The Angel's Humanhood

17. It Takes a Village

Run NOW! The voice alerted.
All around Wahag there were buildings falling. He ran, but it felt like they were catching on. His feet threatened to give out. He was sweating from more than just the running. His heart was trying to break his ribs, and suddenly he felt his feet hit quick sand even though he could see they were pushing against solid ground. His body got heavy and numb. He tripped, but instead of hitting the ground, he felt himself falling endlessly in a blurry mix of colors and images.
Out of the limbo, Wahag found himself in jin form standing over the body in a room with broken windows and piles of dust, floating unable to reconnect to it. There were two, a boy in his teens and a young man, hovering over it and whispering.
"I think the pixie dust got him good. I only used a pinch," said a young man with a tattoo of a goddess on his bold head.
"What is he doing here?" said the boy in a colorful hoodie and face piercings.
"I thought Jonah died with the rest of them," the tattooed one shrugged.
"Is that even really him?" The first boy pondered.
"One way to find out," the tattooed man before he turned Wahag over and pulled his shirt to reveal a tattoo on the back of his right shoulder of number 9, "Here it is. It's definitely him," he added with a heavy sigh and a disapproving head shake.
"Let's wake him up," the boy with the face piercings urged.
"Wait, Haffaf has a bounty on his head," a gleam of greed flashed through the tattooed man's eyes.
But, the boy flicked his forehead, "he has a bounty on our heads too. What are we going to do? Give him a three for the price of one?"
The tattooed man grabbed the boy from his hoodie, "I told you not to flick me!"
The boy seemed unbothered by the fact that he was hanging from his shirt, "I can't make any promises."
Both the boy and the man were skinny and had a a mellow aura, that it looked more like a chicken fight, than anything dangerous.
The tattoed man attempted to flick the boy, but the boy expertly blocked him and slipped out of the floating hoodie taking on a ninja praying mantis stance.
They beckering went on, but Wahag suddenly felt sucked back into the body and into a different scene.
"Jo! Jo!" The tattooed man called. The body opened its eyes and the sun burn right into it.
"Urgh! You ****head!!" Jonah's replied. The tattooed man in this scene had hair and wasn't tattooed at all, and Wahag just knew that his name was Riza. He was wearing a loose gray t-shirt and they were in a small concrete rooom with bare walls. Riza was reflecting the sun coming from a high small square window into Jonah's eyes.
Wahag was watching from Jonah's eyes this time. Riza was smiling brightly, "You said you wanted to try napping under the sun!"
Jonah wrapped his arm around the man's neck in an attempt to strangle him, but Riza kept laughing as he pretended to choke.
"Quit goofing around!" a stern voice came from the only exit of the room, a metal door with a small barred window. The boys went silent, but they shared a look and Jonah started to silently mimic whoever was at the door. Wahag didn't know how but he knew that the man at the door was a guard in the prison where he and Riza were held for years since they turned twelve. Their crime was stealing food. Bits and pieces of facts about the village started to take shape in Wahag's awareness, the poverty, the corruption, and the endless injustice. The rich accumulated their wealth through exploiting the poor, and the poor kill and steal from each other without any mercy. If you were rich and clean, you lived in the safety of a walled community, and if you weren't, you lived with the outlaws outside. Jonah was one of the people who were born and lived most of his life outside with Riza, and Sammy. None of them knew parents. They were all raised by different mobs and got caught one by one and sentence to jail were they met.
Jonah was hated this place with every part of him. He wanted to escape so badly. Till one day, ...
The scene shifted again and Jonah was meeting with an bearded older man in a white and gold silk robe, "I saw you in a vision. You are the spiritual type, aren't you? I can see your potential, but you won't reach it here."
And again the memory changed, and Jonah was sitting on a dirt ground in some sort of an outdoor cage with Riza and a young boy who he cognized from the present but seemingly before all the face piercings, Sammy. They were mulling over something.
Sammy spoke first with a voice that was very young, yet very wise, "You should go. Anything is better than being here."
The world moved around Wahag again and, he saw Jonah leave with the bearded man, walking into the walls of one of the rich communities.
With another shift, Jonah was now standing with his back to someone in a room filled with golden chandeliers and maroon furniture, his back stung and it felt damp with blood, "This should teach you gratitude! The villagers are lost. We are their only salvation!"
"But," Jonah murmered with closed eyes, and another whip landed on him. Jonah looked a bit older and much skinnier, closer to the body Wahag knows.
"Do you think you are some prophet?! You think someone of your filthy birth even deserves to stand in front of God!"
Wahag was grateful when the memories faded and he returned to the darkness of being inside the unconscious body.
Why didn't you tell me any of this before? He asked the body.
The body can only respond to triggers. The voice answered before going silent, and the memories were replaced by the bickering duo over Wahag's head.
Wahag blinked, not sure how to react to those two, he felt like he knew them, but he didn't really. He felt a desire to embrace them and yet also a sense of shame that he couldn't explain. Wahag was trying to process, when Sammy suddenly notice, "he's up!"
"Well, well... look who is back to the slumps," Riza folded his arms over his chest defensively.
"Can you be more cliche?" Sammy interjected, "Jo, what happened to you? We heard you were dead!"
"We also heard you were worshipped," Riza muttered.
Wahag shifted his gaze between them few times before mastering, "I don't know how to say this, but I am not Jonah," he tried to sit up, but his head felt fuzzy.
Riza's upper lip curled in disgust.
"I told you not to throw so much pixie dust," Sammy whispered audibly to Riza.
"He is just a coward! Of course, he'll act like he doesn't remember anything! Like what will he say? I am sorry I ditched you in jail and went on being a chosen one, and forgot all about you?!" The tattoo on Riza's head was turning red.
"What's happening to your head?" Wahag became concerned.
"You've never seen a color changing tattoo before?" Sammy's piercings made clicking noise as he spoke.
The three were alerted by the sound of glass breaking in a different building. Riza darted to the window, but couldn't spot the source. Before he could turn, Prince came flying to the window and slamming into Riza who flew back.
Dow somehow snuck into the room and was at Sammy's throat, "Wahag, can you move?"
"Whose Wahag?" Sammy tried to push against Dow.
Wahag jumped to his feet, "Easy. They are friends."
"So, you do remember us!" Riza fired at him from the spot on the ground where he fell.
"Not exactly... It's this body that remembers you," Wahag shrugged apologetically.
"Ew..." Riza made a disgusted face.
"It's not ew... It's a very smart body," Wahag straightened. Everyone in the room joined in the confused disgusted look Riza had.
Dow shock it off first, "Are you still dying?"
"Yes," Wahag answered too confidently. "Then, we need to go," Dow remarked.
"No one here is going anywhere," three gunned men in uniform entered the room, "you are coming with us."
"What's wrong with this damn village?" Wahag said as the gunned men started to cuff everyone.