Book IV
Proiskhozhdeniye
Origin
Chapter XXX
Shinta
Let justice be done through humanity's fall from grace.
—
'Nothing but your will sets you on fire.'
"Shinta, you shouldn't run off like that!" A gentle voice scolded from the entrance of the tiny hut that faced the bold and celestial coloured sea whose waves crashed against the pinkish-yellow sands of the beach. She was holding a basket in her arms, her own hair tied back high on her head as she gave the red headed child a half smile, unable to be irritated by the child for long. Wide violet eyes looked back at the woman, bright and inquisitive, as he stood up from where he was squatting on the beach as he raised an arm and waved to her vigorously.
"Sorry, Momma!" He called out as he let out a chorus of laughter, taking off at a break-neck run towards his mother who intercepted him with her free arm, rustling his red hair as she laughed along with him. He was dressed in a simple tunic, typical of their region on the sea, and it was covered in grains of fine sand and damp from him splashing around in the waves. He was a good child, if not energetic, and yet he always came back when she called him—much to his mother's relief—as he normally erupted into a wide smile. He was indeed a special child, his beautiful violet eyes seeming to hold wisdom that went beyond his mere six years of age.
"Come and help me sort these, will you?" She laughed as he hugged her legs protectively, burying his face into the soft cloth of her tunic. "It's time to go inside and start thinking about dinner." Shinta nodded brusquely into her leg, releasing the fabric as he looked up at the woman he called Mamma. She was hauntingly beautiful in an other-worldly sort of way: her long dark hair was always tied up in a neat yet simple ponytail that gave her a regal appearance against her pale skin. Her eyes were a bright violet, just like his, and they were softened like the stones that were bathed by the seawater every day. She was not imposingly tall but she carried herself with dignity as she kept her chin high and moved through the crowds when the ventured to the more populated village to pick up supplies or food rations.
His father had been absent all of his life, his mother once saying that he had been taken by the sea before he had been born, and he learned not to ask by the pained expression on her normally serene face. Shinta only knew a mother's love, an infinite and unconditional feeling of safety, as she held his hand as they strolled on the beaches or tousled his hair when he brought her something he found interesting. There was something comforting to her gentle humming or her crooning him to sleep in the dialects of the Eastern people, a musicality that was impossible to replicate if one came from outside the seaside Civilization.
Plopping down on the floor covered with worn down ornate hand woven mats, Shinta reached his hands into the basket and pulled out an assortment of plants that his mother had gathered earlier that day. He was proud to be able to sit with her and sort them by size and colour, even remembering some of the strange names of plants as he waited for his mother's final inspection and approval. His small hands ran lovingly over the large leaf of bush that they used for cooking and for medicinal purposes, admiring the smooth textures and grooves on the leaf's surface. Shinta set it aside with its brothers and sisters, reaching for the next plant as he busied himself with comparing them to the others he had already began to lay out.
"Momma, this one?" He asked as he held up a fern like leaf that resembled a feather of an elegant vizinho that fluttered over the waves, leaving behind the occasional gift of a multicoloured feather for him to collect. Shinta waved the leaf, its fingers bristling together and making a pleasant sound, until his mother turned and looked to study it.
"Ah, yes, that's a new plant that I had never seen before," She said as she squatted in front of her son who continued to bounce the leaf up and down in his tiny hands. "What do you think?" Shinta bit his lip in thought as he tilted his head, closing his eyes as he lowered it to the ground and ran his right hand over the surface of the leaf, his mind clearing into darkness as he tried to imagine the shape, the colour, the consistency, and the size within the privacy of his own mind. The leaf giggled back at him, tickled by his tiny chubby fingers, and it whispered strange words to him that made little sense and he repeated them to his mother who nodded at each one. He could feel great joy in the leaf, a very happy and spirited individual, and its tiny voice amplified in his mind as it laughed at his concentration.
"It's… happy," He said as his eyes fluttered open. His right hand was warm, the strange markings on his palm tingling, but it was a pleasant feeling that passed quickly. He had learned that when he pressed down on a leaf or a tree that he could see and hear things that his mother could not and was immediately drawn to touching everything in within a four meter radius of the hut to see if he could make his hand do the 'thing' again. When he had asked if everyone could do such a wondrous thing, his mother had shook her head and told him that he was very special.
"It's a lovely plant," His mother remarked as she gave him a flicker of a smile. "Did it say anything else to you?"
"No?" His faced scrunched up in concentration as he tried to recall the leaf and its infantile giggling. "It was just really, really happy." His mother's smile widened at his lacklustre description of the plant before she fished the leaf out of his hands and held it up to study. It was a beautifully shaped leaf, she herself having been impressed by it when she had been foraging earlier, and she was unsure as to what she could use it for as she contemplated it on the way home.
"Just like you, Shinta?" Her voice was soft and sweet, making him smile in return.
