Chapter 3 | Ethan | Ally

A Japanese family of three moves into Ethan’s room—a father, a mother, and a daughter. The room is back to four inhabitants again. He sits on his desk, only glancing at them from time to time. He is drinking tea made by Umida—the daughter of the family of three.

Ethan likes the bitter tea and has relished it every morning ever since she moved in. Their overlords are kind enough to supply them with sugar and milk, and all they need to do is find plants or herbs for tea.

He takes a book out to study, and she approaches. He tries his best to study under her surveillance trying not to focus on her presence but eventually gives up. “Bored?” he asks, closing the book and keeping it on the table.

She stares at him quizzically before nodding.

“There will be kids playing outside now,” Ethan says. “Might make your day less boring.”

“And you?” She asks, “How are you going to make it less boring?” Her Ikari is perfect, and the rough language sounds sweet when she speaks it.

“I’m not going to.”

“I haven’t seen you leave the room.”

“Most adults don't want to interact with me because of my family's bad reputation,” Ethan shrugs. “And I’m almost an adult now. The kids don't want to play with me either.”

“I’m an adult too, and I’m new to the district. Don’t think they’ll like me better,” she says, and Ethan turns sharply. He tries to find a trace of what he thinks an adult is in the youthfulness of her short and chubby figure, in the innocence of her brown eyes, in the freshness of her face, and finds nothing.

“How old are you?” He asks. He has always assumed that she’s fourteen or fifteen years old.

“Twenty-one,” she says, and he just stares at her blankly until she gives an exaggerated sigh.

“I’m sorry,” Ethan says, snapping out of it. “I didn’t realize you were older than me.” How could he? He doesn’t think of people like Umida when he thinks of adults. He thinks of Alfie, of Khanya, of Wuisan, of his father, of his mother, and recently…his sister.

Umida stares down at him, then at his book, and says, “My father says that you’ll take the Numen soon.”

“In a few weeks,” he says, nodding. The first Numen exam for humans is scheduled for 23rd March according to the earth time. He’ll be an adult by then. He’s studied and exercised so much in the past few weeks, but he never feels like he will ever be fully prepared.

"I want to take the Numen too,” she says, taking the book off the table. “It seems interesting.”

Ethan snatches the book away. “No,” he says. “You don’t know what you’re getting into.”

“What am I getting into?” She asks. “What’s the worst that could happen? It’s just an exam.”

Ethan shakes his head. “It’s not just an exam. It’s just not something you write. The Numen exam is conducted over 6 months.”

Umida’s smile widens. “Oh! So we’ll be gone for 6 months?”

This isn’t the reaction that Ethan is expecting at all—she seems even more excited about the Numen now. He steals a glance at Umida’s parents who are busy talking to each other.

“Will they agree to it?” he whispers.

“They will,” she says, “but even if they don’t, they cannot stop me.”

She walks back to her parents and has a small conversation in Japanese—which is a taboo language now, just like all other human languages. Ethan cannot understand a single word except the one that gets repeated over and over—Numen. Then, she returns and nods triumphantly, flashing a V sign with her fingers. “I’ll be there.”

“Why?” Ethan is dumbfounded. “How can you decide such a thing on a whim? The Numen will change your life if you pass. It’ll make you stay away from your family—it’ll give you work and duty. They might make you a fighter and send you to the front lines to fight.”

“We’ve discussed this now, so it’s not just a whim anymore, is it?” Umida says. “It’s so boring here anyway.”

Ethan agrees with Umida, but there is still a part of him that does not want her to take the Numen, pass it, get mixed with more aliens and fewer humans, get assigned duties and have an actual job. He doesn’t want her to risk changing such a relaxing life to something hectic and stressful.

“How good is your math?” he asks, looking up at her.

“Well, it's not bad,” She gives him thumbs-up with both of her hands.

“Then you should be fine in the mental part. Your Ikari is solid. That leaves psychological and physical…now I don’t know much about what they will do in the psychological testing, but for physical…you can join me during my exercise from tomorrow onwards.”

“I was already planning on that,” she says, bringing her hands forward and moving them up and down, mimicking running.

