Prose

The village cried to me to put it out of misery, however, I could not undo this nor could I stop it. It was far too late. It was already over for them. Fires raged upon the roofs, brightened my eyes and dilating my pupil. The section I was in neatly placed houses symmetrically. Each of them was made out of woods and hays, such a perfect ingredient for flames. I began forcing my feet into the deeper part of the village—about six or ten dead as I passed them. This wasn’t something I could go back in time, this was a mistake I couldn’t bear to live with. The destruction of an entire race!

            “Elise… please…” the man coughed, pleading me. It was the chief.

            Ah… I forgot, to these people, I was just a visitor to them. I guess… I had to do what needed to be done. Crouching over the chief, I listened to his final resting words. The smell of burnt corpse flowed into my nose.

            He was on the ground, his last piece of life pushing toward his words. “Within my mansion lie my two precious children. We may be done for, but those two has my genes, my heritage! They will be my future. Save them… I beg of you.” For some reason, there was a large cut on his back; it might be the reason why he was in this state.

            At least I’ll fulfill his last wish for him. I turned and stood up to head to the chief’s home. Then, he used his remaining strength to grab a hold of my ankle with his charcoal hands and warned, “I have an older daughter and a young son. I don’t care what you do to the boy, he is my son; he can handle it, but whatever you do, don’t let my daughter spread her wings.”

            Don’t let her spread her wings.

            Though it was made out of paper rice, I kicked down the door. With the door opened, I searched for these two children, not knowing if they were alive or already burned to a crisp. Ashes flew onto my skin as I wiped it off with ease. Maybe I shouldn’t get my hopes up. The beacon crashed. One way was blocked, but where were those children? Has the chief deceived me? Did he bring me here to die? No, he knew who I was. Piles of burnt wood weren’t going to kill me. They might as well stab my heart with a wooden stake.

            The heat, the air, at this moment, was too much for a human. If I was one, I would be dropping dead on the ground from the poisonous oxygen. Though it was hard to breath at the moment, I had another cough come out.

            Just when I was about to leave for good, I noticed a slightly open closet door inside the chief’s room. Fire hasn’t gotten to that part yet, and it looked like it was taking its time. Ambling toward it, I slid it open. Inside sat the two golden children, the complete opposite of what their clan, or race, was. The similarity that I could figure out was that fiery glare stabbing at my veins. It wasn’t from the chief’s son, it was from her. She delivered a low growl with an intimidating aura that would drive away even the most fearsome creature; however, there wasn’t time for me to settle down and get to know her, I pushed myself to her, picking her up and dashing out. On the way out, I felt the strong jaw of the daughter on my shoulder. It bled. Although I made it out and my wounds healed fast, the girl kept struggling.

            “Look kid, I’m saving your life here!” I tried to stop her.

            Yet like a beast, she made no reply and continued. Her brother, on the other hand, was asleep the moment I left the village. Only a few steps back, I hoped my arms didn’t give in on me.  After I gotten out of the village and to the forest, I stopped in front of my destination for some heavy inhales. Slowly and kindly, I let the two siblings out of my grip and began stretching. “Kallen!” I called. “Come here and bring these kids in.”            Out came the android, she blankly stared at me, receiving my orders, then moved to the siblings to drop them off on the ship. After that, she went back out to the doorway of the ship and sat on the steps. “According to the monitor, we have approximately three earth hours left before the fire spread to this forest and thirty earth minutes left before the Hexus comes and claim the souls of the lost.”

            “Did the monitor say that about the Hexus?” I joked.

            “No.” It went over her head, but I shouldn’t blame her, Kallen didn’t exactly have a humorous chip installed. Then again, I shouldn’t be joking at times like this.

            “All right then,” I clasped my hands together. “I guess we better leave before they spot us.”

            When the ship lifted, I could feel all the weight slipping off my back. Good, now I could relax. I was far too tired to pilot the ship, so Kallen was taking my place. This flying vehicle wasn’t exactly the one I wanted, but it had to do. It was what Kallen found back in my younger days. Someday, I hoped for a crew, but it was just wishful thinking. Then again, for me, nothing was impossible. At the moment, I used this five-people ship to travel across the universe to hunt down criminals and do whatever else was on the job board. So if no one has noticed yet, I was a bounty hunter slash mercenary. I became a highly knowledgeable bounty hunter by accident when I caught a criminal with over nine million seminules on his head. I earn quite a reward.

            But the request kept piling up and I had no way to escape (although the universe was big, these couriers seemed to had a tracking device on me, I swear). And because I was a bounty hunter for quite a long time, a day without a request was a killer. So I went to the job board to find something for my mind to be occupied on. That was when I found it. Eliminate the Krozamine Clan for good. From the description, they were supposedly blood-craving animals with no sense of mercy. To me, entering its territory would be a bloodbath, and I hadn’t had that for quite some time. Yeah, I took the job.

            To my surprised, they weren’t bloody thirsty monsters; they were civilized villagers residing deep within the forest of the planet Yuos. I saw their abilities once during my visit and sure, they were dangerous, but they weren’t merciless. They had nice laughs, their smiles were beautiful. Now they were gone. Now my mind kept on repeating the scenes of their destruction. And now the chief had placed his kindred upon me, their killer. All these thoughts processing through my mind… it made me sick. It was somewhat hard to not think about it, though, especially with the girl glaring at me and her brother gazing at me in awe.            Facing the two after ignoring them for a few seconds, I asked, “What’s your name?”

