The stranger was begging my supposed father with a child in his grasp. His old white hair was tainted with red and green vials all over the place.
A cleaver on his back pocket that he brought was also drenched in a putrid combination of both colors of blood. The child who looked no older than 1 year old was sobbing nonstop, filling the room with wails and weeps.
The man looked back and forth between me, the woman, and the stranger.
He turned to the woman after thinking for a while. "Rakirasa biga sifi anak mere pula?" he asked her with a concerned look as if asking for permission.
A problematic expression plagued her face before she nodded with a lot of difficulties. "Tapina enti cemana anakita kalot seranin garukh?" she said after looking at me in her arms.
"Kutapu nase injata ka lomuji gati garang," she continued with a demanding tone and a bit of tension in her voice.
The man immediately returned to his thinking pose, getting more worked up than before. One of his feet tapped the floor quickly as a sign of pondering. After several taps, he finally looked like coming up with something.
"Kuaka si saine pedukna bua merka, pakila tu bua garukh," he uttered quickly before running to the floor above. We only witnessed as he dashed through us before the stranger took our attention again.
"Huru, makase suda mojaga anaku," he spoke gratefully while carefully handing the baby to the woman. She gracefully accepted the child as the man already made his way downstairs.
He brought down a familiar wooden box in his hands and put it on the table. The pouch that contained his fire powders was also placed next to it before he revealed the content of the box.
Just like I remembered, the contents of the box were the red flowers that worked as incense. I tried to comprehend what the man was trying to accomplish by bringing that to here.
He poured down everything that remained inside the pouch to the table. A silent cursing slipped out of his mouth as he realized the tiny amount of ignition powder left.
He picked some flowers and plucked their petals one by one before clumping them all together in the powder. Then, his hands jumbled all the ingredients until they were blended well enough.
Pieces of clothing were utilized as packing for the mixture, but the result was only two ready-for-use fire starter packs. Though, the effect of the added incense flowers was still unknown to me.
He gave both of the fire packs to the woman while saying something to her. "Pakena jaga sambara, ni cumada tu pirin," he said as he let go of the packages.
"Yakutau," she said shortly after receiving the packs, holding them with so much care as if they could light up anytime.
The man then grabbed his flaming rapier on the ground, preparing to leave with the stranger. As he strode hurriedly to the door, a call from the woman halted his steps.
"Tiha tidisa na! Garukhan pati si banya dise bula," she told him with a tinge of uneasiness. Her clutch on the child was getting more secured.
"Yatena an, kuta kamadi siciro disin," he replied with an assuring tone, then walked to the woman and pecked her on the lips. They spent a little time connecting their forehead until they both shared a relaxed smile. After he was finished with her, the man left with the stranger to someplace I didn't know while the child suddenly became a part of the house resident.
When they were already far enough from the house, her attention was shifted to the new child in her arms.
Due to her eyes being locked to the baby refugee, her free hand was used as a guide to look for something on the table. She found a big candle on the center and then ignited it to give any sense of vision inside.
She was baffled by the dirtiness of the baby's cloth as she attentively put the child beside me before going somewhere. A long while passed in the dim room as we did our own thing. Our produced sounds were really a contrast, I was being too silent while the person by my side sounded like a normal baby.
She came back to the room with a cleaner set of cloth and proceeded to remove the child's filthy wrapper.
Since the child was not covered by any blood, the woman only wiped the body before covering the baby's figure. Her wrapping was as sloppy as the usual her, but it was enough to stop the crying.
When things were starting to look normal for us, the rumblings at the kitchen had disrupted our peace. The hiding girl was panicking when she dashed outside of her room.
She looked for the woman and violently tugged her clothes until the woman's attention was driven to no one but herself. The woman was a bit irritated at first but then she was jolted due to the girl's finger.
The girl's closing-eyes-and-predict situation was happening again and her finger was pointing to the backside of our house. The woman immediately entered a battling stance, hastily took the fire pack into her brown robe's sleeve. For now, my sole participation was becoming silent enough to let her focus.
