The End of the Road

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The trudging got a little harder the following morning as the thicket was blocking their way and the spacing between the trees disappeared. Leon soon took out a machete and cut a way through for them.

“How much longer?” the boy whined.

Laughing with amusement, Leon replied, “I’m not sure. I think we’re almost there.”

“What! What do you mean you’re not sure! We’re lost?”

“Ha-ha! No. I know where we are. I don’t know where the village is, that’s all.”

“You don’t know where the village is. That’s great! We’ll just enjoy ourselves tramping along thick undergrowth.”

Leon stopped moving forward, and turned around, with smiling eyes. “Do you want to rest?” he asked.

“No. I just don’t want to walk in circles.”

“The village is hidden in the forest,” Leon gently explained, “Its exact location is unknown to outsiders, for its own safety. Our best chance of finding it is to find a villager somewhere around the area. They usually venture outside the village in pairs for business, sometimes for collecting herbs, or even visiting the city. If we meet another man around here, he’s most likely to be a villager, and we could ask him for passage into the village.”

“What if he refuses to provide passage?”

Leon’s smile disappeared. “We’ll think about that when the occasion comes,” he said.

Good, the boy thought, the harder the village is to find, the safer I’ll be in it. It was his life-long desire to be free. He dreamt about this day for many lone nights. To think he could finally be the master of himself! But something told the boy that this freedom is probably short-lived. Because by experience, he knew that anything that is pleasing in this world is only a trap.

When the sun was about to set, they set up camp under a cluster of trees. It was a cool chilly night. Lighting a little bonfire, they had the leftovers of the previous breakfast and then settled for a shut eye. They needed it for what awaited them the next day.

The first thing the boy detected the next morning was a distinct shuffling.

“Leon? You awake?” the boy asked, squinting in the strong daylight. Correction: it was torchlight.

“Mmmgfff!” came a sound from somewhere. The boy shot up and looked around him, his eyes widening with every sensation he took in.

There was a slight nagging worry that he had been pushing back all this while. What if they found him? What if they get him again? Worse, what if they get Leon?  But classifying it as a paranoia, he had chosen not to address it.

Now taking in the current situation, his old fears surfaced. He breathing raced. He tried to jump up. But that’s when he felt a sharp stinging tug at his ankles and wrists. He was tightly bound together. Turning around, he found Leon bound up as well; his eyes bloodshot, his mouth stuffed with rags. And that wasn’t even the worst part.

There were seven men in green suits surrounding us, rifles pointed at our temples.

They were back. The Organization.