After fully recovering from the fiery fight with the demigod Akira, Fluffball and I continued our travel to the nearest thing that could be called a city, reaching the outskirts some days later.
“Hmm… walls made from clay and dirt bricks, about my height… should be able to climb over with little problem,” muttered Akira as he scanned the outer walls of the city in the fading sunlight as the sun sank below the horizon.
“Its far bigger than I had expected. These demigods are really going all out in building these cities. Now we only have to see if there are a lot of civilians inside or if it is just a ghost town inside.”
“Yap?”
“We’ll wait for it to get dark before we head in.”
As the sun was setting, Akira continued to observe the little traffic the city had, a few merchants going in and out of the open gates, either hurrying to enter or exit them before the city guards shut the gates.
When darkness started to cover the land, the gates were closed, and the guards lit torches and lamps to continue their patrolling of the walls, making sure the city was secure from any monsters or intruders during the dark night.
“Now’s our chance!” whispered Akira as he rushed forward through the tall grass at the outer edge of the city’s farms, which seemed to have been ignored, as nothing was growing in the fields, leaving it wide open. Moving through such an open and exposed area during the day was not possible, which is why he had to wait for darkness.
“Fluffball, don’t transform. You will just attract too much attention. I will help boost you up to the wall.”
“Yap?”
“Of course, I can handle your weight even if you have gotten a little fat from all the snacks.”
Akira picked up Fluffball, who swatted him in the face with his tail for calling him fat.
With great effort akira lifted Fluffball towards the upper wall. Fluffball used Akira’s shoulders, and even his head, to steady himself and then launched himself up onto the city wall.
“Did you really have to use my head as a springboard?” grumbled Akira as he pulled himself up onto the wall and crouched down quickly, scanning the wall to the left and right, searching for any approaching guards.
“Perfect, we timed it correctly. Let’s hop down before a guard patrol catches us up here.”
As quietly as they could, they both jumped off the wall and found dark shadows of a building to hide in as the lanterns of two patrolling guards neared their position.
The lanterns were held in a way that allowed the two guards to keep watch of the ground below on each side of the wall to illuminate any troublemakers. They took their sweet time, slowly walking atop the wall before disappearing from Akira’s sight.
“Now, we just have to find some place to hole up for the night…” said Akira as he looked down each of the dark, winding alleyways near the wall, each of them leading further into the dark city.
“Mister, are you lost?” asked a young whispering voice, startling Akira.
“Who…?” asked Akira as he searched the darkness for the voice and found a small shadow hiding underneath a cart.
“Everyone calls me Big Sister Jan! But I’m not really their sister… Do you need help finding your home?”
“Uh… I don’t really have a home here. Do you live here? Can you take me to a place I can stay the night at?”
“You’re an orphan like the rest of us? Alright, big brother, you can come with me!” said the small shadow as they darted towards Akira and grabbed his armored hand with a small hand.
“Well, my parents are dead, but I am an adult, so I am not really an orphan,” said Akira.
“Don’t be shy! I can take you to our hideout where everyone else who has lost their mama’s and papa’s is staying,” said Jan as she pulled on Akira’s arm, trying with all her might to move him but utterly failing at the task.
Fluffball started to sniff her out of curiosity. This small human was almost the same size as Akira’s daughter.
“Ah, what a cute puppy!” said Jan as she stopped pulling on Akira’s arm and looked at Fluffball.
“Yap!” said Fluffball, offended at being called a puppy!
“Alright, if you know of a place I can stay at for the night that would be nice,” said Akira, giving in and letting her pull him through a maze of dark alleys.
“What exactly were you doing out so late at night?” asked Akira.
“Hunting for supplies. We never have enough food or water,” said Jan.
It was then that Akira noticed that in her other hand, she was carrying a well-used cloth bag that looked to be half full.
Akira was led to an area that was full of junk. Jan walked over to a cart and moved it just enough to squeeze through and reached a hidden board covering a hole that led under a building.
“Just go in there, I have to cover everything back up,” said Jan as she pointed to the hole.
Akira had nothing to worry about being attacked, so he got onto his hands and knees and crawled through the tight tunnel for a few seconds before reaching a large underground common room.
There were several hammock beds strung up along the hard-packed dirt walls of the underground room, each with a young child either sleeping or sitting up and chatting with each other. The common room was quite spacious and did not require Akira to crouch down.
Doing a quick count, Akira was surprised to see the number was between 30 to 40 children. The large common room was lit by a small beat-up lamp that held a glowing stone inside it.
“Who made this place?” asked Akira.
“We did! Well… our big sister did most of the work, and we helped,” said Jan proudly looking at the very bare room that had only a few pieces of furniture, namely a table and several large wooden buckets for baths.
“We had nowhere else to go. When we were living on the streets, many of my friends I knew were disappearing each night, never to be seen again. So our big sis decided to make a hiding place for everyone like us!”
Akira was appalled at how harsh a life these young children were forced to live. They were of similar age, if not younger than his own children. Looking at their faces, there was no sign of the childlike innocence that had long ago been wiped away due to all that they had endured in their short-lived lives.
