Mannat was happy that he didn’t have to hide in the woods to save his life. He was also depressed that he would have to tell his father about the failed kidnapping, and trouble him to pick and drop him at the Witch’s hut from the next day. The day was going to leave a mark on his consciousness. Perhaps, it would also turn him into an introvert. He hoped not.

Mannat turned toward Flea. They saw each other and Mannat explained the situation to the boy since he still clung to him like a leach. “I’m not going to hurt you. Just let me go and we both can be on our way.”

Flea looked at his unconscious friend and took a gulp of regret. “Is he dead?”

“He’ll definitely need some form of medical assistance,” Mannat said. “But he’ll be fine. So… do we have a deal?”

Flea nodded furiously and got off him. He quickly backed away, but stumbled over the rock not too far away and fell to his butt. Mannat didn’t laugh although it was funny. He kept his eyes on the boy until he got up with great struggle, turned around, and ran off into the forest bawling his eyes out.

Mannat thought the boy deserved better friends, and that was the end of his thoughts. Forced by people or circumstances, the boy had participated in his kidnapping. He could forgive him, but he would not forget him for his actions.

Next, he got busy trying to get his legs free. The maniacs had made a thousand knots and it was next to impossible to unknot them all. He would have been better off just cutting through the damned strip of cloth belt, but it was not as if he had a knife on him.

“I should get one.” A pocketknife wouldn’t have been done him any good. He needed something others couldn’t take away from him. He wanted something small and concealed that wouldn’t raise any suspicions. Something like, “A knife hidden inside a ring would be perfect. It would be better if no one knew about it. So I better make it myself.” Mannat thought while trying to unknot the knots, but it was impossible. “This isn’t working out,” he needed something sharp, something like a rock. There was one on the road not too far away from him. He looked for it but somehow didn’t find it. It was right there until just a few moments ago. The boy named Flea had stumbled on it, and then… where did it go?

Both the realization and the rock hit his head at the same time. He didn’t know when he fell to the dirt road again, but he saw two large and thick legs bumble out of the bushes and kneel beside him.

“I’m sorry, but if I won't hurt you, they will hurt me…” was all Mannat heard before his consciousness drifted away from reality and took him to a ride through a dark time where the sun didn’t shine, the wind didn’t blow, the puddles were dry, rivers empty, and lands cracking from draughts. However, the world was full of life. There were all sorts of people living on the barren land. The lightening ionized skies were full of strange and fearless birds.

Only, they were all demons.

Mannat arose gasping for air. The pain circulating through his body made it impossible for him to breathe. What happened? It was the only thought that passed through his head before he lost consciousness for the third time that day.

The human body is mysterious. Mannat might have suffered unrecoverable damage had his body not gone limp. Since his muscles relaxed and his ligaments turned elastic, the pressure on his joints and internal organ decreased to tolerable limits, and he successfully passed through this vital time without any threats.

His condition was infinitely times better when he awoke the third time. It still felt was as if he had slept on the ground. He was stiff all over, but not gasping for breath. He only had a vague idea of the pain that had sent him into a self-induced coma. His brain had destroyed the neurons that carried that memory.

So what exactly happened? His first memory was of two big hairless legs that kneeled beside him before Flea apologized to him with a shuddering voice.

“I shouldn’t have let him out of my sight.” Mannat lamented and dropped the topic. Although he was in pain all over the body, he was alive. Surprisingly, his face didn’t hurt much. Guess, Flea had only hurt him where others couldn’t see like he urged his so-called friends. Mannat didn’t know what to think about him. He definitely wasn’t angry at the boy. Mannat didn’t know what kind of life that boy had lived to have such fear of his peers, but it definitely wasn’t a kind one. The comparison made him appreciate the life he had despite his faults, and it made his desire to resuscitate his mother even stronger.

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One thing was sure. Flea had beaten him to a pulp.

Breathing felt like trying to suck air through a reed. He worried there were broken ribs under his shirt, but touching his chest in various places told him there were none. His chest was swollen and that was the cause of his affliction. There was swelling in a lot of places, but no broken bones. Mannat ‘inspected’ himself to check his status and was flabbergasted at the result.

