He finally said something! His face was still a blank mask but at least he spoke.

“What’s your name? How old are you? How come I never seen you around the village before?”

I tried to talk to him but he went silent again. However, that did not mean that there wasn’t any reaction this time.

The boy’s red eyes darted back and forth in his head like he was struggling to comprehend everything at once. Maybe it was too much for him to take in.

“Haa, don’t worry about it. Also, thanks for cleaning up the place.”

I was a little miffed that I couldn’t get anything else out of him, but progress was progress. Even if getting him to talk was like banging my head against a wall, he must have had some awareness of his surroundings. Why would he have finished our furniture barricade and cleared away the plate otherwise?

I stood up and went to collect the water from the window ledge. The bowl was only about halfway full and there were fracture on the side that I’m sure weren’t there before. Maybe a bird or something had knocked into it....

Overhead the sun was shining brightly shining and I could hear bird songs in the distance. Had it not been for the partially destroyed houses it would have been a good sight to start the day on. If things were right the empty streets would already be filled with farmers and guards getting ready for a day’s work. The smell of freshly baked bread and pastries would travel on the breeze that blew through the village. My home would be lively instead of in this current abandoned state. I shook my head to clear my mind before my thoughts lead me to a place I didn’t want to go. “Focus on the here and now, not the past.”

I quietly repeated that phrase again and again as I brought the water over to the rest of our supplies and took stock. Five loaves of stale bread, half a bowl of water, a few pieces of jerked meat, and half a block of cheese. We had three plates, a few clay cups, and three metal folks.

“We’re gonna have to find some more supplies soon.”

At best it would get us through the day after tomorrow if we limited the water we drank.

“...Geisai”

“Huh?”

The boy’s nearly silent voice surprised me. I turned in his direction to make sure I wasn't hearing things.

“... My name is Geisai.”

“You know the old language?”

The confusion on the bo- Geisai face when I spoke in the language was all the answer I needed, so I returned to the common tongue. Besides, I only knew the basics of it anyway.

“Nevermind. Nice to me you Geisai. My name is Aiyana.”

Geisai nodded his head and looked back at the ceiling. There was no way I would let things end with that. I put together a couple of plates of bread and cheese and made my way over to Geisai.

“Why’d you decide to start talking?”

I started asking him questions as I sat a plate down a few inches away from his face and took a seat beside him. The last thing I wanted was for him to go completely silent again, fortunately, he hadn’t eaten for several days now. Like mom always said, there existed no being without wants, and discovering them granted you a bit of power over someone.

At first, he didn’t do anything, simply stared at the ceiling like usual, but his eyes started looking in my direction as I tore off pieces of bread and popping them into my mouth.

A smile couldn’t help but form on my face as I watched him struggle not to look at the plate at his side. He held out for a few minutes but he eventually stretched his hand toward his plate. I had him.

“Nope.”

A second before he grabbed it I snatched the plate out of his reach.

“You’re not gonna get away with that silent act anymore.”

Geisai looked annoyed about it, but he remained lying there.

“Alright, so why did you start talking to me?”

It took him a minute but he finally whispered simple answer.

“... It felt right.”

“That’s it?”

Geisai simply nodded his head. I tore off a piece of bread and held it to his mouth, he devoured it without hesitation. While it wasn’t the most informative response, it beat the one-sided conversations we’d been having.

“How come I never saw you befo…before that day?”

Again, there was a pause before he answered.

“We lived outside the village, we were gonna move but now… I’m alone.”

His voice remained the same emotionless whisper as before and his blank expression remained, but tears started to form in his eyes.

I picked up a towel and wiped his face clean.

“You know, I thought I was alone too. But I woke up this morning to find someone had tried their best to comfort me last night.”

“... A repayment of kindness. Mom said to never leave a debt unpaid. Doing so would chain you to a person or location.”

“Is that such a bad thing? Being connected to something, I mean.”

“I don’t know.”

We spent most of the morning like that, just talking to one another, only pausing to eat and clear away tears that certain topic dragged out of us. We give each other the championship I didn’t even know I was desperate for. It was only after the sun reached the peak of the sky did I stand up.

