A memory struck as Josh lay awake. A strapping ogre in tight blue overalls with a stiff, slightly hooked, and swollen nose, looked down on him. The ogre’s eyes glowed as he slapped a stick of broken wood siding against his palm. A woman moaned from the side of the bed before she pushed herself upright. Arms covered in bruises reached out to him. He reached back. But her mouth hung open silently. A stiff shadow engulfed her until a bruised silhouette silently clung to the wall. Only the ogre remained active as it stomped back and forth across the room.
“You’re a freakin’ pest!” the ogre spat.
The sinister sting of alcohol laced spittle spread across a shadow's face yet Josh felt it.
“I told you to stay in the bathroom, but you had to peek. You little disgusting creature. Get over here boy. Get over here! I’ll teach you to listen!”
Josh saw his shadow step forward as he was told. The thick stick of siding slapped across a shadow’s cheek. Josh tried to intervene but the wall itself was like a glass casing that he found himself trapped inside. The shadow remained standing despite a new stain on the carpet. The ogre’s face bloated with rage.
A thin piece of siding cracked repeatedly against the unmoving shadow until something broke. The siding snapped in half. A small piece of shadow clung to the severed siding even as it smacked against a door. Josh winced as he felt the scar that cut the top of his right ear stinging.
“Don’t you dare ever look at me like that! I’ll teach you some respect.”
Josh gripped his left ear. A migraine developed from hearing that word, ‘respect’ over and over again. The ogre didn’t the know the meaning of respect. He never deserved a drop of it. The blanket under his feet shifted over the canvas floor as he squirmed. He moaned slightly as a drumbeat shifted from his scarred ear and worked its way to his jaw.
“You all right?” Darrell asked.
“Just a temporary headache. Didn’t I tell you not to talk to me?”
“You look pale!”
The headache eased suddenly. Josh’s color returned as he held back tear. His hand pulled at the ragged edge of his left ear.
“What happened to your ear?
“Happened to what?”
“Your ear, it looks like the top got ripped off. I mean, maybe I shouldn’t ask, but I just wondered how it happened.”
“Funny, no one ever asked me about it before. It was a parting gift from my old man.”
“An accident?”
“No, not an accident,” Josh squeezed a tight fist.
“Oh, sorry.”
“Whatever, just shut the freak up.”
“I can’t sleep,” Vestor moaned as he rolled around. “Is it getting dark yet.”
The child had lost his will to meditate fifteen minutes ago, and now disturbed Dew’s contemplation. As it was close to dusk, Dew saw no reason to hold back from the child’s wishes any longer. Dew stood with the aid of his staff, put up the hood of his cloak, limped outside, and called everyone out of their tents. They crawled out quickly despite the withering heat and a relentless sun that beat upon any exposed skin. Nadia and Awlena worked to take down their tent methodically while Darrell and Josh stood in somewhat of a trance before Dew approached them.
“Are you two, okay? Can you help break camp? I apologize for not being much help but I can still fold the canvases.”
They nodded.
“Yeah, don’t worry about us. We ain’t cripples,” Josh grumbled.
“I apologize for being injured. It was short sighted of me. I’ll work to improve my skills for the next battles.”
Darrell and Josh struggled to be organized about taking the tents down. They were throwing the poles about and tossing the bedding in the cart. Vestor hid behind Dew. Nadia stood and went over to them.
“Why don’t you two check the cart. Awlena and I can take care of the tents and the bedding. We’ll load everything. It’s okay. We need you to reserve your strength.”
“Yeah, because we’re your mules,” Darrell grumbled.
They went to the cart and checked it before standing around listlessly at the front. Nadia returned to Awlena and they worked with more haste to break camp efficiently. Vestor helped as he could by folding canvas with Dew.
“What’s gotten into them?” Awlena whispered.
Nadia shrugged.
Soon the tents were loaded and they were off with the sun setting beside them. After a kilometer of rocky terrain laden with bumps, jostles, and undulating hills they finally came across a long stretch of flat, hard, rock. That night, with the help of a brilliant full moon, they gained twenty kilometers by pushing ahead. The breaks were only long enough to drink water. Upon daybreak, they reached a salt marsh with soil too brittle for the cart to pass, and were forced to circumnavigate it for an unexpected five kilometers. Two hours from mid-day, it became too hot to continue, so they settled in and pitched the tents again.
