“What the heck did you guys do in here??!!!!”

Elli awoke with a start. He lifted his head off the ground and saw Shena, who was wearing a bewildered expression and plugging her nose with her fingers.

He didn’t notice anything at first, but when he concentrated on his sense of smell,

Oh shit.

There really was a terrible stench in the room. A deathly mix of old piss, sweat, and saliva. Lovely.

He was going to clean everything up before sleeping, but that plan went off the rails when he passed out.

“Rami?! You…!” she stomped over to him and gave him a shove, revealing the piss stain on his shorts. “Is that pee?!!!”

“Wha…? What's going on?” Rami mumbled groggily. When his eyes focused on his mom’s scowl, he shot up with a start.

“Ah– I… I– uh… ah–” he stuttered. He was about to look at Elli for some assistance when he noticed his mom staring at his shorts. He looked down at the dried brown patch between his legs.

“I– uh, I can explain.”

No he could not. He really could not.

“Sorry Miss Keluarga, we were tickling each other,” Elli called out, finally thinking of an excuse, “I don’t know how we fell asleep like this either. Maybe the cheese made us tired?”

Elli that was terrible… Rami cried in his mind. But it was better than nothing.

Luckily, his mom bought it.

“All this from tickling? You boys are too wild! What if you woke up Romina?!”

“We’re sorry, Miss Keluarga…”

“Sorry, Mom…”

Haaahh, she sighed.

“Clean all this up,” she ordered, “and Rami, you are 10 years old. How could you pee your pants at this age?” she chided, fixating on him. Then she left.

“Haak peed too!! AND he’s still sleeping!” Rami screamed, tired of her singling him out.

“Haak. Wake up,” he said, nudging him not gently.

“Hmmm?” Haak murmured as he sat up slowly.

Rami’s gaze immediately went to his pants.

“...”

There was nothing.

Rami’s face darkened. Maybe his mom was right. Why was he the only one that peed? Was there something wrong with his–?

“Did it work?” Haak continued as he rubbed his eyes, still half asleep.

“No,” Elli said as he stood up, “but that’s okay. We can keep trying.”

“Are we still leaving tonight?”

“Yeah. Get up and get clean. You guys stink.”

Haak and Rami sniffed air and almost puked.

“See? Wash up. I’m gonna talk to Miss Keluarga.”

+ + +

Smack!

The sound of a slap reverberated throughout the tiny house.

Haak and Rami had just returned from the river when they witnessed Elli getting slapped.

Horrified, Haak ran to Elli while Rami screamed.

“Mom what the fuck are you doing?!!! What is wrong with you?!!”

“Don’t you curse at me!!” she screamed back.

“Why are you hitting my friends??!! That’s so messed up!!!!”

“No. This isn’t messed up,” she started, calm now, “you want to know what’s messed up? Taking care of random children for two years out of the goodness of my heart, only for them to steal away my son? That’s messed up. You’re messed up!” she screamed, turning to Elli and readying another slap.

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“Stop!!” Rami ran and grabbed her arm, preventing the hit, “you’re being crazy!!”

“Crazy? You’re calling me crazy?!” she cried, throwing him into a wall.

“They’re not taking me away, I want to go. I’m going. No matter what.” Rami said, clutching his injured shoulder.

Shena just looked at him.

“You are just like your father,” she snarled, her stare cold and harsh.

Rami had a dam within him. It collected all of his repressed emotions, mainly anger and sadness, and it currently had about seven years’ worth locked down. This was a pretty sturdy dam. Yeah, maybe it cracked every now and then, but it never fully broke. His character was a happy guy, after all.

But there wasn’t a speck of love in his mother’s eyes as she spoke of his father. He only saw hate. A large crack formed on his dam.

“You said he died because of me. You liar… I bet he just left! Because of you!!”

Another crack appeared.

“I never said he died. Look at you lying! Are you trying to make me look bad?”

“What?!” Rami laughed incredulously.

Another one.

“You really are just like your father. He was a liar too.”

Another one.

“Anyways, you guys are grounded. Nobody’s leaving. Don’t you dare think of leaving while I’m gone.”

Another one.

“Actually, Haak. You’re coming with me, just in case. Let’s go.”

She made a grab for Haak’s trembling arm. When he evaded her hand, she made a grab for his hair next.

The last crack never came. The dam was gone, ripped into pieces by the raging waters behind it.

Rami grabbed the nearest chair and hurtled it at her, knocking her down.

“Rami!! What are you doing?!!”

He walked over to retrieve it and held it above his head to hit her with it.

“Stop Rami!! I’m your mother!!”

His eyes were cold as he spat at her.

“Don’t touch my friends. I’ll kill you.”

He put the chair down and went straight to recovery mode, collecting every drop of his escaped emotions and sealing them behind a new dam. He turned to Haak and was about to crack a joke when he felt a hard blow on the back of his head.

He fell to his knees and touched his wound. His vision was blurry and his ears were ringing, but he could feel. His hair was wet.

Blood? Is this blood?

Shena was screaming imperceptibly in the background.

Am I… bleeding?

He brought his hand in front of his face and stared blankly at the red liquid covering his palm. He clenched his hand, trying to spread the red further, but it was already dry.

