"Are you.. okay?"
Am asked.
"No..H-hic!"
Tiju's voice came out as a whisper.
"What is your name?"
He asked the name of the person he saved.
"T-Tiju Ern"
Am nodded.
"Tiju"
He called out his name softly.
And he asked one simple question.
"Do you want to live?"
Tiju only nodded in response.
"Right...it is only natural for the living to want to live"
He extended his hand above.
"I will save you, just once"
That was all he could afford to do.
"So get up and walk beside me"
Tiju looked below and saw the Oksi's hand reaching out to him.
"At the very least, stand up, raise yourself up to respect the burning will to live"
Tiju wiped his tears, his palm pushed his body forward.
His body, raised like the dead faced Am.
"I..."
He stood up on his feet, he still quaked in fear.
Yet that same fear magnified his determination to live.
Because no one would want to suffer like that, to be torn apart like a toy and used to pass the time.
"Will live"
He couldn't die here, he had so many things to look forward to, a crush to confess to, a family that always sits by his side and friends that worry are constantly there when he needs them.
"Puha! Finally out!"
Famu, constrained prior was hopping back and forth with bated breaths.
Am looked at him and then at Tiju.
"Then, let's slowly get to the Tierre Path"
He moved past them and headed south-west, close to the edge of the 'stomach'
***
Ha..
Ragged breaths nibbled close to an ear.
'I'm fucked, and royally at that'
Iye dangled from a branch and was tangled in vines whilst also being in an uncomfortable position after skydiving head-first against her mortal will, feeling blood constantly rush into her head.
It throbbed, increasing in intensity the more she stayed upside down.
'I don't think I can even move properly without limping'
In her embrace, Cale was held like how a small girl would hold a teddy bear.
'Damn, he was still injured despite me basically taking everything?'
A very small amount of blood trickled from his mouth.
It hadn't even been a day and Cale was already in the red.
'I'm lucky if he doesn't disappear in the next 6 hours'
Iye stayed in this position for that much of a long time. Not out of her own will but because she could do nothing except for drawing in a breath with labor efforts.
She kept breathing heavily in Cale's earlobe due to how tangled they were and how tired Iye was.
'I should be able to move slightly...'
Iye swayed her body to the right and left, they moved slightly but it wasn't enough to break free.
'It's way too tight!'
She wiggled around and pushed Cale for more space but she was too weak to do anything.
'AHHH! This is so annoying!'
Frustrated with how everything went completely to the drainer, she wanted to murder Cale right this instant.
'Can't he come back a second time for me? Shouldn't a beating be universally accepted? even in the afterlife?!'
She flailed around, causing the spiraling branch of the Ohrn tree to shake, only slightly however.
"Yeah, this can't be happening, it's a dream, right?"
Her thoughts drifted to denial.
"Damn it! how can everything go to shit in just one day! It doesn't make any sense, does it?!"
Then moved to anger.
"Maybe if I bargain with Zenox...AHH! NO! WHAT THE HELL COULD I EVEN USE FOR BARGAINING?!?!"
Then left anger as if it were another side dish on the big table.
"Yep, I'm fucked, my entire history of living had been utterly meaningless, I am such a shame to the Idiyele name. Maybe I should also end my life to at least not suffer and bring some honor to the world down under? I would also get to beat up Cale in the afterlife for having a weak resolve...It works out pretty well!"
She then shifted to depression and...cope?
"You know, staying here, not capable of moving when my life might end in the next few hours is strangely a harmonic experience..just like how Carlos said, I'm going to die anyway so it's probably fiiiinee~"
Then after cycling through all the dishes like they were ex's, she finally settled on acceptance.
"Haaa~"
She exhaled, still tired from all the added injuries and poisoning she had to endure just to stay conscious.
Her head throbbed more with pain, her face, though invisible to the naked eye was now flushed bright red. A high fever, and an extremely deadly one to have in a place like this.
Any weakening in the Sabe was essentially a death sentence more likely to be ruled in favor.
Every single inch and muscle in her body could not respond to her call to move to save Cale and...to save herself.
