Destroy the human cities...
Those were very big words. How would Igneous be capable of something like that? In his homeland, he could barely hold off a rival gang, now destroying entire cities. That was on another level.
And what would happen to the people who lived there?
Igneous questioned many things while he was trying to sleep.
Zenda had ordered that the outsiders be allowed to sleep in one of the empty huts in the village. An abandoned one that no one lived in for a long time.
The boy was lying down, on a bed next to a window. Light from one of the two moons filtered throughout the room.
'Two moons… how crazy,' Igneous thought. He still wasn't used to seeing two satellites in the night sky.
The boy took out the Treasure, that sphere-shaped pendant. He gazed at it between his fingers.
"I told you," the girl spoke from the other bed in the room.
"Huh?"
"I told you that you guys were evil. The marked ones. Destroy the human cities…"
"Hey! That's not fair!" Igneous retorted, "I didn't even know anything about the marked ones, or eons or whatever."
"Well, you already know and I don't see you refusing your mission."
"And what if it's all a misunderstanding? It must be a mistake. Destroy human cities? Come on, give me a break."
The girl gritted her teeth.
"You are hopeless!" She turned around on her bed and turned her back on Igneous.
"Hey, what's your problem?"
"YOU are my problem," she answered without looking at his face.
Igneous took a deep breath.
"I won't destroy any city."
"You don't understand it, do you?" The girl said, "If you don't, you're going to turn into a spectre."
"Spectre? Like a ghost?"
"No. More like an undead. It is the punishment for not fulfilling the mission assigned to you by the eon."
That didn't sound very good.
Igneous shook his head.
"No," he said, "I am not going to destroy any city, nor am I going to become a spectre. I'm going to find my brother and we're going home. That's it."
"You're an Idiot."
Igneous looked at his Treasure. He was not able to ask the System if it was true that he had to destroy cities. He was afraid to confirm it. He was afraid it was true.
"Brother," the boy whispered, "I'm going to find you and get you home safe."
The next day, Igneous went out to explore the town and its surroundings. It was full of plants and crops. It was strange to see gray or brown plants. It gave the landscape a dull tone, but was beautiful at the same time.
The boy talked to various people, or demons, whatever they were called. He asked them about his brother.
"Have you seen a boy about my age?" Igneous asked, "thin, with black hair."
They all shook their heads.
"Oh, it's useless," the boy lamented, "where are you Eider?"
The boy bumped into a ball in his path and heard some giggling. He turned around and saw some children peeking out from behind some wooden boxes. A girl and two boys. They seemed curious about Igneous.
"Hello!" He greeted the boy with a big smile.
The children giggled. The girl returned the greeting by waving her hand.
Igneous bent down, picked up the ball, and spoke to the children:
"You want it?"
They nodded.
"Come get it!" the boy exclaimed.
The children smiled and ran after Igneous.
"Come, come!"
Laughing, the children chased Igneous.
The unknown girl looked out the window and saw the scene. Igneous playing with demon children.
***
"I kick the ball and you guys have to watch the goal," Igneous explained.
The children nodded.
They had set up a makeshift goal in a village field. It was made of wooden sticks tied together with thin ropes, buried in the ground, and supported by heavy stones.
The boy was teaching them to play soccer.
It seemed very curious to him that balls existed in that world, but not a sport like soccer.
"Ready?"
The two boys were the defense and the girl was the goalkeeper. Igneous was the attacker.
"Let's play!" the boy exclaimed.
Laughter came and went. It didn't matter that Igneous always scored goals, the kids seemed to have the time of their lives. They were in awe of this human stranger.
The unknown girl looked down on those people. In fact, she called them demons. Demons? Igneous didn't think so. Those were nice people. There was nothing demonic about them. What nonsense to call them that!
In fact, she should be grateful to them. After all, they were saved and given a roof to sleep under and food to fill their bellies with.
What an ungrateful girl that Not-Breeze was!
Igneous kicked the ball too hard and it went flying over the trees surrounding the town.
"Oh no," the boy lamented, "I'll go find it."
"No, no, don't," one child warned, "you may run into the mist."
"Um, that's true," Igneous admitted, "but maybe the ball didn't make it to the mist."
The children looked at each other's faces, not very convinced.
"Let us go instead," the girl proposed, "we are not affected by the black mist."
"It's my fault that I lost the ball," Igneous replied, "let's do this: come with me. If the ball fell in the mist, I'll let you go. It's okay?"
The girl nodded with a smile and grabbed Igneous' hand.
The boy's heart bounced. He remembered Eider, his brother. Years ago, when Eider was scared, he would hold onto his hand tightly.
"Don't leave me," said his younger brother.
'No, I won't leave you,' Eider.
Igneous and the girl entered the forest. They looked everywhere.
"I don't see the ball," the boy announced, "do you?"
The girl shook her head. They both went further into the forest. Igneous noticed that the air was thickening. The mist…
"I think we better not continue," warned the girl.
"We can still go a little further."
The girl hesitated.
The mist became so thick that it appeared as a thick wall in front of them.
"We can't go on any further," the girl announced, pulling Igneous back to the village.
But… the ball. It bothered the boy a lot the idea of giving up. He could be very stubborn. Until he achieved something, he was not peaceful.
Then, they heard something move in the bushes. The girl shuddered and pulled hard on the Igneous arm, but he didn't move.
"It's a spectre!" The girl screamed.
"A what?"
Heavy footsteps could be heard approaching.
"We have to hide!" The girl pulled her arm.
Igneous did not understand very well what was happening, but he nodded and ran to hide behind some bushes, along with the girl.
They waited and out of the dense black mist appeared a huge being, almost three meters tall. Long legs and long arms like noodles, but with sharp claws on the fingers. It wasn't dressed. Its skin was wrinkled and filled with red cracks. As if Its skin was breaking like old cloth.
It was a walking decomposing corpse. And it had no face, just a big hole in the middle of its head, from which a ball emerged that emitted a red glow.
That thing walked slowly and clumsily and irregularly. As if It was a zombie.
And It moaned as if It felt pain.
And just as It appeared, he was lost in the mist.
"Sometimes we see them come out of the mist," commented the girl, still crouched, "they tell us that when we see them, we should run away or hide."
Igneous swallowed. That thing… It was terrifying.
"They… do they have a conscience?" the boy asked.
The girl shook her head.
"Elder Zenda says no. He says that they only live to suffer and that the most merciful thing is to kill them."
"And why don't they?"
"They are very powerful."
Igneous nodded slowly.
A spectre… would he become that if he didn't fulfill his mission? Was he awaiting a life of eternal suffering?
What a horrible fate.