6 - An Unfortunate Discovery (Part One)

A strong light glared through the crack of the closed door, and the boy finally woke up. For the first time in a while, he'd dreamed while sleeping, and he ended up oversleeping. Rubbing his eyes, he got up, only to see that the girl wasn't there.

"@#%$%? Mother? Where are you?" He then realized, and he ran down the stairs. "Did you already leave? Without me?" He called through the hallway, scrambling from room to room.

- I don't want to lose a friend...!

But he was too late. On the kitchen table was a note, written directly on the table's surface. It read, 'Sorry, my son. You were sleeping very soundly, and we have to leave early in the morning, so we left without alerting you. It's been a while since you slept like you were. I'll be back in the night.'

"...But I only got to play with her for a day, so why's she already gone?" The boy thought it was unfair, but at the same time, he wasn't sure if the girl felt the same way.

- I've only known her for a day. Who am I to monopolize her time when she misses her family?

In his desperation, he almost missed the clue.

There were drops of blood, in a trail from the kitchen table to the door.

There were circles of blood smeared against the wall, roughly the size of a small girl's wrists.

In that instance, he drew many conclusions.

- Something went into the kitchen table's storage space. The part inside must've been left in there, but there's nothing on this side. Then... is that part still attached to the body?

The boy shivered, and his eyes trembled.

"Blood... in the shape of someone's wrists... a child's wrists..." He looked at the door, and with trembling legs, he rushed towards it. Flinging the door open, he cried, "MOTHER! WHERE DID YOU GO?!?"

Of course, there was no reply from the forest, and all was silent. So, he looked at the ground for the trail of blood, but nothing was visible on the dark forest ground. The hard floor inside was very different from the soft dirt outside.

Despondently, he walked back to the kitchen, and sat down on the chair with his head on the table.

- Huh...?

He'd put away all the chairs yesterday, but the chairs were out again. The number of chairs was only one, even though there should be two if the others ate together.

- How strange...

So, he put the chair back in the storage, and when he did, he was hit with a cold shock.

Everything clicked.

A little girl, well-kept and pale, wearing unique, quality clothes, in a countryside village of tan, poor farmers.

A vegetarian with meat eaters.

Meat eaters that only eat artificial meat.

Cold sweat flowed down the boy's back, and he reached his hands further in the storage. Reaching in, fumbling around, feeling for anything to distract him. His hands reached something, something as cold and dead as his thoughts. Reaching in, grabbing it, and pulling it out.

- This is...!!!

He screamed. He screamed really, really loudly. He screamed like he'd never before, he screamed like his life was about to end. Because really, his life would end right there.

Now on the floor, after he'd dropped it, was a small, skinny arm. Still attached to the arm, unlike the body, was the hand. That pale, delicate hand, stiffly clenched a note, as if... well, as if it was dead.

The boy bit his own hand, drawing his own blood, and he stopped screaming, while tears replaced it.

He opened the note.

<Hey, Boy. This may come as a surprise... Or maybe not, maybe you knew all along. In any case, risking my life to tell you doesn't change the fact that I'm going to die. Your mother, that dear mother, who is an incredibly talented scientist and chess player, is going to kill me. I always wondered everyone had kids so fast, and why so many of my relatives disappeared. I can't tell my family, even though I'm dying for the truth... No, that doesn't matter anymore.>

The handwriting was simple and neat, but the most important thing was...

- It's in our language... But she can't even speak it, why does she write?

<Boy. Your mother... That monster runs a meat farm. The meat is me. My family. We're the meat, and we've been raised easy and comfortably, so that we can reproduce young and be butchered in our prime years.>

The handwriting became messy, written with a goal.

<I escaped from that place so I could see the real world, to see what my relatives wanted so desperately that they wouldn't return. This was absolutely not what they wanted...>

It was written without thinking, just to reach the end.

<Before you found me in that alley, I'd just seen my uncle. He was alive just days earlier. Then he was dead.

They had his body in a cage, pushing it around while calling out prices. FOR HIS BODY PARTS.>

The words were written boldly, strongly, indenting the page with the intent to destroy.

<If I was a bit earlier

IF I WAS A BIT EARLIER>

The boy ripped his eyes off the page, the words were too intense. They were written over and over, overlapping each other and blurring the bolded lines, some places ripping through the page.

<I'm going to kill her, even if I die in the process. Stay safe.

@# $%-^ (translation: I'm sorry.) >

That was the end of the note.

The boy started to cry.

He cried for hours and hours, until he couldn't cry anymore.

Day turned to night.

Night turned to day.

Days passed easily, a breeze moving through the branches of a tree.

He sat there without moving, through out a time only bearable for the broken.

So, once he was less broken, he got up from that spot in the kitchen, next to the severed arm that was starting to rot and the note that became crumpled and stained with tears. He got up and went to the door, pulling his weak legs along, without ever lifting his head.

He walked to the door, before turning around. He left through the passage under the kitchen table.

Dropping down, he fell to the bottom of a dark cave. Then he climbed up the steep tunnel.

The boy walked through the barrier, towards the light. Emerging from the tunnel, he reached a small village, and there, sat the girl, smiling.

"Let's go, what are you waiting for?"