Ulah sings while deep in sleep.

It’s not a song I understand.

But It’s a song I always heard him practicing in private. He always practiced songs of all kinds, but that one, he always approached it differently. Like it’s the most precious thing in the world. Like for the world to hear it, he must have it perfected.

It’s one Natasha always whispered in private, or when she thought she was in private.

Her eyes shoot wide open like she can’t believe what’s she is hearing.

I don’t think it's good enough to get that kind of reaction.

She asks me, “Where did he hear that?”

“From you? I heard it from you a long time ago.”

Back in the village, when she was returning with Marvin, I was somewhat singing a trash version of it.

“Oh. I see.”

“Is it a bad song?”

“It just isn’t one others should sing.”

“Does it cast curses… or talk to demons?”

“I am not some witch.” She sighs. “Is he just saying whatever that comes up in his mind?”

“I think he is thinking of you. He always practiced it. I think he wanted to show it to you when he perfected it. Maybe to impress you.” Or make you show him more attention.

I can’t understand her reaction, but it’s complicated.

She ends up looking at Ulah with exasperation like she can’t believe him. “I am surprised.”

Favoring a child is one thing, but finding out that the less favored child desperately seeks more love from you, must hit differently. But, it doesn’t seem she is too impacted by hearing that.

She gazes at Ulah.

I stand up and tell her, “I am going to interact with those adventurers, see how close they are to stopping that monster, and so on.”

She grabs my left hand, the bandaged one and says, “Be careful.”

“I know.”

She nods and then says, “I am going to rest in that carriage then. It’s too noisy here.”

“Stay safe.”

“That’s for me to say.”

POV: Ulah.

I stand in a field of wheat. The wind bends them left and right, making them brush against my skin.

The strangest thing is that on top of the wheat are bread, like as it’s a bread plant.

‘I can finally get something to eat.’

That’s what I thought.

But every time I broke one of the wheat plants to get the bread and bite on it, it would burst into brown smoke.

I have been trying to eat for over an hour. It’s so painful. My stomach hurts so much. It feels like a rat is chewing its way around my stomach.

It’s sick. It’s painful…

It’s…

Ugh.

I hunch forward and vomit brown and white paste on the ground. My eyes water and I desperately try to lick the tears.

But it does nothing to quench my thirst!

I am going to die. But I don’t want to die.

I want to play with Jake and Gola.

I want to learn division. I want to become smart, smarter like Vernisha. I want…

It hurts so much.

I bit my lips and fold my trembling hands. Then I sing. I sing to distract myself from the hunger.

It’s not perfect, but I sing it: “Balash wed filaen. Swe wjurden schweien, ske windan wyanen, jber iah wuide ihee Träebeu gopießen. Iah weyude iur Lad genuiken, daür, wve sa mah vuten hin.”

It makes me think of Mom. I wish I could hear her sing it more. I only heard it twice, but when she sings it, it sounds so beautiful.

I heard it maybe when I was eight, two years ago.

She always had Vernisha with her on her lap, sitting or standing near her. Obviously, I wanted that too.

So I left the blanket of mine and wandered to her. She didn’t see me and was singing quietly while staring at the ceiling.

It was like she was remembering good memories or tragic ones. Ones that made her completely immersed.

When she did notice I was looking at her, she suddenly stopped singing, almost startled, and asked, “What do you want?”

I was shocked. But at that time, I thought, ‘to sit on you, hug you, be by you’. But before I could say any of that she seemed even more surprised at herself, like she did something wrong.

Mom apologized and smiled gently while moving to pick me up. “Sorry, I was having bad thoughts… You look like you have grown taller!”

I liked the song even if I didn’t hear much about it. Even when she acted like she was singing something else when I asked about it. I wanted to learn about it. I want to make her proud.

I wonder what her reaction would be when I can sing it. I wonder how surprised she would be. How proud she would be.

I swallow the saliva in my mouth, but it makes me thirstier. The only thing I can do is try to sing that song to comfort me.

I will get better at it. I will. I will…

“Hi." I hear an unfamiliar voice behind me and turn towards it.

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The field of wheat that was behind me is gone, and a dry ground has replaced it. Sitting on it, looking at me is a black cat.

