Chapter 11

Grandpa’s Memories

“We’re being attacked by the Brown Hawk Tribe!”

Everyone around us stared at shock, not able to process what he just said.

“Ah!”

We heard sounds of battle outside of the canyon and it got closer and closer. The warriors in here are forbidden to bring any type of weapon into the ceremony in order to show respect and humility to the godbeast that they serve. However, now it turns out that the enemy is using this to their advantage and attacked at the opportune moment.

“Prepare for battle.” I heard the voice of the female scorpion godbeast. The voice was filled with anger and power. I knew that I should never piss that woman off or I would probably, no, most definitely die.

Her face and figure contorted into something disgusting before she transformed back into her original form of a humongous badass, black scorpion.

Everyone, from the warriors to the slaves rushed to the exit of the canyon to retrieve the weapons.

Aashiq was running in front of me and I saw shadows cover us from above. I looked up and saw a huge boulder falling down towards me.

“Oomf!” I was tackled by Aashiq and we crashing into the ground.

*Bang!*

The 500 pound boulder crashed down into the ground and it shattered and its broken pieces scattered and hurt those in the area of its fall.

“Are you okay my lord?”

“Aashiq? You saved me.”

“It’s my duty my lord.”

“Oh my god, Aashiq, you’re bleeding.” I saw Aashiq bleeding from his head. He probably has a concussion or something worse. What if he had a fracture on his skull?

“As long as your safe my lord.”

“No! Shit, what the hell is going on? Come on, get up, we need to get you some medical attention!”

I lifted Aashiq up, but he stumbled and I caught him. He obviously couldn’t stand on his own. I put his arm over my shoulder and

did my best to get him out of here.

Getting of here was actually really difficult to do while carrying an injured person and having huge birds dropping rocks that could immediately squash you. All in all, I was scared shitless.

Either by luck or fate, we made it safely under a cliff where some supplies were and I was able to do a rough job of bandaging Aashiq’s head and managed to stop the bleeding.

“Lay down here. It’s dangerous.”

“Where are you going my lord? It’s dangerous.”

“I need to find Adira.” I said as I headed back out of the cover of the cliff.

The sounds of swords clashing and people screaming in pain was getting closer and closer. As I came out from the cliff, the rocks stopped falling. I look up and see that there are no longer any birds in the sky.

*Puke*

“Gasp, gasp.” I try to breathe but the sight of bodies crushed under boulders is an extremely unpleasant sight. Blood is seeping out of the crushed bodies and… is that… brain matter?

*Puke*

Okay… I think that was my lunch. I think I’m out of stuff to puke out.

*Puke*

Nope. Never mind, there goes my breakfast.

***

‘Eww… Grandpa! That’s disgusting!’

‘Sorry, Lily, it’s part of the story.’

***

Yup. Now I’m sure that I’m out of things in my stomach.

I try my best not to step on any dead body or body parts or the blood. The stench is nauseating and I cover my nose with my sleeves.

I find a knife of a fallen warrior and pick it up for protection. I see scorpions twitching in pain and I don’t know what to do.

I see survivors crying and panicking about. I see one child screaming and crying for their parents.

“Warriors! Stand! We will get revenge for our fallen!” Husseng who I’m surprised to find is still alive, is on his contracted scorpion and he leads his group of men to the chief who was protected by the scorpion godbeast to receive orders or something. None of them were injured at all and they all looked perfectly calm.

But I was worried for Adira and didn’t pay much attention to them. I scan the crowd looking for Adira, but I can’t find her anywhere.

“Chieftain Adar! It is in your and your tribe’s best interest to surrender to the might of our Brown Hawk Tribe!” an unknown voice resounded throughout the canyon.

Suddenly the huge hawks carrying warriors from their tribe descended and landed on the cliffs, overseeing us.

A man that was riding on top of the largest brown hawk I have ever seen landed right in front of the chief. Well, all of the hawks were the largest I’ve ever seen, they could all easily carry five people. But the one that was ridden by, who I assumed is the chief of their tribe, had the largest hawk. It was over 20 feet tall and its wingspan was over 30 feet.

As they landed the wind blew all over and dust entered into my eyes and I started tearing up.

“Cassim, why have you attacked our tribe? We have no enmity with your tribe. What have we done wrong? Does your father, the chief of the Brown Hawk tribe know of this?”

Well, it turns out that I was wrong. He is not the chief of their tribe.

“It is the will of our patron godbeast. He wishes to unify all the tribes of the desert with us reigning as sovereign. Surrender and

we will make sure that no one will get hurt.”

“We will fight to the death!” the scorpion godbeast intervened and in the blink of an eye, one of her stingers aimed for the chief of the Brown Hawk Tribe.

Her poison tip stinger was literally inches away from the son of the Brown Hawk Tribe’s chief and his eyes widened in shock.

“Charge!” the chief of the Black Scorpion tribe yelled out and suddenly, scorpions came out from underground and they attacked the warriors of the Brown Hawk Tribe.

