A word.
It just took one word—"Open."—out of Mr. Brighteyes's mouth for the front door to swing inward. No stomp, no secret device hidden within the floorboards, no other motion—just one word.
And that one word took a second, and that one second was enough for Damien, Jack, Sander, Max, and Lyn to realize they had made complete fools of themselves in front of Mr. Brighteyes and his friend (a label they assumed for the stocky, brown-skinned man who stood next to him).
It was two o'clock now, and they stood next to each other, their feet planted down on the grass-strewn ground, outside Mr. Brighteyes's cabin. They were a good distance away from any form of shade, allowing the sun to blatantly scorch their skin. Mr. Brighteyes's friend studied each one of them, his eyes lingering a few beats longer on Damien—if anyone was keen enough to notice. Then, after a glance at Mr. Brighteyes, the blue-eyed, olive-skinned man cleared his throat and said, "Sander, Lyn, Damien, Jack, Max. I would like you to meet Bato, an expert warrior and strategist, and I have assigned him to train you in the art of hand-to-hand combat and weaponry."
"Good afternoon," said the man Bato, his stance firm, his back straight. He had a youthful quality to his voice, a contrast to his worn, middle-aged appearance. "It is an honor to meet you." There was a certain strain to the word, the youths noticed. And they were certain they knew why—stomping on floorboards like idiots didn't give a good first impression, did it?
Jack took his steps toward Bato, reached out a hand. "Pleasure to meet you, too, Mister Bato," said Jack, flashing his signature smile.
Ever the extrovert, Lyn thought to herself, a quiet sigh escaping her lips.
Bato said nothing, did nothing, but glanced down at Jack's hand and looked up again to meet Jack's brown eyes.
Silence, the awkward kind, then Jack said, "Mister Bato, if Mister Brighteyes here hasn't told you yet, I've had formal lessons in boxing and mix martial arts. I'm an athlete. Used to compete in boxing and martial arts competitions back in grade school and middle school. You won't have to worry so much about me as you should about them." He chuckled, pointed a thumb in his friends' direction.
Sander glanced at his other three friends, and muttered, "Should we be offended?"
A smile appeared on Bato's face, then a slight nod of the head. Jack kept the corners of his mouth turned up, showing his good set of white teeth, coupled with the stranger-friendly look in his eyes. That's how you make a good impression, Jack thought, pleased with himself. Smile, talk. Maybe crack a joke. Say something to make them like y—
And just like that, without warning, Jack witnessed the world spin before his eyes, the air stolen out of his lungs as he crashed against the grass-strewn floor. And before he even realized it, Bato had rolled him over and pinned him down to the ground—Jack's arms bound behind his back, his face pressed against the earth, the sharp edge of a knife hovering right before his eyes.
"Dude. Dude! Did he just—"
"Yes, Max," said Sander. "Mister Bato flipped Jack over."
"But—But he's tiny."
Lyn rolled her eyes at Max's words.
Damien, on the other hand, tried to keep a straight face, suppressing the urge to laugh. Yet he felt the corners of his mouth quirk up inadvertently, fragments of a chuckle spilling past his lips.
Bato put the knife back into the sheath strapped to his side. Then he jumped off of Jack's prone form, looked up at the other youths, and said, "This is your first and most important lesson—pride will only lead to a warrior's downfall. Remember this always. As you can see, your friend here," he said, turning his sights to Jack, who had sat up and was brushing the dirt off his face and shirt, "if he hadn't learned this lesson now, would have learned it the hard way." He smiled down at Jack's nervous expression. "Yes. Death."
Jack pushed himself off the ground, raised his hands up the second he stood. "All right, all right, I get it," he said. "Chill. You didn't have to scare me like that."
Bato chuckled. "I merely taught you a lesson, just in a manner you will never forget."
"Yeah, you did. And you made damn sure, all right." And with that, Jack returned to his place next to Damien, a red tinge washing over his tan face.
Damien was still smiling. Jack noticed.
"Don't you dare say anything."
"I don't need to," said Damien, eyebrows waggling.
Jack sighed. "You suck, bruh."