Ethan nods and goes back to his book, but only pretends to read it. He cannot concentrate, his heart beating fast. He hopes that nobody else can notice how tense he feels. He knows full well that the district will treat Umida unkindly when the people realize that Umida is interacting with Ethan. If she fails the Numen and has to return to the district, she might be shunned and doomed to have a life in isolation. But Ethan does not mention it. He does not warn her. He remembers what Della has said to him on the day they separated. “I’ve been prepared for this for a few months, but I just couldn’t bear leaving the rest of you.” It took her a few months to leave and endanger Ethan and the rest of their family.

But Ethan is not Della, and he will not shy away from an opportunity that increases his chance of success. If Umida can help him on his path, he will not urge her away.

Chapter 3 | Della | Forest

Once Della’s done her sightseeing for thirty seconds in the air, she looks around, finding landmarks. She remembers the direction of the river, her district, and also the other three districts that she can see. Besides these, she can also see a cluster of human-made houses that don’t seem like Goron-made districts. A human-made district? She wonders if people are living in it. One of the Goron-made districts has some walls that seem to be blasted off. That should be the 5th district, she thinks. The only other district that has ever been bombed to her knowledge is the 23rd district.

As soon as she has landed, she draws quick approximate arrows pointing to the landmark on the soil. Then, with the help of the compass, she sees that to her west is her district—was her district. She must only be a thirty-minute walk from it, but it is far enough.

To her north is the lake. To her southeast and southwest are the two closest districts, but she doesn’t know which ones they are. To her northeast is the human district—at least that’s what she calls it, not knowing what it is. To her east is her destination, the fifth district.

After she has noted everything down in the soil and memorized it, the first thing she notices is how much area of the sky the trees cover. There’s not much sunlight leaking down—but it is enough to see what she has drawn. She looks up at the tall trees, smiling. It’s as if the shade covers her humiliation and her crying, burnt figure. She takes out the medicine pouch that her mother has given her, and takes out the lotion for burnt skin. As she applies it all over her hands and legs, she thinks about her family again.

Ethan wouldn’t join the Gorons for himself or his family. No, he will join the Gorons for humanity, and he will change the way they look at humans. Eventually, they’ll allow humans more rights. Ethan can do it. He would do it. She, on the other hand, is stuck in a forest. Maybe she should have allowed him to accompany her, after all. At least she wouldn’t be alone then.

After she has finished applying the cream, she distracts herself by making a plan, doing her best to ignore her aching body.

“Okay,” she says, looking inside her bag. She just has two litres of water left, and she is quite thirsty. At the very least she has to go there and refill her bottle. The human district also interests her, so she will go there after filling up water. After that, she will finally go to the fifth district.

She starts walking towards the lake, leaving rocks behind in her path in case she gets lost. Disorderly sprouts claim the ground by her feet, and there are many beautiful flowers spread around in the forest. She walks by them, studying them, and hears a howl. It is feral, and she wants to collapse on the ground in fear. Afraid, she finds the tallest tree in the vicinity and realizes how much her body truly aches as she has to use all of her willpower to not scream in pain just to climb up the tree. Once she is on a tree branch, she can see grapes hanging on it. They are sour and not very tasty, but she eats about twenty of them before she gets off the tree, confident that the wild beast isn’t howling anymore.

After fifteen minutes of walking, she can see the river. It is beautiful, she thinks. She must have seen rivers before Gorons took over, but she was so young then that she does not remember it. It is the first time she has seen water flowing, and she stares at it for an entire minute, mesmerized. The sound of water splashing and hitting against rocks is all she wants to hear all day, but she doesn’t have that much time. It will turn dark soon.

She fills her bottle and takes a quick bath in the river, soothing her burnt limbs and torso. Only when she is putting her clothes back again does she realize how blackened they have become. Oh well, she supposes. At least they didn’t catch fire. She then drinks so much water that she feels bloated and walks in the direction of the human-made district, a journey that takes her an entire hour.

The district looks very old. Must be from the time when Gorons invaded, she thinks. There are only two houses in the district that survived their blasts. The other buildings are half destroyed. There are no signs of life—weeds and grass grow over and inside the fallen buildings. There can be no survivors here.

