Tako's head flicked toward the sound, his stride breaking for a split second. "What the? The Demon is endangering everybody." He forced his feet forward, passing a bure as the atmosphere grew thick with unspoken panic.
Tinko materialized from a narrow gap where the shadows were at their most dense. "Hey, Tako."
Tako skidded to a halt, taking several interceptive steps back. Tinko stepped into the dim light. "Hey man."
Tako retreated further, his heels kicking a spray of dust into the stagnant air. Tinko closed the distance. "It's been a while, huh?" He offered a short nod.
Tako's face remained frozen—a wall of distrust. Tinko's smile died. "I see you know. You know what I did."
The silence snapped. Tako broke his frozen state with a shake of his head in disbelief and walked away. Tinko trailed him like a ghost. "Wait, wait, hold up. Why aren't you saying anything?"
Tako spun around. Tinko gestured with an open hand. "You know it wasn't true, and I don't think you would easily fall for that."
Tako's finger rose, trembling with a controlled grimace. His mouth fumbled for the air. "...Don't follow me."
He turned on his heel, moving as if he were passing through a ghost, but Tinko caught his shoulder. "Man, I'm talking to you. Why are you acting so weird? I'm your friend."
"Don't follow me!!" Tako's voice dropped into a heavy bass—a warning rattle.
Tinko recoiled, his eyes darting to the nearby huts. "Man, what the?—are you trying to get me caught?" He gave Tako one final, fractured look and ran off into the dark. Tako remained, a pillar of anger in the center of the path, until he slowly turned and moved on.
Tako moved past the bures, ignoring the wary glances of the villagers. "Rania!"
He stepped into his home with a heavy thump-thump, his body slipping through the dry thatch. The space was a still, dimly lit vacuum. "Rania?" He turned in the center of the room, confused. "Where does this girl go all the time?"
He ducked back out through the opening. "Rania!" He pushed through a cluster of bushes, scanning the next bure. She wasn't there. "Rania!"
A tap on his shoulder made his weight shift instinctively. Rania stood there, an eyebrow arched. "Why are you yelling?"
Tako's breath came out in a huff. "Do you know how long I've been looking for you?"
She gestured toward the cluster of homes with a dry look. "I was literally right... there. Are you blind?" She pointed to her own pupils.
Tako shook his head, looking at the dirt before meeting her eyes. "You annoy me sometimes, sis. Right now, we gotta go. I found mom."
"Really? Where? When?" The fragile relief on her face was almost painful.
"She told me we should meet her at the Canoe Groves. The village is hunting through the whole island like a hive. We need to make it there quickly before things get more out of hand." He widened his eyes, a brief, silent plea for her to understand. "We need to go now. All the friends and memories you made here—you can forget them."
Rania's pace slowed, her face twisting into disbelief and disgust. "Seriously? Do you even know what you're saying? Leaving the island like it's just a trip?" She stepped back, her tongue clicking in a sarcastic rhythm. "Our whole life we have lived here. Me, you, and mom. This island is our home, no matter what happens in it, Tako."
Tako looked at the ground.
Rania's hand hit her skirt with a sharp slap, her voice straining with slow grief. "Why does mom do this to us? What was going on in her head? Creating chaos for what?" She paused, the weight of it settling. "We could've lived in peace, but she just had to mess everything up. We're leaving our home behind?"
Tako kept his eyes down. "Notice how I made you express your thoughts? It's hard to take in." He finally snapped his chin up, locking eyes with her. "But what's done is done. I questioned her myself, but she's still our mother. She's still our family."
He extended a hand, palm open in the moonlight. Rania stared at it, her chest heaving.
"You can choose. Stay... or come with me. Either way, the rules don't bend to us."
She swallowed hard. His hand floated in the air, untouched, as the wind carried the sounds of the hive-village closer.
The duo broke from the palm line, their movement a jagged, quick stutter against the backdrop of the towering trunks. Tako's arm was hooked firmly on Rania's palm, his knuckles white. His other hand extended the torch like a weapon. The flame was a dying orange tongue, licking at the oppressive dark.
Tako swung the torch to the left—illuminating a cluster of Ironwood roots that looked like tangled, black veins—then to the right, then left again. The light caught the oily sweat on his forehead. "Over here," he hissed, his voice a forced calm.
They reached a patch of the grove where the soft earth gave way to a floor of Crushed Brain-Coral. The moonlight caught their silhouettes like a beam of silver-grey, exposing them against the tall grass that stood like thousands of thin, pale needles.
Every step became a high-clarity violence. Clack-crunch. Clack-crunch. The sharp, calcium grit echoed too loudly in the silence. Rania took one heavy step and her foot caught an edgy rock. The sound of skin tearing was sharp. "Ah!"
"Rania!" Tako hissed, his pulse racing as he dropped to her crumpled form.
She gripped her foot, watching the thick, dark blood start to pool. Her teeth ached against each other—a rhythmic grinding of bone. "My foot. Ah, my foot, my foot, my foot."
Tako took her heel in his hand. "Let me see." He shined the torch; the yellow light hit the jagged red split. "Beika," he hissed. "It's a big cut." He scanned the immediate area—only waist-high grass and unforgiving rock. "Just hold on, there. I will get you fixed."