"As shown before you," Bato was saying, raising his voice to cut off Damien and Jack's conversation, "this training does not only involve the discipline of the body—a common misconception. It also entails the discipline of the mind and of the spirit. Character will get you through this training more than mere physical strength. Do I make myself clear?"
A moment's hesitation, a quiet exchange of nervous glances.
Bato heaved a deep breath in, and, with a voice like a peal of thunder disrupting the tense quietness of the moment, he said again, "Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes, sir," responded the youths in unison, in a second of a heartbeat.
"Very well," said the man Bato. Then he smiled. "Prepare your bodies and your spirits to endure."
It was a fine afternoon, an anomaly to the famed Northwest gloom. The sun bathed the path in its soft gold glow, daylight slipping through the cracks in the foliage. Clouds drifted overhead; the trees listened to the rhythm of their footsteps; birds sailed up and swooped down from one tree to another, singing a language of their own.
Too bad, though. No one paid any mind to that—the weather, the warmth, the scenery surrounding them. There was no "enjoying the little things", Max thought, remembering the quote from Zombieland.
There were only a few thoughts that filled their headspace that hour: quiet complaints about how tiring running through the forest was, their feet aching against the rough terrain; probabilities of how they'll make it through the first half of today's training alive; calculations of how much longer they'll have to endure this; silent pleas for Mr. Bato to shut up, his voice an echo that grew more irritating each time he opened his mouth to yell at them to run faster, to waste no more time.
Jack was confident about this at first. The only athlete among them, trained for the past year to endure miles and laps around the campus grounds, with Coach Little's yelling as the soundtrack to their daily dose of suffering—now a mere a warm-up to him and his more experienced teammates.
But this, this was something else. He was used to running, yes, but not on any other paths than on level ground—the court, the roads on campus. And Jack found himself out of breath after a while, his legs aching incrementally the more he climbed uphill and ran down slopes. And there were the roots that jutted out the earth and into the path, and the rocks that lay randomly around the floor, and the mosquitoes wanting to feast on their blood.
Damien ran a little behind him, catching up to Jack, and about forty minutes into this "warm-up", he breathed out the words that had been echoing in their brains:
"Yo." Damien wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. "This . . . sucks . . . "
"This," responded Jack. "Is why . . . I . . . don't do . . . cross-country . . . "
Mr. Bato, who had been leading them through the forest, laughed with ease. He seemed to breathe normally, like this was just some stroll in the park to him. "Better save your breath, boys," he said. "There is no complaining on the battlefield. Deal with it now, or suffer later."
Damien drew in a breath, then muttered, "Screw . . . you . . . "
They arrived back at the cabin a little past three o'clock. Mr. Bato gave them some time to rest before they continued with training. Then he turned his eyes from the youths' slouched, tired forms to the cabin, and walked over to the front door, entered, and shut it closed. So, after Jack led them through a brief cool down, the five of them sat on the grass-strewn floor, eyes wandering from the clouds filling the sky to Mr. Brighteyes's cabin and the trees that stood still and bored. The weather now held a pleasant kind of summer gloom, and a light breeze blew, to their relief.
"Did any of you notice?" said Max, disrupting the comfortable quiet.
Sander turned to him. "Notice what?"
"His eyes, man," said Max, looking at Sander. "Mister Bato's eyes have got this red tinge to it."
Damien had been pulling grass off the ground, without a thought. A few blades slipped out of his grasp. Then he looked at Max, and said, "Didn't notice. I remember they're some sort of dark brown, though."
"They were maroon-ish," piped up Lyn, sitting cross-legged on the floor. "I think." A moment's thought. "Or maybe it's some trick of the light. I can't be so sure."
Jack looked up, saw something not far from where they sat. "Well, there's no use thinking more about it, 'cause he's here."
The moment he stood before them, they rose up off the ground, standing still and expectant.
"Let us resume your training, shall we?" said Mr. Bato, with a smile. Damien noted that the smile seemed forced. The man scanned each of their faces. Then, "Jack," he called, and beckoned him to come over.
