~Amity's POV, present~
If this all comes to an end, I might as well end it now.
The thoughts we all come to.
Years ago, I could've found out that I'm actually a disgrace to the world. I lack confidence in knowing the meaning of my existence. A monster they call me; a freak of nature, a terrifying creature that lurks at night near their bedside. Could I really help it that all I want-and yearn- is the feeling of being loved for who I am?
The smell of rotten blood is definitely not the first thing that comes into mind. That is: if you are me.
We all die eventually.
Where we end, is when we foolishly take that upon ourselves: death.
As I lay on the grass, poking my thin t-shirt, all I could smell is blood.
It stained my shirt and slashed across my face; the wounds fresh and anew. Everything was set like it was in slow motion: all I could hear were my mother's words, and all I could feel was my numbness.
Ironically, instead of the moment flashing back and forth; rewinding to the moment that they injected a member of the Insurgency at the ORBV, all I could see... Was nothingness. The dhatin were all on the loose; roaming in The Requiem. The vast emotional pain that seemed to cling to my swollen chest and broken ribs weighed down on me. Clutching a handful of grass coated in a thick layer of bunny-tail-white snow, I could HEAR them.
The others from the Berseker Insurgency are coming.
Yes, yes they are coming.
Sunken black holes replaced their once colored eyes, their limbs stuck to their bodies like a rag doll's willowy arms are pinned through its body. Their mouths shriveled, like a rotten potato. And- one by one- as they fell down to the snowy grounds, they appeared to be undead- but no-and yet, they already were. Already were, morphed as daemons straight from hell, their brain neurons shrunk, their bodies anorexic kind of like a malnourished child. And, like children, they were small-and ever so- and stuck inside your brain like a fly drawn to a lightbulb.
They sucked out a human's blood and ate their cells, causing your thoughts to be THEIRS. Of course, after licking their hands clean.
Yet, aren't our thoughts not yet ours?
Their needlessness begging to be killed off, and yet, It chided them, gathering them together like a herd of black sheep.
What It am I referring to you say? Why the it was the person who runs the Berseker Insurgency, Raidne. The name strikes a chord in my system when I think about her.
She's the one who is among them Blights; the ruler, the commander of them all. Born and raised to be a monster, by the Prime dhatin himself; and talks to all the members through their shrunken brains, their withering souls. Yes, the withering souls of my fellow friends. As they all rose in coordination with the grunt of command, they slump towards the sunflower fields in the Dismouth forest, taking their sweet time pounding their feet in synchronized motion. One after the other, one after the other. As they continued to rampage the red rocky road with their feet, I observed the way they all had human blood slashed among their bodies.
Some were still licking off a piece of human flesh, holding it with their claws, as if saving their meals from the hunt.
The Prime dhatin is still out in the woods, binge eating some more, while It signals the rest of the Insurgency to go back to their huts.
" Your work has been done! Now, go rest." Raidne spoke to the members through their shriveled brains. This would've sounded like an obnoxious grunt out loud but in the mind-in the thoughts- it was so much more.
As they slumped past me, I see that there is a human among them.
A human?
Why would those daemons be trailing the Insurgency?
A pang in my chest flares as I start to shoot daggers at such a daemon.
The pain us dhatins of Blight feel: is numb.
And yet, every time I steal a glance at a human's eyes, all I could feel is pain.
*****
~two days ago~
I remembered as I remained still, my bottom lip quivered at the sight. It was all awash; scarlet undertone, licorice taste. It seemed too obvious to me- but yet- my emotions lay dead on the open field.
An innocent was dead.
" Why?" I begged to the look-alive-but dead- body. It was cool to the touch, but it was humid outside. "Do most dead bodies feel like holding ice?" I wondered, but then again- I didn't know.
I didn't know that all I've done to try to prevent herself from killing another innocent: was all for a waste.
It's all your fault! Someone is dead because of you!
I couldn't help it, however.
As I scavenged the dead body for more of its ribcage deep within, all I could think to myself was: did it matter? Did it matter that I'm a monster?
