literature

Blood of The Wicked Ch. 1

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Special blood types were the new thing to have. Instead of curves or blue eyes and black hair, it was blood types. And it was all because years and years ago, there was a book that has appeared in a Greek shrine dedicated to Apollo. A lot of people wrote it off since it was just a book, what harm could it do?

People said the book was
a powerful weapon that could destroy everyone; or that the book wasn't even scary. Nobody knows what it says, which was true. It was written in a dead language few people even studied or heard of. But who knows? It was just all speculation.
    
Until people, ordinary people that came few and far between, started looking at the book and telling people what a word meant or what a sentence said.

Everybody freaked out since this was a new thing. Not very many people could read it, why these few people? 

Nobody would ever find out for sure. Society had collapsed in on itself. All the countries were at each other. Nobody in the streets were safe. And with the forest conservation kick everybody had been on for the last one hundred years, there was a lot of forest to hide in. Of course, not everybody wanted to live in the forest. So they went to the underground. There were always rumours about hidden underground tunnels. And people were finally starting to believe them as they found more and more abandoned train and subway tunnels.

Most people had zero contact anymore. Everybody was going back to living off of the land. A lot of people kept to themselves. If they saw somebody in the forest, they just turned around. It wasn't their business to be involved with somebody else.

That mentality changed as soon as everybody realized more people where dying than there were to replace them. So there was an unspoken rule that if somebody put a tattered shirt on a tree branch, they needed more children. That was the most of their outside contact. It made the family trees a lot more muddled as most of the time, people didnt stick around unless they were the ones carrying the child.

With this new civilization, the citites tended to go uninhabited and the smaller towns filled up. The towns were easier to live in as there wasn't concrete for miles.  Soon there were small village cropping up in the middle of the woods.

People evolved back to trading things and doing favours for people. Using currency was harder now since there were no mills to make the bills or coins. Nobody really worked. The mills and office buildings had been destroyed by people raiding it for parts.

Even though people were more tolerant, the greater population still looked at the people able to read the book in fear. They were jealous, 'why could they and not I', they found themselves think. And that jealously led to people being nastier than usual.

The most famous person to be able to read the book was Ramla. Everybody knew her. She was the rumoured beauty queen with gorgeous amber eyes, sepia coloured skin, hair as wild as the wind, and the kindest smile around. But that didn't stop the people from looking at her in bitterness.

She had been a prostitute. Mainly they traded sex for every day items like salt or grain for everyday meals. It wasn't a very clean way to get something in the eyes of most but she didn't care. It put food on the table for her kid and partner. That was enough for her. She hadn't a very good grasp on English yet as her main language was Swahili so there wasn't much talking to her neighbours in the town. If she tried, they looked down their noses and sneered condescendingly as they told her the exact opposite of what she wanted.

Her son, Jabari, was only a toddler. He was always treated with respect and kindness from the town. Ramla wouldn't have it any other way/ She made sure that her clients spread the word that Jabari was to be treated like any citizen of the town. The word spread like wildfire and a lot of the mothers warmed up to Ramla after that.

But that didn't extend to the children. Jabari was made fun of from his umber skin tone. The darkest the children had ever seen was a rich fawn. He was different and different wasn't something they could comprehend. So they were mean. The mothers never saw hide nor hair of the teasing either so when Jabari came home in tears to Ramla, the mothers of the supposed bullies were as clueless as could be.

Ramla pulled Jabari out of the towns clutches fast, taking him a town over and settling down. It was a days walk from their previous residence so they had to start from square one again. It was tough work but in this village, people respected Ramla for being able to read The Book and freely let the children know that any bullying meant punishment of staying inside sewing. 

But soon, Jabari had been speaking a different tongue than Swahili. Ramla never mentioned anything and spoke back in the same language. The towns folk looked at each other in alarm but stayed out of it. There was no harm to it.

But there was always one person that figured out what was going on.

Ramla always made sure she dressed up classily when she went around in the evening. Jabari was asleep before she left but she had a babysitter in the house anyways. One night, when Ramla got back, Jabari was in the middle of a pile of papers, giddily looking through the stacks.

For a child of five, you would have thought he would have been staring in frustration at the fact that there were a lot of words. But he was reading them without a care in the world. He didn't know what any of them meant but he liked how they slid off his tongue like honey.

Upendo," Ramla said in fear. She was standing in the door way, staring at the mess that was on her floor. Jabari looked up in fear and dropped the papers. He quickly stood up and started digging his toes into the soft ground. "You are not allowed in my closet. My room is off limits when I am at work. You know that.”

Jabari looked down and scuffed his shoes along the worn down grey carpet. “I heard a noise.”

“What did you hear?” Ramla asked. She tried to sound light and hide the urgency in her voice. She pulled Jabari close onto her lap, running her hand through his scruffy hair. “What noise did you here in my room?”

“I thought I heard something fall, so I comed in to see what felled. The papers were everywhere when I walked in and I start reading them. The pages say something about a doomsday to be and that by the year-”

Ramla cut Jabari off with a sharp look that made him falter and go quiet. His mother was a very nice lady but he didn't want to get her angry. So he shrank into her chest, burying his face into the cloth of her loose shirt. He waited for his mother to get angry.

“Upendo, I am going to tell you something but when I tell you, we are going to have to leave. Okay?” Ramla said. She pulled Jabari up and stood him in front of her. He nodded, wiping his eyes quickly on his sleeve.

