CHAPTER
01 - Hide & Seek
It was a busy afternoon the day it all started. Dad was looking for me, as he had some chores he wanted me to handle. I slipped off, hiding all over the village trying to avoid the work. To tell you the truth, I don’t really have a last name. I came up with ‘Skyva’ because I like to skive off from work. In my honest opinion, that’s a lot of work already. Dad should have guessed it today as he went from house to house asking for a ‘Skyva’, as he had some work that needed to be done. Every house responded the same way, "Sorry, there’s no Skyva here.”
I decided to slip out of the village to the nearby hill for a snooze. Or maybe I’d go over to my good friend’s house up on the hill. He’s a real fun person to hang out with. Sometimes we’d go jogging in the hillside when the mood suits us. For the past few years that I’d been here, I had been learning some martial arts from him. Jotan (that’s his name, though I don’t believe it), says that he picked it up from a past life that he’s now trying to forget. There’s much about Jotan that I don’t know. Every time I ask him, he always laughs and changes the subject. I guess it’s a sensitive thing with him, so I just drop it.
There's this
cave that we often frequent somewhere on the hillside. It's a strange place,
because there's this door there with no handle whatsoever. Jotan and I tried so
many times to open it, but we never succeeded. That didn't stop me from trying
again today. What did stop me was what I found just in front of the door. As I
strolled through the long dark tunnel, the door slowly came into view. It was the
same as always. Thick, heavy wood, barring what could be the path to another
world. Something glistened from the little light there was in the cave. I knelt
down and picked up a strange silver ring. There was a heart with a cross on it,
as well as ten smaller bumps all around the ring. Quite aesthetically
pleasing to the eye. I wonder what she's say if I gave it to her.
I tried it on
all my fingers, but it seemed to fit only one on my left hand. As it settled
comfortably round my next-to-last finger, I felt this burning sensation from my hand.
Clutching my finger, I panicked and attempted to yank off the ring, but before I
knew it, the pain disappeared as quickly as it came about. Looking at my finger,
I saw that the ring had burnt a mark onto the back of my hand. It was the same
symbol that was on the ring - a heart with a cross in the middle.
The door...
Open the door...
I spun around on
my heel, searching the cave for the source of the voice, but I found none.
Definitely eerie.
The door... Open
it...
That certainly
was not my imagination!
"Who's
there?" I asked the still air, "Show yourself!"
Only the
chosen few can open it...
And then a
blinding light filled the cave. I frantically shielded my eyes as I backed away
from the door. A familiar voice floated to my ears.
"Hey Skyva!
Check this out!"
"What in
the world?" I thought to myself as suddenly blows rained onto my back. As
sight returned to my eyes, I spied Jotan in front of me, hammering away at my
back. That was his usual greeting for me. I never liked it, but he was always
very amused at my reaction whenever he did it. He thrust something towards me. I
looked into his open palm and saw a strange-looking ball.
"What is
that?" I asked, not sure if I wanted to know. Jotan was always full of
surprises. He was always picking up strange objects he found and showing them to
me. A lot of them were not safe, but he never did seem to mind.
"I never
thought I'd see one of these here on the hillside," an excited Jotan went
on, "It's called an Flash Bomb. Military personnel use it in warfare to
blind the enemy. I could use this to catch my dinner!"
I was never very
excited about these gadgets. I preferred to live my peaceful life, away from war
and battles. Not Jotan though. Despite living like a hermit up on this hill, he
was often talking about war, fighting, hand-to-hand combat and stuff like that.
Must be from his past life. I asked him how he knew about it, and he said that
he dreamt of it. He must have a very vivid imagination, because his stories were
always very detailed.
"How does
it work?" I asked, though not very interested. Jotan, however, was very
interested in explaining the mechanisms of the gadget.
"See, you
grab the top half and pull it. Then you twist it round a number of turns. The
number corresponds to the number of seconds of delay before the area is
illuminated...."
The door ...
Open the door...
There it was
again. I looked around, but there was only me and Jotan in the cave. That
certainly gave me an eerie feeling that someone was watching me. I raised my
hand and examined the burn mark. It smarted a little, but the symbol had faded
somewhat. I attempted to pull off the ring, but to my surprise, it wouldn't
budge. How odd.
"Skyva! You
listening to me?" I was rudely awaken to the sound of Jotan shouting at me,
"What did I just say about the Flash Bomb?"
"You
said..." I started to reply, but a thundering explosion rocked the cave.
Pebbles and dust fell from the roof as Jotan and I took cover.
"What the hack is that?" I wondered. Jotan, as always, was already on the move. He
whipped out a couple of daggers from his belt and tossed one to me.
"Remember,
Skyva, resort to using it only when necessary. At all other times, stick to
hand-to-hand combat," Jotan cautioned me as he headed out of the cave.
Explosions like
that were rare, if any, in this area. The last time I heard one like that was
when the outhouse blew up. A spark had ignited the methane gas accumulated from
the decomposing waste. Since then, everything was peaceful and quiet.
I followed Jotan's lead as he took point. He edged his way out and I saw him stand upright. I stuck my head out of the entrance and glanced in the direction he was staring at. A plume of black smoke was seen rising from the direction of my village.
"What was
going on? Who did this?" Thoughts like these pummeled my mind as Jotan and
I raced down the hill towards the village. As we neared the outskirts, we could
see that the whole village was on fire. We spied armed, uniformed soldiers
running about, gathering all the villagers in the centre. Two of those soldiers
dashed up to meet us as we approached.
"Halt!"
ordered one of them, raising the barrel of his machine gun at us.
I slowed down,
but Jotan sped up. What the hell was he thinking?
"Last
chance!" yelled the same soldier as his buddy raised a similar gun at us,
"Stop where you are or we'll shoot!"
"Take
him!" shouted Jotan as he drew his dagger.
Take on two
soldiers wielding machine guns with just daggers? What kind of stunt was Jotan
trying to pull? I whipped out my own dagger and charged at the soldiers, who
opened fire at us.
(to be continued...)