A collection of speculation brewed.
"I don't know, but this is what they've allowed us to know." Noam murmured.
Malik's back hunched forward, and his hands were threaded together, one thumb atop another.
"So none of us truly know what it is, nor what it really means to us, or the ones who made the documents in the first place. All we have is fragments," he said.
Noam added, "It makes for entertaining theories, but looking at it from afar, I shiver at the thought that they're always one step ahead."
Inhaling, "Maybe they wanted us to know this, just so they could laugh at us while we unscramble a puzzle that wasn't meant to be solved."
"We'll only be a part of the cycle they broke out of long ago," Malik said.
That word circled in Malik's head. Cycle. He uttered it without even knowing what it meant. He stored it, deciding that he had asked enough questions for the night. Despite that, the thoughts imprinted like staples in his head.
Something's not making sense; either he's lying or misinformed.
Granted, he did say his information was outdated. And again, I've never lived in a society, so I'm not one to speak on how it works, but it doesn't make sense how a population would seek to revolt, losing more blood after blood was already lost.
Noam derailed his thought. "Ever since we lost the cycling support of government, we've been left alone with dealing with the anomalies here. But our tribe is aware that they're afraid of the flames. Apparently, it draws them away, like how blood makes us uneasy."
A stillness ensued in the cabin, which smelled of warm, dry leaves. The atmosphere attempted to soothe them, but the blackout remained outside, as they could only imagine what went on from the windowless home.
Malik's eyes turned to the door; he hadn't heard any steps.
Kaya tapped his shoulder, with that worried look on her face, "When do you think Awan's gonna return?"
His eyebrows drooped, "I'm not sure. But I know he'll find his way, like we always do."
She sank back into the logs behind her, with a pensive stare at her pockets. The weight from it was gone, but she felt the same.
Closing her heavy eyelids, she hugged her knees to her chest and breathed softly as she began to rest.
Noam covered himself with a blanket, turned his back to them, and wished everybody goodnight.
Then, he spoke beneath the covers, "Malik. You might experience it tonight. Heed my words and try to go to sleep. I know you're someone far more curious than me."
"What do you mean by that, Noam?" Malik whispered.
There was no response after, only the blissful quiet.
As time passed, everybody fell asleep, except Malik. Although he relaxed every muscle, his body didn't want to rest, but he did.
His warning sounded off, but I could tell he meant it. I have to distract myself with something. Maybe that'll let me sleep.
Surveying the objects in the room, he observed them, hoping he would doze off soon enough.
The dangling light bonded to the fan kept swinging, following a circular motion. Accordingly, the fan corresponded to its motion, scattering the air around it in choppy sways.
With a metallic rattle, the hanging light spun by a singular wire, but it held on tight. Each blade of the fan followed its cycle and served as background noise with a rhythmic hum.
Kaya was next to him, and he lost count of every breath she made in her gentle breathing. Her eyelids hung low, attached to threaded weights.
Past her, Zayne was lightly snoring, and it sounded like sawing a log. He sprawled at the end of the bed, and it couldn't have been comfortable.
After a moment, Malik closed his eyes, but a darkness consumed his vision.
It was a pitch-black sight, where not even the hanging light crept in. He gasped, covered his mouth, and looked around to see if anybody woke up.
Now I remember what Noam saw when we exited. I wonder how these people sleep without the light of stars. This is the land's gift to me, but I can't see outside even if I wanted to. I learned about this place and the history of it, but it all feels disjointed.
But I'd have to make the land worthwhile; it might be a gift that won't last forever. But something else still bothers me about it—something's missing. I wonder if the land is like this everywhere else.
He drifted in his thoughts, forming a sea of words that solaced him.
As his body submerged into the bed—
Screech . . . !
A cacophony of snarls came after, it flooded his eardrums. Scratching and clawing, they were sharks that smelled helpless divers that were stuck in a cage.
He recognized those visceral noises. He remember the sounds behind the curtain. Now, that same sound followed him behind the walls of the enclosure built from logs.
At that moment, he leaned forward. The bed creaked, and each spring nearly stabbed him. Everyone else was still asleep, but he was forced to stay silent.
Lingering, the noises engulfed every passage of possible escape. Malik felt everything around him shrink. His body hyperventilated, but the oxygen was depleting as those around him inhaled it.
Pressing a hand on his sternum, he attempted to silence its constant beat. His heart tried to escape, but it was choked by the threads of his ribcage.