The cat has blue eyes and clean black fur. The fur is so clean. It probably has a servant to always tend to it. There are no scratches or bruises from hunting, or escaping from predators.

Is it the one that… No, that sounds silly. What am I thinking? A cat? Really?

… Can I eat it? I want to eat it.

It smiles. “No, you can’t eat me.”

I blink in surprise. “But I didn’t… Did I say that out loud?”

It replies, “No. Did you?”

“You are weird…”

“I think you are weirder.”

“What do you want?”

“Who do you think I am?”

“I don’t know. I don’t want to know too.” I back away and start to flee.

I only heard of legendary monsters being able to talk which means it must be one!

“I want to know. Do you want to live?”

I stop running almost immediately and turn to the cat.

Is that a trick question?

It asks the same question again.

I answer, “Yes. I just want something to eat and drink. I feel like I am starving. I am starving."

“I wish I could soothe your hunger, but I can’t.”

“Are you… a monster?” I ask.

“Do I look like a monster?”

“No, but you can talk. So you must be one.”

“Perhaps I am just a ‘moon cat’, you know, that’s a popular Julioes folklore.”

“Oh. I didn’t know that.”

“Yes yes. So, no need to fear me.”

“I don’t know. What do you want?”

“I am curious about a lot of stuff in the world, especially the people of it.”

“What does that even mean? You are curious about me?”

“Yes”

“…Am I dying?”

“Are you dying?”

“I don’t know. I am asking you.”

“I also don’t know. That’s why I asked you.”

I don’t think I like the cat.

It continues, “If you were to live, what do you plan to do with your life? Why should you live? What grand purpose does your life have?”

“I don’t understand.”

“What don’t you understand?”

“The questions… I want to live because I want to live.”

“Well, what do you plan to do if you were to live?”

“I don’t know!”

“Then do know. So, what do you plan to do in the future?”

“I don’t think I want to answer your questions. You are creepy. So go away. Go!”

“I don’t want to go.”

I rush and kick it, but my leg passes through it like a stone through smoke.

It ignores my kick and says, “Does that song have something to do with your purpose?”

“I am not answering your questions!” I keep trying to kick it, hoping to get lucky.

It’s scary. The hunger comes back and worse.

It… hurts.

I drop to my knees, holding my stomach in agony. It hurts so badly that I begin to sob harshly.

I want Dad to comfort me. Tell me everything is going to be okay. But he isn’t here. Why isn’t he here?

Whenever I need him, he comes running to me… Like how Mom always runs to Vernisha.

Like how Mom always comforts her and treats her like she is a star, the most precious thing. I want Dad to come to me like that now, because… Mom wouldn’t.

She wouldn’t do it the same way.

The cat stares at me and I ask, “Am I going to die?”

“You could or something worse could happen to you?”

“Like what?”

“Becoming a threat to your family.”

“Why would I hurt my family?”

“Because you are hungry and thirsty. And perhaps because this is the fault of your sister.”

“No… I wouldn’t and stop lying! It isn’t her fault!”

“But she gave you that bread. She isn’t sick, but you are.”

“It must have been an accident.”

“And what if it wasn’t?”

“It was. Vernisha loves me! Why would she ever hurt me?!”

The cat blinks at me a couple of times, then says, “I see.”

**

POV: Village Chief.

The chattering and worrying of everyone echoes around me. Many are mute and staring into nothing because of what they have seen and heard today.

I should be planning with them on how we would recover, but… I don’t think anyone wants to move on right now, not while they are processing their trauma.

Even I… I don’t want to do nothing but dig a hole and hide in it, never to reveal myself to the silo again.

I have seen things I would kill my only child to forget.

Before the monster attacked, my assistants and I were discussing how we would use 10% of the village’s budget to get better materials to build walls to protect us from bandits.

The idea of a monster attack was foreign to us. Through my fifty-six years of living here, this is my first time experiencing a monster attack here.

Many of us only knew the dangers of monsters through stories, but that was all.

Three hours ago, at 6:30 in the morning, it began.

There was a sudden weird voice, barely human: ‘Hana… where… are you…?’

It was like when twin-tailed cats try mimicking the chirping of birds to lure them, and the echoing of burnnight flowers, which repeats whatever they hear.

That monster clearly had no idea what those words meant, it was simply something it heard and tried its best to repeat.

