Chapter 5: 4-Beginning’s End

Marik enjoyed living in the crafter place. Omega Gilik was strict about learning to talk and made him practice even while doing other activities.  The main duties he took care of were just counting or sorting the various small and disorganized little things like beads or loose thread  that was all over the place.  All the people there did their best to help with speaking practice, while also showing a smile or giving thanks for the work he did.  At least once every day Omega Gilik or one of the retired would take him outside and spend a little time to teach him something about fighting, hunting, tracking, or stealth.  They didn't always go out at at the same time or even to the same spot in order for him to learn how to do the things they taught regardless of circumstances.

The things he was told to do, learn, and practice were not very easy, but he was never pushed to do more than he could handle.  If anyone saw him struggling with something they would immediately do what they could to help until he could manage it himself.  He was also tested often on the things he was supposed to have learned and practiced.  The nice thing about it was that he never had to guess when he was being tested because they always told him, and they made it fun for him if they could.  

After a moon had passed he could finally speak again, only occasionally accidentally using the high voice when he was excited or startled.  He had also learned how to do what they called 'walk softly' in a natural manner which made his steps quieter and left no tracks on tougher ground.  Omega GIlik had also started teaching him how to fight better with simple skills, like using an open hand or claws instead of a fist.  He was also taught the 'proper way' to lift, throw, and even run.  Only one moon and he had learned so much, but Omega Gilik gave him an awkward smile when he said that aloud.

"Learning something, knowing something, and mastering something are different things.  You've learned some things, sure, but I don't want you to get too far ahead of yourself.  Get to the point where you're doing the things we teach you without having to think about it.  Like walking softly.  You shouldn't be doing that only when we test you or when you practice it.  Try to do it all the time."

Marik listened and tried to understand the best that he could.  He knew Omega Gilik was very smart and very strong, so he wanted to try and do everything right.  As another moon went by, he started to learn things about the forest and how to survive there.  He also learned the bare minimum of how to cook food and make it last longer.  He also tried to learn other crafting skills but, much like cooking, he seemed to have no natural disposition towards it.  He understood most of it, of course, but for some reason his hands just didn't do what he wanted or needed them to.  That block in his skills seemed to even extended to plants and things.  He knew which plants he needed to get, as far as he was taught at least, as well as how to pluck them and use them, but somehow his harvesting only ended with everything barely usable.

As another moon went by, Marik improved upon what he had been taught and started to finally make usable things in his crafting.  Mostly usable anyways.

"I doubt you'll ever be a real crafter and you probably don't want to be one, either.  Just keep improving upon it bit by bit so that it's usable in an emergency when you need it, even if it isn't passable as actual work that someone would want."

Marik also learned how to make some simple traps and alarms from the old hunters.  One of the old hunters and Omega Gilik even secretly took him hunting one night, because he would need to know how supposedly.  The old lady who made weapons and tools said she was making something special for him and that he should learn as much as possible about hunting before she gave it to him.  He paid as much attention as he could while he was taught about how to make the kill quick, how to skin the animal, how to dismantle the insides, what could be used and for what, and which animals were to hunt this way or that.

As another moon came to pass he was told to go find the cave he had fallen into what felt like an eternity ago now.  Supposedly he was going to start being handed small things here and there to hide in the cave but he shouldn't tell anyone about where the cave was, even the crafters.  They even wanted him to use all he had learned to make sure nobody saw him when he left the crafter place and that his tracks were hidden.  When he had tried to ask about why he had to do all that, Omega Gilik had given him a vague answer about possibly leading other children away from destruction or something.  He was also given a knife by the old lady, which was very sharp.

"Supposedly, a long time ago, even swords were sharp like this, you know.  Why only knives or spears are sharp any more, I couldn't tell you.  But I have never seen a piece of shardstone like this that's big enough to make a sword.  The biggest one I ever saw broke apart when trying to make a knife, so maybe it's just something people made up."

Marik thought that he had seen a sharp sword somewhere before but he couldn't remember where so he just nodded and kept it to himself.  Maybe he had seen it in his dreams after all, since there were all sorts of other weird things there.  He still had the dreams but he was so busy most of the time that he never really thought about them much.  There was one time that he remembered something called armbar and tried it during fighting training.  It almost worked, except that Marik was still too small and weak to make it work right, but he was still praised for figuring something out that he hadn't been taught.

The crafters started handing him things as the days went by, like bags and medicine and spar cloth, which they told him to bring to the cave while he was out gathering materials.  They trusted him enough to go out alone most of the time, now.  The cave soon held several small bags with various items placed equally in each.  Marik still wasn't entirely sure why he was doing it or why, but he trusted the crafters and Omega Gilik so he did it like they said anyways.

Another moon was about to pass when, one evening, Omega Gilik suddenly ran to him while he was watching and helping the weaver.

