“What are you doing?!” Eiko shouted warily.

But it was too late.

Daisuke refused to second guess himself, running as fast as his legs could take him toward Torio’s fumbling squad. Body and mind thrown into full throttle, a race against the stalkers looming in the shadows, ballistic and seething to tear into the invaders who had killed their kind. Their crimson-turned pupils narrowed in on the scent that had captivated their senses, fresh blood.

Torios’ group pushed themselves to their limitations, bodies visibly panicking as a mix of sweat and tears drenched their training gear. Fearful of the demise nipping at their heels.

Step by step, Daisuke made his way toward them as he waded through the darkness. Only led by the shallow blue glow that beamed down onto the floor ahead of him, a vague outline of the landscape, just enough to make out every next rushed step.

“Are you serious?!” Eiko yelled with an irritated groan.

“Just get it out!” Daisuke shouted back, with no time to even pass a glance as his words drifted back to the group on a stale wind.

His words targeted the stalker corpse clutched in Kiyo’s hands, their ticket to escaping the Night’s Sea. Monterio’s group paid little to no attention to Torio’s cries, fixated on their own escape as they dashed past Eiko. An aggressive bump on the shoulder was all the help offered, Isao smacking his lips at Eiko as he passed by. Careless of who or what got in their way.

Eiko scoffed at the sight of them, nothing more than cowards in his eyes. But he couldn’t help but feel the same pull to escape, torn between booking it toward the exit and joining the suicide run. Decisions, decisions, decisions.

“Come onnnn, the exit’s right there.” A disheartened sigh broke up Eiko’s words, coming to his senses and grasping what shreds of morality he held. “Guess we have to help—”

“No,” Shoma butted in as he stuck his arm across Eiko’s chest. 

“What do you mean no?” Eiko blurted out, confusion bubbling up his face as he batted Shoma’s arm away.

“Yeah, aren’t we gonna help them?” Kono piped in with a loose gesture toward Daisuke. The guilt inside ate away while they watched Daisuke run into the distance, practically knocking on death’s door. Alone.

Kiyo stepped into the fray of conversation, yet his focus remained on Daisuke, mind stuck in the split decision of the task at hand. But he couldn’t silence the blaring alarm, the panic sweltering across his skin. The hazy sight of his friend running right into the dying night. Too many thoughts and pains to sort through as he froze up at the moment, the visions from the cave’s still pressuring his mind. Dazed from the brief glimpses of a life he never lived, foretelling clumped together by the recesses of his subconscious.

Needless to say, for the first time in his life Kiyo was at a loss. What was he supposed to do?

“We’ll get this out,” Shoma stated, taking the reigns of the operation. Turning to face Kiyo with an outstretched right hand, he grasped at the lifeless stalker slung over Kiyo’s shoulders. An invitation to pawn over the duty of carrying the beast. To let Kiyo do what needed to be done.

Taking the carcass off of Kiyo’s shoulders, each of the three boys lifted a portion and shelved it over themselves. Bits of blood drooled down from its wounds onto their gear, Eiko sticking out his tongue as he winced at the stench. 

“Trust us,” Shoma slipped out with a hasty nod, mixed feelings tangled in his words.

But Kiyo took it at face value, a simple nod all he had to offer as he took off into the darkness, chasing after his friend lost in his kindness. Unable to see the doom looming around Torio, placing it on himself to uphold the mantle of their lives.

“C’mon then! This thing is breaking my spine!” Eiko complained, shifting beneath the oozing corpse.

Altogether, the three boys hauled the lifeless husk off toward the light, filled with a strange desire to feel the Sun’s blessed rays. It had only been three days, but that was long enough.

No one could last much longer in such a hellscape.

Whoosh!

Kiyo infused what radiance remained undrained into his legs, a diminishing energy nearly worn out from his confrontation with the two stalkers. A deep and vehement concentration was required to surpass his limitations, to endure the heat broiling his bare skin from the inside.

To save them.

Daisuke continued to dash ahead, his determination paying off as he arrived in the nick of time. Torio’s group had their arms full with their stalker's kill, unable to lend a single hand to ward off the assault. Forced into a dead sprint flee, bodies tattered and worn down by the chase. Anxiety ate away at their minds. Red faces and wheezing mouths were all that composed of their efforts, a last-ditch sprint to freedom. But the light was still so far off, and darkness only continued to close in.

