5
we wasn't prepared the angel that attacked us left no room to pack clothes. It felt like forever until I finally felt water for the first time. Mom held me close to her chest as we ran up stream.
Then i realized the cold was my enemy, the way it seeps into your bones, until i fell asleep nestled in my mother's embrace.
The moment mom felt me shiver she nestled me in her bloody top,doing everything she could to keep me as worm as possible.
"Stop please stop i's beggin you." Nara whines for the umpteenth time as she looks for any excuse to rest her tired blistering feet.
Unju snarls as she begins to contemplate leaving her again. "Its just h... H.. How are you moving so fast? you just gave birth, you almost died from extreme blo..." unju interrupts Nara.
"If you can speak you can run, silently or..." mom let the sentence linger not wanting to threaten her now only best friend.
Nara got the point so they tredged through the water in silence until she noticed it. A life saver just appears around the corner forcing Nara to sqeek.
"There's a cave ri....." unju final erupts stopping her from finishing her sentence. "SHUT UP, WHAT IN THE TARNATION MADE YOU COME!" Unju yells.
For the first time Nara stopped to whirl around and glare at Nara. Unju opened her mouth to berate her again but she could see Nara was at her limits.
Nara huffed, her black skin turned pale brown. She looked as if she was going to pass out. But still she followed, and just like that unju felt it. She wasnt tired not yet, she felt the exhaustion build in the center of her chest but something was keeping it from over whelming her.
That's when she looked at my sleeping form, i shivered shived but slept comfortably cradled in moms arms. Even while i slept i was feeding her with the same power that brought her back from the dead, pushing her to keep moving.
Unju looked at the cave then back at Nara. She shook her head solumly. "Look we cant just walk into the cave, we have to make sure we don't leave any footsteps."
The cave didn't help the cold, in fact it only made things worse. I was miserably the kind that that clung to the skin like it had hands. The cave breathed, slow, smelling like earth and old water.
unju sat sleeping against the wall.Her body trembled against me. I could feel the shaking in her ribs, it matched the rhythm of my own. Nara curled nearby, small sounds leaked from her throat. Tight, thin, wrong. But exhaustion forced them to sleep through the pain.
The shaking of my body woke me up, everything felt wrong. I didn't know what wrong was. But i didnt like the way the air tasted sharp. My chest tightened, So I cried loudly.
Just once, I hated how it made me feel.
It slipped out of me, small, sharp. The cave changed, the air stiffened.
Unju's eyes flew open. And then... a sound.
Boots.
Crunching softly at the cave's mouth rhythmic, deliberate. Too distant to be yelling. Close enough to send terror through every bone in her body.
Mother heart exploded into speed.
Her arms crushed tighter around me. Instincts driving her to stand causing Nara to snap awake.
She layed there confused until mom frantically waved for her to follow.
I watched as Nara slowly registered the situation. Staring my mother confused then to me. I simply pointed toward the cave's mouth. Toward the dark, and sound of boots.
The entrance.
Nara gasped, covering her mouth. "No no no no we's was careful. They's can't be here. They's can't be here" nara made a sharp wet sound. Panic. It tasted like salt.
Unju didn't speak. She just waved at her frantically.
"Think I heard something." Mitchell yelps at the entrances.
"Get up," she hissed, voice dry and cracking like fire wood.
"I can't," Nara whispered. "I my legs!" She thought she whispered but her voice traveled.
"Woowho boys we got em." Mitchell's voice hit mom like a noose around the neck.
"GET UP." Unju's voice cracked through the cave like a whip. "They're coming." Nara obeyed, somehow crawling to her knees, legs trembling as she stood.
Mitchel's voice echoed faintly through the halls. "I heard something."
A whimper slipped from Nara's lips.
The cave stretched narrow, black. They stumbled over stones, ducked under low ceilings, each step fueled by sheer need.
Behind them, the boots grew louder. More than one pair.
Unju whipped around and yanked nara by the arm. "Gal move fasta!"
"I's sorry,I... I's tryin." Nara whimpered pothetically
"Try harder!" Unju yells.
For the first time i felt pure fear. It took over my mother's senses and I felt it in my moms heart through the feedback of our soul bond.
My body had a instant reaction, cold leeches from my skin as i began to heat up, rage took over my senses. With just a shift of my body in Unju's arms she began to feel more energy then she's ever felt.
It surged from the child into her bones. Into her breath, into her muscles.
She didn't question it, they ran hard leaving nara behind without a thought.
"Eje mi ko ni gbe e, stop!" Nara screamed. Pushing herself to move faster, more afraid of being alone then the slave catchers chasing her.
They pushed on desperately until...
A dead end.
Unju skidded to a stop. Breath heaving.
Unju eyes darted around wildly for a path.
A crack, a miracle, but nothing. Nothing but Footsteps, that got louder.
