Chapter 5: Chapter 5: DREAMS

Sagiri stood in a vast desert, yet his feet remained suspended. It felt like a dream and reality woven one. He was standing in that place, yet he wasn’t. This was not the first time he had had the dream. He always dreamt of places he hadn’t been to yet, places he felt familiar with. Sometimes when he woke up, he couldn’t tell what was real and what wasn’t. The dreams had started when he turned twelve, and they had gotten more surreal and more intense as years went by. Since he turned sixteen, everything turned from bad to worse, and he couldn’t remember the last time he slept peacefully.

Tonight, he was back in the desert yet again. He was standing, yet his feet remained suspended. A throne of sand sat before him. It looked ragged and old, as if it were on the verge of collapse. From it, four paths diverged, and they all begged him to walk them, yet just like any other day, he did not know which path to take. On the throne sat a beautiful woman, she looked sad and anxious, on her body she bore the same marking patterns as him. She also looked like him. Like his mother. He had long known that his parents were not his biological parents, yet he still loved them and never once did he miss his real parents. He had never met them, and he did not know why they were not with him. He knew his parents kept it a secret, thinking he was too young to understand, and he had learnt to let things be. ’Mom?’ He opened his mouth to call her involuntarily, but no sound came out.

The woman’s mouth kept moving, but no sound came out. As she grew more anxious, the desert around them grew uneasy, and it screamed like a living creature. The voice was horrific, and Sagiri tried to wake himself to get away, but he couldn’t. He saw a shadow army marching north, emerging in thousands out of the dunes, cities in the north collapsed by their hand, and their fury struck fear in his heart, yet he felt kinship with them. The four colleges of the north collapsed, and the united tribes were overthrown. The woman yelled with tears of blood. “Choose, child of memory. Choose who you will destroy.” Then the dream ended, and he shot up on his sleeping mat, sweat dripping down his back. The hut was dark except for the faint glow emanating from the marks on his body that were rearranging themselves into a message he couldn’t yet read. ’Who am I?’ he thought to himself.

“What am I?” He asked loudly, looking at the markings on his body, which were glowing in the dark. “Why does the desert whisper to me, and why do I bear these cursed marks on my body. One thing was for sure. He had answers, and he was not going to get them hiding in the small village. Perhaps there was someone out there like him. Sometimes the desert whispers like wind over stone, and sometimes it hums as if it were alive, yet tonight it screamed with urgency.

He wiped sweat from his brow. His heartbeat thudded like a drum inside his skull. The dream still clung to him, the picture of the throne of sand was still fresh in his memories, and her words, “Choose who you will destroy,”

still repeated themselves in his head. He never understood his dreams, and he did not have an explanation for them.

Sagiri shivered.

The desert far, far beyond the village pulsed with heat. He could hear voices in the wind. It was far beyond where he had ever been, yet he could feel it, its echoes, its warnings, and the memories it held that did not belong to him. Yet it still called to him, a place he had never been to, called to him.

“Another nightmare?” Rusha’s voice floated from the doorway. Her silhouette was small, wrapped in a faded shawl. But he could hear her heart beating too fast. He always could. She always came to check on him every night with a cup of water. She always showed concern, but she did not know how to help him.

“Yes,” he whispered.

She stepped inside and knelt beside him, pressing a cool cloth to his brow. Her hands trembled. “You don’t need to worry, they will come to pass,” she said softly. But the lie in her voice quivered like a snapped string. He, however, didn’t call her out. He never did.

Outside, suddenly, footsteps crunched on the dry soil. Sagiri felt them before he heard them. He must have been distracted by his dreams and missed them. There were more than one pair. They were swift, heavy, measured, trained, and they had come in numbers. Sagiri stiffened. Rusha’s eyes widened only slightly. But that was enough.

“They’re here,” she whispered. Sagiri had known they could come for him one day, and contrary to his parents’ fear, deep down he waited for them. he knew they knew something about him when he had encountered them at twelve. If he wanted answers on who he was, they were the perfect place. He could let them have whatever they sought from him, and in exchange, he would get answers about who he was and why he was different. It was a win-win situation.

A knock thundered on the main door, three loud official strikes. Bakuru’s voice came from the other side of the door, rough and tense. “Sagiri, get dressed! Quickly!” However, before Sagiri could move a muscle, the door was thrown off its hinges with force. Northern officials stepped inside, armed to the teeth, wrapped in dark cloaks, faces shadowed, and bearing the emblem of the Ten Schools Selection Council. ’Enemy,’ the archive inside him warned, but he ignored it. This time, he wanted something from them, so he ignored the warning. The feeling of fear surrounded them, and he could almost taste it on his lips. They feared him, and he wanted to know why. Even for picking an aged recruit for the high school enrollment, it was a bit excessive.

The tallest of them scanned Sagiri with a gaze that felt like a knife. He smelled of fear, but he kept it in check, unlike his minions, who were holding a defensive position as if they were facing a powerful and volatile enemy. “There is a youth of this house,” the official said. “He is to be evaluated for potential aged student enrollment.”

Rusha swallowed in fear, and it made Sagiri angry that they scared his mother. He rubbed her arm to reassure her before standing to his feet. The officials swallowed and moved back on instinct. Bakuru stepped forward, jaw tight, placing himself between Sagiri and the tallest one, who looked like the leader.

“He is not interested,” the older man murmured.

“It is not your decision,” the official replied.

Sagiri suddenly felt a vibration under his feet, not from the officials but from the sand itself responding to the rising panic in the room and his slight anger. It had responded to his anger a second ago. The official’s eyes narrowed, studying him. He had felt the tremor, and he feared that the situation to escalate.

“Boy,” he said quietly. “Come with us please. We have orders to pick you up. Corporate with us.” His tone was firm, but Sagiri did not miss the fear in his voice.

“Wait outside, I need to talk to my parents first.” His voice held calmness beyond his ears, and after a long pause, the official signaled the others to move outside. After the last of them had stepped outside, Sagiri pulled his clothes, covering every inch of his skin. The officials might have missed the markings on his body because it was dark inside, even as it approached morning, yet he, as much as he wanted to know who he was, he did not want to reveal too much too soon.

“Sagiri, I’m sorry I didn’t protect you,” Rusha’s eyes filled with tears as he pulled him into a hug. “I wanted to tell you everything, but they came too soon, my child,” she wailed, and her sadness washed over Sagiri, making him emotional, but his mind was made. He needed to leave to find answers. Bakuru stood quietly beside his wife, but Sagiri could still feel his deep sadness. He could always feel the deep emotions when one was around him.

“Don’t smother the boy, he is just going to school, he’ll be back.” Bakuru urged his wife while peeling her off of Sagiri.

“I’ll be back, mother, father.” He said slowly, feeling emotional about leaving the only place he knew as home. His parents might have kept secrets from him, but they weren’t malicious, and he knew that. He touched his forehead to the back of his parents’ hands before he walked out, not looking back. As he followed the officials, however, for a moment, Sagiri looked back at the only home he had ever known. Rusha’s tear-filled eyes. Bakuru’s unspoken warning. The desert wind howled like a wounded beast, and then the markings on his chest shifted again as if urging him forward.

He stepped toward the officials, and the world he knew ended.

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