Part 1 - The Vegetable Boy in the Bar Islands

Chapter 24 - The Floating Orphanage

Mill opened his eyes and found he was underwater, well his head was underwater while the rest of his body was somewhere dry and someone was pushing him from behind.

He shook off whoever it was and grabbed the arm that was holding his waist. He gripped it so hard and tried to pull himself out of the water.

Someone gave a surprise shout and then he was pulled out of the water.

Mill gasped as air rushed to his lungs and he fell to a hard and soft surface, snorting as water entered his nose. He felt some of it enter his throat and he coughed while holding his neck.

Once he was calm and breathing fine, he looked at the culprit in front of him, who was looking anywhere but him.

The moon was shining brightly in the sea, reflecting enough light for him to see the guilt in the man’s eyes.

It took seconds for him to register that he was in a boat, in the middle of the sea and with someone who just tried to kill him.

Seeing as he had nowhere to go, he glared at the man in front of him. He tried his best to look menacing and gave the impression that he would go down with a fight if the man wanted it.

The man, who had a big build with muscles rippling in his sitting body, with his angular menacing face and narrow eyes, was pointedly ignoring Mill's stare. He kept looking in no particular direction while his lips pursed.

Mill waited for the man to make a move but the man just sat there and decided to look at something from Mill’s right. Mill moved his head to his right and the man moved his gaze to the opposite side. The man’s brows suddenly furrowed then his face brightened as if he had just realized something.

He finally looked at Mill and gave him a grin. “Yo! You’re alive,” he clapped, “Haha. I’m just… letting you drink some water, hehe. Swear, I’m not trying to dump you in the water because I thought you were dea—”

The man’s eyes widened, probably realizing what he just said. Then he looked confused. After a second, it brightened again and he nodded.

Mill stared at the man, speechless. He did not know what to make out of this situation. He felt the tension he was holding released as he guessed the person in front of him might be someone who was not right in the head.

Should he jump? Even as if he thought that, he had no plans to.

After some thinking, he realized that if the man in front of him wanted him dead then they should not have brought him back to the boat if he was about to throw him away.

He checked his surroundings again and saw an island behind the man. It had hills cascading like mounds where it all coincided into a tall mountain in the center. What alarmed him was the faint impression of tower light surrounding the whole island.

Then he remembered what happened to him. He was running away from the island, he fought a hopping pig, he lost his consciousness just as someone appeared in front of him. Judging from the voice, it should be the man in front of him.

The man grabbed two paddles beside him and he started paddling away from the island.

“Where are you going?” Mill asked, alarmed.

“What? Did you say something?”

“I said where are you going? Where are you taking me?”

The man cocked his head to the side and looked at him confused. “Are you a kid, but even Rovus can speak well now, why can’t you speak well?” The man asked innocently without stopping rowing the boat

Mill realized that the man in front of him was speaking in another language.

Mill opened his mouth to say something when suddenly, he remembered Clarese and the others. “Hey, did you see other people around— no, can we go back? I have some friends left on the island.” He pointed to the island.

The man scrunched up his face, still looking confused. Then suddenly it brightened again.

“You want to see the island get eaten?” The man asked.

Mill was confused by his words. Eaten? What did he mean? And in the back of his mind, the word brought hunger inside him.

The man continued, “Though there were scourgers waiting at the shore and swimming towards us, they’re very slow. I noticed, so don’t worry. I think you can see the island get eaten here eventually.” The man looked behind him towards the faint towers circling the island. “Anytime now, the scourge will end.”

Mill paused at the words ‘scourgers in the shore’ and looked unconsciously at the shore which was hundreds of meters away from them. He scrunched up his eyes and saw there were dark shadows moving there, though they were far, he could still see how they almost covered a part of the shore directly behind them.

“That’s weird,” the man said. “Why are they not going to the pillars? Are they lost?”

Right on time, the light pillars winked out of existence and then Mill heard some rumbling towards the island. It was so loud that he could hear it this far.

“Yeah,” the man said, a tinge of glum in his voice, “it’s going to be eaten.”

Mill then understood what he meant.

The island, which was standing in the middle of the sea as all islands do, was now slowly submerging in the sea.

Sea water rolled and slowly covered a part of the shore. It did not stop and continued moving towards inland, engulping dunes and anything in it as it gradually went.

The island was being eaten indeed.

What worried Mill were those scourgers or creatures that were swimming in the sea and going towards their direction.

He could not feel any danger from them similar to those who chased him all this time but somehow his hunches were telling him that they were focused on him and heading in his direction.

Was his danger sense still there? If he couldn't sense them then why were they heading to him? Was he wrong?

He focused on the danger senses within him, testing if he could somehow still use it. He did not feel even a little bit of dread towards those swimming scourgers towards him but instead he felt a faint dread poking in his senses somewhere below him.

He pinpointed its actual location and felt his hands on the area below his legs, he touched something, and picked it up.

It was blue spherical rock. Round on the edges and smooth to touch.