The girl's other hand was telling a number again, but it was only the thumb that was raised.
Six.
The wait was filled with fright as the girl's finger was struggling to keep itself steady.
"Saira, natika mungu umpeta dirapudu gi, ya?" she whispered something to the girl.
"Tapika...,"
"Raada tapika, nampaka mudi temu dama pula kita," she interrupted. The girl perhaps wanted to reject her words but the woman was being insistent.
Unexpectedly, the girl walked to return to her room, which was located in the direction she pointed at. She looked back to the woman, hesitating, but the woman kept on assuring her.
The girl slid the door open then meekly entered the hiding room. Her face was peeking out from the door, showing a continuous increase of anxiety.
"Rame!" the girl suddenly shouted.
Then the kitchen's wall was busted out of nowhere, revealing the insects who spurted into the room.
The woman instantly swiped her finger and created a flickering flame. She took one fire pack from the sleeve and burned it as fast as she could.
The pack was thrown, aimed at the first enemy that came into the vision. My eyes followed the pack as it was ignited mid-air and blew up on the insect's face.
The insect screeched from the pain while the smoke was overwhelming him. Not long after, its claw was beginning to shook before the whole body dropped to the side, beginning to lose life.
The group behind it, however, wasn't affected by the fire pack as much as the one with direct contact. They walked dizzily and split into two smaller groups; one chased the girl and the other chased us.
"Saira! Pero idup muke kibusini!" the woman shouted a command to her.
Wasting no more time, the girl's hand was raised outside of the door toward us. From her fingers, the golden strings of her specialty were shot and latched onto the woman.
The strings that were connected to the woman brightly shone in their yellow shade, somehow stealing the attention of the insects. One group was almost reaching the girl and made her more desperate from the pressure.
Her face was showing the loss of power, but she stayed in position and kept the connection going. The woman only watched as it all happened. I wanted to shout at her to help the girl but it would be futile.
And then the string abruptly broke up.
When my vision returned to the girl, her hand was dropped to the floor and she was collapsed out of exhaustion.
Astonishingly, the group of insects that was onto her only stood in place, losing any interest toward her. Instead, they joined to become one group again and chased us. The woman used a wind slap to halt their movement, but it wouldn't be long until they would overwhelm us.
"Tubisi, Saira! Kusera hini romah dimu!" she shouted the words that sounded like praise for the unconscious girl before picking me and the other baby in her arms.
She squeezed our bodies in her armpits and grabbed the candle to be brought with us. We ran outside while the insects behind us began to put up a chase.
As the running commenced, our escape began.
The woman took us on a run in the village, marking it the first moment I ever left the house. However, due to the position I was currently stuck in, I could only spot the dry ground below us and some people's legs that we occasionally passed through.
The light from the candle was also not able to reach a meaningful distance, although I managed to catch a vision of wooden walls from other houses at times.
"Kheru adhari sibu!" someone yelled as we went past them. I saw a glimpse of a weapon near his hip and his feet were covered by thick leather boots. Somehow I had a hunch that he told us to run from this place, an advice not needed to be said.
I assumed those who stayed here were brave guards or a person insane enough for not running. But my father seemed to be one of some individuals who picked a fight with those creatures. I couldn't think of another reason for him to be bringing the rapier around.
The further we were from home, the more my mind thought about the girl who was left in the house. I wondered the reason why she was abandoned by the woman, especially while being defenseless.
The thought of leaving her behind was bothering me. Regardless, the insect's group switched their attention from her at that time.
We had been running for quite the distance now, but there wasn't any sign of crowd other than the screams that filled the background.
Contrasting to the commotion before, the situation now was much eerier since there would be fewer indicators of those creatures. Other people would be a great help for noticing the blind spots that you weren't aware of, but the woman carrying me was not surrounded by the others for now. Not to mention how useless I would be in this current state.
