They Called Me FIVE

LANCE

For the next few hours we've sat in the cackling fireplace. I listened to Dad as he explained how he found this Lista guy. What's the nature of their relationship. How they come into contact after almost fifteen years of no communication.

Lista said this place was like their hub. To him, to Dad and to all their comrades, before their memories are erased from the Faeries, they made a promise that if ever one comes to remember who he was, they would come here and talk about their future plans. What should be their next move against the Faeries, how they go back to magical realm.

Lista was their inside man. For some reason other than one, Lista came from one of the prestigious family of Rank Elders. So he possess a bit of blessing in his blood.

A little enchantments here and there, he was able to store a body part of a Red Beast in his stomach.. I gulped. I really don't want to know what that 'store' meant. I just know that I winced when an image pop into my head when Lista circled his hand in his gut.

Seriously, you don't wanna hear it too. If you're imagining it right now, I feel bad for you and the recent food you ingested.

So this Lista dude somehow figured out what the Faeries where after. He knew they were used, Dad, Lista and his comrades are manipulated by the sidelines to get near to the 'about to be born' Eklektos and made a connection to them.

In fact, all the people that the Faeries have them kill are either the parents, relatives or some close acquaintance of the Eklektos.

I shuddered at this new information. To say I'm not scared is a lie. I'm dripping in cold sweat in my seat. Questions are firing at my head. And everytime I tried to speak them out, I can't.

I'm struck by the horror, by the nasty business that's speculating without my knowledge. If what he just said is true, it means that the Faeries have anticipated everything. They knew the identities of the Eklektos before they were born. They knew who to plant as a trap, as spy, into their lives so they could manipulate the Eklektos into dancing at their palms.

And it's all real. What Magnus suspected. That my Dad has always been a slave. That he's doing what he was directed to do, so he could twirl me into the hands of the Faeries.

"None of what you're thinking now is true Lance." Dad said, his voice sound offended. I skid my sofa to the side, putting a fair distance from the both of them.

"How would you know what I'm thinking right now?" I snapped. It was Lista who answered.

"Because you're on guard. You may not know it but everything that Dad taught you, you're fighting skills, your survival skills, all these came from the 'Prankation' teachings of the Rankers."

I sat up. "Prank what?"

Lista took a pen from his torn trousers and sent it whizzing in my direction. I caught it at first. Then another one came and I whipped it from the air. Until three, five, ten pens are shooting towards me like swishing knives.

I leaped from the sofa and tried to avoid from getting hit. Beside Lista, Dad screamed.

"Don't dodge, catch!"

I got irritated. If this is a joke I'm not getting the humor behind it. I catch one, two, three, but my hands are becoming full and there's another round of twenty pens zapping straight to my face.

So I did the most sensible thing a kid like me will do when getting thrown at. I throw it back. Instead of dodging, Lista flick his wrist and the pens are coming whirring back at me.

"That's not fair!" I shouted. And catch the incoming two pens.

"Nothing is fair in a fight Lance. When your opponent is stronger than you, you'll die. That's it. The end. No cross cutting it, no complaining, no asking for mercy. When you battle the Faeries, either you lose and die or lose and be a slave forever." Dad said, his voice sound tight.

I snickered. Five pens are coming to hit me in the legs and I jumped back to dodge it. Out of natural instinct mind you. As if the pens has life on its own, the trajectory bend and slash my tights around the area below the knee. Leaving my skin scarred, fairly dripping out blood from the cut.

"What the-?"

"That should not surprise you, young Eklektos." Lista said. He made an arc with his hand and the pens swooped back towards him like baby magnets attracted to mother magnet.

"I'm unofficially a member of the Capricorn Elders family." He confessed.

"Capricorn Elders? So what, you have one big happy family of Elder goats and baby goats now?"

"There are twelve families that descends from the first twelve Rank Elders who receive blessings from the Deities themselves." He said, ignoring my last comment.

"Each family scattered to different twelve kingdoms of the Gifted People. Giving birth to all the excellent Rank Rulers, Rank Elders and Rankers in all empire. And I was born to one of them." He's talking and sighing at the same time. As if this matter is as deadly as eating poisonous food to him.

"My parents weren't pleased with my refusal to be train for the Ranker position. It was against the family laws. All men must go through the Ranker's hundred test you see. We have paramount of blessings flowing in our blood, so to not put it into good use is a direct insult to the Deities. Hence, they banish me. Denouncing me as a member of the family and throw me into the ravine that sheltered the territory boundary from the Beasts."

He stopped hurling the pens at me. So I stood in front of them, leg bleeding, shirt's wet with sweat, even though I just got out of the shower. I guess I'm left with nothing to do except to listen at Lista's ultra sad background story.

"And you were cast out of your kingdom? Is that how the Faeries got you as their slaves?"

Lista smiled knowingly at my question, then looked at Dad.

"No, I was saved. Dan save me and brought me back to the suburban town of Capricorn Kingdom. Away from my family's prying eyes." His expression were suffused with relief. As if he's retelling a story that only happened yesterday and not fifteen years ago.