Ramla breathed in and carefully started telling Jabari the history of The Book Of Legends. Why it was so perplexing and how he could read it.

Jabari nodded, looking through his lashes at his mother the entire time. His got the better of him as he asked, “How come we are the only ones that can read the book?”

Ramla smiled, ruffling Jabari's hair. “You will understand in due time. But for now, we have to pack."
-----

There were trees, rocks, and dirt every where as Jabari sprinted through the woods. branches breaking and skidding on the gravel was heard for miles as people chased after Jabari.

Wheezing and panting, he managed to skid under a bush. He clamped a hand over his mouth, trying to quiet his breatihng. He heard the people run past his bush, shouting as they looked for him. A man ordered people around like a drill sergant, yelling at them to go separate ways to find him.

When Jabari only heard his panting, he peeked out through some of the branches and saw that nobody was around him. He kept quiet. His hands were clamped stubbornly over his mouth still and he didn't want to remove them yet. 

He fel his chest constrict painfully. He was scared. He just wanted to go home. He didn't do anything to these men. They just showed up. His mom ran with him for a while. But then she pushed him off somewhere and told him to hide. It was just another game of hide and seek. But why were they being so mean about it?

Fat tears started to roll down his face. It took off some of the dust on his face, leaving trails. His knee hurt. He limped over passed his bush and sat down against the tree opposite. He took his hands away from his mouth, a loud sniff coming from his as he held in sobs. His knee was bleeding and his hands were scratched

He heard a crack of a branch. Jabari stood up too fast and stumbled back. He whimpered, more tears falling faster and thicker down his face. He brought his hands over his face as he heard a person walking towards him. He let out another whimper but it was harsher this time as it caught on a sob.

“What are you afraid of, young one?” A voice said. It was soft, full of nothing but love. Jabari didn't understand what the woman, he thought it was a woman, had said since she was talking in English but he recognized the tone. His mother talked to him like that.

“A-Are you going to hurt me?” Jabari asked fearfully.

“No...I will never hurt you, young one.” The woman said, switching from English to Swahili.

She picked him up easily, hitching him on her hip. Jabari looked at her tearfully and saw she had intense grass green eyes. He felt like he should be scared but those eyes held nothing but sadness in them. 

Before he even comprehended what was happening, a man that was much much larger than Jabari was emerged out of the trees. He made a grab for Jabari but the lasy danced out of his way. She lightly stepped a good five feet away before he even realized what was happening. In the moonlight, Jabari noticed multiple scars on the man's face and neck, like he was attacked by a bear.

The woman had pulled Jabari back, her glove softening the firm grip that she had on his waist. She pulled him firmly against her stomach.

“Hand the boy over and I won't get ugly with you, missy.” The man said. His voice scratchy and baritone, like he had just woken up with a sore throat.

“Looks like it's already too late for that last part.” The woman said lightly. The man scowled at the remark.

“I'm not here to exchange witty banter. Hand him over and you will get a nice sum of food, maybe even somebody to keep your bed warm.”

The woman sounded absolutely disgusted at the offer. “You think a small child like this could harm anybody? That he's worth a bag of feed and a person of my choice? No, thank you, I would rather having this boy alive and well under my care than whatever you plan on doing with him.”

“Please, he won't be mistreated. Our organization is quite good at keeping children happy and healthy. Twice as well as you could ever do for that child.”

“I don't care. He's coming with me. So, good day to you.”

She easily glided off, the leaves and branches muffled her steps. She wasn't even fazed as the man ran after them, the woman just calmly sidestepping his blows, making sure Jabari was fine as she dodged. She caught the ast blow and twisted his arm, headbutting him in a way he was unconscious. He dropped like a sack of potatoes. 

“Now then”, The woman said in easily. “I don't think I introduced myself. My name is Dana and I will take care of you until you can find your mommy or daddy. Is that alright with you?”

Jabari nodded, wrapping his arms around Dana's neck. “My name is...Jabari. Mommy told me to run when bad persons come to our house. She said I couldn' come back.”

“Well, if I come with you, do you think you could show me where your house is?”

“Mommy will be mad if I come back. She told me not to. She did give me this though...”

From underneath his shirt, Jabari pulled out a necklace his mother always wore, two rings, that looked like wedding rings, hanging off the thin silver chain.

Dana cafefully held the two rings in the palm of her hand, feeling a small amount of heat coming from the rings. They were just simple silver rings, looking like a wedding band. the only off thing about them was the inscription on the inside of both rings, looking like co-ordinates. She furrowed her eyebrows in curiosity but let Jabari tuck the rings back underneath his shirt.

Jabari had started nodding off onto her shoulder but he jerked back up when he realized what was happening. Dana noticed it when she felt Jabari's held flop softly onto her shoulder.

“You can sleep. I will protect you, do not worry."

There's a book, The Book of Legends, that nobody can read. Only about 7 people have been ever been able to read it but there are only three people that everybody knows about that can read it. Jabari Hardy is one of those people and not very many people know he can read the book. He wants to keep it that way but other people have different ideas.

All characters belong to me: Shikimari

I redid this because I don't think very many people liked how I opened it, oops. But I think it's way better so give it a try or something and tell me what I did or didn't do wrong/right.

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© 2015 - 2024 Shikimari
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Dj-Despair's avatar
I'm curious, but how do you that "Next Chapter"Link?