Jack let out an inaudible groan, and walked over to the man. And true it was to his guess, the man stood around five-five, a little taller than Lyn by an insignificant amount.
"Jack," said Mr. Bato, "if I am not mistaken, a little more than an hour ago, you told me you learned hand-to-hand combat and weaponry in the past." The man smirked. "Did you not?"
"Kind of like that, but not like that," replied Jack. "I mean, hand-to-hand combat—if you think boxing and mixed martial arts fall into the category, yeah, sure. But I learned them as sports, probably not for whatever it is you intend to do with hand-to-hand combat. But weaponry, nope. Never."
Mr. Bato nodded. "Since you know a little of hand-to-hand combat—"
"Mister Bato, I told you I competed—"
"—would you care to assist me as we teach your friends?" Mr. Bato went on, ignoring Jack's attempt at a refute.
Jack could only nod. "Sure," he said, suspecting it wasn't even a request in the first place.
Mr. Bato gave him a nod back. "Well then," he started, turning to the others, "let us begin. First, your stance." He turned back to Jack. "Show me your stance, will you, boy."
Jack looked away, and demonstrated a stance, as he was taught years ago. Feet apart, one foot behind, the other forward, knees slightly bent. He held his fists out, shielding his face.
Mr. Bato studied his take on a stance, nodded in approval. "Decent," he said. "Acceptable."
Jack didn't move.
"But—"
But what? Jack would've rolled his eyes if he could.
Mr. Bato nudged his foot against Jack's right foot positioned behind him. "This foot—not like this." He took his stance next to Jack, although he did not raise his fists as Jack did. "All ten toes facing forward."
Jack said nothing, although he thought to himself, But this is what they taught me. This is fine. Yet he obeyed, nonetheless. They were off to a bad start that afternoon; he didn't want to make things worse, avoid getting to Mr. Bato's bad side as much as he could.
Mr. Bato stood straight up from his pose. He studied Jack's stance again, nodded in approval, then turned to the others. "This is a proper stance. Feet apart, one foot behind the other, hip-width apart. Knees bent, as if you are to take off on a run. All ten toes facing forward. Hands shielding your face. Do this stance yourselves, now."
And so they did, and Mr. Bato walked over to each one of them, correcting their stances.
"Your behind," said Mr. Bato, smacking Damien's butt with a stick he suddenly produced—some sort of weapon, they supposed. "You are about to take flight, to run, to fight—not defecate."
Now it was Jack's turn to snigger.
"Your knees—too bent," commented Mr. Bato, tapping his stick against the back of Sander's knees. He walked over to Max, studied the boy's stance, nodded in approval. Then to Lyn, "Your right foot is too far back. Closer. Yes. Then bend your knees. Better.
"As you all know," he went on, returning to his place in front of them, next to Jack, "you can never remain still in battle. You must learn to move in your stance. Now." He took his own stance. "First, the foot in front steps forward. Then the foot behind follows, keeping that same distance between both feet. Think of the the foot at the back bound to the foot in front. Note, however, the space between—keep steady. So forward, then back. Forward, then back." The five of them followed his movements. "Good. I would like you to repeat the same movements over and over. Forward, then backward. Forward, then backward. I will check on each of you, instruct the necessary corrections. Ready. Go."
And with that, they began their series of drills, and Mr. Bato's concomitant corrections. Back, forth, back, forth. Minutes later, five of them formed a circle around Mr. Bato, as instructed, and in their stances, they moved around him, clockwise then counterclockwise, like dancers around a fire, or—Like rabbits jumping around a five-five, Southeast Asian-looking carrot, thought Jack. All hail, the annoying talking carrot—pleaseshutup.
"Do not cross your feet!" Mr. Bato scolded them. By then, Sander had stumbled twice; Lyn, thrice.
"Next lesson," said Mr. Bato, after their revolutions around him were over. "Jack." He beckoned the boy forward to stand next to him again.
Jack obeyed, without protest. The last demonstration wasn't as bad as he had expected. This wouldn't hurt.
"Stance."
Jack positioned himself into the pose.