"Yeah," He answered proudly, his chin jutting outwards as the warm tingling in his right hand faded away into nothing. "I think I'm happier though!" He giggled, to which his mother tousled his hair in response before withdrawing her hand and stepping to the wash bucket where she had been washing and gutting fish for their dinner. Shinta always felt pained when she cleaned the creatures, swim bladders and blood made him quite ill, and he forced himself to eat meat knowing that she worked hard to get her hands on protein for them. He would try to tune out what he thought was crying and screams, his own eyes sealed shut as he would cover his delicate ears with his hands to block out the sound with little to no avail.
"Tell you what, can you get me some more water?" His mother asked as she reached for the tiny bucket she had crafted for him and held it out to Shinta. "We should have some sweet tea tonight, I think." Shinta's eyes lit up at the mention of the tea sweetened with honey and he accepted his bucket, making his way towards the door.
"Shinta! Don't go near the other houses, okay? Just get the water and come straight back," She warned as she gave him a stern look. Shinta bobbed his head, knowing the path that they tended to take to avoid the other villagers that, for some reason, cursed and spat at them when they had to venture close to the other dwellings. It made him horribly sad and he could not quite comprehend how so many people could be terrifically mean to his sweet mother who seemed to have nothing but infinite patience and a gentle soul that glowed a golden colour that he sometimes could see. He had heard them call her names like 'whore' and 'traitor', words that when he asked what they meant, were met with the response of: "Oh, Shinta, they're just not nice words to use."
Skipping down the sandy path that took him behind his and his mother's hut, Shinta hummed to himself as his feet covered ground quickly as he made his way towards the clean river that ran behind the village. His eyes took in the trees that lined the coast, tall and proud structures that spoke to him in booming voices and commanded his attention, and he promptly ignored their calls as he navigated the tricky sand of the hill, scrambling up its face as his bucket hit against his side. Cresting the hill and spotting the river through the trees, he scampered down the path quickly and clumsily, his red hair a differing contrast to the greens and browns of the forest.
"Hello, Mr. River! How are you?" He called out as he dropped down to the ground and began to dunk the bucket into the waters that saluted him and gurgled smugly, he himself giggling as he cleaned out the bucket from the last time it was used. The water swelled up to meet him, a gentle kiss of warm water brushing up against his arms, and he sighed happily as he allowed the water to speak to him candidly, praising him on how much bigger he looked since the last time he saw him. Shinta chided the water, saying it had only been a week, and the water lapped at his arm before he withdrew it from the slow currents of the river.
"Water for Momma please!" Shinta said in a amicable and childish voice as he dipped his hands into the river with the bucket, content to see that the river seemed to steer right into the confines of the bucket like a corralled animal. He waited until the bucket was full of the sweet drinking water before extracting it from the current, waving to the river as he shouted thanks and carefully hoisted the bucket into his arms, bracing himself against its weight. Grunting as he tottered from side to side momentarily, he straightened his back and began a much slower pace towards the hill that would lead him back down to their home.
As his chubby legs worked in a comically pathetic way, water sloshing within the bucket, he spotted the familiar thatched roof of the hut and grit his teeth as he readjusted his already precarious hold on the bucket. His arms were already sore from the heavier bucket but he inhaled as he slowly tried to pick his way down the mountain, only to come to a complete halt when he heard angry voices from the front of the house.
"We heard him talking to the river!" A heavy and gruff male voice protested, making Shinta retreat backwards a few hesitant steps. "He's an abomination! You damned Sympathizer whore of a woman!" Shinta could see his mother flinch momentarily, he himself peering at the exchange from the safety of the shadows behind the hut, and he remembered that his mother had told him to avoid these 'very bad men' because they could do 'very horrible things' to him if he was not cautious. He pressed himself flat against the back wall of the hut, holding his breath as he waited for his mother's response.
"He has not brought any plight upon the village," His mother's voice replied in an even and reasonable tone. "He is a child—he is incapable of hurting anyone."
"I don't care if he's a fucking child: he is not one of us! And you harbour him within your home! Damned woman, you should be stoned for your insolence," Another male voice chimed in, Shinta not recognizing its owner but knew it probably belonged to one of the villagers. "We see him talking to the trees! Trees! That is not natural! Central was right when they said that the Sympathizers would only bring plague and troubles!"
"What plague has a small child brought?" His mother asked firmly. "He already is isolated from the village and we do not venture there unless absolutely necessary. What more can you want from us?"
"Get rid of the damned brat, turn him loose like they did to the other one down the coast," The first man replied angrily as Shinta heard something wooden slam against the ground. "These damned children have been nothing but failures! He may not have a defect or be dead and buried, but I'll be damned if he's allowed to stay in our village. You don't know what he will become as he grows."
"Then damn you to hell," His mother contested hotly as she braced herself against the doorway of their home. "He has done nothing wrong! If you recall, you all agreed to me being offered as a volunteer to see if we could protect humanity! Or am I wrong?" Her voice was rising in octaves and Shinta felt his breath hitch at such an angry tone from his normally placid and tranquil mother. It frightened him to hear such a harrowing tone to her voice, knowing how docile and sweet she was, and he wanted to do nothing more than burst forth and come to defend her from the 'very bad men'.
