Chi no Umi (Pool of Blood)

                Sapphire and Omni played in the shave of the huge oak trees, oblivious to their mothers’ calls. It was some time before they emerged from the forest and saw, shocked, that their tribe was being forced out by the Weird Ones.

                Phire and Omni dashed for the nearest shelter, a cave full of bats, not twenty yards away. As fast as they were, Phire was almost taken by a tall, mean Weird One. Omni had just reached the cave when she noticed Phire’s absence at her side. Turning, she screamed at the top of her lungs. What she saw was gruesome: her friend being wrestled to the ground by a far bigger and scarier enemy, and a background of a battlefield. Huts were in flames, family members and Weird Ones in various states of injury and distress.

                Omni’s high, loud screech woke the bats. They began to shriek and cry, flying around in a panic of black leathery wings and sharp gleaming fangs. The flurry of floating fur flew to the tussling duo and ended up swarming the Weird One’s head, making him blind and shifting his focus from the girl he had been trying to pin on the ground to the attack on his body. Phire escaped from under his feet and ran to her companion’s side. Together, they fled deep inside the cave where hardly any light shone.

 

                Omni lit the candle she had had in her pocket and examined Phire’s wounds. Her face was scratched and dirty, as were her arms, legs, and clothes, but she sustained no serious injuries.

                “I hate them,” Phire whispered to Omni in the dim light.

                “I know. I hate them too. How can beings that look so much like us be so different, so cruel?” she replied quietly, wiping Phire’s still bleeding face. “They think they can rule us just because they have those guns and swords and their many poisons, and heartlessness.”

                Phire sat silent, thinking back to the day the Weird Ones came.

 

                “Omni! Phire! Get in here now!” yelled Tenzi, the village master’s assistant. He tried to find them in every place he could think of: the woods, their huts, the courtyard—wait! The courtyard!

                Tenzi hurried to the courtyard, his pawed companion panting alongside him. When they arrived, Bonzai, Tenzi’s white Kishu dog, bounded up to the giggling girls sitting on a stone bench.

                “What took you so long?” laughed Phire, petting Bonzai, as was Omni.

                “Yeah, we’ve been waiting,” chuckled Omni.

                “You girls are fifteen! Act your age!” reprimanded Tenzi. “The master called for you and sent me searching!”

                At the mention of their master, the girls leapt up and began to walk, subdued, to the entrance of the rose garden, in the heart of which resided Master Bara. Suddenly, Bonzai began to bark, growl, and bare his teeth at the nearest courtyard entrance.

                The trio looked back at him curiously. “What’s the matter, boy?” Tenzi asked, going to investigate.

                “Careful! It could be a wolf or something!” hissed Omni. “Phire, up!” Sapphire climbed the nearest cherry tree and Omni followed suit. Their boy-tied kimonos, cut and knotted so as to allow running and playing, blended in well with the blooming flowers.