19 - DEAD WEIGHT

Bittu’s future was all set in stone with that one act of gouging the eye. Like a wood tossed in fire, all he could do now was burn.

Seeing that pitiful state Bittu was in, Edgar’s anger softened a tad. “Your eye is gone.” He spat out the truth.

Those four words crushed all of Bittu’s hopes. “No!” he cried and sobbed. “You’re lying. No!” If he had his eyeball, there was still a slightest chance of him regaining his sight, but without it, he lost that last ray of hope, as transplanting someone else’s eyes would be a lot more harder.

“Take it however you want,” Edgar coldly said. “Just as much as I want to kill you, I also want you to suffer. Repent for your sins and change your ways, otherwise, the next time we meet will be your last day.” Before he was finished with his words, Fabby stepped toward him.

Edgar’s attention immediately turned toward his sister. He moved away from Bittu and ran into her embrace. Seconds passed, but only silence took the stage. Edgar was tall for a thirteen-year-old, but he only came up to her shoulders. And it almost looked as if a son was hugging his mother.

“I was scared,” warm tears flowed down her cheeks, and she hugged him tighter. “I thought I lost you, too.”

Even though Edgar tried his best to not cry, tears welled up in his eyes. “I’m sorry, Fabs, for getting you worried.”

“No, you came back,” she heartily spoke. “That’s what matters.”

“I promised you, didn’t I? That even if I die, I’d find a way to come back to—” As he was saying, she put her hand on his mouth.

“Don’t speak such words,” she said.

As time passed, Edgar looked at his hand, only to realize that he had long squashed the flowers in his hands, for his hands were empty. “There’s so much I want to talk to you about, but this isn’t the time to wallow in our emotions. We should leave this place first.”

After pausing a moment, Fabby sniffed twice and broke out of the hug. “You are right.”

“Y-You are not a ghost,” the people who were hiding in the rooms till now came out. “If you’re leaving, then please take us with you.”

But then some people still had doubts. “Maybe he’s a zombie, and he will eat us all after taking us out into the woods.”

“But he looks clean!”

“Still, can we trust him?”

As the people selfishly chatted, Edgar looked at them with an unyielding gaze. “I don’t want to carry dead weight,” he was blunt. And his words shocked them, even though they weren’t expecting any nice words to come out of his mouth. It really was an irony, because they all used to call him a dead weight after he had gotten crippled by Bittu. None of those people had ever shown their good side to Edgar, not even once that he could think back on. Nobody other than Dobo had time to spare for a cripple, except for to ridicule him in order to get on the good side of other watchers. He was so constantly picked on that he lost count on how many times every person had hurt him with their tongues and limbs. He had sympathy for them, but that wasn’t enough. Maybe if he even had an inch of respect for them, he might’ve parted with them on better terms.

And Edgar’s words made it clear to the slaves that he didn’t fight for them.

Besides, taking more slaves with him would only increase his chances of getting caught. He simply couldn’t risk that for those who were so hurtful and shameless.

“Edgar…” Just then a fifty-year-old man stepped forward and said, “Don’t you remember? I’ve taught you how to massage. So please take me and my family along.”

“You didn’t teach me out of your own volition, Old Chaw,” Edgar said. “You did it because you were ordered to. And... Do you think I forgot how you used to treat me in the initial days? Just because you had some experience, you treated me like an ant. And to be honest, you didn’t really teach me much because you were probably afraid that I’d replace you. It was me who learned most of it all on my own.”

Chaw tilted his head down in regret. Though he didn’t physically beat Edgar, he purposely made verbal remarks on Edgar’s abilities and how he was useless as a slave, even for indoor works. And now, he wished that he had treated Edgar better.

Fabby, meanwhile, walked over to one of the girls named Deepa, a blonde who was her friend, and asked her to come along, but that girl had someone she loved, so she rejected Fabby’s offer. Fabby then whispered something in her ears, startling her, especially because the last words included, ‘good things come to those who wait.’ The blondie then nodded, leaking out a bit of a grateful smile. Fabby then waved goodbye.

Soon, Edgar grabbed his sister’s hand and walked away without looking back.

Unable to control their frustration, some slaves let their mouths run.

“You think you are some hot shit just because you got a bit stronger?”

“Like others who fled before, you will fail to cross the Tempting Woods.”

“Yeah, we don’t want to join someone who’s looking for death.”

Edgar, however, didn’t even heed their words.

Meanwhile, Bittu was also hurrying away out of that corridor like a lost pup. Having lost both of his eyes, he was no longer eligible to be a watcher. He could still be made into a slave, but he knew that if he stayed there longer, then people would kill him and likely throw that crime on Edgar, so he ran as fast as he could, despite bumping into the walls numerous times. Not a lick of confidence and arrogance he carried everyday as the head watcher could be seen from his fleeing self now.

But as fate would have it, the dogs that he had treated poorly saw this as a chance and ganged up on him and left not an inch on his body unbitten. The dogs didn’t even let him cry, for one dog bit on his face. Though he struggled, he stood no chance.

Meanwhile, Edgar and Fabby were now walking down the mountain, holding hands. “Do you think we can make it past the Tempting Woods?” she asked, taking a long look at her brother, whom she hadn’t seen in a long time.

“It doesn’t matter what we think,” Edgar replied, also looking back at her, though his eyes were filled with determination at the moment. “We have no other choice.”

After what they had done, there was no turning back.