"We only agreed because your husband was dead by then and we had no one else so foolish as to pass their lives into the hands of such vile creatures," The first man's voice hissed in a serpentine manner. "Surely had he been living he would have objected to you offering your body to those from the other side!" The sound of a harsh slapping noise cut him off as his mother's hand made heavy contact with his ruddy cheek, her hand suspended in the air as her shoulders rose and fell from the adrenaline of having struck the man. Her tiny figure was truly dwarfed and she was red in the face as her growing ire finally was released.
"Do not speak of my husband like that, how dare you," She breathed angrily through grit teeth, the words whistling. "You know nothing! Nothing!" Her hands balled into fists as she tightened her stance in the doorway, determined to fend off the intrusive villagers from the safe haven she had forged with her hands for her child.
"Foolish wretch," The second man growled as he moved forward, arms stretched out, and shoved Shinta's mother hard, knocking her to her knees. She glared upwards at them, making a move to rise to her feet before the thick soled boot connected with her gut in a horrifying blow. She doubled over in pain, the air knocked out of her small body, and her hands clutched at her stomach as Shinta closed his eyes and willed himself to not cry out and go running to his mother. Her breathing was ragged and her tunic soiled with the thick sandy caulk of the man's boot, reduced to nothing on the doorstep of their home.
"If you do not protect our interests than we will do it ourselves," He said harshly as he gave her a scathing look before turning his back on the fallen figure of Shinta's mother. "Humanity cannot afford to be compromised and he will be nothing but a curse upon our village."
"He's a child," She rasped as she regained enough of her breath to speak.
"Be him child or adult, it matters not to us," The first man said as he cradled the cheek that had been struck by her hand. "His existence is a bastardization of what humans are and he will only serve to cause us problems. Fix this before we have to do it ourselves." He, too, turned his back on the woman and took a few halting steps away from their home, now tainted by their actions, and he looked back momentarily before uttering, "What a pity that it has to be this way. You were not like this a few years ago." His gaze hardened as his shoulders slumped, but he looked away and muttered under his breath, the other man drawing up next to him as they lumbered towards the rest of the settlement.
Shinta had long since relaxed his grip on the bucket, his tiny hands barely holding onto the handle, but his attention was on his mother. He was in utter shock that someone would hurt someone much smaller and much less threatening than themselves, his ears still pounding from hearing how his mother's body hit the ground. His chest was expanding and contracting as he tried to control his breathing, not wanting to call attention himself in case the men decided to have a change of heart and return to their home. Shinta's eyes were blurred with the tears, the vibrant violet colour darkening as he mood shifted. He had never seen his mother raise her voice or speak in such a manner and it frightened him to his core: there was something that made him want to curl up next to her and cry, her warm embrace the sanctuary that it always had been. He did not want her to be hurt by 'the very bad men', he wanted for the two of them to be left alone.
After a few long minutes that dragged out longer than humanly possible, he emerged from behind the house after having wiped his tears as best as he could, trotting around to the front door. She was still sprawled on the ground but had managed to calm herself and right her face. There was a disturbed look to her eyes, one that Shinta himself picked up on immediately, and she did not look his way until he was practically standing in front of her.
"Momma?"
"Hey, baby boy," She replied slowly, her eyes blinking ghoulishly as she gave him a ghostly smile that did not touch her eyes. "Sorry, I fell over." Her voice was controlled and he felt his heart drop knowing that she was lying, his six year old brain picking up on that without any hesitation, and he gave her a baffled look. Shinta deposited the bucket onto the ground and went to his mother who accepted him into her arms without rising from the ground. Her hands rested on his small back as he tucked his face into her shoulder, her warm body still comforting to him as he tried to ignore her racing heartbeat that thumped angrily in his ears.
They sat that way for a few more minutes before he peeled himself away, her arms falling down as she pushed herself to her feet and gave him a fleeting smile before retreating into the house. Shinta stared at her shrinking back as she vanished into the shadowed interior of their home, he himself still shaken deeply by the men's words towards her and, indirectly, him.
"We should really cut your hair," She said as she turned to her fifteen year old son as she wiped her hands on the front of her greying and yellowed tunic. Shinta lifted his head from the basket of plants that he had been mindlessly sorting, his red hair hanging over his shoulders loosely in crimson cascades of unbridled waves. He was dressed in loose pants and a loose shirt that was way too big for him, but he insisted that it kept him cool in the warm coastal weather.
"Really?"
"Maybe," His mother replied as she gave him a bemused look. "Although it's such a beautiful colour it would be a real shame." Shinta gave her an amused chuckle as he plucked the last leaves from the basket and grouped them with their pairs, setting the basket aside. Rising to his feet, he was only a scant few inches taller than his mother at this age. He had grown significantly over the last nine years, his small boyish frame slowly coming into itself as his muscles formed and his stance straightened. They still lived in the same hut that was set apart from the others but it had been improved as Shinta learned how to fix certain things with his own hands and the few tools they owned.