When I heard it along with the three men in my office, we all were frozen and confused. Staying frozen didn’t mean anything.

The first victim was Daren’s daughter. His eldest son told me what happened. The family was planting red cabbages in the garden.

Daren's hands were deep in the dirt, setting the seeds. That was when half of his daughter’s body was suddenly ripped apart by the fangs of a red shark-like creature that had the feline legs of a tiger. Six legs.

Blood spurted everywhere. The screams of the eldest son and wife were drowned out by the sounds of his daughter’s flesh and bones being eaten.

Daren tried to make his family run away, and he attempted to retrieve half of his daughter’s body.

Daren was targeted next. The monster's claws ripped his legs off their joints. He screamed in pain, and the monster mimicked that sound with a cruel laugh.

It wasn’t just eating them, it seemed like it was enjoying their suffering, but not enough to let them stay alive for long.

It ripped his stomach open, exposing his guts and stomach to his wife. And she couldn’t shake her eyes off her husband’s body.

Then it ate him alive and once Daren stopped making sounds, a fire from its mouth turned his body into ash.

Then his wife was spit into two, vertically with its aquatic tail. Her sides fell to the side with a thud. Her body waste followed suit, painting the ground brown and yellow.

The monster didn’t care. Her left side was devoured first, then the right followed next.

The only thing left behind was half of her jaw.

The daughter wasn’t even eaten.

By then, everyone was already in an uproar, running away. Of course me too. I… tried to take the only green lizard in the village and leave alone.

The monster screamed loudly, and that was it.

It moved like a blur.

Instantaneously, a man’s face would turn into paste and his eyes would go flying all over. The next moment, a beam of fire would turn someone into dust.

It was a torrent of blood, flesh, brain matter, broken bone fragments.

Even the lizard couldn’t handle it, which led to me falling off it. And for some strange reason, it ripped off the genitalia of Jackson.

I was confused, but then I remembered monsters were also capable of reproducing with anything, and when short on time, female monsters would use different methods to harvest reproductive organs.

Well… What a fucking way to die, I nearly started to cry. At least, the pain would knock me out of consciousness, and I would die from the blood loss. I would take that over being fucking violated by a monster. That was what I thought.

I did nothing. I wanted to run away. I thought:

I just want to live.

How the hell am I going to survive this?

Fucking hell… I don’t want to die.

I

I

And I.

That’s all I thought. And that’s when those giant armored individuals fell from the sky.

They were like heroes. Legends.

And I saw them summon monsters that seemed connected to them on a supernatural level. Without a word from them, their monsters would attack, defend the villages, and function as a third hand to them.

They overwhelmed the wild monster so quickly.

These memories…

I fold my hands together and mutter. “May the stars bless me.”

May the future be kind to us. May the request I am about to make be agreed to. May they not think I am trying to trick them.

I exhale, feeling like I just gave a speech explaining why fathers and mothers should be happy to gift their children to wealthy men and women for a ‘gift’ of money.

I take in a deep breath and lick my lips, also tasting my white beard. Tastes like blood.

Then I walk over to the man. By him is the little girl and Julioes woman.

It appears they knew her before.

He notices and I can hear him clicking his tongue.

“What do you want?” he ask.

\The Julioes woman says something in her home language. By the tone of it, I feel like it’s a threat.

I stand before them. Holy shit are they big.

Calm down. Calm down.

I force a professional smile on and ask, “I want to say I appreciate your hard work and sacrifice, first. If it wasn’t for you all, all of us would be dead.”

The man says, “Sure, but we get paid for it.”

“Yes, but—”

“Cut the bullshit and get to the point,” the woman says.

This is hell itself. Why the hell do I have to be the village chief at times like this? Nothing is scarier than talking to a pissed-off adventurer.

I say, “I am sorry. I request permission for us to get to our houses—” I notice the anger in his eyes. Maybe pissed off that someone is once again asking him a stupid question. So I finish what I am going to say before he can respond. “—So-that-we-can-gather-food ingredients-to-make-something-to-eat.”

Shit. I talked way too fast.

The man’s anger dissipates and he says, “Oh. Yeah, I guess.”

He… AGREED!

My heartbeating cools down and I slope to my knees in satisfaction. “Thank you… sir.”