+At Night+
-----Sanus POV----
"I'm so disappointed with you!" my father yelled at me.
They learned from my aunt about what I had done to my cousin Jackson.
"How could you do that? Sanus, they visited from so far away just to play with you!"
I knew everything was the truth but deep down, I didn't want to understand. I don't even know why I'm acting like this.
*plack*
A broom hit my leg. Father whips us like this everytime he's not satisfied with our behaviors.
*plack*
"Tell me, Sanus. Are you still going to do that to your cousin again?"
*plack*
The pain really didn't matter to me at all. I just don't know if I could refrain from not attacking anyone. I am not crying, I am busy thinking about myself. My mother couldn't help but sigh in frustration: rushing to their room trying to stifle her cries.
A knock on the door stopped my father from beating me. I just stood perfectly still in the sala on my bare feet: my second sister who is 2 years younger looked at me with amazement in her eyes.
"Can we take shelter here for this night?" a man I have never heard of before asked my father.
"You are welcome!" my father gestured to the sala as I appraised the visitors with scrutinizing eyes.
There were three of them: 1 woman and 2 men holding a gun each. I just knew that the guns hang on their shoulders had long barrels. They wore dark masks, long-sleeved jackets and long pants.
I wanted to stay and listen in on the conversation but my father waved me away to my room.
"tch!"
I went to my room, closing the door and tried to listen through it but it was futile.
"sister!" second called to me but I shushed her with a glare.
The next day, my classmates at school are abuzz: murmuring like a swarm of bees on a hunt for food.
"Guys, did you know? The rebels visited my house this morning!"
"Really?"
"Yes! They asked for food in exchange of them helping around doing household chores."
I thought, [ so those guys were rebels? ]
While everyone was busy with gossips, a helicopter hovered in the air above the school ground: attracting the attention of the pupils in the elementary school.
"Chugu!! chugu!! chugu!! chug!!"
Curios, everyone gathered at the basketball court: looking up to the sky as a teacher made a phone call with an angry expression on her face.
The next day, I saw soldiers at school: conveniently camped on an area that is unused. Some are building a huge waste segregetor about the height of an elementary pupil in the early afternoon.
"Hey, kid. Come here!"
A little further from where I stood I'd another soldier swinging on a makeshift swing he created using a dark green sheer.
I didn't know what he wanted but obeyed nonetheless: seeing an assault rifle standing by his side.
[ So that thing can kill people? ] I thought.
"You like it, kid?" he caressed his weapon and I nod my head rather excitedly.
"Don't touch it. It's not good." he advised, shaking his head as though to get rid of a thought.
I raised my eyebrows and shook my head in confusion.
"Here, this is better."
He handed me an air-filled sachet that is cylindrical and four inches short.
"It's food," he informed me.
I opened it and put a bit of the content in my hand. It smelled like orange. It looked like teeny tiny orange balls with transparent, sugar-like cubes of the same size.
Still suspicious but more curious, I shoved a portion on my tongue: making me salivate almost immediately.
"It's popping!" I said, startled by the strange reaction.
"So, how does it taste?"
"Sweet and.... sour?!"
"Good! Here you are."
"Whoah!" I caught 5 more of the treat from him.
"Hey Sanus! Let's go!" Lauren called to me with a new haircut.
What stroked me odd was not Lauren but seeing every boys passing by with identical crewcuts.
+7 Years Old Sanus+
I think I did something bad. Father made bows out of bamboos for us: he is always a creative craftsman, that I know.
It was just one of those normal days: Alexis and second sister, Diane, are shooting arrows in the waiting shed near our house.
Jimmer and his friends happened to be passing by, casually quizzing each other about mathematics.
"3×6+4-8?" Cassio, a dark skinned boy who is 2 years older than Sanus, quizzed his friends.
"1..2..3..3..4" he did a countdown as it would be boring if there's no thrill to it.
The boys counted with their hands, losing count and having trouble remembering where in the step of computation they were at.
"6, 12, 18...18+4 is 22...-8 is equals to 14!!!"
Jimmer is the one who triumphantly answered, flaunting his superiority over others in terms of the subject.
"You're older than all of us, of course you should be smarter!" Oliver, a fair skinned boy with a mole under his left eye and is a year older than Sanus, refused to admit defeat.
And there I was, daring and mischievous: a small smile forming on my lips as a sinister plan had already hatched in my brain. We hid inside the waiting shed, remaining quite as we spied on the passing kids through a gap bellow the aluminum covering and the cemented rocks on top of each other.
"Watch me," I told my sisters, readying my bow.
*swoosh!*
"Ouch!" Jimmer got shot on the shoulder.
"Who's that!" Cassio demanded, looking around for the perpetrator.
[ Good for him: my arrow isn't really pointed like an ordinary harmless stick. ] I thought, disappointingly.
"I got dibs on the Cassio," Alexis declared.
"Then, mine is Oliver," Diane seconded.
My sisters who are amused by my example, released their arrows: hitting Cassio on the knee and Oliver on the chest.
"Cowards!" Oliver shouted, hoping that the perpetrator had even a sliver of their pride intact.
Hearing the guys' provocation didn't hit me that hard but I wasn't planning on hiding either. The reason I attacked them is so that they can play with us. As such, I presented myself 10 meters away from them looking smug and ran away in the direction of the pigs' pen.
"Hey losers, catch me if you can!" I shouted at them, hoping to piss them off.
Diane stick her tongue out while Alexis made a 'slit your throat' motion with her thumb and pointed it down before running after me: passing by several banana trees on our way. They kept giggling while holding arrows on their bows, ready to shoot at any moment.
"You imp!" Cassio called after us.
Cassio took it as us taunting them, so without asking why we did what we did, he immediately chased after us.
"Not again?!" complained Oliver.
Oliver on the other hand couldn't help but slap his face, knowing what I am up to. The only thing he can do is to play along with my usual antics.
Oliver and I knew each other at school after he repeated a year in grade one with Andrew. I have always been immersed in reading books in the mini library in our classroom: cold and unapproachable. The only time I pestered people is when I'm feeling mischievous: manipulating them through various ways which he was able to recognize. He is one of the few who knew that it is nothing more than an invitation to play with me.
"This is war, Sanus!" Jimmer declared.
Jimmer is mad, even knowing that I did it on a whim. Instead of rocks, they picked overripe guavas on my backyard and hurled it towards the pigs' pen. My sisters giggled seeing that the guys kept on missing there targets.
*plack!* *plack!* *plack!*
"Eww!!" Diane exclaimed at the yellow fruit stuck on a rock: it's insides leaking out pink flesh and little seeds. We are all inside a pigs' pen with big rocks as wall and divided into three divisions by wood.
"Oink! oink! oink! oink!"
Seeing the closing figures of the guys, an idea popped into my mind.
[ Ha! You give us flash bombs, I'll give you missiles!" ]
I scooped a dried pig poop after pig poop and threw them towards the banana tree and guava tree where they are hiding.
"What is that?" I heard Cassio asking the other boys.
"You don't want to know," Oliver is the one supplying the boys with overripe guavas and he saw what I am using as weapons from where he clung on the guava tree.
Alexis on the other hand, opened the water flowing to a hose used for cleaning the pigs' pen and sprayed it in their direction.
"Take my Gatling gun!"
Seeing the mess they have made, Oliver released a long sigh: looking at his friends who are both wet and stinky. The yard is also wet and littered with pig dung.
[ Does Sanus like being punished by her father? She'll get another beating if we don't clean all of this up. ]