"I could pull it back," Shinta said slowly as he reached for his hair and bunched it into his fist, pulling it to the nape of his neck.
"That doesn't look too bad," His mother replied as she tilted her head. "I have some scrapes of cloth you can use to hold it in place." Shinta nodded as he released his hair, letting it fall around his shoulders again.
"I have to go to the village again—we've run out of flour and salt," She said with a sigh as she ran her hands through her hair. "I should get a bit more so we don't have to go down there again for awhile."
"I'll go," Shinta said softly, he himself eager to stretch his legs and walk a bit. Despite the relative isolation of their home and their freedom to roam the beaches and the forest that flanked the coast in a green embrace, he often yearned for an excuse to travel a bit closer to the village. Curiosity plagued him from time to time, despite him being aware of the villagers' hostility towards him and his mother, but he rarely had contact with other individuals and even just the civil pleasantries of buying staples for their home was a welcomed break from the lonely ambiance of their home.
"Oh, don't worry about it, I can do it," His mother countered as she reached for the wicker basket she used for shopping, which was quickly fished out of her arms. "Shinta—"
"—It's too heavy if you're going to buy more than you normally do," He reasoned as he tucked the basket under his arm. "I don't mind, really." She gave him a critical look before relenting with a sigh of defeat, handing over the small pouch of coins that they had. They had a tiny trickle of income from her medicinal blends she sold to the village doctor, one of the few people who seemed to tolerate their presence, and while they lived frugally and were fairly self sufficient, they still needed to purchase things that they could not produce for themselves.
"Try to be back before sundown," She requested as she glanced out the singular window of their home. He turned his gaze to the window and calculated he had enough time to make his way down to the village and back without any hassles, and he gave her a departing nod. Stepping into his sandals that were a bit big for him, he opened the fragile door to their house and slipped out into the warm and balmy afternoon, the breeze whispering through his hair and singing a soft chant that made him swivel his head around to survey his surroundings.
Since that day his mother had been approached in their home about his bizarre interactions with nature, Shinta had ceased to speak to the river or the forest, only allowing himself the luxury to do so when they were in the privacy of their home. His mother brought freshly cut flowers that hummed sweet melodies that touched his heart, leaves that were orators, and plants that were troubadours testifying to their observations of the natural world. The great creatures that shared their lands would nod at him in acknowledgement, calling out to him—only to be ignored coldly by the red head incase there were unsavoury eyes watching him from a distance. They would cry out louder, threats or exclamations, but he concluded it was much more viable for him to continue under his veil, willing them to cease their shouting and to leave him in peace. The forest did not take kindly to that, protesting that he was them as well and shunning his kin was unacceptable in their invisible eyes.
Taking a loping gait down the beat up path that trailed down the coast before diverging into the village, Shinta kept his head bowed when he crossed paths with other villagers. Most times he was ignored or given an angry glare, other times someone would call out something disparaging about himself or his mother. Long gone were the days where Shinta did not understand the meaning of the word, 'whore', but the words that hurt most were 'traitor' and 'renegade'. They were harsh words that came from the villagers' mouths as they lowered his mother's standing in society to the lowest rungs on the ladder. There were words also aimed at him: 'monster', 'bastard', and 'half-breed' that lost their edge over time but still occasionally stung. Words that were flung at him with the intent of demeaning him, a constant reminder that he was not one of them. Shinta felt little regard towards the villagers, opting to try and live quietly with his mother whose aged face showed the stress lines each time insults were hurled at her.
Approaching the village's small market, he attracted more stares as his red hair stood out against the sea of dark haired individuals whose eyes trained upon him immediately. Moving discretely through the narrow passageway, Shinta made his rounds to the stalls as he silently fished out the coins and only uttered the quantities he wished to purchase. The merchants often tried to short change him, knowing he would not dare to say anything against them lest he provoke a scene in a busy area, and they would drop his change unceremoniously into his left hand. The packaging of the salt and flour was done carelessly, not seemingly preoccupied if the goods spilled about, and Shinta took to tucking them carefully away to avoid further losing any more than what they had paid for with his mother's hard earned money.
His shoulders would be knocked into by the bigger men, but he kept his head down as he tried to tune out their mutterings, moving from stall to stall as he sought out the better things to purchase if the merchant was willing to sell to him. Shinta knew that his mother had, had the same issues: one older merchant had even screamed that she refused to sell to someone whose betrayal to the village left her seething. He clung to the basket as he finished the last bit of shopping, the heavy salt that they favoured on the Eastern coast, and slowly made his way towards the path that would lead him back to their home.
Shinta's ears were buzzing with the annoying chatter of the winds and the trees that ringed the outer perimeter of the village, their squeaking and squawking permeating his brain as he tried desperately to silence it. They were anxious about something, he could scent it on the wind, and there was a heavy hint of despair as he drew closer and closer to the hut. The leaves were rustling nervously and even the waves were trying to speak to him, crashing urgently against the beach as he walked parallel to their sea. Shinta's pupils contracted at the cacophony that was making his gut wretch and spiking his own anxiety as something seemed off the closer he was to their hut. The wind cut at his cheeks angrily, screeching at him to the point it was too much for him to ignore and their misconstrued words spurred him to move faster as the sinking in his gut clued him into the ominous hue that the world was taking on as his feet pattered heavily against the sand that seemed to cling to him, desperately trying to hold him back.
