No one offered him food or warmth. When he tried to enter the houses, the women would take one look at the scars on his ribcage and scream. Farmers holding hoes or rakes would chase him away, making angry faces. He was discouraged. He covered as many of his scars as he could with his arms and hurried out of there.
Once he had escaped the village, he sighed. Should he go to the mountains? He had no clue as to how one survived in the mountains or forest. How to light a fire, where to get food—he didn’t even know where to start with such things.
But he had managed to survive on raw meat and greens before. There was no reason why he couldn’t continue to do so now. More than anything else, there was no telling what would happen to him if he ever found himself in a village again.
He turned back to the darkening forest and began to walk.
After walking a long time through the trees, in the darkness he saw something like the round roof of a shelter.
It really was a roof. Not only that, there was a whole house underneath it. But seeing how there were no lights on inside despite the dark, he thought it must be abandoned.
He was overjoyed. A place to sleep. While still hungry, night had fallen so he might as well spend the night here and go out to forage for food when the sun came up.
He approached the hut and pushed open the door. The door made a creaking sound as it opened.
From the darkness, a white object approached him. Surprised, he staggered backwards and fell on his behind.
“Brother?” asked the white object.
He didn’t know what to say.
XIII
The woman stretched out her arm and fumbled around in the emptiness in front of her.
“Brother?” she asked again.
He tried to calm down. Slowly, he stood up.
“Brother? Why aren’t you saying anything?”
The woman approached. Her fingers grazed his cheek.
He froze. Without hesitation, the woman stepped up to him and caressed his face.
He closed his eyes.
… The sweetest moment of his entire life ended with the woman’s scream.
“Who are you!”
Her shout frightened him. The woman flailed at the space in front of her as she shouted, “Why are you here! What happened to my brother!”
In the confusion, he grabbed the woman’s thrashing wrists. The woman screamed. He turned her around and covered her mouth. As she struggled against him, he dragged her into the house.
As soon as they crossed the threshold, the woman suddenly stopped struggling. He was so surprised that he stopped in his tracks, too.
“Let me go,” the woman whispered. “I won’t scream, I’ll do what you want. Just let me go.”
So he let her go.
The woman carefully righted herself. She felt around with her hands and took a step away from him.
“So what do you want from me?” she asked in a cold, low voice. “What have you done to my brother?”
The youth did not know who this brother was. He wasn’t there to harm her, either. He wanted to explain this but didn’t know how, and he simply took a step closer to her.
He tripped over something and lost his balance. In surprise, he shouted out. And through the darkness, something hard struck the top of his head.
He lost consciousness.
XIV
When he came to, it was bright all around him. He couldn’t stand; his hands were tied behind his back.
There was a young man in front of him. A familiar man, strangely enough.
“What are you doing here?” demanded the young man. “What are you doing so far from the cave, and what were you going to do to my sister? Speak!”
The youth could not fully recognize either the young man or his sister. He hadn’t come all the way here to do anything. He vigorously shook his head.
The young man was not assuaged. His words and gaze became a shade harsher. “That monster sent you, didn’t it? Did it tell you to kill my sister? Or bring her to it?”
The word “monster” made his mind go white.
The young man knew about It. How? The bald man, his gang, the inhabitants of all the villages he had passed by— none of them had ever mentioned It.
Misinterpreting his blank expression, the young man threw a punch at his face.
“Speak!” he shouted. “Why are you here? What were you going to do with my sister?”
Not giving him a chance to answer, he punched the youth’s face once more. From the inside of his lip, the youth felt a salty liquid pooling in his mouth.
“Answer me!” The young man struck again.
The youth’s vision briefly went black. As he saw the young man’s fist rise again, he desperately twisted his body and turned his head. More than being misunderstood as serving It, more than the surprise from meeting someone who knew what It was, he was infuriated by this fist that silenced him every time he was trying to answer.