"Let's go." Ray said, as we walked into the room earlier we had dinner in, after tucking in the kids for bed and waiting in the beds of our own until their breathing and snores filled the air that could be heard down the hall.
"Can we talk to you?" I asked, as the three of us entered to Sonju sitting in the empty room, Mujika no where to be seen, but the room was warm with a fire in the middle with tea brewing, the earthy smell of what smelled like green tea.
"Sue, go ahead. You've been on the run since last night with very little sleep, right? You should rest while you can." Sonju told us, as me and Emma took a seat across from him, Ray standing to the right of me.
"Thank you and also, I'm sorry to have doubted you even though you saved us. I thought all demons were our enemy. I never thought that there would be demons who wouldn't want to eat us." Emma said, though in reality she was speaking for me and Ray, but we wouldn't admit it. Me and Ray had quarreled earlier who would be the one to apologize for both for doubting and verbally attacking them, but Emma volunteered to do it.
"Don't worry about it. You were right to be cautious. Human flesh is special to demons. Especially the brain. Most demons would start drooling and take a bite if they saw a human. So it's better to think all of them as your enemy." Sonju said, his hood pulled up since we arrived, slightly obscuring his face.
"Then what about you guys?" I asked, yawning as I rested my head on Emmas shoulder, her patting my head, my frizzy hair from when I was laying down earlier had not been brushed out, not like it mattered at the moment.
"Religious reasons. We decided not to eat humans for our faith. But only humans. We'll eat anything other than human flesh. We are what you call heretics of this society. Them, the farm, their ideology, profit, authority, everything. All of it is none of our concern we don't care. I only saved you two all out of curiosity. And I wanted to talk to humans. It's been a while. It's very rare. In this day and age, you can only see live humans within a farm." Sonju ranted, and I could sense the loneness. But this day and age to see live humans? He could see the desperation and surprise in our faces.
"What's wrong? Isn't that what you came here to ask me?" He asked, intrigued by how we looked at him. He passed me and Emma a mug of the tea, I graciously accepted, though I feared I would doze off during this conversation.
"And you can tell us? What happened to the humans 30 years ago? What is going on in the world right now?" I asked, the warmth of the cup tingling through my fingers up my arms to the rest of my body.
"Nothing. Nothing happened. I don't know where you got 30 years from. But the world had been like this for a long time." He admitted, and my heart sunk a little.
"What do you mean?" I asked, and Ray finally spoke up since we've been here.
"Could it be that we're not on Earth? This isn't Earth, but a different planet? And that's why this crazy ecosystem, exist-"
"No." Sonju shut Ray down, but he was starting to get a bit jumpy, which was normal. These animals didn't exist in the informative books about the outside world, so for it to all be a lie in our world was disheartening.
"Then the calendar? Is the calendar a lie? It's not the year 2046 but a differen-" And yet again Rays frantic attempts for the way the world was how it was, was shut down by Sonju. I tapped Rays leg, turning around and giving him a look. I know it was stressful in this situation, but he needed to have some control. When he looked down at me he only closed his eyes and took a deep breath, and Sonju told what he knew.
"We are on Earth, and this is indeed 2046. According to one of the human calendars. Let me tell you an old tale. About when the world used to be bigger than it is now..." And there Sonju told us the story of the world, a promise, an agreement. It made my stomach churn, and I held onto Emmas hand, her squeezing my hand back; us sitting quietly, taking a sip from her tea. Honestly, I didn't have the space in my stomach to handle food or any drink at the moment. We were in the demons side of the world, not the humans.
"It's been 1,000 years since the agreement. The world hasn't changed much since then. Unfortunately, this is the world you were born in and escaped to." Sonju said, and I placed the cup down, letting go of Emmas hand to put a hand to my mouth, but it wasn't for a bad reason. I was relieved.
"(Y/N)... Ray." Emma mumbled, as she helped me stand up, the three of us in a triangle as we looked up at each other, smiles plastered upon our faces.
"Let's go! I'm so happy!" I cheered, Emma and me jumping into the air, I bounced around, even Ray let out a big grin that I hadn't seen in a while, and it made me feel good to know that the both of them were both happy about the same thing for once. Sonju was confused on what we were talking about, but we were too absorbed in ourselves to notice.
"It's the worst case! It is but, there's something beyond!" Emma cried out, her hands clenched in fists as she was beaming, it felt like she really lit up the whole room with just her mood.
"Yeah! I don't really get it, but it's better than we thought!" Ray admitted, and I snickered at him; which costed me a punch to the shoulder and his tongue out at me, which I thought was what I usually do.
"There is a separate world for just humans. A world without demons!" I cheered, smiling so hard that even my eyes squinted a bit.