'I heard that in the afterlife or whatever is a strange place, even to most Gods. Only the God of Death Krizantemë knows what truly is and isn't in there, he currently doesn't have any followers devout enough to be priests from what I know, and if they were some..'
Her eyes fell down and cast a glare at the fog.
'They'd be dead'
Any priest of Krizantemë met such a fate always, with not a single exception.
Only extremists and fanatics that strived to become a priest remained. Though even those kinds of people started dwindling down due to the delusion that they held that foretold them as a chosen priest from Krizantemë themselves.
'I wonder, is he suffering?'
Every individual resurrected had described the experience as 'indescribable'.
'Is he blissfully resting in paradise while I'm dying?'
She could not know, and she would not know...for many years that will eventually come to pass.
"..."
'J-Just a little won't hurt, right?'
The lids above her eyes that had remained so alert and cautious before began to soften, the strength to keep them open had long left.
Iye couldn't stay awake any longer.
And thus—
Huu~
She drifted into a short yet deadly nap, her breaths kept on tingling Cale's earlobe, and her saliva trickled from her mouth and...doused his ear like how one would with a pillow so soft it turns you into a mannerless mammal.
The saliva kept journeying through Cale's head, until finally dripping through the endless fog that sat below.
***
[????]
In a place so far away that not even time had control nor dominion over, not because it was anything special, but simply that there were no real reason to care about it when only the dead roamed.
The dead after all, could not mumble to the living, save for a few exceptions. But even then, there were sanctions placed if such an exception occurred.
Tap!
Tap!
Delicate fingers drummed against the smooth surface of a desk, below it a hand attempted to bend the iron, believing he was strong enough to do so.
Eyes, though having a hazel hue, resembled more of a cold obsidian at the moment.
The lids of his eyes were lowered, unfocused and dead.
Where his vision laid on was not the teacher, he did not look outside the window. This, was due to the fact that he could not look outside in the first place.
His vision was strictly forced to stare at the green leather board right in front.
The young boy let his eyes raise themselves in curiosity upwards.
"...."
"So then children, now I want you to solve this question in your textbooks with what I said thus far used as the base"
The voice of the teacher boomed at the far side. The young boy did not pay attention to her, he didn't even bother remembering her name, because remembering would mean respecting her existence in his eyes.
He only silently looked up, without the teacher realizing, who was the only one capable of seeing him at this angle.
Finally, after slightly craning his neck, the title of the leather mahogany board seared ironically in his mind. The title was in a dramatic, fancy and scriptify-like font.
[𝑅𝑒𝓈𝓅𝑒𝒸𝓉 𝒯𝒽𝑜𝓈𝑒 𝒜𝓇𝑜𝓊𝓃𝒹 𝒴𝑜𝓊!]
His lips curled and stitched into a grin.
He kept reading the board, in a more messy handwriting as if a child had written it. He could still read it well, if someone asked him to read it out loud...well, he'd start sounding awfully like a stuttering copy machine.
[1. Let the person you hold a conversation with speak without interrupting them! No one can get the full story if you don't even allow them to say everything and only said what you wanted to hear! It is utterly rude to anyone who wants to have a sensible conversation with you!]
He skimmed through the rest of the paragraph and passed on the second.
[2. Listen to what they are saying! You as an individual in society ought to bestow the respect to listen intently to the opinions, points of others. Don't be self-centered thinking only your opinions matter!]
He reached the final paragraph.
[3. All of—
"Cale Dice!"
The young Cale snapped his head towards the voice. A certain fear tugged at his heart. But deep down, he didn't feel any of that, it was only his movements that showed a false sense of fear due to nervousness.
"What the hell are you staring at the wall! How about you go kiss it if you love it so much! Huh?!"
Cale felt his stomach churn and his heart felt like a dumbbell too heavy to lift with his weak arms.
"...."
But not out of the teachers screeching voice that bled the whole and pure ears that had the misfortune to be defiled by. No, it was something else.
'Kuk!'
'pf'
'Serves him right'
'Damn, maybe we should stab him after school? he look stabbable right?'
'Yeah, but we'd get in trouble~'
'No hold on, my dad is a cop, we can get away with stabbing him or kicking him, just avoid killing him and we're fine'
'Yeah! you're right'
The snickers from those out of his sight is what made his stomach churn, their uncensored desire to hurt him and the teacher's will to do nothing due to them being children.
