“No, no, no, let me go!” The human female in the distance continues to cry.
I can hear Xiaoyu’s harsh breathing. She will never say it, but she is terrified for the woman.
Once I find the source of the stench, my muscles freeze. Despite its deformed state—hisdeformed state—I know exactly who he is. Immediately, I lift Xiaoyu off my shoulder and shove her behind me. I call the guardian that takes care of Xiaoyu when I am away. There are no words exchanged between us, they know their purpose as they haul her away.
“Datu!!! What is this, let go of me!”
“Lakan, please, put her down.”He is an imposing male, almost as big as I am.
Lakan is blind, born with no eyes, just a vast spacious wood that forms into a crown where the top of his head should be. But right now, something has scratched the space where his eyes should be, dripping swirling black and violet liquid.
“I starve, Datu.” He moans into the human’s skin. His tongue slides out to lick her skin. From this angle, I can see his teeth have sharpened, too.
“There is another way. Let me help you.”
“I have been asleep for too long to wait.”He snarls at me.
The human woman covers her face,sobbing.
“Brother, please, do not do this. I will find a way. This is not how it should be.”
“You do not know what it’s like!”he howls in despair—in my direction like he sees me. The scratches crack open, his new eyes the same color as the liquid that spills from it.
I understand the hunger, but I cannot have him eating every human he encounters. As his mouth grows wider to accommodate the human female’s head, I make a very drastic decision.
He is already infected. There is no hope for him.
Without warning, I hurtled toward him, ripping his claws off the crying human. I am disturbed at how he claws and screams for her. Another guardian rushes to take her away, and as my thumbs sink into Lakan’s new eyes, I grieve for Esoterra’s loss. I grieve formyloss.
“Please forgive me.”
I feel defeated as I pull him by his eyes. Lakan splits open in two until sap spills and curdles to the earth. His torn body still twist and writhe, reaching for the human woman again.
He will only be in agony forever if I do not burn him.
“You need fire?” Xiaoyu asks from behind me. Before the guardians can stop her, she takes something from her pack, screws two items together and tosses it my way.
I know what it is. It is called a blowtorch. Grinding my teeth together, I snatch it from the ground. Killing a brother with a human weapon is tantamount to disrespect. Lakan deserves better.
“Datu!” Xiaoyu’s cries are shrill with horror. “What are you waiting for?!”
Lakan’s split is snaking its way to them. His grating screech is the sound of breaking wood, of desperation, of pain. What I see now, I have only heard in tales. His other half snakes glowing roots, vines to the other, meeting, uniting like a malignant disease.
Lakan’s body is pulling itself whole before my very eyes.
Without a second thought, I aim the weapon at the vines and open fire.
Xiaoyu
My ears are still ringing from all the screaming. Both the tree-man and Sunny’s screams.
As Datu buries his friend’s charred body, I can’t shake the feeling ofwrongnessin the situation. Datu—I know for certain—did not want to kill that Terra. Lakan, he’d called him. Lakan who’d been torn open and burnt before he could fuse himself together again.
It has been a while since I last heard Datu “speak” and I worry the food may have worn off again. My stomach growls, reminding me.
“Some of the males came alive,” Sunny whispers, her eyelashes still wet from the tears. “Climbed out the dirt like corpses and just started taking us.”
I still feel awful for treating her the way I did so I hug her tighter to me. Her name reflects her attitude so I’m sad to see her optimism snuffed out like this. She looks haunted. Miserable.
