The Extraordinary Accounts of One Lost Girl

-19-

The next morning, I was woken up very early. Earlier than usual so that I could be bathed in fragrant oils and dressed up properly. By the time Mara, Asith and Shalom was done preparing me for the day, the sun was slowly rising up over the mountain range.

I found it odd to be wearing red. Red always seemed to be an alluring colour, a colour I despised for a reason. Mara knew very well that I was never willing to go outside without a shawl, so she prepared one for me, one to match the blouse and the loose bell bottom pants I was wearing. It was the first time I was wearing something besides a skirt and a chest wrap. I guess it took more effort to make dresses with complicated stitching, thus making them rare. I found Syanaam waiting in the main hallway with mother, both clad in vibrant red and gold along with their attendants. There were even at least a dozen guards waiting. Including the guard who escorted me to the temple on my first day .

I wished that Zharu could accompany us, but he was not allowed to do so. Also, I doubted that he wanted to stay even a day away from his family.

Among the many jewelry that I wore, the pendent the high priestess gifted me burned my skin in a strange sort of coldness. I didn't know why I decided to wear the silver chain despite its contrasting colour against the gold. I didn't try to think too much when I say the high priestess eyeing the pendent tucked under my blouse. It may be my wishful thinking, but I felt like I shouldn't leave the pendent alone, for some strange reason I could not comprehend.

Outside, we got into sedans, all three of us separately as we were escorted out of the temple and into the busy streets of city. Zharu told me that the entrance to the underground city was through a cavern at the very end of the city, a place where it was hard to reach.

I watched as people poked their heads out of the windows of their houses to get a good glimpse at us. People watched in awe in a sense. I saw a little girl with messy said and sparking amber eyes point up at the sedan chains excitedly, jumping up and down as her mother lifted up from the ground to carry her. Then her mother bowed down respectfully before carrying her daughter inside.

The journey to the entrance did not take long, and by the time we got down from the sedans, the mountain range's shadow was still overhead, giving us shade.

Ahead of us, was a gaping chasm gated by a steel gate whose ends pointed upwards in spikes as they reached the uneven arc of the cavern entrance with horizontal bars behind the vertical bars. They didn't bother to make it look like an entrance to a city. It looked more like a prison.

A prison.

That's what Zharu told me. The rich and noble of the city feared stepping out into the sun. Most of them had lived underground for their whole life, not daring to come out.

'Why are they so afraid to come out?' I had asked him once.

'You are lucky you arrived in the peaceful season of the year,' Zharu explained. 'At other times, beasts roam the sky and pluck out people to feast. Out city is safer than most, because of its natural barriers. If not, there would be more dangers.'

It seems these reptilian bird like creatures had a season to some out of their caves and feed. As long as you stay out of sight during the night, you will be safe if what I was told. They never dared to come out at night, reminding me of bats. But bats didn't eat people.

And it wasn't only the birds.

It was customary that the city would be invaded by other cities for resources. Malhwak was protected in a way, but it wasn't rare. But the biggest danger it seemed was the gigantic wormlike reptiles that sometimes manage to climb over the mountain range into the city. There was a disadvantage in living inside a protected basin then those creatures attacked. They would come in groups and as the city has walls surrounding them, they were reluctant to leave unless they had a good fill of meat.