Moments later Nara corined into unju's back knocking them both into the wall.
"W..Wh.Whys ya stop." Nara muttered irritated. Then noticed the cave wall. Nara's knees gave out. She collapsed, hands over her mouth to muffle the sobs.
Unju stepped in front of her, clutching me hard to her chest like a weapon, like a promise behind them, in the dark Three shadows closed in.
They was cornered.
Unju stood with her back to the cave wall, fear causing her body to trembling, diluted blood covering her tunic, looking like a witch mother protecting her brood.
Nara knelt just behind her, silent, arms over her ears, too scared to pray, too tired to scream.
Greyson stepped forward slowly, boots crunching against the stone. Mitchel flanked him, grinning wide. Tom lagged behind, eyes scanning the dark like it might bite.
"Well, well," Greyson said, voice smooth as oil. "I'll give it to you-y'all made us work for it."
Unju didn't answer she glared. As i pumped my rage into her very soul.
An emense energy begain to build in her body as the three men stepped closer.
Greyson nodded, gesturing casually at the two women. "Hell, this's probably the most fun I've had on a hunt in years. Worth every step."
Mitchel laughed and nudged Tom. "You believe this? Nearly a day out here, and they didn't even bring food."
Tom didn't laugh. He was staring at Unju. At her eyes.
They were changing.
Shadows poured into the whites, swallowing them whole. Until all there was nothing left but black holes. Deep, endless, bottomless black.
Tom's hand hovered over his pistol.
"Grey...." he started.
"Let it be," Greyson waved him off. "We got 'em. Ain't no need for theatrics. Ain't no fight lef....."
Unju opened her mouth.
The scream came from somewhere deeper than her throat. It wasn't human. It wasn't just sound.
It was our souls.
The cave trembled Greyson flinched, Mitchel reached for his ears while Tom screamed. "SHE'S NOT HUMAN!" But no one heard him as unju's voice rose to a unnatural pitch
Sharp, piercing. It hit the men like a blade through the skull. Their hands flew to their ears. But it didn't help.
Blood started to seep between their fingers, then their noses, then their eyes.
Greyson tried to speak. Maybe command. Maybe curse. But no sound came. Only red.
One by one, their knees buckled. Their bodies twisted. Their eyes rolled white-then red-then black.
And then they fell.
Dead, the cave went still again.
Unju swayed on her feet, smoke curling from her lips, chest rising and falling rapidly as if she had just screamed out a piece of her soul.
Nara remained on the ground, clutching her ears, face turned to the stone. She was untouched-Unju had never once turned her way.
I looked up watching as the air shimmered. Three faint lights drifted from the corpses.
I saw them my permanent smile grew. then i reached.
Not with his hands. With something older.
The souls froze mid-air. Theyre souls struggling to escape, weightless, lost.
Then, like threads yanked by invisible fingers, they whipped toward him-into his mouth, his chest, his being.
Unju watched, breathing hard, her skin cooling. My eyes fluttered, then opened, deeper, wiser.
He had consumed them. Greyson's tactics, mitchel's aggression, tom's fear. My mind was to young to absorb all this information let alone understand it.
I seen there memory's, felt there pain, rage and hatred. And when my tiny body, mind, and soul had absorbed its fill the three dim souls drifted upwards, fading away.
Most of there experience now echoed inside my tiny growing mind.
My mind burned, eyes fluttered, unfocused. Even my never ending eerie smile began to fade.
Not with fever, but with thought too many thoughts.
Voices that weren't mine. Instincts that weren't born of my body. I knew how to reload a rifle, even though his fingers couldn't yet hold one. I knew the pressure points to kill a man in one strike. I knew how to track, to trap, to manipulate. To command.
Then I felt it like a fire growing in my mind, there racism, it threatened to consume my entire brain whole. The passion of there reason nearly evaporated my innocents.
But incouldn't even walk. couldn't even speak. The raw knowledge writhed inside me like lightning in a jar.
It all rushed into a mind too young to shape it And with it came a wave of exhaustion so massive it swallowed me whole.
I whimpered once.
My body twitched. My limbs tensed, then drooped. My head lolled against Unju's chest.
Then slipped into sleep. Like the dead.
Unju barely lasted a moment longer.
The scream had taken everything from her-more than blood, more than strength. Whatever Sol had given her, she had spent it all in one breath.
She stood only long enough to hear the sound of my breath.
She turned to Nara, eyelids already sagging. "Take... him..."
Then she collapsed.
Her knees gave out first. Her arms slackened. Her head tilted.
She fell forward like a soldier struck dead mid-charge.
Nara caught me first, barely. Then braced for Unju's body as it folded on top of her.
For a moment, she knelt there beneath the weight of both mother and child, shaking.
She sat there for a moment. Frozen heart pounding in the cave alone. Breathing, terrified.