It reminded him of the signature on that half-man, half-beast painting, and the ornament on that desk.
Each rib overlapped, squeezing his heart tightly. Twisting around it, his heart hardly pulsed.
Barely breathing, he was allowed to inhale for only a second, but the air caught in his lungs, and he nearly coughed each time.
Don't make a sound. If you do, they'll hear you.
This has to be a figment. It feels like I'm drowning on land.
Soon enough, he noticed the bed was smaller than him, and he curled himself into a ball, avoiding toppling over the others.
Clasping his hair, he hid his head from the ceiling fan's blades. It accelerated like a blender, only coming closer.
Suddenly, the light from above absorbed the room's color in a drowning purple.
Dangling, the purple light flickered rapidly. Twisting and turning, it nearly hit the fan's blades. Coming closer, the bulb was caressing his hair; he struggled to breathe as the room compressed further.
Behind him, each wooden plank jutted out. The planks grew like bamboo with pointed ends. Each plank sharpened itself into jagged stakes.
Curling himself further, Malik murmured in his thoughts. Even his mind felt submerged.
Don't look, don't look, don't you ever look.
. . . .
Pure silence.
Did it leave?
Malik opened one eye. His ribs released his heart, as his pulse returned.
The planks were normal, and the ceiling fan along with the light were high up again.
Opening his other eye, he saw that the others were soundly asleep.
Letting out a sigh of relief, he adjusted his body as he sat up.
His thoughts pooled together, as they were suppressed in utter quiet. His hands threaded together again, as he pondered.
It was like they knew they couldn't get me, so they instead tried to crush the cabin along with me in it.
Was this the sleepless night they spoke of? And it was only me who went through it. None of the others seemed to sense it. It feels like the land is targeting me, yet adores me at the same time.
This reminds me—I remember seeing an illustration in a kid's book my old man got me when I was younger. In one of them, there was a lamb surrounded by a pack of wolves. But the lamb was secure in a cage, yet even if the wolves weren't there, it was still petrified.
The lamb was hopeless, even if the wolves weren't there for many nights. It secretly wished for the cage to open so that it didn't have to feel that way anymore, and let nature select it.
He told me that for the lamb to survive the wolves, it had to be stronger than the cage itself. To this day, I'm not exactly sure what he meant. But in that moment, I saw hooves on my feet, and white fur on my head.
Then, he patted me on the head and said I was lucky. I asked him why, and he said that I was always born a wolf, but the world wanted me to be a sheep. And that he wouldn't let that happen, because the strongest wolves are raised in isolation. He went on to call himself a shepherd, but wouldn't that mean I'm also a sheep?
But I never felt like any of those. Was there another part of me he recognized as the wolf? Maybe it was the people around me that allowed me to become something else.
After this, would my reaction mean that I failed him?
What felt like hours passed, and Malik was still awake, imagining himself as both sides from the story. But none of them aligned.
Whatever a cycle was, he assumed he had surely gone past that by now.
Suddenly, an alarm rang from under a bed.
Noam rustled in his sheets as he searched for it, with hair covering his eyes. His hand slapped the frame of his bed, and he jolted up in frustration.
"I get the feeling you didn't sleep well. Bad dream?" Noam asked, throwing the blanket off his body.
Malik nodded, staring at Kaya and Zayne, who opened their crusted eyelids.
Then, Noam stood up, stretched his limbs, and opened the door.
The sunlight crept in, and Malik's eyes widened. He hadn't felt so liberated to see the light once again. He jumped out of the bed, standing upright.
Kaya grumbled, covering her eyes. "Daytime already?"
Zayne, on the other hand, dazed into the ceiling, dissociating from everything else.
She turned, and asked him, "Zayne, do you know where Awan is? He hasn't come back."
His body was still, like that of a mannequin.
Sighing, she sat up in the bed, grabbing her pocket. Then, she noticed something off with his hand.
Peering closer, her eyes widened and her lips shrunk, "Zayne . . . ?"
On the porch, the torches weren't burnt to a crisp; only ashes remained.
Beyond it, a river of blood.
It was a thick, blood-like substance, coating the entire ground in crimson.
Malik backed away in disgust. "What happened here!?"
He had drawn blood before, but never this copious amount. The lake of scarlet even had ripples and waves, imitating the ocean.
That has to be at least a thousand bodies' worth of blood.
Noam turned around and faced Malik. "We got lucky today, it didn't flood the stairs."
. . .
Lucky?