"Tsk, this damn brat"
The teacher walked over and forcibly snapped Cale's head to the whiteboard.
"That is the only thing you should look at in class"
She said it as if it were not allowed to even look away for a split second.
And the best part? She didn't say the same to other kids that looked distracted saying along the lines 'well, they are just children'. It was obvious she picked on Cale due to him being timid after getting called to the principal's office a few days prior to this exchange.
"Hah, I wonder what made you so lacking in manners, maybe if your dad didn't leave for business every few months, you'd have grown up better, what do you think?"
Cale did not speak, he knew well enough that she was provoking, insulting his parents did not ultimately get to him because.
'Is she what my sister calls a man-child? no, woman-child?'
The teacher was a complete stranger, he would only have this year and the next till they disappeared from his life altogether. Wasn't it better to invest in not seeing someone you don't like by tolerating their existence for now and eventually never meet or deal with them again?
"Oh my God..."
'I wish God gives you a cancerous disaster in your life'
The teacher face-palmed and kept hurling insults to the timid Cale.
"What? Don't tell me you forgot how to even speak now did you? Do you only know how to nod?!"
Cale was still silent, his ears-drums already moved to filter the small laughter and snide remarks of children.
Tok
Her heel roughed against the floor, then it abruptly stopped, already far—
GR—AB
"....?!"
A hand grasped Cale's face firmly.
"Seriously...what does a foreigner like you even want to achieve in a place like this? how about you go back to the city your parents became so successful in and save us the trouble of hearing that terrible accent of yours"
His retinas saw the figure again, they quivered when her nails dug into his face. The intense swirling void in her sockets implanted a certain fear, a raw and real fear.
It...felt out of place. Her body felt like it were stretching right before his very eyes.
Thump!
His heart throbbed and it jumped to an even more intense level when the laughter around began to distort.
"Listen"
Her voice turned soft like honey. Cale however never was one that liked honey.
"I do not want to scream or insult a child"
Cale listened intently.
"And, I mean look around you"
She snapped his head towards the class.
"Do you see how afraid they are when I scream?"
All the children suddenly became timid, as if their laughter had been only in Cale's mind...or perhaps it really were all in his imagination.
"Listen"
She said once again, sensing his attention tearing away from her words.
"I get that you are a child and children can't help but always play"
The voice of the teacher strangely made Cale feel a strange emotion.
"But you can't stay like that forever, now can you?
Guilt.
The silence pressing in the classroom made the words she spoke force themselves onto him.
It felt like each word that grated hauntingly in his ears were all with a sort of deep meaning.
She was awfully more creepy this way, to Cale anyway, who has by now developed thick layer of skin that was still soft when it came to others screaming and laughing at him for doing anything wrong.
Always making everything he did a pure joke used to entertain like he were some jester.
"But it isn't fair to others who want to listen intently in class, is it? why not follow their example?"
Cale kept staring at the teacher that firmly grasped his face, until she finally let go of his face.
"Haahh, I swear this kid will drive me crazy"
His eyes remained deadly still at her.
Even though guilt surfaced for some unknown reason, his other feelings did not change.
While the words she spoke seemed like it were for his own good, he didn't pay much attention to them.
Because, if his voice didn't reach them. Why should theirs have any authority to reach him?
He didn't like them, not a single one in this room.
"Get out, clear your head and get back in when I call"
She said, grabbing his arm and forcing him up.
The chair screeched, Cale felt his legs weaken by the millisecond he stood longer, but he still made his way towards the door.
He opened the door and felt the gazes on his back intensify.
Staring back once, he saw the teacher spritz antiseptic on her hand.
Showing his rebellious side after only showing the timid side of the coin. Cale was kicked out of class. Only this time, he felt more at peace when traversing through the afterlife without anyone speaking to him.
It felt like the very silence soothed his existence. He went down a floor and saw a peculiar item on the floor.
An old-yellowed envelope rested at the door outside, blocked his way.
He picked it up with his small hand and walked outside. The action strangely making sense to him.