He came to a crashing halt a mere few meters from his house, his scenes haywire as his head jerked up and a coppery smell invaded his nose. It was the same smell that made his insides churn when his mother cleaned fish: the smell of blood oozing from cut flesh, freshly subjected to the sharp edge of her knife as it sliced through delicate flesh to discard it away. The smell of tendons and ligaments cut away with the sharpened blade came to mind, the raw and sickening smell of slaughter something that still unsettled his stomach at the mere thought of it. It was a scent that he had come to learn how to tolerate as his mother had accepted he would not stomach eating flesh but still ate herself. Shinta had taken to leaving the hut or forcing a polite smile as she worked at the task, the unbearable scents provoking an unease sensation within him that was appealing to something much more feral and untamed than his normally calm exterior seemed to balk at in resistance to its encroaching tendrils that threatened to wrap around the last fragments of control.
His basket fell to the ground as he took determined steps forward, the products spilling over the sandy ground, yet he paid no heed to it. Reaching outwards, he flattened his palm as he shoved open the door and let out a wretched animalistic cry at the scene before him.
His mother's unmoving form was sprawled on the mats, her limbs twisted as though her arms had been broken in a cruel afterthought. The mats were stained a reddish-brown from the blood that spilled from the gashes on her legs, her neck, and her stomach—her clothes soiled and reeking of death mixed with that sickly cocktail of blood and tears as she had been abandoned, left to perish on the floor. Her hair was tangled, fanning out over her shoulders and face, the strands mixing with the blood on the floor and matting it to her body. Her skin was pale and lacked its usual rosy colour from being sunkissed after hanging the laundry or collecting plants and it looked to be greying. Her dark eyes were still open but they were expressionless and void of any reaction, her mouth open as though it were in mid-gasp.
Her tiny body seemed to be consumed by the prison of the hut where she had been slain, a cruel place to be left to bleed out alone knowing that eventually her last surviving blood would find her in such a way. The patterns on the floor clued him into the fact that she had struggled to drag herself towards the door but had failed, and Shinta assumed that whoever had decided to commit such an act of murder acted out and broke her arms to avoid her grasping to the last minimal chance of survival. Shinta could make out the bruising on her body, having been beaten by heartless fists, and there was a nasty blue-black bruise blossoming on her cheek that screamed signs of initial abuse before the situation escalated.
"Mother," He whispered harshly, knowing that the answer would be voiceless, as he closed in on her body and was unsure as if to move her or not. He sank down onto his knees, staining his pants in his own mother's blood, and he reached up with trembling fingers to brush away the few strands from her face, her skin cold and her soulless gaze making him shiver horribly. Shinta felt his mind blank as the dark spots crept into his vision, his world shifting dangerously as all the oppressed disdain for the villagers' behaviour and treatment towards his mother and himself came flooding through a gate that had been forced open by an unseen force that seemed to egg him onto the troubled side of his personality that he had taken great pains to cloak from his mother to avoid making her fret over him.
Too angry and enraged to cry, his eyes narrowed as he immediately knew who would have done such a treacherous thing to an innocent woman whose actions fifteen years prior came back to haunt her. Shinta slowly withdrew his hand from her body, but not before respectfully closing her eyes so that she did not have to even witness the change in his demeanour, and he sat back with his shoulder blades pressed painfully against the wall as he allowed the shadows to wash over his body, hiding his face from the world. The cries of the forest had simmered down but they were still present in his mind and he could make out images of branches and leaves twisting around each other, a silvery thread tightening as pressure was applied and forced it to stretch beyond its means. They were calling out to him in a chorus of voices whose words made little sense to human ears yet he could pick out their meaning as his own body stilled as every muscle tensed, his mind flurrying with hurried activity that overwhelmed him as the sounds that he tried to tune out from the other side struck up a chaotic orchestra within his mind and he was forced to listen to their pleads.
The last beads of sunlight that dripped through the window illuminated his mother's body but highlighted the fragility of humans: Shinta knew he was different since his mother's gentle explanations only spoke about how extraordinary he was and how he was a blessing and a gift from the gentle hands of the other side. He had been injured one day, his attempts at cutting wood to help his mother build up their stock for the cooler winters, when a slip of his hand had dropped the crudely made ax onto his barefoot and the blade had cut significantly into his foot. His mother had been hysterical when he had limped into the house, leaving a steady stream of blood in his wake, but she had gone silent as she cleaned his wound carefully and saw that the skin was already healing over and scabbing. By the next day, his wound had been fully healed and a thin line of a scar remained. In that moment he had become aware that his body was different from that of his mother, who had experienced her fair share of painful cuts that took days to heal over, and he realized that the human body was a fragile thing that was so easily broken compared to his own.
