"They are crushed! They will die in the minefield, Zen! Ha! Humans are too innocent to be lost this way. Phew! What a thing we have eluded from!" She bit her lips as her eyes trailed Zen's face.
"Scar," Zen drew a smile across his striking face, as he shoved himself closer to her weak body, "remember how we met?"
"Unfortunately, yes!" She bobbed her dull yet captivating face.
Scarlett smiled at the memory. A day her life was smashed against a gruff rock and at the same time, it was soothed with a friend like him- a friend who knitted his into hers spanning the right bait.
"Must be a melody to your heart, that song!" He grinned, "so, then just go back and recall the little and big things that came about your-..our way." He paused for a moment of breath and added, "a cruise of death and life. Over the malignant blue turf, we were swindled into darkness. You met Odlin, smiled after a long time. You struck the heights of bravado, well, you confirmed my speculations, when you stole a gun from that shabby guard. You served your past and I let you savour my present. We watched the brewing sunset and note that all this was done under the vicious eyes of the wicked. We were separated for a matter of time, which, of course, seemed like forever, but then we were miraculously glued back. We fled from the hands of those malicious people, and yet nothing would have been possible if one, yes, even if only one had given up. Spectacle, isn't it? A long journey, Scar! Anything could have happened but thanks to God's benevolent love, we are alive. Do you still feel shattered and down?"
"No, immensely grateful, Zen! Maybe I would feel better if you stop adding dramatic actions as you speak!" She was mentioning the way he kept his physique competent with his words. Her smile grew bigger, fending new ways for optimistic thoughts.
"I get lost when I think about the past!"
Zen pulled her closer, holding her limps softly. Angling more towards him. "You could have just come more closer, you know the effort is less. I'm heavy!" She chuckled
"Ow! The effort is special!" He winked with a surge of tease.
"Now tell me," Zen started in an attempt to change the conversation rally, "the one thing you want to do, once you have reached home, when I say home I mean somewhere you are safe like an eyeball, without a speck of fear and sorrow of a dusty heart?"
Scarlett rubbed her hair, she said "me? Probably sleep on a feathery bed!" Their laughter stained the evening breeze. "Oops! Let me bounce back to a more serious side, Zen, let me think. You tell me first, that works better."
Zen roamed his creamy eyes dreamily, "I've unfinished words, ready to sprint out of the corner of my mouth- like caged birds. I will probably let them free when I'm free!"
Scarlett squinted her eyes, "Fascinating..." She found the answer to be oddly piquant. She kept her mouth shut and didn't dig into it more, letting him get away this time.
After a brief silence, Zen added, "Ms.Scarlett, done thinking, yet?"
"Uh? Y-yes...once we are out of this turmoil," she huffed heavily, "I long to see your face- That face you haughtily bore before all this. I want to see your authentic form, that carefree, feisty young man. Do you think I don't sense the terror you are covering up to be a strong man? That would be some other girl, not me! I want to see your beautiful face without that invisible tremor and the lines of marred emotions piping into your veins. Crazy, huh? I don't care!"
All the while Zen was listening to her intently with a peculiar smile. "That's an expensive wish!"
"How terribly your ego hikes!" She chuckled.
"Scar, what if I tell you this is me. This is who I am and whatever I was before all this and what I will be after this isn't who I am. A man evolves into his authentic form in his adversities. Before, I didn't decipher what it is to care for or be a human. It was like me being in the centre and the world around me. This experience has refined me into a better man, a version I would not regret. And in that, you have had the honours of playing the major part."
"If it's like that, then I can't wait to stare into the face of a better version of you without the veil of fear, Zen!"
Zen retained the gorgeous smile, which always stayed cramped between his sculpted cheekbones and his cherry lips.
The chilling wind from the east increased its velocity, filling the cosy silence. Scarlett's tired eyes ransacked Zen's. At that moment he looked like an emblem of peace among the violence of this world. The reality of her condition came booming on her- it's him for her and her for him, a rigid bond.