The body, fresh from the killing, was a good start to the starvation that I have endured. Twice, I tried to kill my body. Once from a dagger. Twice from starvation. Pushing the limits is what I'd call it. Wind blowing, the humid air subsided. Ah, this felt nice. The weather was nice, I recalled.
I recall those many times that I've exceeded my number of kills among these daemons. Blood rushing through my veins. Human blood especially.
To want more, and MORE is an option for me.
As the prized hunter of the Berserker Insurgency, my workday is two days from now. And yet, I decided that day to binge eat some more.
You greedy pig.
Selfish.
" You are selfish." It chided, as the pain starts to morph in my heart as I stared at the blood on my hands, the dried-up blood stuck between my long, sharp claws.
" And so what if I am? It's not like it matters anymore to me!" I scolded It.
And, the more I scolded It, the more that the pain my chest multiplied by the tens, the thousands; the millions. Couldn't there be a better way to enjoy this meal?
"ARRRGHHH!!!" I screamed all of a sudden. A flying human hand ripped out of the dead body's wrist as I yanked the hand to lick it clean.
The bloodcurdling scream starts to howl abruptly through my shrunken brain. My eyes start to disappear again and become sunken holes.
Now, as I imagined, I remembered something.
Ah yes, something. The barn?
Yes, the barn.
But, instead of just remembering the barn that day, I remembered a memory. These memories of mine I recall were just flashbacks of the life that I saw.
Was it mine, I don't remember that's for sure. One thing was for certain, I didn't always see these flashbacks. But now, I remember that day, I saw something more.
Shortly after the bloodcurdling screams emerged, there was again that foggy image of the barn. As I walked inside the barn, I saw a little girl tending to a sickly woman in bed. This little girl had gleaming sapphire eyes and a beautiful smile that spoke of such kindness. Her caramel-brown hair was tied in a neat ponytail, as she shed tears nearby the woman's bedside.
" Dear, you don't worry about me, okay?" The sickly woman reassured the little girl, as she took her wrinkled hand in the little girl's hand. She looked upon the girl with peaceful chestnut eyes. Her eyes told the girl that she was going to be alright, and even the very glance that she held in the girl's sapphire eyes told me that she was a good mother.
As I walked into the barn, I observed the conversation between the little girl and her mother.
" What should I do?" The girl asked the woman, and then:
BOOM! BOOM!BOOM!
"What was that?" The girl said, shaken from the sound. I looked around me, but I saw nothing. There was just a vast space between the-
" Get down!" The woman shrieked, as I see...
Wait what do I see?
The screams start again, harder and the bloodcurdling shriek at the end was terrifying. I try to get out the door, hesitant at first. However, the more I try to open the door handle, the hazier the dream gets.
Fog surrounds the door as I look around me, in fear. Heart racing and shrunken eyes bulging, I continue to try for the door: but nothing is working.
And then the screaming would come again.
This is what it feels like to be in pain: to experience something so abrupt I can't even begin to understand its meaning.
*****
As I observed the daemon before me, I feel a sudden urge of annoyance.
"Oh dear, kind dhatin! Can I please have a taste of your bread?" A daemon sought help, his eyes grim and his smile curved in desire.
He was in desperate need-sure- but that was the only bread I had left. Though I didn't give him an answer, he reached over and snatched the loaf, and, with one gulp, he ate it.
He suddenly rumbled in misery, and he greedily searched my basket for more.
MORE, MORE.
More is what they daemons all wanted. More is what they-with their strife and greed- yearned the most.
You are different, however. You walk with such grace that no human could ever dream to walk. All the other humans didn't taste as good as you do. Instead of greedy, you were giving. Instead of hated, you were loved.
So fucking loved.
I walk out of the Bali forests and enter the Requiem, a market in the secluded place of Bali. Unlike those humans who favored nasi goreg, I preferred goat blood and human eyes. The eyes were my favorite, second to the rib cage. While the eyes were fresh, I liked to dip them fried in goat sauce. The same goes for the rib cage.
