…
Arriving back at their little home, just before the man opened the door, El for some reason abruptly stopped his steps. Originated from the side of the house, he found out, there was a current of air briskly blowing out against the wall, creating a cryptic whisper that brushed against his skin, under the night with only part of the crescent moon visible in this period of darkness.
Walking a few steps to the side, right on the dark alleyway between that wooden house and another concrete building, it was there.
Wired barbed fences blocked the way to the deeper part of the alleyway, gleaming under the small bit of the yellow light from the lamp attached to a pole, which dimly lit up the pathway around El.
"What's up, kid?"
"Is that???" El asked while turning his head to the man who approached him.
Putting his hand on top of El's shoulder, the man explained it to El. "After that fence, is what people called the Downtrodden Region. Or much more known as, the underside."
"You mean, those kids earlier?" without El realizing it, his words wavering. It was as if he had seen a kind of reflection under that absence of light, piercing through the shadows. Even without the man explaining it clearly, he somehow understood a section of the underlying connotation behind it.
"Yes… let's go…" the man invited El to come with him.
After the man closed the door, concurrently – the uncertainty, the confusion, and that cold glimmer of hope resting inside El's chest was also quietly occluded. Much like the apparent excuses in his life living in the village, when he was resisting death itself.
'Would it be… different,' his future self wondered.
*
*
*
Letting himself fall on the bed, El let out a deep sigh. Whether it signified a heavy or an easy one, he didn't know. After a moment had passed gazing at the ceiling, he turned his face to the window where the curtain was still ajar.
And he found…
There was nothing. Only darkness remained.
'What, was it that I was sad about? I wonder…' his eyebrows knitted. He then closed his eyes.
After mulling over it again, and again, and again. Finally, he met an imaginary crossroad inside his mind, where it felt like his consciousness itself was pulled by a force to some unknown destination. The path was filled with flashing symbols and shapes, from triangles, circles, and squares to unknown alphabets.
His heart was beaten by then. His ear was humming with white noises interlapping between each other. Images flashed in his head. It was strings of chaotic pictures – flipping, alternating, shifting, colliding against one another. Myriads of emotions clashing together, along with his ear buzzing with whispers intermittently.
Initially, everything was extremely unclear. Then out of nowhere, suddenly, everything went silent, and the images paused into a blurry scene where El could not discern anything.
His heart subsequently calmed down. But his body was soaked in sweat.
But it wasn't for long. He heard a young girl's voice calling out to him, as the indistinct scene inside his mind seemed to shift slightly.
"Hey. What's your name?"
"You mean me?"
"Yeah, of course. Who else is here?"
"Ummm, like you see on my shirt. It was C-013"
"Not that, silly. I mean your name. Your real name?"
"I… I didn't have one."
"You – didn't have one?"
"Yes…"
"Uh, well. Sorry about that."
"It's fine…"
*Bzzt*
Then the white noises again filled El's entire brain. He clenched hard his finger. His eyebrows frowning even harder. Eventually, a conversation flowed back again. But this time. It wasn't something like what El had expected.
It was a familiar voice to him, filled with breathy, scratchy sound.
"I hope you die a terrible death. Your bones crushed by the jaws of beasts. Your flesh gnawed by maggots and Rozets. Your eyeball rotted while you were still alive. Your blood drained by Witches. Your skin is peeled by Shifters. Your brain sucked by Devourers. I curse you... I curse you... I curse you… die, die, die, die, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE!!!!"
El abruptly opens his eyes, simultaneously inhaling a sharp breath. Propped himself to sit on the bed, he gave himself a helpless smile.
"What did I even expect? It always ended up like that," El stated bitterly, still panting from the mixed sentiment, especially considering how he listened to that grating man's voice, cursing him in monstrous anger every single time he tried to dig more from his messy memories. The set of words was always different, but the factual message was always the same.
Basically, it wanted him to die.
Another worthy piece to note was – that the unpleasant old man's voice was likened to a steel rod scraping repeatedly on the flat surface of a mirror, was always succeeded in making his brain feel itchy. He wanted to rub it – if only it was possible.
*Knock, knock, knock*
From the door, the knocking sound all of a sudden echoed inside the room, making El momentarily flinched in the spot. Scaring him silly.
"Yes," asked El out loud, still kinda scared. Whether it was a ghost or not was yet to be disclosed. But surely for El, he was certain that it was the man who knocked on the door.
And…
There had been no answer back to El's question.
"Crap..." El whispered to himself.
…
By that time, El's heart who early on barely managed to get out from its flighty mode, suddenly restarted itself giddily – roaring awake.
Sharpening his ear to listen, El's ear caught wind blowing from the outside of the window, getting stronger by the second. 'It seems it was getting close to a rain.'
Taking his focus back to the matters at hand, El's hearing caught on a low creaking sound of faint heavy footsteps coming from the outside of the door, getting clearer, drawing closer to El's room, accompanied closely by the groan of something heavy being dragged on the floorboard.
*Krrriiieettt. Krrriiieeettt. Krrrriiieetttt*
*Ssssaassaaakkk*
*Thud*
It ends with a heavy object thumping against the ground, located right in front of the door of his room.
*Gulp*
Swallowing his saliva, cold sweet now timidly covering El's back. Caressing him with a realization that there was something terribly wrong with what he was, for the very first time in his life, currently facing now.
"El, are you there? Open the door?"
It was the man's voice, undoubtedly. Yet, by some means El couldn't understand, he perceived that – there was something odd with the voice. Along with the presence behind the door.
It was…
Eerie.
And especially today, with his sense to vaguely catch on people's emotions around him was still in its heightened state.
So, how was it possible that what he discerned, radiating from the other side of the door was nothing like what humans could possibly emit?
It was filled with…
Malevolence and ice-cold grudges.
…