PART 0 - THE BARLESS BOY IN THE CHANGED WORLD
Chapter 1 - The Old House
Mill was riding his bicycle along the narrow streets of a small subdivision when he stopped in front of an old, almost decrepit, small duplex house.
The house was enclosed with only a waist high hollow block wall with a steel wire fence on top of it. Right in the middle of the front fence was a rusted gate, already out of its hinge.
From the outside, anyone would think it was a dilapidated and abandoned house, with some of the roof’s galvanized iron sheets missing, exposing the rotten roof's interior to the elements.
Some of the windows from the top and bottom floors were only covered with yellow plastic tarps while the walls of the house had now darkened into dark colored molds.
He had passed by this house countless times for the past few months and finally at his eighteenth birthday, he was able to buy the house.
Hiko, a police officer he knew, laughed at his decision to buy the house. With the money that he had saved, he could find a better place to rent and could choose to save his money for college. But he still insisted on buying the house, almost completely wiping out his savings.
He did not have any regrets though, as this was the house where he spent most of his teenage life. His grandmother’s house.
He got off his bike and planned to check his newly bought house when his stomach suddenly grumbled from hunger. He needed to eat first. He had been working almost all night and only had three hours of sleep. He was tired and he did not want to spoil the day by being hungry too.
He chained the bike on the gate and decided to walk the east street towards an eatery two houses away.
It was still early in the morning but when he arrived there, the eatery was already open with quite a few customers eating their warm vegetable broth while conversing with each other. Most of the customers here were also people that lived nearby and some that he knew personally.
The eatery was more like a stall than a restaurant and there were only two tables around and a counter where people could also eat.
Mill entered through the gate of the property and the people inside looked up, their faces formed into a surprise upon seeing him.
An old man behind the counter waved his arms at him and gave him a huge grin. “Mill! It’s you!”
It was Remy, a kind old man who owned the eatery.
Mill only smiled back at the old man and did not utter a single word. He sat in an open space at the counter and immediately ordered.
Remita, the daughter of the old man, attended to his order attentively. Remy nodded at him jovially, then left him and went back behind the counter.
Mill prepared his utensils and his order came afterwards. Halfway to him enjoying his vegetable broth and the eatery’s famous chicken bread, another server, which Mill did not recognize, tried to approach him but was stopped by Remy.
“Jake, stop,” Mill heard Remy whisper to the server.
“Boss? Why? I was just going to ask the new guy to pay. He did not pay yet,” The server whispered back.
“Oh, I forgot you don’t know! Don’t mind it, just don’t disturb him. I know him. He’ll pay later.” Remy then pushed the server away.
Mill pretended not to hear it and continued eating. He wondered if he was really that terrible of a customer before. He might have a little quirk, but he’d always pay, was respectful and did not even raise a voice on anyone. Then he remembered a little incident.
Yeah… right.
Feeling a little embarrassed, he bowed his head more and went faster in his eating. It was after he had finished that Remy approached him again.
“How are you now, Mill?” Remy asked and gave him a head to toe appraisal. “You look good. How’s your schooling now? Are you already graduated?”
Mill shook his head and smiled at the old man, “I’m okay ‘cle Remy. I’m still a senior though.”
The old man nodded his head approvingly, his lips curving into a genuine smile. “It’s good to see you here and looking fine. What made you come here by the way? Today’s tuesday. There should be class today.”
“I do have a class later.” Mill answered. “I was just visiting the old house.” He pointed his thumb in the direction of his house.
“Your old house? What happened to it?”
“I finally bought it,” he said proudly.
The old man looked surprised. “You bought it? Not rented?”
Mill nodded.
Remy paused, then asked, “Why?”
This time Mill did not answer and only smiled at him as a goodbye. He paid for his meal and went out of the stall.
He had just passed the gate of the house when he saw the lamp post beside its gate and the various posters and ads posted on it.
He looked back at the old man and shouted, “Uncle Remy, is it okay to post something here?” He pointed at the electric post beside the gate.
“It’s okay.” Remy nodded his head eagerly.
“Thanks ‘cle Remy.”
He rummaged through his bag to look for the posters, but it took him some time to find it. He had just found the poster and the wall stapler when he heard old Remy talk inside.
“Such a hard-working boy. Finally able to buy his grandmother’s house. I talked to Peter the other day, he said he had sold Lapieta's house to someone for fifty thousand. That’s a lot of money.”
“It must be because he is still waiting for his siblings in that house. Poor boy.” Remita replied.
“Was that Gilbort’s son?” One of the customers asked. “The one who was left behind when he took the other kids years ago?”
“He is,” Remita replied. “Poor boy. He still believed they were kidnapped but Papa here had seen how Gilbort took the kids that day. What an irresponsible man! Indeed. After abandoning his family years ago, he came back and only took the other kids and left that poor Mill behind.”
“Tsk, tsk. Just like what happened with that Jusit’s husband—”
Mill did not hear what was said next as he already posted the missing posters and had walked back towards his house, out of earshot.
What they said, though, was true.
He, like most people, had a family once. He had a father, a mother, four siblings and a grandmother, but at the age of eighteen he was all alone.
