Kairo kept sprinting for his life, passing by trees and branches in a whizz.
After a few minutes of doubting if they were still following him or not, he stopped running to catch his breath. He looked back and around his surroundings, listening in for any rushed footsteps or unnatural noises to isolate from the ambience of the forest.
He could only hear the throbbing of his blood vessels in his ears, his panting, the wind passing through the leaves, and the chirping and other noises the birds and the small critters made.
He plopped down on the ground on his butt and gasped for air, recollecting his thoughts and stamina.
"Where are the others? The adults? Who were those people? What happened to Nayani and Kayal? Did they just die? Maybe they are still alive and were just knocked out?"
Kairo spent nearly an hour before he went back to the village. It was finally bright in the morning, and after several minutes of walking cautiously, he made it back.
The sight he saw was that of a ruined settlement.
Desolation ran amok. Charred foundations and dark, burnt wood in the smoky daylight replaced the homely scene he was used to. The ground was rid of the short grass, turning it into dark and gray soil littered with pieces and rubble of the destroyed huts.
As he walked into the village, he found a few bodies on the ground and some more that were partially hidden from sight by debris, with only the limbs sticking out here and there. He could see other bodies inside the buildings from the glimpses he regretted taking.
Inside this village surrounded by burnt fences were bodies of men, women, children, and the elderly. None were spared, only he remained. His lips tightened and his brows furrowed. He sat down and tried to make sense of the mayhem for a good while. He didn't know if it was the fear of the attackers coming back to finish him off or his restlessness, but he decided to investigate the area for anything that could still be of use to him.
He found some partially burnt pieces of cloth covered in ash. There were some raw meat and some dried ones that were preserved by smoking, salt-curing, and spice rub. Cooking utensils, knives, tools, and such were not burnt away in the attack. He found it to be mysterious how the raiders didn't feast on the food nor looted the silver cutlery. One would think that these easy-to-spot items wouldn't be something to overlook.
He went out of the house he was searching and realized that he came upon a road leading to the entrance of the village, where the three of them once were.
Where the two of them were killed.
He spotted the two bodies lying motionless on the ground, with three wooden containers nearby. He stared at it with a helpless expression for a moment before running to the area, slowing down as he approached it.
They were still there where he left them.
He left them.
Nayani was on his back, his eyes still open, dry blood painted across his face that dripped down like tentacles emerging from the still-inserted throwing weapon on his forehead. Kayal was on her side, her head barely hanging onto her neck which was almost snapped in half.
Kairo fell to his knees. His face; in between disgust and despair. He felt like vomiting at the sight of his friends, the gore, the madness. He barely held it back, yet his stomach continued to feel uneasy. To think that just a few hours ago, they were smiling and vibrant, laughing along with him, talking about a new life that could've been his sister.
Now they lay on the cold, hard ground.
Pale, emotionless, unmoving.
Tears slowly began to stream down from his eyes as he couldn't believe everything that just happened. At the same time, a part of him felt hollow.
"Why did this happen?"
"I feel afraid..."
"What am I gonna do now?"
"It was supposed to be a normal day... why?!"
Those thoughts raced in his mind.
"They're not coming back," he said to himself as he sniffled. "They're not coming back. I... I have to go. I have to live on. But I'll be alone..." he closed his eyes but the tears didn't stop.
He lay down forward while kneeling. The thought of living through life without the two of them only made it worse. "So, why do I still have to live?"
He lifted his head while still prone on the ground. He saw their faces again and was reminded of their final expression from the last time he was with them.
It didn't register to them that they were hit, but regardless of their lack of awareness, their lives were still taken away anyway.
"They were... robbed of their life."
As he realized that, he felt a snap inside of him. This feeling overwhelmed his uneasiness and anxiety.
He removed the dark, metal knives stuck to their mortal wound and picked them up.
As he closed the eyes of his precious friends, his heart was full of rage and resentment. He tightly clasped his hands together to the point of digging his nails in his own hands, making them bleed, and offered a prayer in hopes that their souls may find their way to the right place.
He prayed while gritting his teeth in hatred as if trying to break them. His eyes were filled with unadulterated fury. If anyone saw him in his present state, he would have been undoubtedly mistaken as a praying devil.
"Then all I have to do is rob them back for each life they took a hundred times over until I die," fueled by rage and vengeance, he finally stood up. "I can't rest until I've killed them all. I have to live... so I can kill."
He looked up to the sky with his hand curled into a tight, wrathful fist and screamed.
It was the only thing he knew to do. It was the only thing he could do.
And then it hit him. No, it was not the only thing he could do.
"I have to prepare," saying this to himself, he went back to continue investigating what was left of the village.
From the remaining intact tools he found, he was able to find a shovel. He began digging Nayani and Kayal's graves at the entrance of the village, at the spot where they died.
When he had finished burying them, he used one of the containers that his father gave the three of them to help him carry the supplies he deemed useful for camping outside of the village.
He didn't know if those attackers would come back to this area, but for now, it seemed like nobody was around because no one came when he was yelling in his tantrum earlier. Furthermore, it would be dangerous to linger for long without knowing that group's objective for attacking his village.
"No valuables were taken. My parents' jewelry and coins were still in the drawer, or at least what remained of the drawer," he said to himself as he trekked away from the village with plenty of supplies on his back.
"The same goes for the other houses I searched. Tools, food, metal, the very few books we have... items that I think would've been stolen were still there. If they weren't here to pillage, just what were they here for? Simply to kill?" Kairo clicked his tongue. "Tch, those sick bastards. Was it all because they liked to kill? Or is it something else that I'm still too young to understand?" he pondered for a while.
When he was already a far ways off, he looked back to what was once a lively and peaceful village.
He wasn't able to bury all the other bodies he saw, not even his own parents' bodies. He was already pretty exhausted digging two holes that would fit two bodies his size and then burying back the dirt. He wanted to conserve his energy for the rest of the day before sundown.
~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~
Returning to the present, Kairo was sitting on his makeshift bed under the starry sky. The moonlight was accompanied by an insultingly serene and calm wind.
"And now, I'm all alone," Kairo removed his shirt for a moment to let it dry off from the sweat it soaked up.
"What do I even do now? Do I just go to the nearest village and ask for help? That's probably not a good idea. They may be targeting remote settlements like my village. I should probably go to a sizable town, one with guards. Yeah. Or better yet, a kingdom, the nearest one. That should be safer. But that's half a month of travel by horse carriage..." he deliberated with himself for a bit before deciding.
"I don't have much else to do anyway. I guess I'll survive for now on my way there and see what I can do then. I really wish I had Kayal and Nayani. She would know what's right and he would have the energy to follow on it."
He spent some more time planning until his shirt had enough time to dry off and be worn again.
He tightly clutched the partially burnt pieces of cloth he found that he turned into a blanket, then curled into a ball. He couldn't help but feel the heaviness of his eyes and the bag under them as his body relaxed to fall into sleep. He thought that maybe because he cried a lot today.
"If I get eaten in my sleep by wolves or some other wild animal, then so be it," he muttered bitterly to himself.