THE OMEN GIRL | Wattys 2020 Winner

𝟏𝟖

"What's there to be afraid of?" Naqi laughs. "I'm just a blind, deaf boy."

This blind, deaf boy frightens me more than any monster ever did.

#

The week comes to a close. I fall into routine.

In the mornings, I help Naqi with what he needs, and then I work in the kitchens or gardens. In the afternoons, after lunch, I bring Naqi to a seat out in the courtyard, underneath the shade of a tree.

He sits there. He lounges there. He smiles when he feels the breeze over his skin. I go to the back of the hospital, where my star and anchor is kept in a shack. I stare at Gaia. That is all I do. She still will not wake, no matter what I do.

"Why," I ask her, "did you let Naqi do what he did?"

She does not answer.

"Why," I ask, "will you not answer me?"

Still there is silence.

I pace into the shack and lift Gaia above my head, and I think about hurling her down the mountain, or throwing her against the ground, again and again, until she shatters. I'm angry, so angry. Why would she let Naqi hurt himself? Why won't she let me take the omen back?

I do not toss her. I never do. I set her down and leave the shack and return to Naqi. Against his protests, I help him back to his room.

Tonight, out in the foyer, the news on the screen is consumed by fire. The shaky video is of looming beasts, three times the size of a man, with fur like prickly shadows. Their teeth are serrated knives, and their eyes flash red. The headline reads:

Act of Terror. Temple Attacked by Omen Monsters.

I don't understand what is happening.

For nights, I've pondered over Esp and the things she did at the plaza, and on some level, I understand why she did them.

Eye for an eye.

She betrayed me after I betrayed her.

She had commanded me to draw the stain on everyone's skin, and the opposite instead had happened. She had seen me smiling on that stage, basking in the glory of my line, and she had said enough.

Sozo must be punished.

And now, with this news of terror flashing on the screen, I know how she was able to cut me loose so easily.

If I did what was according to plan, it would have been war.

If I did not act according to plan, still it would have been war.

In Esp's mind, there's never been and never will be another way.

Her guns and bombs were for this moment. In secret, in the shadow of her warehouse, she had been training her Omens to turn into hulking monsters, things that would rail against the temple walls with wild abandon.

If I had been able to break through cement wall after cement wall, what could her monsters do?

The newswoman says that the temple walls and gates have yet to be breached, but the number of Omen monsters seem only to be increasing. Guardians and authorities are doing what they can, and are holding strong, but for how long?

The leader of the monsters go by no name, and the only thing known about her is her demand: that all who have oppressed Omens must suffer and die.

That those who have betrayed her must suffer and die.