"Observe his hands," said Mr. Bato, gesturing to Jack's hands balled into fists. Jack held them out, shielding his face. "Jack," said Mr. Bato, turning to him, "do you see that tree?"
"Uh, yes."
"Would you want to hit it with your bare fists?"
"Hold on. Mister Bato, what—"
"Would you?"
"If necessary."
"And if not?"
"No." Jack dropped his stance, turned to face their teacher. "Mister Bato, no one in their right mind would hit a tree without reason."
Mr. Bato raised an eyebrow. "Because?"
"Because it would hurt as hell!"
"Precisely," said Mr. Bato, with a smile. "It would hurt, wouldn't it?" He turned to his left, positioned himself into his stance. "That is why instead of balling your hands into fists"—he held his fists up—"and teaching you to punch"—he threw a jab into the air, retracted his fist. "I will teach you"—he opened his hands, palms facing forward—"the palm strike. A less painful yet effective method for beginners." A pause. "Jack, stand before me."
Jack gave him a quizzical look.
"I do not intend to harm you. I will simply explain."
Jack shrugged, then walked over to the other side, in front of Mr. Bato.
A brown hand smacked lightly onto Jack's face, to the boy's quiet, low-level annoyance. Then Mr. Bato drew his hand back.
Mr. Bato held out both of his hands in Damien, Sander, Max, and Lyn's direction. "This is the heel of your palm." He pointed at the patch of hard flesh between his palm and wrist. "Use it to strike"—he turned quickly, and his hand shot forward, lightly smacking onto Jack's face for the second time—"your adversary in the face. Notice the heel of my palm colliding against his chin. And to your advantage, you can use your thumb"—his thumb quickly patted—pretty much vibrated—against Jack's left eye, which Jack didn't like the feeling of—"to poke your adversary's eye."
Looks like I won't be forgetting this lesson, either, Jack thought to himself, wanting to push this man's hand off his face.
And just as Jack thought of it, Mr. Bato removed his hand, his arm falling to his side.
The teacher glanced at the other four. "Also notice"—he held his hands up once more, shot his arm out again, this time not coming into contact with Jack's face, to the boy's relief—"how I move my shoulders as I strike." He retracted his arm back, repeated the same movement. "Also notice how my chin is tucked, and how my shoulder is close to my chin, guarding it. And notice"—he returned back to his basic stance, did another strike—"how my foot pivots." He made several palm strikes over and over again to prove his point. "Inhale." Retract. "Exhale." Strike.
Then Mr. Bato freed himself from his stance, gestured Jack to return to his place next to his friends. The second the boy rejoined them, he smiled. "Palm strike drills." A pause, as they prepared themselves in their stances, hands open and held up. "Ready. Go."
Jack slumped onto Mr. Brighteyes's couch, a sheen of sweat coating his skin. He had taken his shirt off the second he stepped into the cabin, held the drenched fabric in his right hand. Damien slumped down next to him, having taken off his shirt as well. Max followed, still fully clothed.
Sander was in the bathroom near the living room, taking a shower; Lyn was using the bathroom upstairs.
Mr. Brighteyes stood over the kitchen table, preparing his "special" organic iced tea. Mr. Bato leaned against a wall, munching on a piece of bread.
"Bruh," said Jack, exhaustion evident in his voice.
"What?" asked Damien, turning to face him. Max transferred his glance to his friends.
"Look."Jack smiled, and poked Damien's flabby belly. "It's Tina the Talking Tummy."
Damien felt self-conscious, then. But he refused to show it, refused to let Jack have the last laugh. "Ain't Tina, bro. The name's Timmy." He batted his eyelashes, and giggled in a high-pitched, faux-feminine voice. "What a beautiful chocolate man!"
Max burst out laughing at the White Chicks references.
"Bruh, what the—? Damien, no! Get your hands off my arms! Hey, I didn't tell you to poke my stomach! Just because I've got abs, and you don't—Damien! Damien! No! No!"
Jack burst into uncontrollable laughter, as Damien's fingers danced across his toned midsection in rapid, chaotic movements, tickling the overconfident jock.
