, its usual calmness had lost its balance and the monster was fighting against Keith's sense of equilibrium. It was the same as being kicked off a cliff and uncontrollably rolling down.
"Nothing!" He screamed once more. His eyes wouldn't revert back to the peaceful green he had underneath. His hands were slippery because of the meat he had touched. He reinforced his grip and added his nails to the damaged list. He looked at the fire pit for a second, thinking about how he could cripple himself as quickly as possible, he was angry against himself. Not being able to be normal was his biggest fault and the alcohol coursing his blood had spilled the beans to the new tribe.
It was the occasion to act for the men that had nothing such as an armor to protect themselves in case of aggression.
Keith wanted to feel pleasure when he ate, or at least feel better than the usual bland taste everything had. Instead, he had three men, pushing his head in the sand with enough force to make his left arm break.
Nothing changed. His stomach was neither full nor empty. Even with two axes under his throat, he continued to vent his pain. Emptiness.
One of the handle was placed to avoid him biting left and right, this until it bursted with one ferocious chomp and more that threatened the men's hands.
It was Show's best occasion to provoke a heart attack, many hands nearby, nowhere to fall because he was already at ground level...
Now.
Ba-thu-
The monster squeezed the kid's insides, stopping the blood flow for a second before giving it a new calmer pace. Literally torturing the pump's mechanism each time he needed to calm the kid should've been risky for a mortal, not for Keith. It was only more pain.