As Shinta sat amongst the shadows, his mother's body was a stark reminder but even he was left unsure as to if he himself would have been able to survive such a brutal attack.
Night slowly crawled across the sky, darkening the hut and allowing the pale moonlight to come in through the window, casting a ballet of shadows over the two still figures within the bowels of the hut. Shinta was vigilant, refusing to close his eyes to sleep, as he waited and watched his mother's body, unsure as to what he was supposed to do. Even the moon was calling out to him softly, a gentle feminine voice encouraging him to leave behind everything as the village held nothing for him, and to journey far away from the very people who had damned him and his mother to such a life. As tempting as the moon's words of offering were, Shinta refused to budge from his spot against the wall as peered through the darkness and stared at nothingness and everything at the same time.
It was only in the early hours when the sound of footsteps approaching that he dared to move, his pupils retracted into tiny pin pricks in dark violet eyes that had lost their humanity as he rose to his feet to meet those who dared to return. His hands were exposed, flat against his thighs, and his shoulders were shaking heavily as he willed himself to control the urge to lash out first—refusing to give into the beastly temptation to strike down those who had dared to take out the one individual who loved him and only showed him kindness in an environment that was staunchly against him. His soiled garments and haggard eyes would dissuade many from coming close, but the three men from the village kept walking closer and closer. Shinta caught flashes and glints of their blades in the rising sun, the metal not having been cleaned from the last time they had struck human flesh with the intention of killing. He was unwavering as he stood his ground as his eyes finally met those to whom he had bowed his head to try and hide, respecting his mother's wishes.
His right hand was tingling as though he were grasping fire between his fingers, the burning sensation slowing travelling up his hand as it heated the fires of ire that burned within him. Shinta felt something growing within his very core, his very essence, and while it was frightening to even contemplate whatever was brewing within him. It was as though the fire was enveloped in electricity, charging his muscles and limbs as it crawled towards his chest, and he felt an odd sense of invincibility that came with such an odd feeling. The forest was quaking behind him, the leaves rustling nervously as they picked up on the rage that was building up within the red haired teen, and the ocean had gone deathly still as it waited in anticipation to see what he was going to do.
"Fucking kid." He was greeted by the stockiest of the three men who spat into the sand, grinning to reveal a mouth missing a few teeth.
"Now your Momma can't help ya," said the shortest of the three, one of the two men that had originally approached his mother all those years ago.
"You knew it was a matter of time," The oldest of the three said, his grip on his blade adjusting as it clinked ominously against the metal catch it was resting upon. "You're a liability. A freak—you are not and never were welcomed here, yet you stayed. This is the price that we settled on." Shinta's eyes flared at that statement, a heavy accusation that gave way to the idea that this had not been an arbitrary decision but one that had been carefully planned with time on the villagers' side. His sight narrowed as he saw red, something within him unleashing the last chains of restraint that caved way as they fell from the beast that roared angrily within him.
"Must feel like real shit, eh? Your momma dead because of you," The short man said with a grim look as he decided to play the game of imposing guilt upon the youth. "Should have left when you had a chance—we could have done something with her, I reckon." His words were provocative and Shinta had long lost the innocence of not understanding the more subtle reaches of human language as he knew exactly what they had been referring to with such disgusting rhetoric. Another tendril of control broke away from him as the words he had defected sunk into the very motor that was revving higher and higher, feeding mistrust and rage that spread painfully through his body at uncontrollable velocities that he had never experienced in his young life.
"No one was gonna touch her," The stocky one protested as he flicked his blade to bounce the rays of sunrise on the metal surface. "No one likes a used woman."
"It matters not to speak of the deceased," The oldest one said dismissively as he focused his tired gaze on the form of the red haired teen that was watching them with a hateful and spiteful look dominating his expression. "We took the decision that benefited the village. These are harsh times to be living in as humanity struggles to stumble forward. Sympathizers are to blame for this, of course, and your bothersome mother was no exception by bringing you into this world—nothing more than a curse to us. Nothing more than a waste, lowering herself to be tainted by those blasted creatures from the other side under a stupid guise to try and advance humanity. Stupidity was her dead, not our blades."
Shinta's brow twitched at the mere accusation that it was anything but the trio of men that slaughtered his mother while she was left defenceless and his hands balled into fists. His mind focused on the burning in his right hand and he could imagine the energy gathering into the palm of his hands, thorned vines creeping up into his mind's eye as he envisioned them wrapping around the bodies of the men and strangling them savagely, the pointed thorns digging into their flesh and making them suffer as his mother had as she bled out by herself on the musty floor of their hut. The warmth in his hand sparked even more at the images dancing behind his eyes and something was spurring him on to channel whatever electrical sensation he was feeling into his thoughts, letting it bloom like a flower poking out from the blood soaked earth that they all walked.
"You were never suppose to inhabit this earth with us," The elder man said solemnly as he released his blade from the catch at his hip, holding the blade up in an offensive stance. "As one of the elders tasked with protecting our village's interests, I must comply with the decisions made to ensure our survival."