His father had left them when he was ten, trying to pursue his dreams. His mother was then forced to raise them on her own but she had killed herself when Mill was thirteen due to alcohol and drug abuse.
At that age, he was forced to raise his four siblings on his own, without adult help. But he was not able to fulfill it well causing a younger sister of his to die from starvation.
They were later raised by their long estranged sick grandmother who found them later on. But life was not easy for them, especially as his grandmother was already old and was sick most of the time.
He was forced to work at an early age to raise his siblings and provide medical expenses for his grandmother.
Somehow he was able to manage things while also continuing his education. But one day more than a year ago, he came back to his grandmother’s house and found no one in it, not his siblings and his grandmother.
A day turned into days, with them being unable to be contacted and nowhere to be seen. He had no choice but to ask for help from the cops and report them missing.
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He later found his grandmother in a ditch, injured and was out of her mind, begging people to save her grandchildren.
He asked where his other siblings were but his grandmother was inconsolable and went catatonic later. She was never well after that and could not be converse properly.
The cops had investigated his sibling’s disappearance with the help of his friend in the police force, a CCTV footage was found and reviewed. In that video, his siblings were seen together with his father, the father that he had not seen for years, and they willingly followed him.
With the testimony of other witnesses saying they had seen the kids with their father, it was disclosed.
But Mill did not believe so.
For one, if they left him behind because they knew he would never follow their father, his twin brother, Linum, even hated their father more. But Linum willingly went away with their father.
The twin of his even hated the mention of his father, but in that video he went with him without any complaint.
Aside from that, he was sure his siblings would not leave without him, or to even leave him without saying goodbye.
That was not the only odd thing about the video and the testimonies.
His younger brother, Caco, who had suffered with polio ever since he was a kid, was walking fine in the footage.
His siblings also never brought anything with them. No clothes, no personal belongings, not anything. Not the necklace box that his sister treasured so much or Linum’s inhaler for his asthma that he always brought with him.
Ultimately, the biggest cause of worry for Mill was the message he received from Linum early that day. It was in the form of code only he and his siblings would understand, it was a code for help.
They would never ask for help if they were not in danger.
He had tried looking for them afterwards but he could only do much. It had been more than a year and he hadn’t made any progress.
The only thing he could do was wait for them to come back, to the house where they used to call home.
He stopped in front of the gate of his house, opened the lock on the gate, and waited for something instead of going inside.
On the other side of the street, there was a parked car looking at odds with the whole neighborhood.
Mill did not know what brand the car was but it looked expensive. It was not there when he arrived at his house minutes ago. The problem was, the car was tailing him ever since he came out of his school this morning.
He thought they were only going the same way but it appeared weird to him that he was keeping pace with his pedaling. His suspicions grew when the expensive car also followed him to this poor neighborhood.
He had lost sight of the car afterwards and thought it was just a coincidence, but the car was now here.
He was sure it was tailing him.
He looked inside the tintless windows of the car and he saw a man sitting on the driver seat looking at him. Thinking the man had some business with him, he waited for him to approach. But a minute passed and the man did not come out of his car.
He waved his hand to him, signaling the man to approach him and come out of his car but the man just continued staring at him.
After waving out with no results, Mill decided to ignore the man and instead opened the gate of his house and went inside.
He had no worries with the man’s presence though. Even though he was in a poor neighborhood, only a shout from him and all of the neighbors within earshot would come to his aid, and he could shout really loud. He had lived in this house for years and he was quite close with most of his neighbors.
Taking the man out of his mind, his attention was caught by the overgrown lawn in front of the house, with dozens of trashbags sprawled around without order.
He hardly saw the ground with the hip length grass obstructing most of the lawn but he could still point out where the logs his siblings used to sit and play, and the plot of vegetable gardens that his grandmother had cultivated before.
He breathed a sigh of relief for the first time in months, and felt home.
He waddled through the grass with most of the love grass fruit sticking in his pants. and finally arrived at the front door of the house.
He twisted the knob of the door and it opened easily into the living room, or what it used to.
The inside looked almost empty except for a table and a chair in the middle of the living room. Everywhere was full of dust.
He went inside and turned on the light switch to check the bulbs but it was not working. The broker had told him there was an electric connection so he would just have to replace the bulbs or possibly fix some wiring problems.
He did not know what happened, but there were some tenants who lived in this house for three months and from just looking around, they had not taken a good care of the house.
He surveyed the whole ground floor and the list of things to clean and fix only grew. He also had to furnish the whole house as most of the furniture and appliances were nowhere to be seen.
He climbed the only stair leading to the second floor to check it. The steps squeaked as he ascended and he noticed some of the steps were rotted out and hollowed, probably eaten by rats or mites.
He reached the second floor expecting it would be in the same state as the bottom floor and he was not wrong, like with the bottom floor it was also empty of almost anything.
He remembered he had some furniture and trinkets he left in the house when he left six months ago, things that he could not take to his dorm, but they were nowhere to be seen now. They must have been taken by the previous tenant or was stolen.
He did not care much about it and entered one of the two rooms on the second floor. It was his old room which he shared with his two brothers.