Despite the discomfort and the pain, he only suffered muscle and tissue damage. His injuries would heal over time, though his life would be difficult for the next few days.

Flea had moved him away for the road. Whether he did it to get away from prying eyes or to hide him from something else was not important. Mannat lay with his arms and legs spread eagle on grass, in the shade of a mulberry tree. The sky was visible and clear, a bright blue. White clouds played with the wind and kept transforming from spoons to knives to keep him occupied. He followed one ring-shaped cloud drift through the sky. Then it disappeared into the part of the sky blocked by the tree under which he lay. He tried to follow it, but then his eyes met with something covered in a shade of anger in the branches and it was like lightning struck him.

“It’s you!” Mannat exclaimed as the raven opened her majestic black wings and cawed. The broken rays of sunlight passing through the sky made of leaves and branches shone around her like stars. She jumped off the tree and glide toward him. She broke her fall with the flutter of her wings and calmly landed on top of his chest.

The raven stared at him with her beady red eyes and then as he feared, she pecked his chest. Mannat cried in pain and she pecked him again. He had to work his arms over to protect himself, but the raven was too smart, and he was too tired. She kept pecking him and he quickly grew tired of her. He couldn’t sense what she wanted. He couldn’t sense her at all.

“Is the Witch calling me?” He complained. “Is that why you are here?”

The Raven stopped for a second, and just when Mannat thought she understood, she pecked on the back of one of his hands.

“You want me to follow you? Is that what this is about?” Mannat hissed.

The raven cawed and danced and it looked like a lot of fun, but her talons were no less sharp than her beak. Ah well, forget it. He could hardly feel her thrashing over his chest. The swelling was restricting his blood flow. It was about time he got up, or he never might.

Mannat started laughing. Wheezing, laughing, crying, they all start sounding the same once a person reaches a certain threshold of pain, tiredness, and happiness. The same was happening to Mannat. No, he hadn’t gone crazy. Just that his stupid ‘vigor’ had leveled up. Fortune and misfortune come hand in hand.

“I would have gotten beaten up soon if I knew this would happen.” He chuckled, which sounded like he was crying. He then went through various struggles to find a long and sturdy fallen branch from the ones around for support, and somehow got on his two feet. It was another matter altogether that his legs shook like an old man who was standing on his feet for the first time in decades.

He then used the branch as a walking stick and walked out of the forest. The raven took off once he was on the road and flew toward the clearing without caring if he could, would, was following her or not.

The barely twenty minutes walking distance took him three hours to get through. No help arrived.

He was half-dead and walking with the skin of his feet when he arrived at the clearing panting, and sick of living. He found the Witch standing at the boundary, in her favorite place on the other side of the fence; her hands were empty, her eyes glowing mysteriously.

“How does it feel?” She was like a spectator watching him go through with his life, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

“Frustrating,” Mannat answered passing her by. He dragged his left leg behind, sketching an endlessly flat line in the dirt. Only on close inspection could one see that the line was not flat, it waved up and down across the road like the sound of a heartbeat.

“So why didn’t you do it?” The voice came again from ahead. Mannat raised his head and saw the Witch standing there, staring at him, still behind the fence, but this time she stood with her hands upon it.

“Don’t you know already?” He said gritting his teeth, passing her by as wind furled through his clothes and provided a cooling sensation to his hot bruises. Then he heard her again, from ahead on the road. She stood in the middle of the road and blocked his way, a way that should have taken him far away from her but it hadn’t. It was as if no matter how he tried, every road was going to lead him back to her. He was barely conscious, and the hut was right at the end of the road.

“Why didn’t you help me?” Mannat asked.

“I wanted to see what you’d do. And you did exactly what I thought you would.” She said stressing the last letter of every word for some reason. Her voice had become a drone in his ears.

Mannat went past her. Next, he found her standing at the door of the hut. He saw his bed on the floor, walked to it, and fell into it.

“Do you want to know who sent them?” The Witch asked, but the question fell upon unresponsive ears as Mannat had already fallen deeply in sleep.