Swoosh! GRAARGGHG!

With a bone-chilling roar, a stalker lept out of the shadows above the half-crushed corpse of its brethren, talons aimed at the children below. The stalker’s rage-induced vision locked onto the feeble children, jaw unhinged, gagging on its own blood lust. Riddled with treacherous shivers, it pried apart its tremendous clawed hands. One swipe was all it would take to disable and devour them alive.

Tt-tt-tt—Bang!

Daisuke leaped off the side of a degraded stalactite and nailed the stalker in the face with his right fist, its open jaw knocked loose as it flew into a stone pillar. Spit and cracked teeth cast into the open air. Body brought to an abrupt standstill by the burst of Daisuke’s radiance. The stalker rendered disabled after a single punch.

Thoomph!

Yet more were on the prowl, narrowing in on the children as they sprinted across the feral pitch-black terrain. The children’s faint glow stones were their only salvation to make a clear escape.

“Thanks,” One of the children choked out, their bodies near collapse.

Daisuke kept conversation to a minimum, a curt smile and nod all he had to offer to conserve energy. Trailing behind the group he put himself in the prime position of danger, the first and last line of defense for their flank. Their lives were in his hands, his burden to now bear.

Fists clenched and breath relaxed, Daisuke honed in his focus. His eyes glowed a dimmed neon green, all energy boiling to the surface. Sweat and steam littered his frayed skin, his body rejecting the intense radiation that emanated from his core. But he had to. He had to save them from what was coming.

“sTOp nOW.”

“WaiT fOr US.”

“YoU cAn’T LEavE!”

From the horde. One after another, he battered the stalkers away from the other children. His full capabilities put on display with every strike that exerted every ounce of strength. He had nothing left to give but his life.

Swoosh!

A stalker descended from a pillar above, its taloned hands spread out wide slicing through the stagnant air. Instincts drawn in by the subtle light, it lunged right at Daisuke. But he was distracted, encapsulated by the shadows sprawled on the ground around them. His life was open for the taking, left completely defenseless.

“Watch out!” Another one of Torio’s group called out in terror.

The shrill voice tossed a vague point up above Daisuke seconds too late, the monster only a few feet from him. Just within the stalker’s arm’s length to skewer Daisuke, to tear him apart limb from limb. And in that moment of impending death, the world fell still. It was the end. The thought resonated within Daisuke, right at death’s door. But no fear creased Daisuke’s face. Only a thin twitch of wonder, curious of what would come next after the end. What lies beyond the darkness?

Jump–whiff—Boom!

Out of nowhere, in a flash of chaotic light, Kiyo propelled himself off the ground and plunged his fist into the creature’s side. A sputter of bloodied blessed light burst out of the stalker’s mouth from the fiery impact as it collapsed onto the ground. Clipping Kiyo in the left arm on the way down, a deep gash was torn into his left forearm, training gear split right in two. Radiated blood stained the fabric with a grisly dark splotch. Teeth braced against the wind as Kiyo raced beside Daisuke. He tried to numb the pain in his arm as Kiyo bit into his tongue, a brief distraction, enough to focus on what lay ahead.

Their escape.

“Keep going,” Kiyo barked, the two solemn words enough to redirect their focus.

Fending off the other stalkers in any way they could, Daisuke and Kiyo protected Torio’s squad. Left to only shudder and invest all of their attention into their lives more than the trial, the teratoma bone soles of their shoes grated down by the cave floor.

Swoosh-swoosh! Clutter-bang-whiff-whiff! RGRGRGAAAAARGGHH!

Stones and punches were thrown against the shadows as they fled toward the light. But the stalkers only drew closer with every step. Their pace accelerated, hunger and rage primary drives to their agitated states. Seconds away from demise.

“Kiyo!” Daisuke shouted over the hectic atmosphere, his voice just able to grasp his friend’s attention. With a pandering glance, no words were needed to see the idea that sprouted within Daisuke’s mind. Glowstone in hand, the boy raised it high with a baseball pitcher’s grip. Kiyo followed suit and raised his own stone, two glistening blue beacons in the sea of the damned. But waves were crashing in close from all around. Death imminent.

