The Thieves of Otar

The Arrest

The air was cold and crisp. The sky was clear of nighttime clouds, and the small, bright stars looked like holes in a dark blue blanket in front of a candle. Arch ran as fast as he could, following the high-pitched, shrill screams that pierced the peacefulness of the night. He was breathing hard, and each intake of the cold air stung his lungs, and every exhale made a small cloud in front of his face that he ran through as he tore across the town.

Arch had no idea how on earth he knew it was Zia who was screaming- he just did. Some instinct told him that the little girl he had met in the warming sunlight was being hurt, and badly. He chided himself for not bringing the girl home with him for the umpteenth time that day.

As he found himself in the dark, abandoned market, he heard one last, hopeless, tortured scream, and then the night turned silent again.

A cold hand gripped Arch's heart. Why had the screams suddenly stopped? Had the foul old drunk taken a knife to the girl? Was she dead?

Lights were flickered on as the townspeople woke from their sleep, angry and bitter for being woken up and scared and curious as to what was happening. Arch tore off after where the last, heart-wretching scream had come from, trusting his instincts to lead him to the noise.

He fell upon a small, untidy house by the small creek at the edge of the town. Despite the panic that he felt, he realized how close he lived to the little girl he met in the market. How had he never seen her before?

The candles were still on inside- that much he could see through the space between the door frame and the door itself. Light was pouring through the cracks. He tried to see through the holes, but he was blinded by the light for a moment because his eyes were accustomed to the dark night.

Inside, he heard Daxtor Myrna grunting, and then the sound of a small girl grunting in pain.

Anger boiled in his veins. He kicked the door so hard it swung off its hinges, making the fat Daxtor inside jump, nearly losing his balance and landing on his fat rear. He had been standing over Zia, who had dozens of cuts and bruises up and down her body. She was passed out on the floor, looking terribly pale, and her eyes appeared to be swollen shut. She was sprawled at an odd, painful angle, her arms and legs covered with blood and bruises. Her head was sporting a new, bloody gash, and Myrna's hand was cut and covered with blood from hitting the poor girl so much. For a terrifying moment, Arch couldn't tell if she was alive, until she drew a short, raspy breath. She was knocked out, not dead.

Daxtor Myrna's brown eyes were so dark they looked nearly black, and they were wide from fear of being caught hurting his daughter. It was strictly against the most sacred laws of Otar to lay a harmful hand on a child as he had done, punishable by death, and he had broken that law many times before. He was breathing in sharp rasps, as if his fat body hadn't moved so much in all his life.

Arch glared at the old, stupid, ugly drunk with so much power that Daxtor, in his drunken state, shuffled backward nervously, and tripped and fell over Zia's legs. He lost his balance and fell on his fat backside with a thump! so powerful it shook the frame of the entire house.

Hatred for this man piled up inside Arch's chest so powerfully he thought it might consume him. The hate he had had before for the old drunk was nothing in comparison to what he felt now. It was as if someone had fed a forest worth of fuel to a large fire in his chest, and it roared inside of him, growing stronger with each cut or bruise he counted on the unconscious girl's small body.

Arch's breathing came fast and heavy from his nose, both from the loathing of the man before him and his ugly deeds, and from his earlier run.

Arch strode up to the man whom had been the cause of so much pain to one so young, who shuffled back into the corner of his house, trying to make his overly-large body as small as possible.