I finally stopped crying and I saw the battle ensuing around me. It was chaos. I just ran away from the battle. I knew that I would be useless because all of them were capable of using aura and I wasn’t and I definitely didn’t want to die in vain.

***

‘Okay, Lily, I think that I should stop for now. It’s late and you have to travel tomorrow.’

‘Aww, grandpa, come on. Don’t do this to me…’

But grandpa ignored me and shut off all communication.

I went to sleep pretty quickly, much to my surprise. Turns out I was more tired than I thought I was.

The next morning I woke up to the smell of delicious bacon. At least I thought it was bacon and I heard Jacob and Ferbias

speaking to each other.

“Yeah, in our world, we have amazing heroes such as H*rry Po*ter, who defeated the dark lord also known as ‘he who shall not be named’, and L*ke Skywalk*r who saved the galaxy from the other dark lord who turned out to be his father.”

“Amazing, they have done much service to your world.” said Ferbias in an incredibly serious tone that I couldn’t help but giggle at.

“Oh, Lily, you’re awake.” Jacob gave me a cheeky smile as I exited the tent and I also smiled back at him in return.

“What about you Dylan? You haven’t spoken yet. What do you think is one of the greatest problems in our world today and who is your hero?” Lucas asked.

“Well, I think that we have a serious problem with overpopulation in our world. We have over 7 billion people living on our planet and the number is not stopping. That’s why my heroes are Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong. I think that they did an incredible job in keeping the population low so that there are enough resources for everyone.”

Jacob, Lucas and I stared at Dylan in awkward silence.

“So how did they solve the problem? Based on what you have said your world has a real big problem because of having too high of a population. Which, is opposite of ours.”

“Oh, you know, mass genocide, getting rid of hated peoples.”

“…” Ferbias went silent.

“Hahaha! I was just joking guys. Hahaha! You should’ve seen the looks on your faces. Haha!” Dylan bent over while grabbing his sides.

While Jacob tried to force out a smile. “Haha… that was a good one, Dylan…”

“I know right?”

After breakfast, we headed out and resumed our journey to Bear Mountain.

During lunch, Jacob wanted to start a joke contest and eventually coaxed Dylan into participating.

It turns out that Dylan has a very crude and nasty sense of humor. He kept on saying racist and obscene jokes like: How long does it take a black woman to take a shit?

Nine months.

Or Knock knock,

Who’s there?

Allah.

Allah who?

Allah ackbar… Boom!

Or…

How do black people pick up girls?

Like cotton.

Or…

Where do Chinese people come from?

The Vachina.

Yeah… I didn’t really laugh at these. Lucas laughed at some and Jacob seemed outright disgusted.

My grandpa on the other hand thought he was hilarious. ‘Hahahaha… This kid… is a genius… he’s a lot better than that Lucas kid.’

‘Hmph. How can you like these jokes grandpa? They’re horrible.’

‘You just have to wait for your sense of humor to mature Lily.’

Of course, Ferbias and the soldiers didn’t understand these jokes.

After that we continued our travels. I actually got a little bored and began walking alongside the wagon to get some exercise. Lucas joined me which I thought was sweet.

Jacob was taking a nap and Dylan was doing his meditation thingy.

“This will turn out to be one helluva story huh?” said Lucas as he walked beside me.

“Yeah, can’t believe I’m saying this but… I miss school.”

“Haha. Yeah…”

We walked together wordlessly for a time when suddenly I feel something on my hand. It’s another hand.

Oh. My. God. Lucas. Is. Holding. My. Hand.

I look at Lucas and he gives me a smile. I smile back.

We walk for a while in silence and Dylan walks out and begins stretching. He sees us. Dylan stares at us for a while and he goes back into the wagon.

Suddenly Jacob comes out of the wagon and stares at us. Then with a blank face he goes back in.

***

Dylan POV

Jacob comes back in the wagon and sits down with an expression of disbelief on his face.

With a sigh I sit next to him and pat his back.

“Sigh… it’s okay dude. There’s plenty of fish in the sea.”

“I… I really liked her you know?”

“… Yeah.”

I personally didn’t really know Jacob and Lucas that well and we couldn’t really be considered friends because I mostly kept to myself during class and never associated with them in and out of school. The only reason that I’m attempting to comfort him is because we are in the same boat right now of being in a different world and need to find a way home.

But I knew that I definitely like Jacob more than Lucas. Lucas just kind of seemed very superficial to me for some reason. I don’t really know why it’s just a gut instinct.

“Hey Jacob, wanna become strong?”

Jacob looked up.

“Huh?.... yeah!”

Well that seemed to cheer him up.

I began teaching him breathing exercises on how to control qi and take in from the air and circulate it through his body.

He couldn’t grasp it at first. It’s difficult for all beginners, but he seemed determined and it took his mind off Lily so I thought it was a good thing.