“Wait. . .okay now!” Daisuke yelled, and on cue, they both smashed their stones upon the bleak earth. Shattering into thousands of teeny tiny pieces, their grated smokescreen of light sent sparks across the floor, a makeshift flashbang. 

AARRROOOUGGH!

Two stalkers pounced on the shards to stomp out the Sun’s nested light. Such a fragment alone was enough to hinder their brain’s control. The distraction was brief, yet it was enough.

Two miles. That was all that remained between them and salvation. A few of the children’s faces cracked the smallest of smiles, teary eyes from the idea of hope encapsulated in the heavenly rays that peeked through the darkened shadows of the Night’s Sea. Ever so close.

Swoosh—shuunk!

Misfortune struck.

“Ermrmmraaagh!” Daisuke groaned, clamping his mouth shut as he bit down his lower lip to quench his voice.

Fwoosh—fwoosh!

Three stalkers appeared out of the shadows, one leaping forward with a spiraling slash that pierced Daisuke through the shoulder. Flesh and blood sprayed into the open air, Daisuke's agony contained as he muscled through it.

Who—snap!

Kiyo warded off the beast as he drove his fist into the beast’s talon. One meaty punch was all it took to snap it right in half like a twig.

“ARRROOWALLL!” It wailed, teeth seething in a murderous rage as it continued to chase them with the others.

Daisuke pulled the talon out as he ran, the thin razor-sharp pale finger drenched in maroon. He hurled it down on the ground, right hand clutched over his shoulder, pushing for the exit. For their escape. To see the Sun again.

But they grew slower, submission creeping into the back of their minds. The stalkers were on the verge of grasping onto their prey, taking their lives. Claiming them in the darkness. Forever lost warriors.

BANG! ccCCRRAACCKKkk–sploosh!

It was as if the cave sky was raining down behind them. Without warning, a stone the size of a beach ball flew over their heads and pelted the three stalkers about to pounce. All of them killed in an instant. But what hit them? A random stalactite from the ceiling? An act of the Sun? Shoma?

No. It was Monterio.

Stood on the peak of a stalagmite, he heaved in anxious and weary breaths. His lively grass-green eyes locked onto the group running toward him. The lives he had just saved. His hands blistered and rubbed raw from the excess energy he couldn’t bring himself to sustain any longer. 

“Monterio, let’s go!” Isao called out from behind, closing in on the exit climb to the surface.

Yet he lingered there, staring at the fellow marked children he had just saved, liberated from certain death. No expression of relief or joy settled into his face, only contemplation over his actions. Reasoning for why was absent in all the thoughts that cycled through the troubled masochist’s mind. It was just out of instinct, a drive he couldn’t describe.

A split decision with no clear understanding, just instinctual. As if it just seemed right.

The thought continued to pester him as he climbed the ropes back into the blessed land graced with the Sun’s presence, back up to the surface world. Why did he save them?

Only blanketed curious stares masked the group as they followed suit and ran toward the ropes. Shoma, Kono, and Eiko were already making their way up to the surface. The stalker tied to Shoma’s back was nothing for a child his size. Torio’s group situated their prize and joined the other’s ascent, climbing up the rope one hand at a time.

Speed brought down to a crawl as they all broke past the mid-layer of shadows and rose back into the light. A warm welcome from the late afternoon Sun, the sky painted a vibrant pink and orange fade. The heavens laced with the blessings and spirits of warriors of the past.

At the very back end of the line, Daisuke and Kiyo were the very last two children to escape the crater. Clutching onto the graveled landscape as they pulled themselves upright into the land of the living. 

“The last two,” Takeo muttered with a wry chuckle.

The other three boys stood off to the side next to their stalker corpse, one of six others laid down on teratoma mats beside it. Their concerned and anxious eyes locked onto Kiyo and Daisuke with timid smiles, glad to be freed from that hell hole. But uncertainty picked away at their thoughts, unsure what was now to come.

To their surprise, a camp was long prepared for their arrival. Maidens were present to help those injured in the fray, children scattered around the campgrounds, pitched teepee-like tents nested into the gravel ground. Woven from Sun-dried teratoma skin and sown together with coar hair, they were great preservers of heat and markings of a clan's strength. The more numerous the teepees were an indication of their growth as a society and their ability to deal with the ravenous beasts of the forsaken lands.