            “My name’s Elliot!” the son happily answered. When he saw his sister not answering, he pointed at her. “Her name is Natasha. We’re from the Krozamine Clan!”

            “Yes, I know that, I rescued you guys,” I replied to the boy. “Tell me, how old are you?”

            “I’m a demon years old! Natasha is one demon year older than me!”

            So young… and they could be manipulated by many creatures out there that wanted the Krozamine Clan’s power. My neck twisted to the pilot’s seat, and I wondered to Kallen, “Should I keep these two?”

            “Our mission was to kill off the Krozamine Clan; these two are still alive, so basically, we haven’t finished our mission yet.”

            “I didn’t ask for that, I asked for your opinion, Kallen.”

            Cold eyes, her cold eyes couldn’t look at me directly, but I could feel it bouncing off the glass. Kallen turned on autopilot and turned the seat toward the three of us and said, “The man who offered this mission have a great amount of hatred for the Krozamine Clan, keeping them will be a burden on us once they found out that we didn’t kill the last of them. However, the Krozamine Clan is known to be top killers and if you want to have a crew, you would want somebody strong at your side.” Then she went back to manual and continued driving us to a destination of nowhere. Now that she given me information, it was time for me to think.

            Should I keep these children? I pity them, but I wouldn’t want them growing up and finding that I was the one who killed their entire family. And just to let you know, at such age like this, they were bound to forget it the next day—especially the son. The daughter… was a different story.

            Should I be cruel and kill these children before they were ripe? Or should I spend my seventeen demon years raising them? Such a difficult decision, it almost made me want to put a chip inside Kallen that let her chose for me. Life would be so much easier. Looking at these two, well… they had a lot of time left on their hands. I think I’ll raise them until they mature. And if they want to avenge their clan when the time came, then so be it. I wasn’t going to let them kill me off so quickly, though. I bet it would be a fight of the century! Yeah, I will raise these two. Maybe they would be my demise, but they might be my greatest weapon.

            Lucky for me, the son already warmed up to me right after he found out that I could cook. Unfortunately, the daughter was still cold. I knew it would take time for her, but goodness! She was annoying! At any given moment, she would kick my shin or stab me with her glare. The girl hasn’t spoken a single word since the day I rescued her, and that was a week ago.            Out here in space, it was difficult to keep track of time, especially with two children annoying the heck out of me. One was so attached to me that he couldn’t stop following me everywhere while the other one loathed me so much she would kick me every time we crossed paths. And nothing hurts more (for me) than being kicked in the shin. That was why I had Kallen; she was also a clock and sometimes a caretaker. Since we didn’t exactly complete our mission, we weren’t exactly going anywhere. The engine was on pause, so we were basically floating around, wondering what to do. Or just me thinking of the next thing, Kallen was on idle mode.

            The size of the ship wasn’t huge like the Alias, but it was a traveling ship. It was estimated, by Kallen, twenty-eight feet in total. Like I said, it wasn’t big. The majority of this ship was the control room; the rest was a tad smaller than usual. There was a kitchen, supplied with ingredients that would tickle the human tongue. There was one small bathroom with a wall-in shower. Then, the bedroom took up what else of the ship. They were bunk-beds, obviously too small for me and too springy for Kallen. So, the two of us ended up sleeping on chairs in the control room while the twins spent their time in the bedroom. I gotten used to sleeping like this, so it was just like a bed to me.

            The front of the ship curved downward, with windows replacing the metal the moment it arc. It gave the pilot more visual as where the outside could only see black windows. Wings were attached on each side and a tail in the back. Each of them was supplied with rockets, or rather, engines. Right now, they blazed little blue flames, keeping the ship in a steady road to nowhere instead of being pulled in by the planet’s force. The skin of this craft was light gray, with a hint of sky blue for its highlights. Little dark patterns surrounded the vessel in a weird and almost ancient way. Humans liked their ship to be decorated, even with the smallest details. I guessed it was just their way of doing things.

            It wasn’t a good idea to stay here without any supply. This ship was made for humans so it was still pumping oxygen, but soon it will run out and these two might be unable to breath. For someone like me and Kallen, we didn’t exactly need air to breath. No matter how much I denied it, I had to get on a planet with oxygen. And the only planet that was near was Yuos, the place where I burned down their clan. I didn’t want to go back, but I seemed to have no choice. The planet of the Krozamine Clan was literally in the middle of nowhere. Even if the ship was floating, bit by bit, away from the planet, it was still the only spinning orb on sight.

            I really don’t have a choice. “Kallen, start the engine, we’re going back to Yuos. We need to refill the ship’s oxygen tank or else these two won’t be able to breathe.”

            She reacted to my order by doing as I said. The ship gradually turned and made its way to the planet with a burnt spot. Then, all of the sudden, there was a hand on my leg, tugging me. I stared down at the one who did it, showing a great deal of surprised to see that it was the daughter. Her eyes were different from her constant glare. “Take me with you,” she said.
            “What?” this was the first thing she said to me, what was I supposed to reply with?

            “I want you to take me with you.”

            “Why?” why would she want to go back there?

             She frowned, looking down on the solid floor. “I want to search for my father’s sword.”

            “The Krozamine Clan has a treasured sword that is passed down chief by chief,” Kallen explained. “She was the one who was to become the next chief.”

            The girl wanted her family’s sword so that she could become the next chief? No, she would only want to keep it as a recollection of what happened. But… if this is the reason why she finally decided to speak, then I’ll let her tag along. “Alright, you can come,” I said. “But Kallen, you’ll have to stay and watch over the boy for me.”