Damien smiled a wide, menacing smile, like a dumb, overweight cartoon character gone mad. "Who you calling fat, boy? Who you calling fat?"
It was almost five o'clock now, and the skies were pale gray from the clouds that filled the expanse, save a few patches of brilliant blue. Lyn had gone out onto the porch, leaning against the wooden railing, her eyes glued to the trees a distance away, the warmth of the summer afternoon caressing her skin. In her hand was a glass of Mr. Brighteyes's organic iced tea.
The front door swung open, and footsteps paused momentarily on the doorstep, then moved closer to where she stood. Before Lyn managed to even notice, someone leaned against the railing, beside her, and a voice said, "You okay?"
Lyn woke up, but this time, although his arrival had taken her by surprise, she was no longer bothered with the sudden interruption. She had gotten used to their company by now, recognized his voice in an instant.
"Yeah," she replied to Max's question, without giving him a glance.
Max simply nodded, then sipped a bit of his iced tea. He didn't walk off elsewhere, satisfied with her answer, as she expected him to.
Lyn looked up at him. "I'm fine," she said, forcing a smile. "Really. You don't have to stick around—"
"I'm not out here to keep you company, if that's what you're thinking," said Max, with a raised eyebrow. "I just, well—I just wanted to roam out here on the porch. Get some fresh air." He shook his head, and chuckled. "You're too obvious, Lyn. Sheesh."
Lyn slapped his arm, and shot him a glare. "I'm fine," she said, with conviction—false conviction. She had been drowning in the music of the choir, their sinister whispers flooding her headspace, her heart weighed down by the heavy darkness that filled it, pulling her deeper into the depths . . .
"But seriously, Lyn," said Max, glancing at her left wrist. Lyn noticed. "You okay?"
"Y-Yeah. Why wouldn't I be?" she responded, fighting the urge to fix her bracelets, to pull her sleeve down over her wrist.
"Lyn, it's eighty five degrees out here, and you're wearing a hoodie in this heat. Besides, I already saw the marks this afternoon. They were peeking out from beneath your rubber bracelets. They look fresh." Max let out a breath. "I'm surprised no one else noticed."
Lyn averted her gaze, stared out into the forest that stretched on before them. "Did you just come out here to bring that up?"
"I told you, I just wanted some fresh air. Then I saw you, and—Is it a crime to be concerned for a friend?" A moment's silence. Max pinched the bridge of his nose. "Why do you even do that?"
Lyn refused to look at him. "Why do you want to know?"
"Maybe I can help. Or maybe we—the other guys and I—could—"
"You wouldn't understand. None of you would."
"I'll try."
Lyn looked at him, then. "You wouldn't." She let out a humorless chuckle. "You'll think I'm crazy, then you wouldn't want to have any other conversation with me after this. After I tell you, maybe you wouldn't want to be associated with me anymore." A brief silence, as Lyn transferred her glance to the grass-strewn ground below them. "That's what they all did." And that's what the voices were telling her.
"Lyn, I'm not like that. And crazy? Crazy? After the night those dudes chased us, I don't know what crazy is anymore. Hey." Max placed a hand on Lyn's shoulder, the sudden contact causing Lyn to look up at him again. "I'll listen. I'm probably the least prejudicial person you'll ever meet."
Lyn turned her gaze to her hands, fingers wrapped around a moist glass of iced tea. She said nothing, first questioning his use of the word prejudicial, strangely and momentarily, then considering if she should—
"I've got these, um, thoughts," she began, if that was a better way to put it. Max, to her surprise, said nothing, listening. "Like voices that talk to me all the time, more so when I'm alone and sad or scared. They talk and sing in whispers, loud whispers. Almost like hissing, but they're singing, and I understand what they're telling me. They say a lot of things, the kind that cuts to the core."
Max blinked. "Like?"
"Like, if I do something stupid, all these memories come crashing in, everything I've done wrong, and the voices remind me how much of a mess I am, how flawed and imperfect I am that I don't deserve to even be here. That I don't deserve even the smallest act of kindness. They tell me I'm a mistake, that I must punish myself for my mistakes and failures, and that it's all my fault, and—" Lyn drew in a breath, fighting back tears. No one should see me cry. "They tell me that I must be punished. So I do this to make them shut up, to leave me alone, even for a short while."