Nadia and Awlena threw supper together using the last of the firewood and a healthy amount of water to cook a large serving of rice and lentils. Tin bowls heaped with hot food found there way to each tent. If they couldn’t sleep, then food would be the next best substitute, and since it would be incredibly hot until late in the afternoon, everyone would have time to digest. They all ate greedily, filling themselves, but the atmosphere only became ten times stuffier when they were full of rice and beans.
Nadia rubbed the sore spots over her body. Every muscle hurt, but the calves of her legs were the most tender so she rubbed them vigorously. Dark circles were developing under her eyes, but Awlena had them as well.
Vestor simply stared at sand like a zombie after eating. Dew tried to talk to him, even gave him gentle head pats, but got no response from the drooling boy.
“Did you eat too much?”
Vestor nodded listlessly, then started pacing back and forth while Dew meditated and hummed in the most soothing way he could manage. His injured leg burned and ached as he tried to sit on his mat without cutting circulation to his lower body.
Josh’s leg twitched restless as he sat. Darrell’s complexion had gone pale. Drool dripped in an empty bowl held on his lap. Josh snickered, rubbed his ear, and stumbled out of the tent. He walked to the cart and filled his water canteen. Water spilled across the cart and onto the dry stone of the lifeless desert. It evaporated almost immediately. Josh gulped down his canteen As Dew’s walking stick tapped the stone behind him. Josh finished an entire canteen of water in one go and went to fill it a second time but found his wrist caught in Dew’s tight grip.
“You’re going to bloat yourself sick. We have a limited supply. Drink whatever you need by all means but please help make it last.”
A punch against Dew’s cheek knocked him to the ground. Josh dove at Dew, who lifted his good leg and kicked him in the stomach. In the time it took Josh to recover, Dew grabbed his staff and shakily readied it as a weapon despite his injured leg barely being able to hold him. Vestor peered from the tent. Josh attacked again, but this time Dew stood his ground. He threw Josh into the sand with a well-timed staff swipe across the ankles. Josh jumped up, ran past Dew, locked his hands together, turned, and then pounded dew’s back. A slight crack came from the sound of Dew’s skull hitting cart. The blow sent Dew face first against the sandy desert floor. He rolled as his vision lost focus.
“I’m not your enemy!” Dew yelled as he rolled away from a kick.
Josh glowed with rage. Red aura lifted from his skin. It glowed especially bright around his scar, severed ear, and clenched fist. Dew sat on the tone and pulled out his sheathed katana. He held the sheath against his palm to block. The punch coiled, then flew.
“Stop!” Nadia screamed
She jumped in front of the attack with her arms outstretched. The punch aimed downward for Dew’s face hit her square in the stomach. She retched; a knee went to the ground. Her free hand clutched Dew’s sword to keep him from unsheathing it. Anger boiled across Dew’s sweaty brow as his hood remained down. The sun beat against his dark hair. Nadia did her best to stop Dew from one side while reaching out a quivering hand to plead with Josh on the other. Her midsection curled into a ball.
The red aura surrounding Josh dissipated rapidly as he started to back away.
“Oh no,” he said, “What the heck did I just do?”
“It’s okay,” Nadia gasped through a strained voice, “You couldn’t help it. I should have stayed home. I should have never come here. Everything was so much better at home compared to all... this. I didn’t realize what I had. You just need sleep. You didn’t mean it.”
She looked to Dew pleadingly, “He didn’t mean it. We all need sleep. We just need sleep. He can hold it together. I'll vouch for him. So please, let it go.”
The sword barely managed to stay in the sheath. The bitterness of his stare spoke for him. Darrell stared with a sword in hand as well, and looked ready to strike. Vestor came out of the tent and curled up behind Darrell’s leg. Awlena broke into sobbing from inside her tent.
“You can ride on the cart in my place until you recover,”
Dew offered his hand but Nadia slapped it away as she pushed herself to stand, “I don’t need your pity! You may think… I’m the weak but I’m more than strong enough to take a sucker punch from that blow bag assassin and… I’m more than strong enough… to walk it off.”
As she stood, she coughed a small dab of blood into her palm.
“We should set out now,” she smiled though her voice remained raspy, “Let’s break camp so we can get to a place where sleep is allowed.”
Josh stood aside as everyone else worked to break camp. Nadia faked a cheerful demeanor, just like his old woman had done so many times. In the back of his mind a thought swirled again and again that came in the form of the ogre’s rough booze permeated voice, “You’re just like me. Hehehe! I always said it boy. Just like me. The apple don’t fall far from the tree kid. It never does. You’re just like your old man!”
He couldn’t stop his hands from trembling.