The first of the two intact houses is a two-story house, and it’s covered with dust and soot. She opens the door and finds rats inside. Della screams at their sight, and the rats scream back at her, but Della’s screams are louder, and the rats, being more scared of her—or her screaming—run away to the other rooms.

When there’s just a single visible rat in the room, she enters and looks around. There are chairs and a…TV? Or is it a computer? She doesn’t remember what they are called. Maybe it’s neither. She doesn’t know how to use the strange device, and she doubts it works in the first place, so she walks away. She opens drawers and finds paper. No, not paper. Money. Human money. She cannot read any human language but knows what some currency notes look like. She can’t recognize this particular one, but either way, human currency is useless now.

There are a few more things in it—a few tools that she has never seen, but there’s nothing that could be used as a weapon. She closes the drawer and opens another one. White papers this time, and there’s something written on it. She doesn’t know what it is, and frustrated throws them back inside.

Mustering up courage, she moves on to the next room, where there are at least five rats. There’s a bed in the middle of the room, but the bedsheets are all bitten and torn up. There are two closets as well, but nothing else. She opens one of the closets. There are old, worn-out clothes of a woman. The drawer has a dusty photo in it. She inspects it, finding a man and woman embracing each other, and then keeps it back. “That’s awkward,” she whispers.

She picks out the red dress that she likes. Then she keeps the red dress away and takes a green one instead after dusting it. It would camouflage her better in the forest.

The other closet has the same kinds of things, but for a man instead. Humans sure liked to store their money. Not anymore, of course. She walks to the next room. It pinches her nose, realizing that it’s a kitchen. Perfect. She walks around, trying to find knives. And she finds them rather easily in the kitchen. Three of them. She also finds a cleaver, which seems to still be sharp, even though it is half-rusted.

She keeps the cleaver but isn’t sure which knife is the better one, so she goes back to the closets and tries all three of them on the paper money. She cuts face of an old man on the paper money with all of her knives.

Two knives seem sharp enough so she discards the third. Upstairs, she finds more rats. Great. She screams and the rats scramble away. One of them, however, scrambles towards her, and she shrieks, kicking it outside the room and closing the door. It’s dark, so she opens the curtains. It’s another room with a bed and closets. There's a full-length mirror inside, and she freezes when she spots it. But it is covered in dust, and nothing reflects back. Thank God. She doesn't want to look at herself right now.

She kicks every single rat out, squashes every single spider with a broom, and then locks the room. Groaning, she lies against the wooden bed. For the first time since she started living in a hole, she enjoys her sleep.

***

As soon as she is awake, she sharpens the knives and the cleaver against the window-sill. Satisfied with the sharp edge, she leaves the abandoned house. The walk in the forest feels less scary today with a sharp cleaver in her hand. She doesn’t think that she can pierce a wild beast’s hide with a cleaver, but it gives her some groundless confidence. She meets many snakes and bugs on her path, but they don't attack them attack her as she keeps her distance, dodging them.

The noise of animals and birds gets lesser and lesser, which makes Della confident that she is nearing the fifth district. Areas near the districts would have less wildlife. Should have less wildlife, she thinks, at least.

After another twenty minutes of brisk walking, she sees the dreadful black walls and is overcome with a feeling of triumph. She starts walking faster, even hopping sometimes. But as she wonders, her pace reduces. Now what? She can’t climb the walls. She can’t dig through them or below them, and there’s only one gate.

She walks along the wall when she reaches it and spots the gate from a distance. She hides behind a few bushes, and observes, squinting her eyes. Two Krots guard the gate, just like the 17th district. The gate would still be locked as well, although she has no idea how it works. They wouldn’t keep guards there if there wasn’t a way to physically open the door, would they? And Krots opened the gate all the time in emergencies. They have to have a key...or they themselves must be the key.

She looks up at the clear sky. There is no way she can take out two Krots in a fight alone. But then, she has grown to realize that she isn’t alone. She has seen what the Earth is like now, and she knows that it is on her side.

Della walks back to the forest again, tired but determined. “Back to digging, eh?” she says, looking down at her burnt, rough hands.

But this time, the holes would not be welcoming.