He focused on it and he could feel a tiny bit of danger in it.

Then it winked out.

The danger he felt in it was suddenly gone and he noticed the slowly swimming creatures in the sinking island stopped, and at the same time, a sharp pain attacked his head.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“It will stop after a while,” the man said while Mill held his head from the sudden onset of pain, “ and I will take you back to it. But as I have saved you, you have to give me some of the pigs meat behind you. We have an agree—”

Mill did not hear what happened next as everything went black

*****

Mill gained his consciousness little by little as he felt the ebbed and the monotonous bobbing of the boat he was on.

He did not open his eyes fully and only observed his surroundings through his ears and the little slats in his eyes.

The man was still rowing the boat, heading in no particular direction. Mill observed him for what felt like an hour and noticed he changed his direction a lot of times.

The man stopped rowing, dropped one of the paddles to the side, and put that hand above his brows as if he was trying to look at something in the distance. He released a joyful exclamation then went back into rowing full time.

Mill kept his act and watched the man increased his rowing speed until ten minutes later Mill heard someone shouting from the distance.

“Canto! You—”

The voice came from a man and it was somewhere from above them.

Mill heard a loud noise of water splashing then the boat turned and stopped moving beside a huge sailing ship.

A ladder was dropped down from the ship and a tiny but muscular woman came sliding down in it.

“Canto!” the woman said, her voice exasperated. “You should stop wandering away in the sea! God of bars boy, you’re an adult now. And what is this!?”

“Nana Tlina! I bought some food,” the man answered proudly.

“I see that, but why also bring a dead man? We can’t eat that!”

“Oh. He’s sleeping. I saw him move a while ago,”

“What?” A man’s voice sounded from above. “A body? What have you done now, Canto?”

Canto looked above him with a bland face. “A… lot?”

Mill heard the man sighed from above and ordered something to someone.

Someone came down from the sailboat away from Mill’s view. Mill saw the man, whose name was Canto, took some metal contraption dropped from the ship and attached it to the boat. After he was done he signaled above him and Mill felt the boat rise up in the air

A minute later, Mill was on the ship. He decided to observe things first and continued to pretend asleep.

It did not last long as someone came near him and grabbed his shoulder

“Argh!” Mill released a shout as pain burst in his left shoulder that someone was holding. He pushed the hand away and it let go.

He opened his eyes, gasping from remnants of the pain, and saw eight people surrounding him, four were adults while the other four were kids.

“Who are you?” a stout man with a pot belly asked him in a serious voice. He was dressed in white and black pants and compared to all of the people surrounding him, he was the cleanest of them.

“I—”

“He can’t speak,” Canto interjected.

Mill cleared his throat and looked at Canto. “I can.”

Canto presented his hands, “See, he can’t speak.”

The stout man looked at Canto with a patient face. “Canto it’s not because he can’t, its a different language.”

“Oh?”

“Can you speak Counan? Calibes Counan?” the stout man asked Mill.

Mill scrunched his face. “No.”

The stout man did not say anything and Mill noticed his eyes were scrutinizing something from his body. The stout man brought out something from his belt, pointed it at Mill and a light came out of it.

Mill looked at where he was beaming the light and it was on his chest, particularly to the Oxygen High’s symbol; the full name of the school; and the ‘Maintenance Department’ etched on it.

The man then looked at Canto, his face worried. “Tell me everything the happened.”

Canto obliged willingly. “I row the boat to look for fish, saw scourge pillars coming from the distance, went to it and—”

“Pillars, what do you mean pillars?” a lanky middle aged man asked him.

“Scourge pillars, ” Canto repeated

The small muscular woman, the one who dropped down the boat, looked at the lanky man, confused. “But— the scourge was supposed to come tomorrow.”

The stout man’s face turned grim. “It could only mean it moved a day again. Good thing we sailed out early. What’s next?” he asked Canto.

“There were so many scourgers that came out and I thought I’ll get one but the mainlanders can’t defeat them. I was planning on coming back when I saw him fighting with this pig,” he pointed to the pig in the boat.

“Woah. A pig? Food,” a black kid with curly hair who looked to be a few years old came near to the pig and excitedly poked it. A boy whose hair was in ponytail grabbed the boy back and put him behind him. He looked at Mill with wary eyes.

“He fought it,” Canto continued, “he won, it was so cool, he did it with only his fist, bam! Bam! Then he left the pigs body, I asked if he didn’t want it, he passed out, I took the pig and him and then a firefly came, then scourgers came too, then they swam in the sea, scared me, woah.”

“I have a lot of things to talk about your behavior, Canto,” the stout man said seriously, “but what do you mean the scourgers were swimming in the sea? Do you mean they're on the sea?”

“Yeah.They knew how to swim now. Maybe they practiced. And they also did not go back to the tower. I think they missed it because they were swimming.”

The small mascular woman looked at Canto with disbelief. “You're not lying right?” Canto nodded and the woman grabbed her hair in worry. “What has the world become? Scourgers swimming?”

“He could be lying,” the teenage boy with a ponytail said.