"They let you live too long, brat," The stocky man spat as he held up his own blade aggressively, his foot digging into the earth. Shinta's eyes slid over to him as he watched him and the shorter man slowly close in on his unmoving frame, he himself allowing them to draw closer to him. The warmth in his hand was blazing as he finally felt his instincts kick in, instincts long since oppressed within him that were primal in nature and forced him to decide who lived in this moment and who perished. A heady trial that he had never once anticipated despite the warning signs surrounding him and he closed his eyes as the two men grew within striking distance.
Just as they were about to take the step that would have allowed their blades to slice and pierce through his young flesh, striking vital organs to attempt to bring him to his knees, the earth erupted around them as angry plants and their spiked thorns emerged from the confines of the earth. They wrapped their thick vines around the two men, halting them and dug into the vulnerable human flesh that quickly changed in colour as the thorns sank into their muscles and limbs. Their gasps and screeches as the vines refused to yield their hold on their bodies, only tightening more as they struggled viciously against the hold upon them, and Shinta could only hear the forest's cheers and the ocean's tentative calls of encouragement as a vast well of spiritual power rippled through the area, the Earth herself shuddering at the realization that the child had woken his slumbering powers in a fit of silent rage. The thorns shredded the limbs and the torsos of the men, their screeches turning into anguished snarls and screams before they were reduced to pathetic whimpering and then silence.
"Beast," The older man rasped as he watched as Shinta sank onto one knee, his body trembling fiercely from such an expenditure of energy and a body that was not used to such a strong form of magic that was swirling around within him. The old man took cautious steps towards the red headed teen, the now unrecognizable bodies of his fellow men slumping within the tangle of thorns and vines as their lifeless eyes stared at him accusingly, and he raised his blade with an air of uncertainty.
"You should have never been born, you have no place amongst us—you're not of man yet you're not of the others either," He spoke in controlled intervals as he glowered down at the teen whose angry violet glare challenged him despite his body betraying him, not allowing him to flee in the most crucial moment of this encounter. "Cursed since birth, consider this a parting favour."
The elder used the edge of the blade to draw a crooked line down Shinta's cheek, the edge cutting lightly into the flesh as a thin line was engraved onto his cheek. The youth was unmoving as he felt the cold steel bite into his flesh before it came to rest on the juncture of his clavicle and neck. His breathing was quieted as the cool metal quivered against him, the old man seemingly afraid of whatever may come, and his violet stare iced over as flickers of molten gold amber crept into his pupils—a stare that the elder had only seen in the vizinhos when he cared enough to look them in the eye. There was something primitive to the red head's stare, the eyes of a predator who had a cruel upper hand and he swore he was staring into the soul of the devil as his wrinkled and liver-spotted hands gripped the hilt of the blade, slowly driving it into the boy's neck before it was knocked from his hands in a bright angry flash of dazzling white light.
Shinta's body reacted violently as the light engulfed his form, warming him and prompting him to his feet as he watched the old man's blade disintegrate before the light washed over the elder's body, reducing it to fine dust as his wide eyed stare faded into nothingness. Shinta rose to his feet as the light died away quickly, thousands of shards of reflective light raining down upon him and the now-dead men whose bodies were finally released from the thorns as they, too, disintegrated and turned into nothing. The burning in his right hand was painful, the strange markings oozing a red puss like substance, and the sensation traveled up his arm as it scorched his flesh from within and made him wince in pain as he tried to comprehend what was happening and what he had done. The two corpses would be enough to implicate him and yet he could not abandon his mother's body—but with nowhere to go or to even transport her remains, he felt his soul ripped into two as he let out an agonizing bellow that originated from deep within his rage and frustration at the world.
Turning slowly to look at the hut that he knew he was being forced to be abandoned, his mind grew weary and fuzzy as the energy was sapped from his body. He took careful steps towards the structure, his feet sinking into the sand as he heard the ocean murmur to itself in awe and fear of him. Shinta's eyes slid over to the sea that had resumed letting the waves lap against the beach, the reflective glass surface catching the angry red and orange colours from the sun that seemed hesitant to peek fully over the horizon in his presence. He was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to curl up and sleep but he knew he had to tend to his fallen mother before he allowed himself the opportunity to rest and formulate a plan to prolong his own safety. His body was buzzing with an unknown high as whatever burned his hand and arm refused to die down and he grunted as he turned back to the hut and slowly entered the structure that was now housing the tortured soul of a human life that had been unjustly taken from her.
"Momma," He said quietly, reverting back to the childish way he used to address her before he decided to refer to her as 'mother'. There was something in that singular word that coaxed a strangled whimper from him as the tears that had not fallen before welled up in his violet stare. He was mortified by everything that had happened around him and by the very destructive force that he himself had controlled as he was backed into a metaphorical corner. Shinta had wanted to live quietly with his mother on the coast, enjoying life and her company until the Earth reclaimed her, but that had been violently snatched away from him and had destabilized his entire world as he felt the misery and the loneliness rise up within him like a tidal wave and refused to recede.