Rock. Paper. Rock. Paper. Rock. Paper…

“–rotten boy. A child’s job is to listen to their mother. You’re all terrible children. How could you think of leaving me? I’ve been more than kind– what’s that smell? Do you guys smell that?” she asked, running to the kitchen to check the stove.

Nobody saw, but Elli had a slight smile on his face.

It’s hot…

Rock. Paper. Rock… “Paper...” Rami opened his hand one last time, and everything erupted into flames. The floor, the walls, the table. Everything was red. Everything was burning.

Shena was screaming. Haak was frozen. Elli looked around in awe, revelling in the heat.

He turned to look at Rami, who was still staring at his hand. He watched the fire dancing atop his blood with his head tilted like a child.

This kid… Elli thought with a grin, what incredible potential.

Even in the upper islands, most people barely had the capacity to set fire to a cigarette, much less a whole house, and keep it going for longer than a few seconds. The people who could do what Rami was doing weren’t common, and Rami learned of Eidis just the day before.

A genius. But he wasn’t about to tell him that. Cockiness wasn’t good for anybody, besides your opponents and enemies.

“Rami,” he called out.

Rami immediately came back to his senses. The flames vanished just as fast.

“Congratulations,” Elli continued, “do you see anything different?”

Rami surveyed his surroundings.

“Woah… is this… what you see?” he asked.

Haak, tight-lipped, glanced at the same spot as Rami. He only saw burned wood.

But Rami wasn’t looking at the burns. He was looking at the glowing white specks floating in the air. He stretched an arm out, trying to touch one. It disappeared. When he looked at his finger, it was there, resting on the tip.

“Mm. Look at me.”

Rami looked at Elli and widened his eyes. Elli was glowing. Hundreds of thousands of those white specks hovered around him, glowing around his body.

“This is Eidis.”

Haak felt a twinge of envy watching Rami. He was happy for his friend, but he was also used to beating him, no matter what they were doing. Fighting, running, cooking, learning, hell, even in beauty. So what was this? He looked around and saw burns. He looked at Elli and saw, well, Elli.

“...Evil… evil spirit… evil spirit!!” Shena had finally regained her voice. “Get out!! Give me back my house!! My house!!”

Rami rose to his feet.

“Rami! Rami, Rami don’t go. Please don’t go, I’m your mother! You’re going to leave me like this?”

He just stared at her with the same cold eyes.

“My house. I need my house. Please give me back my house.”

“Manny Wames has an extra room.”

“I can’t bring Romina to Manny’s!” she exclaimed shakily. She was angry and confused. There was a fire and then there wasn't. How could a fire just appear out of nowhere and disappear like it never happened?

“Oh, sorry, does he not know about her?” he shot back, his tone sharp and mocking.

Shena didn’t reply to that, but her silence was more than enough of an answer.

“Did you think I didn’t know? Why you never want us going out? I’m not fucking stupid,” he said, walking to the door, “oh, and Romina’s coming with us. Problem solved, now you can go to Manny’s.”

He placed his hand on the door.

“Let’s go guys?”

Elli strode over and attempted to open the door, but it crumbled off the hinges from the pressure. Haak trailed behind him while throwing Shena awkward glances.

Rami was halfway out when he realized something.

“And get a job. Maybe you can give Hamira’s a try.”

He took one last step, now fully outside. Then he walked off. And he didn’t look back once.

+ + +

“Where aw we going?” Romina asked as she twirled her fingers around Elli’s pigtails. She was on his shoulders because she wanted to play ‘horsey’, a game he made up (horses didn’t exist in the lower islands).

“We’re going on vacation,” said Rami, messing around with the Eidis as he walked. He formed it into shapes and figures, stuck it to his body like armor, moved it as far away as he could. He was a natural with it, a bonafide genius.

Romina gasped with her hands on her cheeks. “A vacwation? I get to pway wif my fwiend AND go on vacwation?! Yaaay!”

Haak trudged behind everyone. He was still thinking about Miss Keluarga.

She'd been Haak's adoptive mother for the past two years, so Elli hadn’t wanted him to find out, ever. He didn't want those happy memories to be ruined. But Shena just had to go and out herself. Shena Keluarga was not as she seemed to the untrained eye. She was a damn good actress. She seemed like a saint for bringing them into her home, but she also quit her job secretly to live off their winnings. She seemed like a martyr for sacrificing her body, but she didn’t do that for them. Rami’s stories were always funny, but that was only because of the way he told them.

He thought of his own mother and clicked his tongue. Who knew where she was and what she was doing now. But he hoped she was happy. From the bottom of his heart, he did. She deserved it.

A few minutes later, he and Rami stopped in their tracks. They’d arrived.

To Haak and Romina, they were standing in front of a tall tree by the end of the river, close enough to the island’s edge to see the land thousands of feet below.

Elli and Rami saw the same, except the tree had glowing rings and the Raskarian alphabet, Kara, wrapped around its trunk.

“Shoot, I’ve pissed on this tree before…” Rami thought aloud. He smacked his hand over his mouth when he saw Romina judging him.

Elli paid him no mind, covering the markings on the tree with Eidis. Once every mark was covered, the rings lifted off the tree and hovered in the air vertically in one large ring of circles.

He pulled Romina off his shoulders and placed her by Rami’s side.

“Hold his hand okay? Haak, you too. Rami, cover them in Eidis. I’ll go first.”

Then he stepped through the ring and disappeared.