The Tale of Junazahite: Dance with the Devil

Chapter Seven: The Tests and the Innocent Girl

“Once upon a time, a strange man lived alone in a mansion at the top of the hill overlooking the village. The villagers believed that the man had sold his soul to the devil just because he didn’t want to follow their false beliefs. He was a great philosopher, alchemist, and man of science. Someday, the chieftain gathered all the villagers and ordered them to kill the heretic. They burned the man alive at the stake. The man in the fire shouted, “You are the real heretics, for I am Junazahite!”
Junazahite realizes who he is when he is about to die and remembers all the things that humans have done to him. So, be kind to others, for maybe one of them is Junazahite.”

When Junazahitists got the power and established the Republic of Survivalists, they hanged all the people who refused to follow their religion. You could see the dance of the dead men, swinging from the concrete walls. They believed that they had to make the nation as pure as possible, so when Junazahite rose, he decided to save them instead of ending them. Of course, that led them to be ruthless dictators. They weren’t immune to power. It corrupted them profoundly. The men of God and Junazahite, as they called themselves, could do whatever they wanted; raping, killing, stealing, and nobody could say a word.
John had promised himself that as soon as he mastered his powers, he’d kill all of them in the most painful way possible, just like Mr. Nial. He had always wanted to do so, even when he didn’t know who he really was. The hatred within him would scare him sometimes, but as Reymond had once told him, he was a bad guy to the bad guys.
After an hour or two, Moriel opened the door. He was with a soldier that John hadn’t seen him before.
“It’s time,” Moriel said, having a smile on his face, looking optimistic.
John said nothing, getting out of bed. He wished there was a mirror to look at. He wanted to see how he looked, or better to say, how broken he was.
They led him to another room where a young woman was sitting on the blue bench.
“Wait here,” Moriel ordered, leaving the room.
But the soldier stayed, his rifle in his hands, not looking at them. John noticed the faint outline of a nose plug beneath his nostrils, a common sight among the nomads traversing the desert. They used nose plugs to save themselves from inhaling dust and sand in the desert. He realized they were located somewhere in the desert, far away from the towns.
John sat next to the woman. She looked at him with a smile, surprising him with how cordial she was.
“Hey,” she said, breaking the silence. “I’m Ellie. They think you might be Junazahite as well?”
John observed her. She had blond short hair, a broken nose, gray eyes, and sunburnt skin. She, somehow, reminded him of Joan. Maybe it was her spark that resembled her sister or the innocence in her eyes.
“Yeah,” he said calmly, trying to smile but failing.
“Boy! Look at your clothes. You must have gone through hell!”
John glanced at his robe, noticing stains of blood that had turned black and brown. He wasn’t sure whose blood was it. maybe a combination of two or more.
“You have no idea!” he uttered, having a bitter smile on his face.
“Sorry,” she mumbled, looking worried about him.
“Why do they think you might be the one?” he wondered.
“Oh,” she said, happy that the awkwardness was finally over. “I helped a man from choking at work. It wasn’t something supernatural, but both the government and these guys don’t believe me. What about you?”
John waited for a moment, observing the woman next to him. She was full of life. How? He had no clue. Instead of being afraid, she was … excited.
“I killed a man,” John said honestly, waiting for her reaction. “It was supernatural because I killed him with the power of my mind.”
As he expected, she looked at him with shock and horror, her eyes wide open. Strangely, that thrilled him. Maybe because he envied her happiness and ignorance. It was something like a guilty pleasure for him.
“Who’d you kill?” she asked quickly and quietly.
“One of the government minions.”
“I know I should say they deserve it,” she whispered as if she didn’t want to be heard. “But they’re humans too. I always pray that they’ll find the right path before it’s too late. I hope the real Junazahite guides them and stops them from all the wrong things they do.”
John stared at her, unable to talk. He felt sad for her. She was too naïve. Perhaps she didn’t know that they’d kill her when they ensured she was not the one. He tried not to imagine when reality slapped her without any remorse. He had been slapped too many times, and it hurt relentlessly.
“Did anybody from your family get hurt?” he asked, not knowing why he cared.
“Oh,” she said, smiling ruefully. “I used to live with my father, but he’s gone for years. Thankfully, he’s left a lot of money for me to stay in the first province. Truth be told, I’m living poorly, unlike other citizens here, but this is much, much better than living in other provinces. What about you?”
“I live in the first province as well.”
John knew well that it wasn’t the answer to her question. He didn’t want to tell her what had happened to him. Maybe living ignorantly was a blessing and knowledge was the actual curse. However, he would never want to live ignorantly. He craved to know more about himself, his powers, his destiny, and the world. He wanted to know everything.
Suddenly, Jhina came in.
“Ellie, it’s your turn,” she said, not looking at John.
“How much will it take?” John asked her.
She didn’t answer him, just looking at him with anger. There was despise in her blue eyes.
“It was nice to see you, John,” Ellie said, smiling at him. “See you.”
See you! It was painful to hear that. John would never see her again. Even though he believed nothing mattered, he still cared about the people’s lives, at least the ones who deserved to live.
But billions of people have died before, he thought. I knew lots of them, I talked to them, and I lived with them. It’s not fair that they’re forgotten for good. It’s not fair that everybody dies except me.
He didn’t care to find out why Jhina had acted like that. But something was up.