Shinta felt his knees knock together as he realized that he had very little time before they would come for him again and he needed to ensure that his mother's soul passed onto the other side without further delay. Struggling as he ripped a sheet from the ratty cupboard, he lovingly draped it over her pale and lifeless body, unable to cast his gaze over the wounds that had taken her life as it slowly bled out over the floor. Covering her from head to toe, he reached for a few of the more decorative leaves and plants that they had gathered the previous morning and he carefully scattered them around her body, whispering and begging for forgiveness as his hands shook nervously and terribly from the task he was carrying out. He once more reached out to grasp her cold and frigid hand in his, squeezing it as he folded it within his much larger ones and pleaded for her to have a safe crossing to wherever her soul would be taken.
Stepping away without looking back at her body, to avoid falling in the temptation of curling up next to her and letting them massacre his own body that would try to heal in a last ditch attempt to conserve he cursed life, Shinta closed the door behind him and rested his back against it momentarily. Taking ragged breaths that racked his entire body, he clutched at the few things he had pilfered from their house before he pushed away from the hut.
Kneeling down by the tiny garden that they maintained to sustain themselves, he stared at the flint stones that he had used countless times to stoke and breath life into fires before he scraped them together. The sparks flew from the stones and he kept working at them persistently, only satisfied when a small flame flowered up in the beds of onions and potatoes that he had been tending to just a few days prior, and the flame bowed in grace as it spread its fingers through the garden and allowed its territory to grow. The garden was set alight as it burned and gave off a weird mixture of smells before the flames gracefully leapt to the wooden frame that made the base of the hut, climbing its way up the side quickly as the wood creaked and groaned, consumed by the red hot heat of the fire under the watchful gaze of the red head.
The angry shouts from far off brought him a cruel reminder that he had to make his own escape, but Shinta folded his pained hands together in a makeshift and rudimentary prayer to some unknown deity high above as he begged for his mother's soul to be pardoned for any trespasses. His eyes caught the fire, an almost malicious look to their violet hues, and he watched as the hut began to emit a black smoke. The sweet smell that invaded his nose confirmed his intentions as he felt another choked sob try to escape through his lips, but he steeled his nerves as he refused to let it come crying through the dawn-lit sky. The forest itself wept in his place, its trees seeming to sag sadly at the realization that the one human that had shown the boy born from careless experimentation of crossing both plains was to be left alone and to defend himself with no one to love him or hold him in the darkness of the night.
Shinta could hear the cries through the chaos and he turned his eyes to the forest, understanding that it offered to shelter him for the time being to allow his body to recover from this ordeal that he had never wanted to happen. His red hair was tangled and his body was filthy and tired, but he relented as he took hesitant steps away from the hut, a silent goodbye escaping his lips as he felt the forest's words wrap around his mind and coax him to its protective embrace. The sea called out sadly to him, its waters uneasy, but the forest staved off the ocean's insistence and waited patiently for the boy to crawl into its territory to close his eyes and allow his body teaming with magic from the other side the required rest it needed.
Slowly ambling through the forest as he heard the villagers' cries and shouts at the discovery of the two men riddled with bloody ribbons of flesh and muscle, Shinta tuned them out as he allowed his head to dial into the voices that he had long since ignored to protect himself and his mother. He allowed himself to become lost in the expanse of forest, the trees bending over to shelter him gently, his feet plodding over the ground littered with leaves, branches, and grasses that rubbed up against him in sorrow. He could feel hundreds of eyes watching him from the cover of the foliage and he knew that the creatures were watching him, a few cautious words flung his way as they acknowledged his presence and allowed him to cross their lands in recognition of who he was.
He wandered as far as his battered body could take him before he crawled up to the base of a large camphor tree and rested his back against the trunk. Shinta lifted his right arm and extended his hand upwards, staring at the impressive burns that spidered up his arm and reached his elbow. It was a network of red and puckered flesh that was blistering angrily on the topography of his skin and the weird markings he had, had since birth were fading to their normal colour. It was intensely painful and in the moment of respite he was permitted, he was forced into awareness of just how much it smarted and he groaned as he tried to close his fist but it hurt too much to do. Letting his arm fall to his side, he bowed his head forward as he closed his eyes and forced his body to go lax as the forest blanketed him in a protective cloak that fended off the curious eyes that had gathered to drink in the sight of him.
Shinta's departing thought before he slipped into complete darkness was that his mother's words of him being a blessing had slowly morphed into his existence being a curse; left alone full of regret for having gone to the market and guilt-heavy speculation that led to nowhere as he gave way and drifted into a deep sleep.
A/N: Thus we begin the fourth 'book', the "Book of Origins" as to how Kenshin or 'Shinta' lived before he lost his memory the first time. This is only the first part, we will move to a secondary part in the next chapter which explores him as a young adult. This part of the story is going to be fairly heavy in terms of how things tie together, so thank you for staying with me thus far. :)
Until next time, don't forget to leave a review!