"I couldn't feel the warmth of your hand to the fullest in the death ring. Complete the little debt, shall we?" She extended her hand to which his read hands fused in. She inclined her head on his shoulders, saying, "you are my home, too!"
Zen caressed her shoulders with a faint tickling sensation, he said, "death or life, when the sunsets, it's all about us!"
They spent a good amount of time in the same position, under the same sky with low myrrh of Zen's humming. A deep quell stayed up, but both seemed to cherish the moment.
"Off we go back to his room. I would stay this way evermore only if we were physically free and boundless with no lines drawn, come, I've got a slick plan stirring in my brain." He lent his hand to a now inquisitive Scarlett.
They squirmed and squashed their legs in the marshy sand, rinsed with water.
They entered the room, where Trar was tied up on a chair. Zen grabbed a cloth canvas drawing ink, Zen asked Trar, "the tunnel, how far is Blue Hill from here?"
He chucked his hanging head up, "listen, hand me a cigar first, let me get some life into my cells!" A sinister laugh mended the end of his words.
One of the guards handed him a roll.
"I don't smoke with my nose, free one of my hands!"
"The guard will take up the work of your hand." Zen snapped.
"Haa! How cruel of you, keep some dignity alive."
"Like you own any!" Scarlett mocked.
"Ok, go on!" He asked the guards to be more alert than the prior hour.
"5 miles....? Yes almost." Trar answered the question with a coarse voice, leaving the smoke out.
"How's the setting in Blue Hill. The physiography and the people there. Be brief and don't exaggerate."
"Nobody resides there. It's a very small island and the residents have been evacuated to Dlayock. Solely restricted for mining, you see? It's deserted currently but under the preparations to be mined and exploited. They say the land is dry except for the mining area there's nothing much notable."
"Where will-?" Zen's question was cut off on a guards interruption, behind him stood Opeul at the doorpost. He motioned them to come over.
Both trailed their ways towards Opeul.
"Dear ones," he said as he placed his hands on both of their shoulders, "you both have been a great help to us, with pride I say this. You have done enough, and I speculate if you can do anything further. My old head got hold of all the threads linked and now I know we are all helpless. Those people are beasts. We are poor and weak. Leave them untouched, let them go around their business for our survival. I don't advise you to play with them."
Little did Opeul know their real motive. Zen and Scarlett wanted to play a part in rescuing the fellow victims of this trade and avoiding the tunnel construction was not their priority. They weren't of course insensitive or selfish towards the islanders since little harm will this tunnel do to them. Zen planned on directing these kids to a safer place, if not completely rescue them
"But Opeul, we.." A sharp arrow plunged close to the place they were talking, sending them all to an abrupt shock. It was aimed at a running Trar. He seemed to have escaped the guards. The men with arrows moved out with a huge commotion, fixing their bows. Trar was running into the dusky gloominess of the evening. Scarlett reflexively pulled out the handgun from her back pocket. She pulled the trigger, accurately aiming at a sprinting Trar. What all those arrows failed to do was done by a bullet that went creeping in the air, rooting itself into Trar's skull- the genesis of modern supremacy in the island.
All ran towards Trar, who collapsed like a spineless string onto the earth. His face twitched with great pain. Zen, Scarlett, Opeul and the guards surrounded, hovering over the dying man.
Trar gasped for breath as blood oozed out from his head. He lightly lifted his left arm, pointing towards Zen and Scarlett he said, "I-I know who you are!" His lips curled up, purple skin covered him up. "Adaci Kion, achh!! Save her....save my..." And then words never came out as life was snatched away from him. The earth bore the body of a fool, who wasted his life like a stubborn animal. To mourn for him, a tear rolled down Scarlett's cheek. A hand that held innocent kids was now holding a gun that just killed a human.
Zen turned pale recalling his words, "I know who you are..."