He had lost track of time. He felt tired, both physically and mentally. He, once again, started to dream of the night and the moon to calm himself down and entertain himself. He must have seen them in his past lives. Maybe he also had seen oceans as well. It was strange that he envied himself.
When I remember all of the things I’d gone through, he thought. Everything will be boring again, and I’ll be more tired of living.
But he wanted to know how it felt when he swam in the water, or even if he had drowned in his past lives, and he desired to remember what it was like in the post-apocalyptic era when humans could do everything they wanted to. Some of whom even walked on the moon. Maybe he was an astronaut before. Thinking about this stuff made him happy, just like a little boy with foolish dreams. But it was for a fleeting moment because Moriel walked into the room.
“It’s your turn,” he said softly.
“I assume you didn’t think she was Junazahite,” John said as he followed Moriel.
“Yes,” Moriel nodded, a bit disappointed.
“Did you kill her, or you’re gonna do it later?” John asked sarcastically.
It took a while for Moriel to answer, “She’s dead.”
He didn’t confess that they killed her. It was pathetic, but it was what it was.
Before a metallic door, there were bunches of Mothers, all in white robes, praying silently. Moriel opened the door and stepped into a much larger room. Healers were standing behind a bed, their faces covered. John noticed a big mirror covering one side of the wall. He guessed that it was a one-way mirror, and behind that wall, some people were watching him, hoping that he was the one. When Moriel closed the door, the whispers of Mothers disappeared. John, without being asked, lay on the bed, curious to see what they would do.
“We need to tie you up,” one of the healers said.
They didn’t wait for his response. They started working so fast, tying him up, injecting him with something, and fitting him with an oxygen mask. He felt sort of dizzy, his eyes narrowed.
“The test number one;” some of them announced. “The healing progress.”
The healer grabbed a tiny blade and started cutting John’s arm. The pain made him shiver, but they didn’t care. He could see his arm bleeding for a while, but after a second or two, it stopped. There was no sign of a scar. It surprised both John and the healers.
That’s why I wasn’t wounded after the explosion, he thought.
The healers, yet, weren’t convinced. They started cutting his chest. Still, he felt the pain, but it disappeared as soon as it came. John could hear them breathing fast. They looked at him enthusiastically as if what they saw wasn’t real.
“The test number two,” the first healer said.
Suddenly, a voice interrupted her, “What about severe damage?”
It was coming from a speaker in the corner of the room.
Moriel looked at his tablet, then said out aloud, “But sir, we might damage him permanently.”
“Don’t touch the vital parts,” the voice commanded sternly.
John guessed a man behind the one-way mirror was ordering them. He looked at the healers and found out they were all worried. One of them untied John’s left arm and grabbed it into his hands. John wanted to ask what they were about to do, but suddenly, an excruciating pain possessed all over his body. He screamed at the top of his lungs, looking at his maroon arm. The healer had broken his hand without hesitation. The bone had cut through his flesh, blood pouring from the wound and staining both the bed and the floor. He was in so much agony that he couldn’t enjoy the beauty of the blood’s color. The healer put the broken bone back where it was. It made John scream even more, his voice echoing in the oxygen mask. Moriel put a flat metal, much like his tablet on the arm and waited, unconcerned by the blood that stained it. After a minute, he grabbed the device and looked at it carefully.
“The X-ray shows it’s still broken,” he said. “But … if I’m not mistaken, some part of it is almost healed!”
He showed the picture to the other healers.
“Take another picture,” one of them suggested, madly excited.
Moriel put the flat metal on the arm again and waited. When he looked at the second picture, he smiled widely, his eyes filled with tears.
“Sir,” he almost shouted. “He’s half healed.”
“Wait for two minutes and take another picture,” the voice ordered emotionlessly.
John took a deep breath. The pain was fading away gradually, but he still felt helpless. He had forgotten that he could be killed easily, just like he had before many, many times. I’m not a god, he thought, how can I save the earth when I’m this weak? I can never stop the force from destroying the Milky Way.
Moriel got another picture. He showed it to the mirror and said, “It completely healed!”
The healers clapped out of joy. Some of whom even praised God and Junazahite, starting to cry.
“What’s the second test?” John asked resentfully, exhausted.
“Forget that. We just have to examine your body,” Moriel said, out of breath. “My Savior!” -he added.
They drew his blood and then conducted a full-body X-ray. It turned out his body and his blood was as normal as others. Still, they didn’t get disappointed. They had already been convinced that he was the almighty Junazahite.
When Moriel looked deeply into John’s eyes, he got scared. He took a step back, gasping.
“What is it?” John asked, frowning.
He didn’t reply. Instead, he looked at his eyes once again.
“Fascinating,” he whispered to himself. “Glory be to God!”
He took a picture of John’s eyes and showed it to the mirror.
“Would you mind telling me what the matter is?” John snarled, annoyed.
Finally, Moriel showed the picture to him. Upon closer inspection, one would notice his pupils were strange, filled with so many shiny dots in them.
“It’s a universe in your eyes,” Moriel said, smiling.
“No,” John said, looking at all of the small stars in his eyes. “It’s the universe. Our universe!”
He had a sudden realization. He couldn’t deny that their universe was beautiful. But why was it in his eyes? Was it just a reflection? Or was the universe in him while he was in it? A sort of paradox?
“The tests are over, my Savior,” Moriel shouted joyfully, untieing him.
Once he was done, all the healers knelt before him. They all said, “Hail Junazahite!”
But, for real, who or what is Junazahite, John wondered frantically.