It has been almost a hundred years since us dhatins emerged into Indonesia. Thanks to the Requiem, every Wednesday, once a week, we dhatins gather at this market to feast on various delicacies such as human blood and goat legs for the Jenglots. It's a one-day free-for-all feast gathering for the species of dhatin (vampires, blights, jenglots) without the need to hunt for our food. However, the Berserker Insurgency, still insists on hunting; but we still go to the Requiem every now and then.
If there was one thing that was absolutely certain, it's that I used to be human.
My sunken holes in my shriveled face that used to contain enormous, gleaming sapphire blue eyes; have fallen out. The sickening pale snow-white skin of mine that once glowed with health was now flaky and shriveled.
He's dead. She's dead.
I'm dead inside.
Some call out, "Die! You old hag! WE don't want YOU in our town!" Tormenting me as they spat blood on my tattered shoes.
This, in short, makes me want to die soon.
As the rain pours down-heavily- people rush past me, without a single glance towards my situation. But, it's not like they need to. I, a dying dhatin, have been hereby declared invisible and invisibility for all and for none. The people that I had been referring to as "daemons" have slowly-in my eyes- begun to die out.
Was it because of me?
No.
Maybe, so.
Remembering those days that turn into months, and months that turn into years; tormenting my every ounce of energy I have left to be put in this Earth; I can barely utter a word to anyone. Nether less, it resounded in a grunt that could not be spoken in any form of human language.
Fellow dhatins of my old age, are miserable-yes- but, used to this.
Our sunken holes, where our colorless eyes once were placed-right and center- and, no matter what color hair we used to have, have all been turned in a slate grey color and was falling off. Our heads shriveled and peeling like potato shavings. Our height all the same: stooping and slouching, at about five and a half feet. Our toes have numbed and fallen out into the deep snow, our voices coarse and our bodies shriveled, as well.
But, it's not like we were always like this: we were once human too, you know.
But, leading back to the whole I-want-to-die scenario, we dhatins are halfway there. Our skeleton legs and arms are on the verge of death, every day. But yet, do we WANT to die?
Nope.
At least, most of us don't want to, anyway. All except me, that is.
First off, why DO I want to die? It's not a far-fetched question: it's just much too unreliable. I'm not the way I used to be, neither is everyone else...
As it continued to pour in the open pasture, I sat on the wet grass, still, simply listening to the sound of the rain. The wire fences for the cattle were set loose, and they roamed the pasture as if running away from the sound. The rain drowned out my pain, and even wiped it away, somehow. Somehow, in the stillness of it all, I urged a tear to sprinkle down my sunken face. Being it ages, since I cried, I did so.
So in fact of trying to remember.
Like I said before, I can't remember my name.
Not even a single word, phrase, sound, or being that was related or is related to such a thing as a name.
All I remember was the barn.
The wooden pieces were built on top of one another and glued together with slabs of mud. The hollow ceiling. Cold and icy inside the living room. But, then again, it didn't seem like a living room; more like an abandoned room. That was the only room in the barn. Which was decorated in more wood pieces and had no floors; just more wood pieced together by heaps of mud and cement. In the room lay a single iron frame bed and a goose feather mattress.
And, no one.
No one whom I seemed to remember-or ached to remember- lived in that barn.
But yet, if that was the only thing that I seemed to remember, was it relevant to my history?
I recall it all.
All those beautiful moments ignited my ever-existing pain.
But it didn't matter anymore.
Mother was dead.
****
The pasture remains to be wet throughout the whole morning. Other fellow dhatins roam around, blood pasted on their charcoal teeth, probably after a meal of human. It seems that there are still some of us left, us Blights...
However, unlike other dhatins, I refuse to take even a single bite of human flesh. It tasted of rubbing alcohol to me, after all.
Dismouth is a nice area. Through all the years I and the rest of the dhatins have roamed in mobility, we have never seen such pretty mountains and snowy lands. The people are harsh, as usual. But the air is clean, and food is accessible-even for a not-eating-human dhatin like me. Deer and rabbits and boars stroll up to our traps like flies drawn to a fluorescent light bulb, making every day a feast of wonders for us all.