“I’m not. I’m not Klathy,” Canto defended himself.

A girl with platinum hair and tanned skin stomped her feet towards Canto. “I’m not a liar.”

“You are.”

“Or…” the ponytail boy interrupted, “he was just mistaken about what he saw. You know he has a stupid brain, he might be seeing things.”

“Capriel!” The stout man gave the boy a censuring look. “Your brother’s not stupid. He just doesn't like to think.” Then the stout man turned to Canto. “Canto, why did you take the man?”

“I took his catch. I can’t leave him. The island was about to be eaten and there were scourgers around so I took him. I planned to take him back, but we haven’t divided the meat pig yet, then I saw you. I’ll take him back later.”

The stout man released a breath. “Good, that’s for the best. If I'm not wrong, he’s an altaworlder. The mainlanders on that island would look for him for sure.”

“No,” Mill said.

At the same time, the tanned girl with platinum hair exclaimed excitedly. “He’s an altaworlder?” She went near Mill and ogled at him. “Wow, I finally saw one. Do all of them look dead like him? Hey.” she waved her hands, “what can you do?”

Mill ignored her and looked at the stout man while shaking his head. “No, Please Sir. Don’t take me back there.”

“He’s saying something,” The lanky man said.

“Bring him to the island tomorrow,” the stout man said, “and don’t touch his game.”

“What? Baba Nuya!” Canto whined to the stout man who's walking away towards the cabin from the far side of the sailing boat.

Mill stood up and dashed to the stout man to asked him again, but the small muscular woman and Canto held his shoulder back, causing it to burst in pain again.

Seeing him in pain, Canto let go but held him in his torso instead. Enduring the pain. Mill forced his way forward and shouted. “Please, Sir. Don’t send me back there!”

But it was no use as the man only looked at him with confusion. He knew the man couldn't understand him but he had no choice but to say it. He did not know if he’d lose consciousness again and he did not want to wake up all back to the island. So even if it was no use, he shouted again and hoped it would show his meaning somehow.

“Please. Don’t send me back,” he muttered while gasping from pain.

How he wished he could speak their language and tell them.

He was about to repeat his words when a language came on his head at the same time he thought of the words he was about to say. When those words repeated in his head, he could understand what they meant.

“Please.” He tried to copy the words in his head. He said the praise ‘don’t send me back’ in his head and ordered his mind to translate it to Counan, the language the man was speaking, and magically the translated words burst in his mind. He repeated the words and said them one by one. “Don’t. Send. Me. Back.”

Mill said it with a thick accent but he knew everyone understood him as they all looked at him with surprise.

“You can speak Counan?” the stout man asked.

Mill thought of the word ‘yes’ and command his brain to translate it, he repeated the translation in his head, “Yes,”

“Are you an altaworder?”

“Yes.”

“Then how can you speak our language.”

Mill paused to translate in his mind and said. “I. Don’t. Know.”

“What is going on?” the small woman asked.

“Please.” Mill said. “Dont. Send. Me. Back. They’ll. Kill. Me. I’ll. Give. The. Pig. To you. Please.”

“They’ll kill you? What do you mean?”

“Relinquished. Steal. Title Bar.” He pointed to himself. “Kill.”

Everyone was still confused but the stout man’s face turned into understanding. “They stole your title bar? and they’re going to kill you?”

Mill nodded his head.

The man thought for a moment then said. “Okay, you can stay here in the meantime. Canto, you brought him here, you take care of him. Tlina, butchered the pig,” the small woman nodded, “Chalks,” the stout man looked at the lanky man on the side, “Take care of the kids.”

“Where are you going?” Chalks asked.

The stout man did not reply and went inside the cabin.

“He’s taking a dump,” the girl with the platinum hair, whose name was Klathy, answered. “He’s been holding it up before Canto came.” She turned to Tlina. “Are we eating meat?”

Tlina smiled at her and nodded.

“Yeah!” Then she ran off to the other two kids, the black boy and a silent little white girl. “We’re going to have meat, and Rovus and Itank will only eat vegetables.” Klathy sang and the two kids grumbled and whined in reply.

Mill lost the energy he was keeping and sagged his body towards Canto and Tlina holding him.

Canto took him easily and sat him beside the mast near them.

He did not lose consciousness this time and watched as Tlina and Canto prepared the meat while the three kids played to the side, whining when they’ll eat.

Hours passed by, and Mill woke up from his slumber from the smell of roasted meat. His stomach panged in hunger but instead of looking for the food, he looked up to the sky who was starting to light up.

It would be his first Dawn in this place.

A footsteps came near him and it was Canto who handed him something. “I think this is yours,”

Mill received it and it was the stone which he felt the danger before. His face turned grim and his grip tightened on the stone.

“What’s your name?” Canto asked.

Mill looked at Canto and was about to answer but he stopped. He looked at the stone in his hands and after a moment he looked up and said, “Millinus.”

“Well Millinus, I’m Canto and welcome to the Floating Orphanage!”