Opposing Sides

Chapter 15: Nightmares

Cine wakes and finds that she is lying on a bare, foam mattress. She looks down at the brown stains on the wall she is facing. Her eyes move to the side of the room. She sees the missing door and hinges and wonders what the place looked like before it was ruined. She gets off of the mattress and trips on Night’s leg. “Why do I have to trip on him to start my day?” Cine whispers aloud.

Night grunts and turns his body in the opposite direction. She walks toward the kitchen and she hears loud whispers. It makes her pause at the edge of the hall, for a moment. She hugs the wall and peaks at her father and Vlam.

“You have to eat what everyone else is eating in this house. I cannot spoil you anymore.”

“I will not eat a human.”

“Prince Vlam, I am telling you that human meat is all we have to eat here and you are going to eat it! I am your father and you must listen to me.”

“When my mother was alive, was she human?”

“I am not answering that question.”

“Why? I know why you will not answer. It is because she was human.”

“What if she was human? Why should that change anything?”

“It changes everything. You walk around like our mothers’ deaths do not bother you, but I know that you are in so much pain inside.”

“Vlam, are you still blaming yourself for your mother’s death? It was not in your control.”

“Yes, that is what you say but I feel like I could have done something. I am still grieving but I never see you grieving. How do you deal with your grief? You cannot say that it does not exist in your mind because I do not believe you.”

“It is just human meat. We do not eat the skin.”

“Did you ever think about eating mother’s organs?”

“No! Of course, I would not do that to her. I did not hate her.”

“So, you hate humans?”

“They are alive… Plus, they are the only food we have to eat. We cannot be vegetarians. Plant products make us sick.”

“Are you mad at them for being alive while our mothers are dead? Vegetables and fruits do not make me sick.”

“Have you eaten vegetables?”

“Yes.  I have been taking the canned food items from the hunters in the area.”

“How do you know that you were eating vegetables? What was the color of the food?

“Mother ate salad with walnuts for breakfast. She ate it the morning of the day she died as well.”

“What are you going to eat today? I do not want you going near those hunters! They will kill you if you get too close. They are humans and they all lack kindness.”

Vlam walks toward the door just as the veiled guards came into the room. “There are hunters in the vicinity,” a guard says. Janz tilts his head a bit while he glares at the guards. “Protect the building,” Janz says.

“There are a lot of them. They have killed three guards and there are only ten of us left.”

“These humans are becoming a nuisance!”

“I am sorry, sir.”

“Are they blocking all the exits?”

“No, there is one path we can take but…”

“What?”

“It leads to a safe town.”

“We cannot go that way there are guards at the gates of safe towns.”