"It seems things are happening far earlier than I had hoped.  I was hoping that I could rescue and save more children than just you, but it seems our time is up.  Listen to me, Marik.  This village is likely about to be destroyed.  They have already stripped you of any future you would have not just in this village, but any others as well, and now the time has come for you to run.  Run, don't get seen or found, take the things you can from your cave, then get out of the forest and don't look back.  Anyone who has these ancestral marks is your enemy from this day on.  Remember that.  They will not accept you, and are more likely to try and hunt you and kill you like an animal than to try and help you.  So run as far and fast as you can and survive."

One of the food crafters handed him a very small bag saying it was full of dried meat to help him survive when he couldn't find food before tall of the crafters started to follow Omega Gilik out front.  Marik felt his eyes start to water slightly.  After everything that had happened, was he being thrown away again?  No, wait, Omega Gilik had been saying that he might have to run some day and just a bit ago he said that this was earlier than he wanted.

"Hello boy.  It's been a few years.  You seem to have forgotten a rather important promise you once made.  I think you can understand why I can no longer, in good conscience, call you Alpha.  This is as far as you go tonight.  You will not proceed."

Even though Marik was young, even he could understand from hearing Omega Gilik's shout that he was being protected from whatever Alpha wanted to do to him.  Marik didn't wait to hear any more and ran.  Using everything he had learned over the past several moons, he ran around the edge of the village out of sight of anyone who might be outside.  He sometimes ran short distances in the wrong direction or jumped in weird ways to hide his tracks from the veterans while making his steps as light as possible and aiming for the toughest footholds to hide his steps from everyone else.  When he got to near where the cave was he slowed down and started erasing the small traces he had left behind to make it even harder to find the entrance.

Inside the cave there was just enough light to still see, but it would be gone soon.  Marik opened on of the bags and took out a few pieces of string and a small container of water.  He used the string to tie his new food pouch on one side of his clothes and retie his knife on the other. He drank the water while he grabbed a few leaves out of the same bag and rubbed them all over himself.  Then he picked up another bag and turned towards the dark depths of the cave.  After thinking for a bit he decided to pick up a second undisturbed bag as well.  Then he held one over each shoulder and started walking.

You are reading story SoulSliced: Lunar at novel35.com

He hoped he had bought enough time using the tricks he was taught to throw off the trackers.  The cave tunnel was dark, so he needed to walk slowly in order to not trip and fall over.  He had thought about just running off into the forest, but ultimately he decided to follow the cave since it seemed that nobody knew about it and felt safer.  Maybe it would lead to somewhere out of the forest.  At least he had a direction to go with the only choices being forward or backward, maybe.  It was actually so dark now that if there was another way he wouldn't be able to see it.

He wasn't even sure how long he had walked, but it was still dark and he was tired.  He swung the bags he carried to his front and carefully placed his back against the wall.  As he sat down, he set both bags next to him in the direction he had been walking, then leaned his head against them and tried to go to sleep.  By the time he finished wondering if he could actually sleep in this situation, he was already out.

---

He glanced up at the night sky as he walked.  The moon was still pretty to look at.  He stumbled a little, so he lowered his gaze back down to see where he was going.  The road at his side stretched forward and up a slight hill and down the other side where it was out of sight.  He considered jogging for a moment, but ultimately decided he was actually enjoying the night air and the starry sky.

This wasn't exactly the first time he had ever snuck out of home, but it was the first time he had done so at night just to make a journey spanning hours.  He hoped he'd be able to make it back before anyone realized he was gone.  It wasn't that he particularly cared what they thought, he just didn't want to be annoyed with their complaints.  

If he were to be honest with himself, he wasn't absolutely sure if he remembered exactly how to get to where he was going, but for now the road was leading him in the right direction so as long as he mindlessly followed it for now then he shouldn't get lost.  It was a wonder that he hadn't actually gone out and enjoyed the night time like this before.  If the city air were cleaner, then he was sure that this walk he decided to take would be almost perfect.

A lamppost had a flickering lightbulb just ahead, causing a kind of random pattern strobe effect that hurt his eyes a little.  Somehow he was pretty sure that this wouldn't be the last time he made this journey, so he really hoped somebody fixed that before he did this again.  Maybe a light jog wouldn't be so bad after all.  He didn't want to keep that flickering light in his eyes any longer than necessary, after all, since it kind of destroyed the ambiance and slightly soured his mood.  He did a bit of stretching as he walked, then stretched out his legs and hummed a light tune to give his movements a rhythm as he started running.  He thought this would end up being a pretty good night.