"Yeah! Now we can go back and get Phil and everyone else!" Ray cheered, us three rolling around in our own excitement, but Sonju was here to break our balloon of pride and joy.
"Oh, actually.. this is hard to say, but you can't cross over to the human world. The path is completely blocked. "There will be no coming and going between the worlds." That was part of the agreement." Sonju said, but that wasn't enough to burst Emmas spirit, or mine to say.
"That's fine, we'll find it. We'll search and find the way to the human world." I spoke, picking me and Emmas mug up. I handed her cup over to her, as we both clinked our mugs together, we then interlocked pinkies with our other hand as we downed the drink, which is what we did together for her to swallow her pills while she was in the infirmary back at home; she had trouble swallowing pills, and I had learned that way back in Glory Bell when I got ill, so I decided to show her. It made Ray sputter and let out a small chuckle, Emma took my cup and grinned, passing it back to Sonju.
"I see. Well, if that's true.. good. It's late. You should go to sleep. Starting tomorrow, I'll show you the way out of this forest. We'll escort you to the exit. Leave that to us." Sonju said, standing up to at least see us to the arch of the long passage way. It was intimidating as his tall figure towered over us, but you get used to it over time.
"Thank you, good night." I smiled at him, Emma and Ray already walking away. As I yelled for them to wait up for me, I placed my hand on either sides of their shoulders and jumped over them, using their shoulders to propel myself off, barely missing the ceiling.
"Hah- guess you guys would never suspect that now would you?" I laughed off, Emma laughing along with me, as Ray dropped his fist on top of my head, my yellow eyes gleaming with a new sense of hope.
"You're crazy, you know that?" Ray snickered at me, as he brushed his shoulder off.
"I wouldn't be me if I wasn't." I replied back, interlocking hands with Emma, who scolded Ray a bit for calling me names. As we continued our slow walk back to our beds, which was separated from the younger kids, but we still shared with Don, Gilda, Anna, and Nat, allowing the older kids some grace to discuss older kids stuff, unless you could count it as adult things. Considering the situation we were in, it really felt like we were forced to age up as adults in the span of one night.
"We'll escape. Let's get out of here. All of us. From this world of demons." Ray spoke in the silence, the sound of the rusty metal lantern creaking with each step he took. It felt like ages to walk to our sleeping area, but I was really tired in reality. I was holding those two up, as they slowed down to make sure I didn't get left behind; Emma pulling me by the hand to catch up.
Ray was keeping a closer eye on me than Emma though, always putting an arm out if I looked like I was about to collapse, or looking at me nervously if I made a noise. Once we got back to our beds, I laid between Emma and Ray, Ray leaving the lanterns outside so it would be darker in the area for rest.
"Ray, am I really getting worse? While we were walking back anything I did made you seem like I was about to have an episode." I asked in the dark, turning on my side to face him in the dark, even though I had to squint to see, I could see his one green eye staring at me. We stayed silent for a bit, my eyes looking around before he replied.
"Well, back when we were with the demons, they knew you had migraines, and everything how Mama didn't give you pills. You grabbed onto me and mumbled something, before Sonju came and saved us.. and then.." his voice trailed off, nearing the end he sounded a little embarrassed, but I didn't know what for.
"I didn't get any vomit on you.. right? And then, what happened?" I pressed him, the soft snores of Emma being heard behind me.
"N-nothing happened. It's getting late now and we should sleep, or before we wake everyone up, especially you need rest." He mumbled, turning away from me and pulling the blanket up so that his whole head was almost covered.
"Fine fine, I'll find out soon though what you won't tell me, and you'll regret it.. but thanks. For helping me from an episode.. I know last time probably wasn't pleasant either." I said, hinting to Normans shipment, where he had to drag me back to bed.
"I know they're getting worse, but I thought if I fought my last migraine enough that I would be fine, I shouldn't have gone with you if I knew that there was a possibility of that happening. But I don't want to see anyone die, especially not see you attempt for a second time." I teased at him again, but it was silent from him, as he refused to turn around. I suspected he was asleep, so I closed my eyes and snuggled deeper into my blanket.
"It's no problem, just don't worry m- us again like that again." He said, and I laughed a little.
"I won't worry you, you old man. You were so tense as we were walking here that I thought you'd die from stress. Even Emma was worried, but I couldn't tell if it was because of you or me." And with that, that was the last we spoke. Late as it was, we were both exhausted from our first day of our escape, and I knew it wouldn't get easier from here.
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(A/N): finally starting to get that little ol' connection between the two >:3 and also fitting the description of the fanfic into here somewhere (kudos to you reader, if you noticed)
Announcement as well! I recently started a new fanfic! "Rebirth of a Star" is finally out with the first chapter! If you can, my lovely stars, it would be great if you could go and check it out!
Word count: 2091