With Jan entering the common room, each of the children who were awake rushed over to her with hungry eyes.
“Big sis Jan, did you get anything tonight?” several of them asked.
Hearing the commotion in the common room, a cloth door to a back room opened, and a boy who was taller than each of the children, including Jan, stepped out. When he saw the unknown Akira standing in front of him, he quickly took a protective stance between the other children, holding a wooden club ready to bonk Akira on the head.
“Who is he?” asked the boy, who looked to be around ten years old.
“Pan, don’t worry! He is an orphan just like us!” said Jan.
Pan looked at Akira with suspicion for a moment and then noticed Fluffball, who was standing next to Akira.
“Ah!” he and the other children were curious about the cute and small Fluffball, and all walked over to pet him.
“You seem nice enough. I guess you can stay,” said Pan after pulling himself away from the cute miniature Fluffball.
“Uh… thanks,” said Akira, not sure how to handle this situation. Pan was just as young as the rest, but was trying to act like an adult leader.
“Mister, we don’t have much room. Many of us are sharing beds so…” said Jan.
“It’s fine. I can sleep on the floor. This is good enough for me,” said Akira as he sat down on the hard-packed dirt floor that had dried grass and straw strewn over it and leaned his back against the wall.
“It’s time for bed, everyone!” said Pan.
“But… what about…?” asked a thin child looking at the cloth bag Jan was holding.
“No! This food is for tomorrow! If you eat it now, you will be hungry all day tomorrow!” said Jan.
As the light was dimmed, a few whimpers and sniffling could be heard as some of the children had nightmares or had trouble sleeping and cried out for their dead parents.
With such an atmosphere, it was hard for Akira to fall asleep, only doing so when the last whimpering child had also fallen asleep.
He was woken up in the morning by the many young footsteps that were pitter-pattering all about.
When everyone was up, they all started to make a long makeshift table, which was created out of buckets and wooden planks. Jan was placing the food into neat, small portions on several makeshift bowls and plates.
Seeing how sparse the food was, Akira pulled out a pouch of his dry rations and handed them over to Jan, who seemed to be in charge of handling the food.
“Its not much and doesn’t have a lot of flavor, but it will help fill your bellies,” said Akira.
Jan’s eyes grew big as if Akira was giving her a large sack of gold. After looking inside, she was even happier.
“This will last us for several days if we use some water and other ingredients to make a soup,” said Jan happily.
Pan and all the other children’s good opinion of Akira grew even more as they saw the sack of dry rations.
“We can not complain about the flavor as most of the food we can get does not have the best of flavors…,” said Pan, stopping when he saw Jan glaring at him.
“Hmph!”
“I mean, Jan does her best to cook for us, and it tastes better than what we were eating, it just…” said Pan, hurriedly trying not to make Jan mad.
With a soft sigh, Jan said, “Yeah… I know it’s not as good as big sister’s cooking…”
At the mention of ‘Big sister’, Pan and the other children who were fighting over which seat to sit at grew quiet, and some started crying.
“You keep mentioning your big sister. Is she related to you guys? Where is she?” asked Akira.
“The demigods killed her!” said an angry Pan.
“What? Why?” asked Akira.
“It’s what demigods do. They killed my parents,” said a small boy who was maybe 5 years old.
“Many of the city’s orphans are here due to the demigods killing their parents or having them fight as soldiers for them,” said Jan.
“I hate them! When I grow older and stronger, I will kill them!” said Pan, waving his wooden club.
“Me too!” said several of the younger children.
“You be quiet and eat your food!” said a stern Jan as she hushed the younger children.
“Are the demigods in control of the city really that bad?” asked Akira.
“They kill anyone they think are thugs or a thief… and that’s anyone that does not do what they tell them to do,” said Pan.
“Your big sister?” asked Akira.
“She was caught by the guards when she was out looking for food for everyone. She was taken to the demigods and disappeared,” said Jan.
“So the other townspeople don’t care about such things?”
“We asked several of them to save our big sister, but they only kicked and punched us, chasing us away. No one cares about us, orphans who have nowhere to go. They ignore us, and if they can’t do that, they attack us. They are almost as bad as the demigods,” said Pan in an angry huff.
“They are probably happy when one of us disappears,” said Jan with a sad frown on her face as she ate.
“It’s all the demigods’ fault!” muttered Pan as he gnawed on his food angrily.
Akira spent the rest of the early morning discussing the news and rumors of the town with Jan and Pan.
In the short amount of time he got to know the two, he became very fond of them and handed Pan a dagger to help protect the other children.
“This is not a toy,” said Akira, handing the sheathed dagger over to Pan. “It is a man’s tool to protect your brothers and sisters. Not to bully or harm innocent people or animals.”
“I understand! I will use it to protect them!” said Pan, his face stern and serious as he took the sheathed dagger.
Akira took some time to teach Pan how to properly use it and gave him a few other pointers.
Now feeling more connected to the orphans, he secretly took out another bag of dry rations along with some copper, silver, and a few gold coins and placed them in the back room, which was the older kids’ room.