All of Takeo’s children were there, receiving care and going through the final roundabouts of the trial. Now at the helm of the last group, he led them off in front of them and tipped his head forward for them to follow.

“There’s one last thing,” Takeo said with a flick of his right pointer finger.

Uncertainty enveloped the five boys as they followed behind Takeo in silence, peeking around the open teepees to see if they could get a peek at what awaited them. Only able to see some maidens tending to fellow hurt children, a few guardians standing guard at the edges of the campsite, and one squad in a big dark tent masked in a thick coat of crimson blood paint. Monterio’s group knelt before Nari. Present only for the ending sanction, laying her judgment on those who needed correction or appraisal.

Takeo led them away from the center row of tents and into his own. It was empty beside a single black kettle of still water held by carved teratoma bones. The kettle itself sculpted from obsidian, a precious heirloom at the helm of a soothsayer present, a soul trained and instructed by the High Priest himself, sent there to lay an extension of his judgment.

Takeo stopped at the entrance and stepped aside.

“Follow every word she says, don’t question it.” He instructs.

All five boys nodded and filed into the teepee, Takeo right behind them to overwatch the process himself. A matter that connected the warriors to the High Priest’s hierarchy, his presence was mandatory to see this test through.

Daisuke gulped down his nerves and walked toward the kettle first, turning to the soothsayer and slowly pressing his right fist into his heart. Struggling to compose himself beneath the waves of stress coiled around his heart, lingering bits of trauma from the pit that tugged at his focus. Yet through it all, he tried his best to honor her presence. She took the motion in full sincerity with a pleasant smile. Nodding her head, she gestured to the pot with an open hand, the other clutched onto a bone staff with a small pinky-sized Sun stone embedded in the tip. A sign of the importance of her position, every word hand-delivered to her from the Sun above.

“Lay your hands on the stone,” She muttered in a hollowed croak.

With a slight bob of his head, Daisuke stepped up to the kettle and shifted his hands toward its underside. The coarse metal singed his calloused palms, but he welcomed the delectable heat. Anything was preferable to the torture that lay in the tepid air below. But confusion settled in the longer he kept his hand glued to the pot. Under Takeo’s instructions, he kept himself from making any rash movements, yet he couldn’t help the building anticipation for what he was supposed to see, what they wanted to see.

A few minutes passed, and nothing happened or seemed to appear from his contact. An uneasy silence resided within the tent, and a sour look crinkled the soothsayer’s face.  She sucked in a light breath to speak her delivered analysis, but then she hesitated. Just stopped midthought. Breath choked on as a waft of heat rose from the pot. Bubbles bloomed over the water like delicate flowers, birthed from the subtle boil that raptured the pot. There were only a few small ones here and there, but it was enough for the soothsayer. The wrinkles disappeared beneath a delicate smile as she made a hasty gesture across her chest. Daisuke’s worth judged in an instant.

“Uhh. . .did I do good?” Daisuke asked in a low tone, but the only response was a choir of confused faces. Not one of the children knew what this was. Some ancient ritual perhaps, but in their eyes it was all the more strange.

They waited for the pot to settle then Kono stepped up next, a little antsy jitter carried up to the stage with him. Clamping his hand against the warm brash kettle, it took half the time for the water to reach a boiling point. One or two pops echoed throughout the confinement of the teepee, a hazy steam rising into the cool air. But was this good or bad?

That was to be decided by the soothsayer.

Eiko’s fell a little flat, the heat only enough to draw bubbles to the water's surface, but no change beyond that. His childish expectations to see an explosion of power radiate from his supple palms left him with mixed feelings. An over-eager grin wiped off his face in place of a bubbled pout. What did this prove?

“Man, you broke it,” Eiko muttered as he passed Kono.

“I did not. . .you’re just too stupid to think.” Kono smacked back with a snarky sneer.

“Think? Think of what? How to heat a POT?”  Eiko grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest.

Shoma’s turn was a change of pace for everyone. Within thirty seconds, the pot nearly overflowed with a flurry of bubbles that popped off one after another. The soothsayer struck the ground with her staff to draw an end to his run, a steady joy brewing in her lips at Shoma’s results, just on the verge of releasing excited laughter. A smidge away.