As we grunt in reply to each other around the campfire-at dinner- we try with our every ounce of courage, to speak to one another.
Grunting in tones of mimicked zombies, our chuckles sound more like evil laughs. And yet, this is enough.
At least, for most of us, it is.
How life mostly works for us, goes in set-motion:
First, we grumble and grunt with each other like forms of communication.
Then, we as decide-being the nomadic herd we are- as to where we will be heading next.
And, when we finally decide on where to go, we slump/ walk towards our destination.
Finally, we settle down and make traps- with leftover bones, trash can lids, fish nets found awash on the shores, and thick furs- and capture our prey.
We eat, sleep, and repeat this process over and over again.
As our dhatin population has increased over the years-being known as modern-day zombies/outcast monsters- we elected a leader of our insurgency, also known as "He from Dismouth". We also called him this because-like I said before- we don't know how to grunt out his name in specified vowels in order to form the word that was his "name". Anyway, this "He from Dismouth" or the Prime dhatin, formed the Berserker Insurgency, which is basically a group of "chosen" dhatins that spread out and lead other newly born dhatins.
So, basically, what these "chosen" ones, do is this: They are given tasks by the prime dhatin-which I actually don't really know how they carry out cause they can only merely grunt to one another- and then they retreat from their "base" and recruit other outcasted dhatins to join the insurgency. And thus, the whole set-motion process begins: all lead by the chosen.
So, you can technically say that I joined the Berserker Insurgency.
Technically.
But what was the whole purpose of this whole process- and thus- insurgency?
Survival.
The survival of this Insurgency has been a great one, over the years.
What was once a human population, is now encompassed by more than half: dhatins, or Blight infected monsters, but...Once human.
And, it was upon that very day-as I and others roamed the pastures of Dismouth on yet another gloomy day- that it suddenly hit me. Hit me- or rather, struck me- that maybe THIS wasn't normal.
****
As I roam the streets that have encompassed chaos and despair, I feel numb. There is nothing more that I want than to know: Who the HELL am I?
What's my name? Nationality? Why do people scream when they take a glance at my shriveled body?
Another fellow dhatin slumps over to me, his slate-grey hair (the same as mine and all the other dhatins in this area) falling out. He grunts-as a form of speech for us dhatins- to me, as I try to pretend, I'm even listening to him.
He shrugs and howls in despair. What is he thinking?
As he slumps away, I pick at the flesh presented before me; the eyes of this human are my favorite. But yet, I don't eat.
So, as I walk away from the flesh-my food- I start to wonder, "Was I ever human?"
"Help! My leg is stuck!" A voice calls out, in pain. As I slump over to the forest nearby, my left-hand quivers, as I reach out as if I'm searching for something.
"Help! Somebody! Please!" The voice wavers and; then I CAN no longer make out the sound.
But- even so- I continue to rush towards the invisible sound in the gusty wind. As I pace-as best as I can- down the dirt road, I encounter a sign: "The RVOB"
"What?--"
It seemed that the humans have implanted hulking large factory-of sorts- in the middle of the forest. What the factory is for-however-I'm not so sure.
"Halt! Who goes there!" A soldier dressed in olive-green military trousers and a long, white vest calls out.
For some reason, I feel like his voice sounds familiar. It was like I knew him somewhere.
For some unknown reason, I hear something, inside my shriveled brain. Did I happen to know this seemingly familiar soldier? In response to this feeling-that made me feel uncertain yet calmed- I limped over to the soldier.
"What do you want?" His eyes seem familiar, not the typical ocean blue- yet- a melancholy grey-blue. Depth.
"Monster! How d-dare you NOT respond!" His voice wavers, as if uncertain.
Did I do anything wrong?
Now, at this moment, the wind didn't seem so cold. I imagined a warm breeze whisk against my shoulders, the UV rays; that no longer darken my skin tone. There is a feeling of remorse when I look at him-but yet- I...
SLAM!
"Boys, I think we've found her." A voice whispers in my ear.