Rania held her scream behind locked jaws, her fingers digging into the dirt. Tako looked at his torch, then the open space. "Uhh." His breath held a panicked edge. "Uhh. Come on. Think, think."
A shadow detached itself from the trees, closing in on the duo—closer, then closer. "Tako, look out!" Rania yelled.
Tako shifted, standing up in defense as a figure lunged. The attacker swung a Stone-Cracker club—a heavy weapon carved from the heart of an Ironwood tree, its edges lashed with sharpened shells and sennit-rope.
—Swoosh—
Tako ducked. The air from the club's passing whistled over his head as he swung his full body on his arms. The guy couldn't hit further. Tako grunted in anger, the sound born deep in his chest as he pushed the attacker backward. It was a chaotic battle of parries and strikes, the sound of labored breathing and feet scuffing the earth.
The club fell with a thud on the grass. Rania forced herself up. "Get your arms away from him!" Despite the tear in her foot, she sprinted and locked her arms around the man's throat.
The attacker kicked Tako in the stomach—a dull, wet impact—and punched his cheek. He thrashed, shifting his weight frequently with Rania until he threw her over his shoulder. She hit the ground with a loud, flat sound.
The attacker gripped his neck, his hands shaking as he brought them into his sight. "You little bitch!" He pulled a stingray knife from his pandanus skirt. The moonlight caught his bared teeth—the expression of a predator.
"No!!" Tako lunged.
The attacker sliced the air, the blade passing within an inch of Tako's chest. Tako jumped back—a close call. The attacker lunged a second time, the knife fully aimed. Tako sidestepped again and grabbed the attacker's wrists. They strained against each other, a deadlocked spring of muscle and bone. Then, the attacker shoved Tako with a shoulder, flipped the knife to his other hand, and pressed it into his stomach.
Tako's face froze in static shock. He took a fumbled step back. His palms slid away from the guy's hand slowly, as if moving through water. Blood started spooling over the attacker's hand.
"Tako!" Rani yelled from the dirt.
The attacker's predatory stare softened just a fraction as the adrenaline began to dip. Their breathing was the only sound in the grove. He jerked the blade out, and Tako fell backward with a loud thump.
Rania's face twisted into grief. "Tako... no." She didn't wait. She scrambled up and sprinted back toward the trees. She gave a quick glance behind her, her eyes wide with a decimal of hope. The attacker's gaze locked onto her. "Oh no you don't, killer!"
He paced into a full sprint—thud-thud-thud—and closed the distance. He drove the knife into her back.
Rania stopped dead. She tried to cough, but the air mixed with blood in her throat, creating a thick, gurgling whistle. She fell forward in a frozen state of shock and pain.
—THUD—
The attacker stood over her, the bloodied weapon trembling in his hand—nervousness mixed with a residual anger. Then—another figure skidded from the palm line into the moonlight. His breath was a controlled, ragged intake. He looked at Tako's corpse in the distance, then Rania's form on the ground.
"Are you kidding me?"
The attacker's eyes narrowed. "What? What did I do wrong?"
The second guy made a swift, broad-eyed arm motion toward the bodies.
The attacker gave a weird, empty little laugh. "And? They were alone out in the far side. They were about to make a run for it."
The second guy gripped his head. "Are you well, Bwebwe?! You just killed two innocent people! They were from the village!"
"But you didn't tell me they were innocent villagers and not the killers the woman named!"
The second guy tilted his head, his expression narrowing into a cold focus. "What?"
"I was tired and confused when so many slipped from me," Bwebwe rambled. "I couldn't seem to focus, and then I saw them! And I just wanted to finish the job. Don't you see how cold and dark it is out here?"
The second guy's face went flat. "You're a piece of shit, you know that, Bwebwe?"
"Why are you calling me a piece of shit?! I told you I was tired."
"You don't seem to think before you act! You're just running around doing stuff without taking a second guess."
Bwebwe's face froze, then shifted into a slow, ugly grimace. "You know, you're something special, you know that? Even when I tell you the real issue, everyone blames me."
"Yes, we're blaming you, because you're a piece of shit!"
"You cannot call me a piece of shit!! You cannot! It was an accident. Stop blaming me for your insecurities!!"
The second guy raised a hand to slap him, taking a threatening pace forward. "For who are you raising your damn voice?!"
The air became a tense spring of silence. "You need to watch your tone. Control it. Manage it."
Bwebwe stood his ground. He laughed—a short, jagged sound—stopped, and laughed again.
"What's so fricking funny?"
The moon hit Bwebwe's pupils. "You know what's funny? I just hit on your wife and you didn't even notice." He chuckled, covering his mouth with a bloodied hand. "Yeah. I did. She was a Mat, and you didn't deserve each other."
—STAB—
The second guy lunged like a coiled spring, driving his blade into Bwebwe's stomach. And then, he didn't stop.
—STAB—
—STAB—
—STAB—
—STAB—
Bwebwe fell backward with a hard flump. The guy looked down, his chest heaving with a raging, silent anger. "You crazy monster," he whispered.
From above, from the lone palm canopy, the man looked like a high-clarity object of blue against the soft grass, surrounded by three motionless corpses.