Despite how empty it was except for some bedposts, memories still came to him.
The pain of the loss of his siblings and grandmother came on him with no warning.
They were his strength and inspiration in life, but they were not here anymore.
He feared for their safety. Despite how he always kept his negative thoughts away, inside him, he feared that they were gone, that they were also dead like his grandmother.
He felt lost and powerless that he could not do anything for them, that he could not find them.
He tried to believe that they were with his father. That was better than them being in harm. But he could not convince himself.
He could not believe that they just left without telling him anything. If they were alive and somewhere in this world, they would not be cruel to not inform him that they were fine. But it has been a year and he hadn’t heard or received any message from them.
He could only let himself stay strong and wait for them. He trusted them to take care of themselves and come back to him when they were able to.
A single tear flowed from his left eye without him realizing but he let it flow. He went outside the room and went to his grandmother’s room across from it.
It was also the room of his younger sister, Sisel. The same with his room, there was almost nothing in it. The wooden dresser and cabinet that her grandma owned and the mirror where his grandmother and Sisel loved to use was now gone.
He would try to look for it later or he would have to buy a new one.
He checked the room briefly as there was almost nothing to it and was about to go outside when out of his periphery he saw some scratches on the wall shaped like a box and remembered Sisel engraving it three years ago.
He unconsciously smiled at that memory when he stopped as he suddenly remembered another part of the memory from that day.
He went to the wall and inspected it. He touched and tried to pry the unassuming cracks in the wall till his nails caught into a random crack. He nudged that part of the crack and he could feel it moving in his hands.
He pulled the cracked part of the wall more and a small portion of the wall fell off to his hand revealing a small hidden compartment half a foot in size behind it.
He remembered that time when Caco and Sisel were being berated by their grandmother after knocking off the cabinet and finding a secret compartment on the wall.
When they first found out about the secret compartment, they, as well as Mill, had checked it but found it empty. But now, something was inside the secret compartment.
Mill took it out from the wall and found an ornate old looking box that he had never seen before.
It was a dark metal box, small and was only a few inches, gilded with intricate sword designs.
He tried prying it with his fingers but it did not open. Then he noticed a small keyhole in it.
It was key-locked and it needed a key to open.
He checked the compartment to look for the key and there was nothing in it.
He checked the box again and found some engravings in the back.
Millinum Calmwaters Blythone
It was his twin brother’s name.
He cocked his head thinking about the box’s origin. He had never seen his brother owned something like this and if it was customized by his brother, just from looking at it, he could estimate that it would cost a lot of money to make.
It was not his brother’s, he was sure of it.
He and Linum had lived together for years, shared the same room and he never noticed him with this box before.
His brother also happened to be a penny pincher and would surely not waste money to buy such a box, nor engraved his name on it. The gildings looked like the real deal and he had guessed it was real gold. Even if it was not, the craftsmanship was topnotch, so it must have cost much. The details of the swords were intricate enough to be mistaken as a knockoff.
He was not sure what it was but it could be a gift to his brother, maybe from their grandmother.
He then put the box on his backpack and checked the walls for other compartments. He knew his grandmother. If she would give something to his brother, she would also give something to all of her grandchildren. He checked for almost half an hour but he did not find any compartments.
A little disappointed, he decided to check later as he still had class to attend today.
He then went outside the house, out of the gate and locked it.
The car was still parked across the street and he could still see the man looking at him. They were only a few meters from each other so he was sure the man saw him.
He then waited for the person to approach him but instead of the man, the gate of the house from across the street opened and a middle aged lady named Manda came out.
“Mill!” The lady greeted him with a smile. “Long time no see.”
Mill smiled back. “Yeah, it’s been quite a few months already. How were you Ms. Manda?”
“Oh. I’ve been fine. I’m glad to see you here. Actually, I have something for you, here” Manda handed him an envelope, “A man came over a month ago and he was looking for you. When I told him you were not living here anymore, he asked me to give that to you. I saw you passing by now and then, so I thought I’d hand that to you but I never had the chance.”
Mill looked at the envelope that was given to him and checked if who sent it but there was nothing outside it. It was just a plain white envelope. He thanked Manda for it and after some small talk, Manda went back inside her house. He then went to his bike.
He looked back at the car across the street and chose to ignore it for the meantime.
He rode his bike and headed towards his school. The car though did not follow him.
He arrived at the school’s parking lot and he took a white uniform from his bag and wore it.
He leaned on the wall beside his bike, took out the envelope and tore it open.
There was only a folded parchment inside.
He unfolded what looked like a letter and was shocked when he recognized the handwriting in it.
It was the handwriting of his brother Linum. There was a letterhead in it and it was addressed to him. He directly went at the bottom of the letter to see whose the sender was and it was Linum’s name and signature.
His attention, though, was caught by a symbol on the bottom of the letter.
From afar it looked like a ring with a box inside it but upon closer inspection, it was actually dozens of circles of islands forming a circle, and in the middle of them was a rectangular box.
He knew about this symbol.
It was the symbol that he always hated because it was the source of the madness his father had committed.
The Thousand Islands.
And when his siblings were lost and his grandmother was found, this symbol was burned into her skin.