{Night 01: His Name Is Malik}

I sighed, blinking up at the dusty sky.

My name is Malik. I'm thirteen years old, and live with my mother in one of the four Rotter villages. My father died when I was just a baby, from a poisoned dart. Since we had no idea what type of poison it was, we were unable to cure him, and he passed away. All that I have left of him is a full-finger silver ring that's too big for me. I keep it in my pocket until I'm ready to try it on.

My mother, Zahara, is considered one of the most beautiful women in our nameless shithole of a country. Kadar, my father, was the closest thing we had to a leader. There aren't many kids my age in my village, and I'm still so small that I'd have to run all day in order to make it to one of the others. My friends are Zaria and Hassan, magician-kids training under Master Alban, the healer and magician who served as midwife at my birth. They were at training right now, and I'd helped my mom with all the mandatory chores. So I was just sitting around being bored.

I scowled a bit, thinking of how easy other countries must've had it. Their only threats were probably war, from places like Partevia and Reim... but the Rotter-turf was totally ignored, both a blessing and a curse.

A blessing because no one wants to take us.

A curse because no one cared if we were taken as slaves.

It was my father who scared bandits, pirates and slavers away. He was our strongest warrior and greatest fighter, the smartest, strongest, fastest and best-trained. But some cheap-shot got a dart into his side while he was defending our border— yes, singular— from bandits. It was obviously drugged somehow, and in the end turned out to be coated in venom alien to us. He lived for a week, struggling to beat the poison, but eventually died. I was only two when that happened.

I sighed again, swinging my arms to heave myself up.

I'd left the boundaries of my village and was at the scummy beach. Our land is pretty much barren, and our beaches covered in trash and sludge. Our animals are almost nonexistent thanks to what a dump this place is.

Not really left with anything else to do, I shimmied out of my pants and walked into the rather yucky salt-water. If I was to swim out far enough, it cleared up a fair bit, but I started to worry about drifting away. I wasn't scared of being washed away, but it'd be a pain in the ass to get back home if I was. Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes to a squint and dove underwater.

I'm told that I swim like a dolphin, moving my entire body up and down in a rippling wave rather than stroking the way most people do. I suppose that's flattering. I'm not sure, since I've only seen dolphins once.

Reaching water that wasn't quite clear but was definitely cleaner than closer to the shore, I dove to the bottom.

I ran out of air the second I hit the gunk and trash-filled sand, and was forced to kick off and shoot to the surface. I burst through the water, almost totally leaping out, with a loud gasp. I treaded the water for a minute, inhaling and exhaling. Once I was sure my lungs had relaxed somewhat— they become tense and weary after deep-breath-diving— I gulped down another deep breath and went bottoms-up. Letting out the tiniest stream of bubbles from my mouth, I began to sift about the stuff in the gross sand. A crab I disturbed snapped his pincers at me, and I decided to scoop him up. Shooting back up to the surface, I held him over my head.

"Now look here, mister. If I'd been cranky, I would've just called you lunch and made a fire for it right here and now." I scolded. The crab snapped more at me despite the fact that I was holding him so he couldn't get me. Just because I was the tiniest bit grumpy at the moment, I gave him a slight shake and dove back down to put him back where I found him. Bobbing about three feet over to the left, I found a half-open box. Reaching in, I winced as something cut my finger.

Carefully, I wrapped my hand around the object and pulled it out. It was a knife, covered in crud and algae and sand.

Deciding that was a find enough for me, I returned to both the surface and the shore. It took me a moment to find my pants, and I double-checked to make sure my father's ring was still in my pocket before putting them on. The knife I'd found in my hand, I started back in the direction of home as I examined it. I couldn't make too many details out covered in crud the way it was, but it was about seven inches long, not including the handle. It didn't really have a crosspiece or anything to separate the blade from the hilt, just a little ridge where they'd been fused together. It felt like the handle was engraved with something, but it could've just been the layers of shit coating it.

I gave a small huff.

Other countries just treated us like trash. They shouldn't be able to do that. We were better than this knife and all the other shit everyone dumped here. We weren't their personal junkyard.

I wanted to change that, make everyone around us see just what Rotters were.

I huffed again, irritated.