* * *
Arriving at the house, El hastily unlocked the door and rushed inside, going straight to his room. He rummaged through the drawer on the study table until he finally found what he intended to retrieve. It was a map. A simple creation made by his own hand with a pencil on a piece of cheap white paper. He had copied it from a large map that was displayed on an equally large wooden board in the plaza, a place that was always bustling with visitors in this city. He hadn''t yet fully examined the map though – because he had been preoccupied with reading many other books, so he carelessly left it tucked away in a drawer. Now, however, he needed it. He quickly tried to memorize the relevant parts, especially focusing on the directions to the mayor''s office.
It was such a lucky fortuity too though, cause’, since waking up in this room for the very first time that day, he somehow had not yet experienced any memory lapses that plagued him in the village. Back then, despite his extensive reading and the knowledge he accumulated, he would sometimes – or at times often – based on whether he was lucky or not, lose chunks of his memories out of nowhere without any warning. This left him often feeling disoriented and disconnected from reality.
Now, to the matters at hand, once El had committed the path to his memory, he swiftly brushed everything back to its place. Stepping away from the bedroom and the house, he locked the door behind him and stepped outside. He walked down the narrow alleyway, pulling on his hoodie and then donning a black mask that he had found in the drawer for unknown reasons – perhaps purposely left. Who knew…
As he walked, he suddenly veered off the original path that led to the main road, taking a different route. Finding the streets deserted, he quickened his pace.
After spending considerable time reading various books from the wooden bookshelf in his room, he had learned that the house where he lived, along with the alleyway he was traversing right now, served as a dividing line between the two regions in the city, known as the <i>''underside''</i> or the Downtrodden region – and the <i>''upper side,''</i> where the more normal citizens resided in Mirthwater.
As he finally moved further and further away from the house, he unexpectedly encountered five individuals who blocked his path unintentionally. They were startled at first, having heard footsteps approaching their secluded spot where they often relaxed. Their initial reaction was one of fear; they assumed that guards from the upper side had come to cause trouble, as it happened many times before. A few guards, with their peculiar tendencies and weird fetishes, often took pleasure in harassing or beating up people from the underside.
So, this group initially planned to flee the area as fast as possible, as individuals from the underside were not permitted to be outside of the fences according to the regulations. However, one of the individuals soon realized that the figure approaching them was just a small kid wearing a gray jacket and a black mask. El, as he had come to know himself, was acutely aware of his own stature. He understood that he was quite short for his age, compared to the other residents of the city. From his readings, he had learned a lot of children who did not receive proper nutrition during their formative years often ended up stunted in growth.
Now here he was, standing before people who, just from their demeanor alone, or perhaps from their pale, sickly looks, were rather average in height and scrawny frames – he understood right away that they were people from the underside.
"Bloody fockin'' hell, kid, you scared us," one of the men exclaimed loudly, causing the others of his buddies, who had been preparing to flee, to turn their heads in surprise. One of them, who was the first to run away and was now quite far from the others, glanced back nervously upon hearing the cry.
* * *
As the others realized that it wasn''t the guard, they returned to their original position, this time intentionally blocking the road.
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"What are you doing here, you little b*stard? If you don''t give me a good reason, let''s see how I''m going to whip your little ass like the sack of rice you are!" The man''s glare of anger was directed at El, as he was the first to recognize the latter.
El suddenly appeared, making those harrowing footsteps in the empty alleyway, and then finally revealed himself at the intersection. After gasping for air and clutching his chest, he yelled at him, resentment dripping clearly from his voice.
"Excuse me, I need to get through!" El stated, bowing slightly once, also feeling a twinge of sympathy for him. He wondered if the man nearly had a heart attack from the earlier shock.
"Wait…" one of the men beside the first man promptly spoke up. "Open your goddamn mask!!" he ordered.
"What is it?" the first man leaned closer, whispering to the second.
"Look at his clothes! They''re too clean. And look at his eyes!" the second man pointed at El''s attire.
"Hmmmm…" the first man contemplated, slowly grasping the implication. "Ahh, you mean… you suspect a kid. This kid??? Coming from the upper side? The city?" he wore a ridiculing smile as he continued.
"Haaaa, you''re funny, bro! Why did I just know about it now? There is no way a kid from the upper side would dare to come in here alone. Even just getting close to the fences is something they''re afraid of. Their parents must be telling all their kids each night for their <i>''bedtime story''</i> that we actually are demons… ghosts, or something that will eat them alive. I''m sure it is." El could clearly feel the bitterness behind the man''s words.
The second man''s lips flattened at this, but his gaze remained fixed on El, dismissing the first man''s claims. "Open it!! Now!!!"
Not knowing what came over him at that moment, El decided to heed the man''s order anyway, as he removed his hoodie and mask. What was revealed behind it was El''s face, with his clean and healthy skin, not like the supposed complexion shared by all the people living on the underside.
"See!!?" the second man exclaimed.
"… Waa… what are you doing here? A kid from the city dares to come to this place? Have you lost your mind?" the first man''s bewilderment was evident on his face. And for unknown reasons, he started to lick his lips.
"What do we do with him?" another man asked from behind the two.
"Of course, we let him go… what else is there to it? Do you want to deal with the city''s guards? Hell no…" commented the first man.
"No, we bring him with us. From his looks alone, his family must be rich. One of us will be the good guy and report this to the city''s guard, while the rest of us will stay watching over this kid. He’ll become our hostage from now on. We ask his family for ransom by then…" the second man said, his expression harsh and unsmiling.
"Are you crazy?" the first man expressed loudly – his mouth wide open.
"No, I''m not," replied the second man briefly.
"What if they come after our heads? They will shoot us dead. Do you think they won''t do that???" his face was etched with fear and distress.
"They won''t. If you don''t dare, leave, Sill. We can do it on our own. Remember, once we get the money, you won''t have any share," pressed the second man while eyeing him from the corner of his eyes.
Meanwhile, the others behind the two quietly exchanged glances, neither denying nor arguing against the devised idea of making El their hostage.
"... I… sigh. Alright then. I''m in. I hope there won''t be anything wrong again this time," the first man, named Sill, finally gave up, deciding to go ahead with the plan.
"Do not resist," the second man, who had started this whole scheme, then approached El with a glare. As his hand reached out to grab El''s shoulder, El instinctively dodged to the side.
"What are you doing? I just want to get through," El conveyed with a frown.
"Don''t fight back. Come with us!!!" Sill responded.
"I don''t want to…" El replied as he stepped back, creating distance. ''Why would I? Are you an idiot?'' El added in his mind while contemplating whether he needed to step up his game by ''fighting'' or immediate ''flight.''
"Wow, kid… you didn''t hear us before, did you? You are our hostage now, and you will remain so until we get the money from your parents! And we need a lot of that!!" Sill replied, his voice inexplicably laced with anger as he stepped closer to El, his eyes threatening to unleash the beast lurking within. Just as his hand reached out to grab El''s shoulder, the latter instinctively punched it away, striking him right on the wrist.
*Bam*
"Oucccchhhhh! What the freak..." Sill cried out in pain, grimacing as he clutched the spot where El had hit him.
El readied himself, with his hands awkwardly positioned in front of his face. He didn''t know how to fight, and for the fact, he surely had never even been in one himself as much as he remembered. Yet, here he was. For whatever reason he couldn''t explain, he didn’t want to run away. This time, he would braze it all.
* * *