Most of the people must have tried to find somewhere secure as soon as those beasts arrived. We might be going to the same route as those people who had found safety.
The pesky insects' noises were screeching around us, looming dreadfully as if they were ready to jump on anyone. Bawls from the baby in her other hand were also erupting and created a more perturbing clash of noise there. The woman tried her best to bear through all of them and dashed at the highest speed possible.
She followed the path that was covered with other footprints before suddenly stopping when a faint sound was heard on the side.
It wasn't the insect's noise or the crying that caught her attention, but another voice. A small voice of desperation that my ears picked up too.
A sobbing sound of a girl.
Her hold was getting even more suffocating that time as she turned everywhere to search for the noise's source. She waved the candle from left to right and back on the air, perhaps hoping the person to see her visible repeated signal.
"Hoyyy! Sapo dosana?" she called out but no answer was received, possibly because her shout was drowned by the baby's wails. Despite all the terrifying shrieks that accompanied our rear, she went straight onto the person in question instead of running away.
She steadily approached the sound in the houseless area and walked careful enough not to drop the candlestick. Her steps were getting tenser as the candle fire finally spotted someone who was sitting on the ground. A girl with short green hair was hugging her knees and cried while her face was burrowed in her hips.
"Dik? Banguka dik," she lowered her body and tapped the girl multiple times lightly to stop her crying. Her voice was also shifted into a soothing one to calm the weeping girl. However, the girl shook her head and clung to her knees even more than before. it seemed like the baby's hysteric bawl was a contagious thing.
There was a thing on the girl's plain grey cloth that piqued my interest at the moment: a splash of green color. Not the bright green that matched her hair color but a dark green which reminded me of something disgusting. The woman had perhaps noticed it too and studied the whole surroundings with minimal light.
She scanned the dark area on her side until a limb was initially found. After proceeding to take a further look, she gasped when she realized what was there.
A man laid there, motionless. An insect that was as dead as him also presented itself next to him. His hand was grabbing on a knife that burrowed in the insect's chest and his clothes were tarnished by their blood.
A huge hole was created on the man's belly and it seemed to be a giant munch from the perpetrator on his side.
The woman spent some time in horror before the distinct screeching noises rose behind. In a panic, she returned to the girl and tried to pull her until she would stand up. But, the girl was too rigid to even stand and she yanked herself back into the sitting position every time the woman did otherwise.
This happened back and forth a few times until the noise came to us inevitably.
The woman instantly let go of the girl and turned her attention to the back. She stood up and held the candle in front of her determinedly, but it was too late.
The figure of an insect stood there, its claw was already on the way to thrust her. I witnessed a glint of light from the claw as it swung forward. She had too little time to react and couldn't do a thing as a result.
A stab.
One sharp claw entered her shoulder, digging deeper as the blood spurted from it. She flinched heavily from the pain and a yelp was released from her mouth loudly.
Her hold on me was suddenly loosening and never tightened again, thus throwing my body quite far from her position. I landed with a hard thud on my back but it didn't do any serious damage to my body.
A thing from her sleeve was thrown alongside me, and it took me a while to realize what the object was. My hand nudged the round thing repeatedly and confirmed it was the fire pack.
My vision returned to the writhing woman who was facing the frenzied beast. The candle was accidentally dropped from her hand and she took some steps back before stumbling terribly by her own foot.
Her body was jolted from the impact and she used her free hand to pressure the opened wound.
She put down the frightened baby on the ground and then immediately picked herself up although it made her teeth winced. One of her hands was igniting a fire to brighten up the vacant area while the other was preparing for the assault.
When the fire lit up, a scene of pure horridness showed itself. I underestimated the sounds that we heard before and assumed it was a group of those insects.
Now my eyes were spotting not a bunch of those beasts, but a horde of them.
She launched herself forward, ignoring the bleeding that was still transpiring on her upper chest.
After giving a brief glance of concern toward me, she charged straight into the battle.