Lyn said nothing for a while, deciding. Then she sighed, and placed the glass of iced tea down on the table behind her. She pulled her sleeve up her forearm, pushed her bracelets down. She turned her hand over, her palm facing up. There on her wrist were about twenty, thin, scarlet lines; without thinking, almost on instinct, Lyn ran her thumb across the patch of flesh where she had cut herself, wounds like stitches sewn into her skin.
Max drew in a sharp breath. He had seen a couple peeks before, obscured beneath the mess of bracelets. But seeing her scars like this—the full picture, the distinct contrast of red and white, the blatant grotesque before his eyes—invoked an uneasiness within him. This was a first. "When did you, um—"
"Last night," said Lyn, her voice somber.
"What happened?" Max blurted. "I mean, what made you—No, I don't mean it that way. Look, I'm not judging. But what, uh . . . "
"What triggered it?" guessed Lyn.
"Yeah." Max nodded, nervously.
Lyn shrugged. "I don't know. I don't know when it started. I don't know why it did. It just . . . happened. These voices would talk to me, whisper, sing. They've been talking to me this entire week, but last night was . . . Last night was really bad. I'm no stranger to it anymore, really. But"—she exhaled—"they were screaming. Screaming so loud that even if I tried to distract myself, even if I tried to busy myself with homework, or to force myself to finish up this novel I've been reading lately, I just couldn't concentrate. And I would find myself drowning helplessly in the dark again, and there would be this heavy emptiness in my chest, and I wouldn't know what to do but to listen to their hisses and their words. Then I would . . . " Lyn trailed off, her eyes flitting down to the scars on her wrist. "I felt like everything was falling apart last night, and all these voices were screaming, and I didn't know what to do, so I hid myself in the bathroom, and did . . . this." A pause. "Then they finally shut up."
Max didn't know what to say, staring at the raven-haired girl before him. After a moment's silence, however, he opened his mouth to speak, without a script well thought out. But he had a few words, and he hoped that—
The front door opened, and three other boys filed out onto porch. Lyn pulled her sleeve down over her wrist in one hasty motion. Max closed his mouth, the words he intended to say never to be spilt.
Jack's eyes glanced from Max to Lyn. "We interrupting anything?" he asked, with a smirk.
Max and Lyn exchanged looks, felt their faces flush. "No," they said.
"Jack," said Sander, "just because a girl and a guy are friends doesn't mean there's something going on between them—romantically, that is."
Four paired of eyes then turned to Sander. Damien and Jack exchanged knowing looks, and chuckled. Lyn's hand flew up to her mouth, hiding the smile that crept to her lips. Max couldn't help but stare at Sander, his face scrunched up; it took all the strength within him to suppress the laugh that fought to burst out. Sander's glance flitted from one friend to another, puzzlement clouding his features.
"What?" asked Sander.
"A'ight, Sander. If you say so."
"Jack, it's a valid point."
"Valid, yes," said Lyn, keeping her hand over her mouth, fighting the urge to laugh. "But—"
"It would've been believable if you weren't the one saying it," said Damien, waggling his eyebrows. "If you weren't crushing on—"
"Guys, come on!"
And just like that, Damien, Jack, Max, and Lyn burst into unified laughter.
"Guys, it's still valid," defended Sander. "You shouldn't be taking my argument against me on a personal level. Take it objec—"
But none of his friends were listening, their sides aching from laughing so hard. Sander felt the corners of his lips quirk up, then, and he too laughed with them, seeing the humor in this—one of the rare moments hypocrisy proved to be comical.
Lyn felt tears brim her eyes. This, however, was different: for the first time in eons, it had nothing to do with the voices and the dark and the void, but with the people she was with that moment, the people she had miraculously learned to trust. And she was sure, as she laughed her heart out, that she wouldn't have anyone else in this mess with her but these losers.