After about three hours of walking, which tired Aditya a lot, they made it to the beautiful, blue orphanage Nera called "home". Smiling widely, Nera turned around to face Aditya, who was sluggishly walking behind her, as he huffed and puffed deeply.
"This is my home, Malotas!" Nera said as she pointed to the sign which stated, "The Orphanage of Wasa."
Aditya straightened his back and took the whole building in carefully. Finally, he asked, "You live in an orphanage?"
Nera nodded, her grin fading slightly, leaving a slight smile on her face. Aditya noticed this and quickly said, "It's beautiful! Magnificent, actually. Can we go inside?"
Nera nodded and she knocked on the front door. Then, the two of them heard loud clicks, as if someone was unlocking a hundred locks.So enough, the door opened ever so slightly and a woman, with bright red hair,'s face appeared from the small opening. She looked at Aditya with suspicious eyes. Then she saw Nera. The red-haired woman's eyes widened in shock and she, immediately, opened the door, so that it was completely open. She opened her arms out wide and hugged Nera, tightly.
The red-haired woman started kissing Nera on the top of her head, when Nera pushed her off gently. "I'm fine, Aunt Alani! I'm fine!"
Alani moved away from Nera and started asking questions."Where have you been? We've been worried sick about you, sweetie! You've been gone for nearly two days! Wait, let me get Andrea, she'll be so happy!"
Quickly Alani rushed back inside of the house, leaving the door wide open.
"C'mon Aditya, let's go inside," Nera whispered to Aditya as she made her way into her home through the front door. Aditya followed en suite and the two of them stood awkwardly in the foyer of the house, until Alani came back with a young girl. The girl, who had brown hair and bright green eyes, immediately ran to Nera and hugged her tightly. She was quite tall for her age, making her almost Nera's height. Finally, the girl, Andrea, let go of Nera and stared at her, her green eyes glazed over.
"We've been worried sick about you! You didn't come back yesterday, Nera, and we were so worried!" Andrea exclaimed at her sister.
Slowly, Nera bent down and held Andrea's face in her hands. "I'm sorry, love. I was coming, but...something happened."
"What happened, Nera and who is this boy?" Alani asked as she glared at Aditya, who was trying his best to look as polite and naive as possible.
For a long moment, Nera didn't say anything, until finally, she responded. "His name is Aditya Malotas and he helped me get out of there."
"Get out of where, Nera? Get out of where? And Malotas? Like the Malotas? Since when have you been so close with the Malotas family?" Alani questioned once again.
Nera took a deep breath in and said, "We don't have that kind of time right now. He is losing more and more blood by the second."
Aditya widened his eyes and looked down at his hand. Blood was leaking through the shawl Nera had wrapped and down his fingertips, dropping to the ground. He'd completely forgotten he was even hurt. Alani and Andrea looked at Aditya's hand and finally, Alani said, stiffly, "Bring him in."
The four of them sat in the dining room, a little candle being the only source of light in the whole house. Alani, slowly, pressed a piece of cotton on Aditya's wound as he winced loudly in pain. Andrea was sitting next to him, watching patiently.
"You gotta stop overreacting, kid." Alani said as she took the cotton off his hand and put some kind of liquid on top of the cotton.
"But it's painful!" Aditya complained.
"And it's only gonna get more painful," Andrea responded for Alani as the aunt put a piece of liquid-covered cotton on his wound. Aditya let out a loud cry of pain as he closed his eyes tightly. A singular tear rolled down his cheek. Nera noticed it and wiped it away gently. Her fingers skimmed his face, slightly, but Aditya felt it. He opened his eyes and finally turned to face Nera. Her shiny golden eyes met his caramel-brown eyes. They stared at each other for a couple seconds, but were interrupted by Andrea.
"Mhm!" Andrea cleared her throat as she looked at Aditya then Nera and then back at Aditya.
"Sorry-sorry," Aditya said as he turned his attention back to his hand. Alani continued pressing the liquid-covered cotton on Aditya's wound and he continued to wince in pain. Nera wanted to comfort Aditya, tell him all was going to be "Okay", but she didn't want Alani to stare at her weird or to think that she was weak. After all, she was the great, 'Golden-Eyed Devil." How could this magnificent and uncatchable thief even think of feeling bad for a random, rich boy?
So Nera decided to go upstairs to see if she could find any information about what Aditya had talked to her about earlier. Before she left, she quietly whispered something in Aditya's ear. "I'm going upstairs to find some information about that "shemesh" person, okay? I'll tell you everything I find when I get back."
Nera got up and made her way up the staircase and onto the second floor. She quietly walked through the hallway, and tried her best not to, by accident, fall into anyone else's room. She finally reached the ex-headmaster's office. Nera opened the door, walked in and was immediately surrounded by dust. She started coughing harshly into her elbow. Nobody had entered his room in ages. Nera pushed the dusty air away from her face and began to look for some information about Neskarta, and "shemesh".
Meanwhile, downstairs, Alani began wrapping Aditya's wound with a compression bandage as Andrea continuously glared at Aditya, trying to figure "his deal" out. Alani was wrapping his hand tightly, making Aditya feel even more pain than before.
"Can you-can you please relax a bit? It hurts a lot," Aditya asked, as his eyes began to water again.
"Why?" Alani snapped at him.
"Because like I said, it hurts a lot." Aditya answered, a singular tear rolling down his face.
