Monkey Face is crying again. BeepBeep The Eye told her that, when she was a baby, her parents abandoned her in the citadel. "We found you in a diaper full of shit," he says. He also tells her that I put her to suck on the tit of a siniphanea, which is true, but I don't say anything for or against it. They haven't stopped fighting since we took the road to the woods, far from the citadel. They are furious at having to leave and abandon the camp of Sesenians beggars where we lived. They do not understand that no one can protect us anymore, even though they themselves saw many Sesenians corpses, dry to the bone, and watched as people began to flee from their homes.
I don't want to leave either, and I don't quite believe the story of the Hungry-Shadow devouring Sesenians . I had some friends there too, and they are dead. I'm sick of it today. So I start collecting unusual-ever-you-see twigs and stones to hang on to my forty-sixth braid.
Before we found Monkey Face, it was just me and BeepBeep in the woods. I know there was once The-Gentle-Presence. I know this because I can still see her in my dreams, her fuzzy image. I know we came from the sky, She and me, in a ball of fire (I remember the flames and a huge, huge tree that bent down to the ground, burning and complaining). I remember that BeepBeep lost his eye when we fell. I remember thinking he was dead, however I don't know how the bionic eye appeared in what was previously a socket filled with a bloody puree. I think She fixed it, but I can't remember how. The difficulty in remembering only makes me feel worse, angrier; so I concentrate on my search and deliberately stop listening. I get into my observation, I make my breathing echo the colors.
Slowly.
Red is fast. Grey is relaxed because it doesn't want to die. Orange is a victory, that's why I put the orange stones as a crown, on top of my head. One day I found a blue stone, like solid water. I made a sack of knots out of my hair and hid it there. It is my treasure and it is my secret; but it is also a problem.
I want to be alone-a-person-apart. I don't know why I want this, but I know it has to do with BeepBeep and Monkey Face. I imagine that the Hungry-Shadow takes them and then a group comes and takes me with them and in the group there are girls and boys, like me... It feels good... but then it feels really bad, because I don't want them to die either.
Once BeepBeep got sick of the belly and we went to a group of Sesenians who were roasting a piece of smelly meat. They beat us with sticks. Monkey Face bit a woman. She can do it without poisoning herself because she looks half Sesenians , I can't. If I got a taste of his sweat I'd get really sick. At dawn, a Sesenians woman came up to us and left us a bowl of herbs. She made the gesture of eating with a hairy hand, closing her claws. Monkey Face and me forced the chewed herbs into BeepBeep's mouth and then cried all night. If it hadn't been for that Sesenians female, BeepBeep might have died. That's how I know I don't want them to die.
BeepBeep calls out to me and Monkey Face squeals and squeals. I cover my ears and concentrate on the sound of blood inside my head. I squeeze my hands over my ears until my head hurts.
Then I see it.
My heart is pounding.
It looks like a dry twig that has turned violet brown over time, but it has beautifully carved curved lines. I look at it very closely, without touching it: it is a nail with a very sharp point. I uncover my ears to take it. Maybe I'll put it in my bag of secrets.
For a beautiful moment, I feel like a unique and complete person, who should not be there but only for herself.
Then a thick nothing in my ears.
All the sound that has been torn from the air hits inside my head.
My body vibrates with the black echo of the approaching shadow.
No one screams. No one calls out to me.