Those That Tether

Chapter 5

Malik grabs my head with both of those huge hands of his and looks into my left ear.
"Like seriously, what you be havin' going on in here man? Rocket science?"
"H-hey stop it!" I say as I casually push him off of me.
He laughs casually.
"C'mon man, we got mining duty."
"Wait really, today's not our day though."
"Well apparently now it is so lets gooo." He says as he pulls me out of the seat I was so kindly sitting in, uninterrupted deep in thought.

Mining duty.
When I woke up from unconsciousness 8 years ago, a lot had changed while I was out.
All of the adults in the village had been taken away to another plantation, while our very own village had been turned into a plantation in itself. Divided into two, with the males on one side and the females on the other, the males handle a couple of things but mostly we handle something we call mining duty. Apparently there's a huge cave nearby full of valuable Quarks that we pick for hours, while Master Gorean sells all of our hard work for his own mysterious gain.
I can only imagine what the female's side work is.
"So wait, it's just the two of us?" I ask.
"Ew no, it's me, you, Akil, and Yuda.
"Oh, that's nice."

"What's nice?" The voice behind me grunts.
The voice I grit my teeth to hearing.
The voice I hate the most in this world.
Master Gorean.
No.
Lieutenant Gorean.
"N-nothing sir." I say as I hesitantly look back to meet his cold hate filled gaze.
He kicks me sharply in the back and I land straight into the muddy water below.
"DID I TELL YOU TO LOOK BACK ME!!" he yells.
I bawl my fist up.
I want to hit him, right in his stupid garbage spewing mouth.
I know I won't win, but it'd be worth it.
Right as I decide to get up, Malik quickly bends down to cover my bawled fist.
"Are you trying to get us all killed? He whispers in my ear.
"Sorry sir! We were actually just on our way to mining duty."
"Tch. Well get to it." Gorean grumbles as he walks past us.
Malik might not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but he sure does know how to get out of a bad situation.
And a bad situation that would've been.
I'm sure if he wanted to, Lieutenant Gorean would be able to lay this entire village to waste.

Me and Malik continue our path past the burned down buildings to go get Akil and Yuda.
"Sorry I was being so selfish." I say to Malik.
"It's cool man, I'd probably want to punch that bastard's light out too, but you gotta' think about the rest of us too y'know... you gotta think about Akila."
He nudges me with his elbow upon mentioning Akila.
"Oh shut up."
We both laugh
"We'll speak of the devil's twin brother."
Akil and Yuda come into sight, Yuda and his always cool, calm, and collected lean on the shed and Akil's awkward, cautious and somehow paranoid stand, both with metallic pickaxes in hand.
"Yo' Hajime!" Yuda calls out.

His english is getting better.
Even though I'm only half Japanese technically, Yuda is the only other Japanese boy in the village.
None of us know who his parents are or what happened to them, he just has always kind of just been here. Despite that, he's also always been the coolest, most collected, and definitely smartest out of the group, aside from Akil that is.

"Is that mud on your shirt? Master Gorean again huh? I swear, he despises all of us here, but Hajime I think he despises you the most." Akil says.

Akil.
Despite his twin sister Akila's brave and sometimes reckless behavior, Akil is more cautious and unnerved. After Malik and Yuda, the twins Akila and Akil showed up from a nearby orphanage that had been taken over by Purians, they settled into the village quickly and we hit it off just as quick.
Although that settling was short term.

"Yeah the feeling's mutual, if it wasn't for Malik I would've laid him out."
"Ha, yeah right. This coming from the same guy that's still deathly afraid of Spiders." Yuda comments
"I would've! And that was like years ago!" I snap back.
We all laugh.
"Wow, it's been a while since the gang was together." Akil starts. "I mean everyone's here...everyone except Akila."
"You know how Akila is man, I'm sure she's fine." I try to ressasure.
"Yeah, I hope you're right." Akil respondes.