Chapter 4 - Falling, Far and Close By

The tunnel to the depths of the earth was bizarre. A journey down that began in darkness soon changed in ways unforeseen. The walls below had a metallic sheen to them, and a green glow as if of haunted moss. Falling down, Yan Sha had snatched the glowing rope and pulled himself along and over to the grey and green surfboard. For it was like traversing the angry ocean; they hadn't been in free fall for more than a hundred meters, before the tunnel began to take angry bends; although these protrusions would batter the body of the spider, gravity held them in its grip, unwilling to let go before they were introduced face-first to the eventual death by falling that awaited them.

Yan Sha had already grabbed his unconscious ally in a show of forethought, and together they rode the shrieking monstrosity towards their shared fate.

***

When Siha Ma came to, his vision was hazy and mind muddled. He felt incongruent with his body, and he felt a weakness in his arms he hadn't felt for a long time.

As his vision cleared, his arms moved beyond his control, bringing to sight a pair of pure hands. He had outgrown them long ago, and even the color wasn't this fair after years of challenging the sun. Yet here they were, memories long gone by.

A woman picked him up, and her tough hands under his arms gave off a sense of warmth a meter apart. Once he became a cultivator, nightmares had never haunted him. Yet now, the past was playing out before his eyes once again, and he was forced to watch.

The woman turned him around and her face came to view. She had hard features which, upon seeing him smile, melted into a grin. With a calloused hand, she held an earthen pot to his mouth. Inside scant water remained, shimmering in the hot, dark room. And as the boy smiled and drank, the man trapped inside him cried. Not because he knew these few mouthfuls would be all that would pass the boy's throat for a long while, but because he knew how fragile the woman's warmth was.

That woman was his mother.

Her cracked lips looked as if they'd hurt, but she still smiled down upon him. It was only when her gaze left for the man sitting besides did that smile die to a frown. A kind smile was over his gaunt and weathered features.

That man was his father.

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"Little Ma, when your mother and I leave, don't go out of the house. We'll be back soon, and there will be more water to drink."

The child tilted his head before nodding. He was still unwise and the despair in his father's voice passed by his ears uncaught.

The boy had stayed silent, but the man yelled, aware of the futility of his actions. The warmth of his parents filled his heart, but to him this was still a nightmare. He could not grab his mother's arm as she let him down. He could not grab his father's leg as he got up to leave. He could not tell his mother and father he'd rather die in this draught with them, than have them leave and never come back. He could not give them hope that an immortal would arrive in a few days, taking them away. He could only watch them leave. Siha Ma was helpless.

The door shut behind them. In the next two days it didn't open again, until the boy broke his promise, and placed his feet on the threshold of the house, the threshold of fate. The boy left the house, but he would be waiting all his life.

He ran to the only place known to him, where the people lived behind a fence and scowled at him whenever he passed by with his parents. His parents hadn't told him, but it was the place they had gone to steal water. He cut his feet running over the sand and rock and fed his parched throat air too dry.

By a miracle yet to be revealed as too cruel, his bloodied feet carried his gaunt figure to the entrance of the village. He was afraid of everything around him on the way, so he had run there with his gaze pinned to the ground. And it was when he saw the two patches of crimson red, that he looked up and saw them for the last time.

Their faces were beaten to an unrecognisable pulp, but the pain that tore at his feeble heart ensured their identity. How the man inside wished he could cover the boy's eyes, or turn his head away, from the mangled limbs of their father and mother.

On two wooden crosses, the corpses of the untouchables were bound for the world to see, their bodies drained of blood by the weight of the water they had stolen. They had sullied the village well in their life, yet in death their blood would not sully the village ground. Outside the village entrance they would serve as a warning to the filth that dared consider itself the same kind of human as those born pure.

Daoists often called dreams akin to treasure boxes, unlocking which could help reveal the secrets of Heaven and Earth. But for Siha Ma, the dream held only punishment. Mind undone by the injustice he was suffering, the boy blacked out, and the man with him.

***

"Up, are we?"

Waking up to the present, Siha Ma felt the warmth of his friend's back against his chest. It served to counter the pain that racked his entire body.

The boy who was now grown up plastered a grin to his face. "We really did a number on that thing, huh? It was crazy."

"Mhm," uttered Yan Sha, sensing the smile in his friend's words, the friend who'd always smile.

Yan Sha trudged along metallic walls of green as his feet limped to a fixed beat. A tear, born of the pain that racked his mind, rolled down the boy’s face onto the shoulder of the man who carried him; it stayed there as dew on his robe, between the closest of friends the distance too long for the wetness to be discerned.