****
15 minutes before, my head was swarmed with thoughts of a bright blue sky and a warm breeze. Now, its reality has brought me back to the cold.
"Sir, what shall we do with dhatin 316? Do you really suspect that she's the dhatin we are looking for?" The same soldier says.
"yes." The lead "commander" replies to him.
"Bring her to the cell on the third floor: make a right and two lefts, and you'll find it."
"Yes sir."
As the soldier leads me down the aisle, he tightens the rusty metal chains around my neck connecting to my wrists. He drags me around like I'm his servant, his dog. When we reach the cell, he pushes me into it-with neither concern nor doubt- unlike earlier.
As days passed, hours passed, minutes passed, every second feels wrong, but weirdly reassuring somehow.
Every now and then, the soldier heads to my cell and drops in a small bowl of gruel into the window-slot. Afterward, he'd pace, back-and-forth-back-and-forth, then he'd stop. Stop and look back at the slot, and then leave.
Oftentimes, if I was behaving badly-he'd bring a couple of other soldiers branded in the same military trousers and long white vest, and they'd talk among themselves and... Then leave.
One day, the cell door broke free.
"Come, Ms.Nugraha, follow me." The soldier told me, though I couldn't understand. Understand what and how he was able to slur his grunts in the form of words. And how these words formed into a passion. What was the passion? Did I know? But, for reasons among explanation through words, the soldier's eyes shallowed in fear, in anguish. What does he want?
****
This man was different, that's for sure. Unlike the supposedly kindly soldier who "supposedly" set me free-only to be faced with a greater problem at hand- this man's eyes pierced in hatred, his balding grey hair thin and sparse. But his presence boomed in authority and fear. Though I could hardly understand what the man was interrogating me about, I could tell; he's a bad human. A person who'd whip my-already shriveling- back and- though I'd wince in pain-he'd brashly continue among his business of the metal whip in vain.
"Tell me, do you understand a word I'm saying to you, worthless hag?" The man grunted and seeing that-after ten minutes past-that I have not yet responded, he signaled to another soldier next to him to bring the whip yet again.
After hours of endless torture and beatings, I glance over to the large copper structure that's placed near the door; it's of diagonal shape, and it's embedded in the words: " WE HELP YOU, YOU GIVE BACK" (Testa-Pill company, THE RVOB).
Did they want me to give them something?
When the soldiers, the commander, and the servants leave, poor Dhatin, Amity, limp in pain to the structure. The words as given are for the TESTA-PILL project and the elimination of dhatins and the formation of the military division, the Blitzkreig. Amity read:
In 2028, the RVOB General and commander, Dr.Aaron Saros found a way to free the Blight diseased victims from their misery. He composed a new and outstanding drug that can help free the dhatins from the disease.
And, after hours of consistent beating and pleading, I finally give in.
*******
When I think back to my life ten days ago, I could've never imagined this.
A war was raging outside...
What the hell is happening?
Blood that spewed out of their bodies, lying dead cold on the streets. The air was on edge, BUT never did it blow calmly through the pine trees. Hands chopped off; their shriveled heads slashed. A massacre of the dhatins; a massacre as it seemed. It wasn't a war, because no one fought back. They continued about their meals of humans and other various animals, continued to trap boars, scavenge for water and tools. Dumb they were. To not have seen the parade of humans heading their way at Dismouth.
But, even if THEY knew, they only had spears and knives to protect themselves.
But they can't sense such an army with no sight.
The humans all streaked their faces in red, white, and blue face paint, covered themselves in metal armor, and loaded their guns. The wives and children cheered, a long white banner-that a jet is shown in the sky- that read: "HUMANS LIVE, DHATINS DIE!" painted in charcoal black paint, was adored by the town. The elderly prayed to the God above, "Oh, please! May we live!" They made it seem like it was truly a war.
But, it's not.
The moment the horns honk and the shouts roar ahead, the dhatins look ahead, but then.... continue on.
And, here I am, stuck in the RVOB observatory wing, as the large telescopes are being used by the soldiers and the commander, gleefully observing the works of their military:
While my kind is out there suffering.