XERNOS: WORLDS COLLIDE

Torture

“Thief!”, Fruits yelled, “Thief!”, she yelled again, the culprit on the run aware he spooked his victim. “Where did he go?”, the guards questioned responding to the early cries, “That way, he stole my fruits.”, she remarked panicked, but did the alleged culprit actually steal. All because she screamed thief meant she was actually robbed of something? The guards assured Fruits the culprit will be caught and they went after the thief but they hadn’t bothered to ask what really happened, but who will they believe the sales woman known throughout the city for selling the best groceries or the young youth who was on the run? “I am hungry, I need food!”, he cried, brown eyes, some five and half feet tall, around twenty moons old, his body was in agony ever since the tragedy befall him and his family. The promise of safe haven but hunger death traumas wasn’t one of them, the young man settled beside a butchery hoping the butcher will have pity and throw him a bone to chew or a rotten maggot infested steak to savage on, “Shoo dog!”, the butcher hissed chasing him further from his workplace his butcher knife in hand, his white robe stained with blood, “No meat for me.”, he disappointedly concluded. Five days surpassed and his sanity was turning otherwise, “What if I ate my leg I can walk with one.”, the first voice convinced him, those toes look chewy, that ankle bone can take me for a week, he salivated his own left leg done with his trousers except the innerwear he was out of clothes to eat, silk to chew all he had was his self, he had four limbs but he needed two to survive, a hand to touch and a leg to walk. So, the two were food supply long enough till he ate the rest two, this thought with insanity and desperation written all over it echoed in his mind time and over, his stomach caved in, he had eaten his inner walls long enough, “Here it is.”, he sighed, he had made up his mind. Placing his left leg on the huge bolder, he grabbed the much smaller lighter stone and heaved up to his head, “One, two, three.”, he finished the count launching the boulder on his leg joint, more so the knee cap and the knack sound that followed was evident the damage was done. “Aaah!”, he screamed, the pain was unbearable but the hunger was much more, the boulder had fractured his leg, the impact had missed his cap by a finger size girth but still there was damage done, he could walk but he felt the fractured bits pinch his nerves, the cracking sound, but he was not done yet, his leg was for dinner and he was destined to have it.

“Stop!”, she shrieked held aghast by the sight of self-torture, Fruits was late for that day’s opening, the first moon was nearing and she was cautious to clear her license do some bribes to avoid her stall being touched by the guards during tax week. On her normal route she heard some feet ahead a crackling sound like a twig being snapped, a “Buuf!”, sound like a boulder was dropped from the sky, a scream similar to man wrapped in a towel soaked in acid, curious she neared the source cautious knowledgeable to the harsh cruel robbers in these streets. The sight terrified her, the man was surely desperate, he had no bath wrenching with stink tensing enough to bring tears, his stomach caved in wrapped inside itself, his skin pale, only his underwear as garments Fruits took pity on the lad. The humane love to help the stranger, to give him some food at least, a shower and some clothes to start a life for himself, “Lets go.”, she consoled the stranger grabbing his left hand the lad lowered the boulder and limping the pain evident he followed him, “Lets get that leg fixed first.”, she insisted diverting her route to the workers of herbs and medicines to heal him.

“How do you feel?”, she asked him, it’s been a week since the lad was taken in by Fruits and life was taking him on the high road, the good side glanced a him for once since he lay foot on the planet. However, Fruits began to notice, the lad was young, energetic, handsome, he was tall and masculine, seeing in the business view he was a very good asset in her business both selling and manual working jobs around. Catering for him, giving him the shelter under her, the lad wore good garments, he smelled better than his dying self-weeks ago, “Where should I keep these madam?”, he asked often, his first occurrences working for Fruits food stall was hectic and chaotic, there was no one place to place the fresh groceries from the aged ones, and the child… the child was worse than the stench of rotten fruits. “I will call you Pedro.”, Fruits named him, during one of their dinner nights Fruits grew curious of the lad’s name, his origin because a month under their one roof he was still a stranger. “I don’t remember.”, he answered after he was questioned on his name, the naming session was brief, he was Pedro and she was madam period that was how these two would address each other, for the little child Pedro called him little devil because he was annoying, always crying and always on the crawl whether into the robe of a noble merchant or in the ride of a well renowned scholar, he was always under something when he was left unwatched.