---

Marik could barely see an arm's length in front of him but at least he could kind of see.  He wasn't exactly sure how long he had been in this tunnel cave now.  He had already gone through the all of the food and half of the water that he had.  He had also used up some herbs for removing scent and this strange leaf that made your mouth feel cool while helping to prevent the feeling of hunger.  He had slept a few times when it seemed to get darker, or when he was just really tired, and after waking up one time he had tried to sort everything again through feeling.  Now he only had to carry one bag, which he often swapped back and forth over his shoulder.

His best guess was that it had been about 5 days now.  He was absolutely sure it hadn't been less but it could have definitely been more.  It was hard to tell time down here but there was a certain time where he could actually see a little further out as if there was a little bit more light coming from somewhere and a certain amount of time where he could barely even see his hand in front of his face, so he assumed these times were the middle of the day and night respectively.  He did tend to get lost in thought as he walked, though, so he figured he might have missed one or more of those times which was why he thought there was a possibility of it being more but not less than 5 days.  The only interesting thing he had seen the while time was a split in the tunnel a couple supposed days ago.

There had been no particular reason for which tunnel he chose to go down other than that he was closer to the right wall and therefore closer to the right tunnel.  Now he was kind of wondering about the other tunnel.  If he had gone that way instead would he have already made it outside?  There was no real way to know unless he turned around and went back.  If he was close to a way out this way, though, then that would just make it worse.  There was no way to know anything for sure right now.

Suddenly he felt a light breeze brush his cheek.  He stopped humming, which he hadn't even realized he was doing until now, and started lightly jogging forward.  It should be getting closer to the dark time as far as he could tell, yet everything seemed to be getting slightly brighter.  That had to mean he was close to a way out finally.  Unfortunately, as he got closer to the source of air and light, he saw a bunch of large rocks, some half the size he was.

He pushed against them to see if there was some way he could maybe still get through and some of the rocks at the top of the pile shook a little.  Feeling excited, he scrambled up the rocks and starting pushing and pulling the ones at the top to make them fall off the pile.  After dropping several he could finally see a little bit around one that was almost his size, so he put all of his strength into trying to push it outside and make a hole big enough for him to fit through.  The good news was that he succeeded and the rock tipped forward to roll forward and out of the way; the bad news was that throwing all of his weight and strength against the rock to move it made him fall forward and down the outside of the pile with it.

The fall itself wasn't particularly bad, being only the height of maybe 2 or 3 men, but sliding and rolling across the whole pile as he fell and landed on the big rock he had pushed resulted in more pain than he wanted to celebrate making it outside with.  He opened his eyes and saw the sky, turned a pretty shade of orange as it approached evening.  As he looked around he noted that he was still in the forest.  Well, he was in a forest.  The trees looked very different in all sorts of ways from the trees he remembered.

Marik allowed himself a quick shout of joy and a light rest without moving from where he had fallen before he finally convinced himself to get up.  He needed to find a decent place to sleep for the night, hopefully near some water, and tomorrow he would have to find a way to get food.  He didn't recognize most of the plants nearby and the ones he did recognize weren't going to be helpful for anything he needed any time soon.  He stood up, brushed himself off, picked up his bag, and started walking away from the cave's exit.

Not finding any place that seemed like a great sleeping spot, he finally decided he should turn around and just sleep in the cave one more night.  As he started to slowly make his way back, he noticed the roots of a rather large tree that jutted out in a way that formed a kind of bowl. He likely hadn't seen it until he was heading back only because of which side of the tree it was on.  Deciding that that would be his spot for the night instead of going all the way back, he walked over and dropped his bag where it was still in arm's reach, then sat down and snuggled into the roots until he comfortable before closing his eyes.

It didn't even feel like he had slept for more than a moment when he felt intense pain in the back of his neck.  He leapt forward while clawing at the tickling feeling there and saw something about the size of his hand fall on the ground.  It was a creepy and small creature that looked kind of like an ant, but bigger and with 8 legs instead of 6.  He didn't bother to study it longer than that and decided to promptly stomp on it.  The pain in his neck only grew, however, and started to spread a burning feeling. 

Marik had at least been taught about poison to some extent and he was pretty sure that what this feeling was.  He started to take a step towards his bag when his legs gave out suddenly.  His hand touched the bag and he tried to grab it and open it but his body was no longer doing what he wanted it to.  His head was buzzing and he felt incredibly dizzy.

As his vision started fading in and out and his mind started to decide it just didn't want to work for now, he thought he saw someone approaching.  He tried to ask a question and he was pretty sure that he actually did speak but he couldn't even tell what he was saying.  The other person also said something then there was what Marik could only assume was some kind of conversation between himself and the person and then everything went dark.

You can find story with these keywords: SoulSliced: Lunar, Read SoulSliced: Lunar, SoulSliced: Lunar novel, SoulSliced: Lunar book, SoulSliced: Lunar story, SoulSliced: Lunar full, SoulSliced: Lunar Latest Chapter