“Geisai, I’m going out for a little while. We need more food and other things, and I already searched this place. I’ll be back in a bit. You’ll still be here, right?”

“...Yes”

He closed his eyes after that brief reply, a few seconds later his breathing steadied out and I could hear light snoring. I guess he’d been tired out by everything. He’d be cute if it weren’t for the old bandages over his body. Might as well add a new set of those to the list of things needed.

After clearing away the plates, I picked up my dagger and an empty sack before setting foot outside for the first time in days.

It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to direct sunlight again. Since I already cleared out the five closest houses already, I ventured further away from our base than before. Rubble began to crowd the street the closer I got to the front of the village, slowly my search down a bit. While I was able to find a few useful items, but most of the food had been damaged after being left in the storm or was starting to spoil. I continued down the street until a horrible stench stopped me in my tracks.

The source of the smell was a couple decomposing corpses a few feet away. One of the corpses was that of an ogre. The copse beside was slumped against the wall, a deep claw slash had been gouged into it from the top of its right shoulder into the center of its chest. It was rather easy to understand that person’s fate, but the ogre was a bit different. The fact that it was laying on its stomach a few feet away from the other corpse meant that it died right after killing the person behind it. The ogre’s skin had been dyed brownish red color, its back had been torn open, and its origins had been ripped out through the opening.

The ogre probably died shortly after its spine had been torn out, but whatever killed it had continued to destroy the body after that point. I’d seen something like this be⎯

“Aaggh!!”

My head started to hurt all of a sudden. My legs fell out from under me as images began flashing through my mind. Blood… death… Mommy… Daddy… Crimson eyes…

It was too much!

The shadows had started to stretch towards the west by the time I stood up.

“Ugah! It stinks here.”

Falling asleep on the ground, I should have taken a nap with Geisai before I came out here. I picked up my dagger and the empty sack after dusting myself off. There were still a couple of hours left in the day, so I could still find something useful before returning to Geisai.

However, an unexpected noise caught my attention. It was an out of place creaking sound you usually heard when walking on a old wooden floor. When I turned around I saw the dead body starting to move.

Slowly but surely a corpse started to rise to its feet. Every fiber of my being shouted at me to run, but I stood there and watched as icy blue lights overtook the green in the corpse’s pupils. Whatever that thing was it wasn’t natural. It was a monster I never saw before, and it was looking straight at me.

“Aaaagggggggguaaaaah!!!” “Aghhaahaugh!!!”

My own scream was overtaken by the monster’s shout. My legs finally began moving again. I ran and didn’t look back. My surroundings blurred around me as I ran, every turn and every shortcut blending into one another as fear drove me forward. However, no matter where I went or what I did, the monster was never far behind.

While I managed to stay ahead of the monster for a couple of minutes, I could hear it gaining on me. Even as I tried to pump my arms harder and searched for an escape, my legs continued to get heavier and heavier.

“Aagh!!”

When I tripped over something, I knew that it was over. I couldn’t run anymore, I had to fight it. My hands trembled as I grabbed onto my dagger’s hilt.

As the monster descended on me, I drew the blade and stabbed in its general direction. A wet substance covered my hand as my dagger buried itself into the monster abdomen. The monster had been so focused on getting to me that it had impaled itself on the blade.

“Haugh Haugh Haugh”

However, relief that washed over me only lasted for a moment.

“Aghhaahaugh!!”

The monster’s arm shot out and grabbed a hold of my outstretched arm. Struggling against its iron grip proved to be useless, no matter what I tried, the monster wouldn’t let go.

As the monster’s gaping mouth closed in on me, I shut my eyes and waited for the end.

But, the end never came.

“Tirips fo dibw lla revers dna tuc.”

The sound of a woman chanting filled my ear a moment before the monster released its hold on me.

“We made it just in time. Hey, you alright?”

When I turned towards the source of the voice I was greeted with a hand offering to help me up. Once again, a twist of fate had saved me.