With all said and done, there was one, the profound savior of Nippon.

Kiyo eased forward with a slight hesitation, slow to raise his hand to meet the pot’s underbelly.  Huffing a tepid breath, he pressed firmly on the bottom, body stricken with tense anticipation. The cool obsidian had a pleasant feeling against his burnt skin. He stared intensely at the pot and waited for the same reaction he’d seen four times already. For it to bubble up as the heat simmered through the still water. To show his inner potential.

But nothing happened.

“See, told you. You broke it.” Eiko muttered with a snicker in his words.

“I did not. If anything, you broke it. Water didn’t do anything when you touched it,” Kono whispered back.

“That’s because you already broke it, genius!”

“At least I’m not—”

“Shh.” Takeo cut in, overlapping Kono’s comeback. Feud set aside, the two slumped back into their patient idle stances.

The water remained flat and stagnant, lifeless. Kiyo glanced around the teepee, worry twitching beneath his skin, not sure what to make of his results. All he could do was try harder, honing in his focus on the very center of his withered palms. On the pinpoint speck of energy he imagined in his mind.

After another few minutes passed, still nothing happened. The water remained perfectly still, yet not a single bubble had risen. All of a sudden, the soothsayer slammed her staff into the ground, her gaze downcast toward the flattened wooden skin-covered matt beneath them. Kiyo lept back amidst the confusion, unsure what was to become of this. Split between foreseen expectations and the unknown desires of this test. Wide-eyed beneath his bangs, waiting for an answer. One that would explain this.

Yet as she looked up at him it only further added to the pile of questions in his mind.

She was crying. Tears of exuberant joy rained down from her face, and with it, the truth leaked out from beneath her mask of bones in the form of a hearty grin. She couldn’t sequester this joy any longer. Her very next words were poignant to the future Kiyo would lead. A foreign truth he still refused to accept.

“You, my child, are blessed of the utmost high. You are. . .salvation.”

…

Showing their respect once more with a pounded fist against their chests, all the children and Takeo flooded out of the teepee and back into the common space between the tents. Looking past the edge of the comune, it was clear the day was coming to an end. A setting Sun sent the world into a blood-orange blaze, streaks of vibrant light rippled across the cloudy skies. It was a beautiful sight.

“We head back to Harion tomorrow. Till then, rest up. You’ll need it for when we get back,” Takeo announced to the group bluntly, not a single hint of emotion on his face. Seeing they understood the information, he passed them a formal gesture of release and turned to leave. Nothing more needed to be said, but the children were far from being on the same page.

“Teacher?” The word just slipped out of Daisuke’s mouth, rubbing his right arm as he built up the nerve to release the obvious.

Takeo halted in place, motion brought to a standstill at the beck of Daisuke’s voice. He only popped a glance over his shoulder, his yellow eye locked onto Daisuke. The stare was enough to send shivers down the boy’s spine, but he stifled them. Back straight and stature composed, he stepped forward and let it out.

“What was that for?” Daisuke asked.

There was no immediate response, only a longing empty stare down. Takeo glanced from the teepee back to the children, the dire truth right on his tongue. But he couldn’t say a word, doing so blasphemous to the Sun and their people. With a heavy sigh, he gravitated to a lie. A simple lie a child would believe.

“A test. One you should already understand.” Takeo turned away from the boys, but he could only get so far off those words. “Not everyone who lives gets to go home, there’s always a price.”

“The pot’s the price?” Eiko blurted out with an exaggerated squint.

“That pot, that’s your potential. You’re future.”

They were left dumbfounded, still just children in mind as they sought to be warriors of the heart. Forced to deal with their inner confusion themselves. The only thing grasped was their need to become better, to improve themselves. A connection each member of the group shared, hopeful to one day become true warriors.

Besides Kiyo.

A bitter taste was all that laced the questions rummaging through his mouth, words of the past now coming back into the light. The prophecy held over him was transitioning into a reality he couldn’t envision. A future he didn’t want. His visions in the Night’s Sea only further complicated things, unsure if those were simply hallucinations or blessed dreams. Either way was a nightmare to figure out. But through it all, one thought took the reigns of his focus, one word.

What does it mean to be salvation?

What is salvation?