Alani glared at Aditya and finally dropped the compression bandage. She took a deep breath in and said, "There's no need to hide it anymore kid. Just tell me the truth."
Aditya furrowed his eyebrows and in a confused tone said, "What-what're you talking about?"
"You know what she's talking about, Aditya," Andrea responded, enunciating his name.
"No, I don't. What are you talking about?" Aditya responded in the same confused tone.
Alani rolled her eyes and exasperatedly said, "Don't act all innocent. I know you want to take my Nera. So just admit it and tell me who sent you."
Aditya's eyebrows furrowed even more. "I still don't understand, Auntie. Why the hell would I take Nera? Who the hell would take Nera?"
Alani rolled her nose inwards as if she smelled something rotten and then said, "First don't call me Auntie. And second, I don't want liars in my house. So if you don't tell me the truth, get out."
"But-" Aditya began, but he was interrupted by Nera who was dashing the staircase, making a tremendous amount of noise.
"Hey guys! I found something!" Nera practically screamed as she reached the bottom of the staircase and turned to the dining room, holding a thick book. Alani widened her eyes and put her finger on her mouth, as she tried to tell Nera to be quiet. Nera swallowed and once she heard footsteps, she quietly said, "Sorry."
Alani sighed exasperatedly and held her head in her hands for a couple seconds.But to everyone's surprise, instead of seeing seventy children coming down the staircase, they only saw one adult. Aunt Jaddua.
"Nera! You're back, where have you been? We've been worried sick about you!" Jaddua exclaimed as she made her way down the stairs and straight to Nera.
"Yeah, yeah, I've been over this a hundred times with Aunt Alani and Andrea. What's important right now is what I've found." Nera rushed over to Aditya and sat beside him(in between Andrea and Aditya).
"It's this book of some sort I found in my headmaster's room. It's just a normal book about the sun and its eclipse and stuff." Nera began to speak to Aditya when Jaddua interrupted her.
"Who the hell is this and what is he doing in my house?" Jaddua asked no one in particular as she interrupted Nera.
"This is Aditya Malotas. One of the members of the Malotas family," Alani said, obviously annoyed that he was still here, as Aditya waved slightly to Jaddua.
"What is HE doing in my house? Invading my family's privacy? And how do you know this boy, Nera?" Jaddua interrogated as she made her way into the kitchen.
For a moment, Nera didn't say a word, until finally she had enough. "I'm done with this crap. Aditya and I don't have the time for this. I was thinking of staying here for the night, but, you know what, I changed my mind. Let's go Aditya." Nera got up and started to make her way out of the orphanage as Aditya joined her and Alani, Andrea and Jaddua followed her quickly.
"You can't leave yet, you just came!" Andrea begged as Jaddua said, "Where the hell are you going with that boy?" and Alani exclaimed, "Honey, it's dangerous, you can't leave, you won't be safe out there!"
Ignoring them all, Nera walked out the door, followed by Aditya who wasn't quite sure what was happening at the moment. But, before they were completely gone, Nera said, "And by the way, this isn't your house, Jaddua! You don't own it! And this isn't your family! This is an orphanage for orphans like me and Andrea."
Hurriedly, Nera walked out onto the backstreets of Wasa and after a little while, Aditya was able to catch up with her. The two of them didn't say anything and stayed in the same hurried pace, until, finally, Aditya asked, "Nera? When are you going to stop walking so fast and show me the book?"
"Right, yeah, I've got to show the book," Nera said, remembering now that she had brought it with her from the orphanage. She grabbed Aditya's non-injured hand(making him blush) and whispered, quietly, "Over here, Malotas."
Nera dragged him to a random run-down stall and laid down against it, forcing Aditya to do the same. Pulling her hand which was intertwined in Aditya's away from him, Nera began to explain what she had found.
And so, Nera began. "Like I said before, I found this book in my headmaster's room. It's just a normal book about the sun and its eclipse and stuff."
Aditya nodded in understanding as Nera opened the book and showed it to him. There were many pictures and diagrams of the sun and the moon as well as small bits of information everywhere.
"My headmaster seems to have written little notes of his own." Nera pointed at all the sticky notes and writing which were hand-written.
Aditya nodded again, skimming the information once to get it into his head, just in case. "But then I found this loose paper."
Nera took out a single sheet of paper from somewhere in the middle of the book. Nera laid it onto the countertop as Aditya stared inquisitively at it.
"It's just full of gibberish, I know, but at the bottom if you can see in tiny font there's shemesh written. Look." And so, Aditya did.
EBPEBJ XEP TBMLO LQ VBQPAL PR
EBPEBJ KXZ KFCA AXKBALKIT
OLCJ IBOQXY KLAXIOCKTA
Shemesh
"It's a cipher," Aditya realised.
Nera furrowed eyebrows and stared at the paper to see if Aditya could see something she couldn't.
"I mean it must be a cipher. Look at all the two letter words and the repeated words. I wonder if the letters were shifted around before they were ciphered." Aditya asked himself.
Nera was taken aback by Aditya's newfound and quick discovery. But quickly she thought of their current situation. "We can try to solve it later, but it's starting to get late, we should probably go to sleep and start thinking of ways to get to Neskarta tomorrow morning."
"Yeah I agree," Aditya responded as he tried to put his hand in Nera's again, but she moved away.
"Alright, goodnight, Malotas. We gotta wake up early tomorrow." Nera said as she leaned her head against the stall.
"Goodnight, Nera."