End of Yellow Splash training
1035 Words
Zohaifa enjoyed the view. He always liked storms even back on Earth. He loved the feeling when the water-mixed strong wind rushed into his hair and refreshed his face. Lightning to him is nature’s fireworks.
But Marium could not sit still. She marched back to front in the cave, roamed around, joined Zohaifa in sight-seeing, and back to marching again. At last her little hyper mind could not hold her boredom any longer.
"Zohaifa don't you know of anything fun to do?" she asked.
"I don't know. Nothing's coming to my mind right now," Zohaifa shrugged.
"How about you tell me a story?" she said with excitement.
"Story? But I only know boring old grandpa stories."
"Tell me about your life on earth. How was it like?" she asked.
"Strange question. What kind of answer do you expect?"
"Like how was your family like? What sort of interaction did you have with others? You know, things like that."
"I always considered myself to be a normal guy. But if you ask anyone their answer would differ. They would categorize me at the strange end of the spectrum."
"Why? What did you do differently from them?" asked Marium with excitement.
"Maybe the largest difference from me and others is my family background. My family was exceptionally pious. I wasn't as pious as them, or maybe not at all. But of course, I had to pray since my parents wanted me to. I can at least boast around that I was an obedient son. But I didn't like the way people treated me just because I was too God-conscious. So, I started to avoid my identity as a Muslim when my parents weren’t there. I didn't even like myself as who I was then."
"What do you think about that life now?"
"I would say that life on Earth was peaceful. I was just too dumb to notice it. I thought my life was full of hustle and bustle. There were annoying home works, I needed to wake up every day for school. I did not like it at all. But now that look back at it, it feels like that was such a wonderful life. I even miss my traditional Muslim life."
"Basically, you think if you can get back to the life you hated you would be as happy as a clam?"
"How do you know if clams are happy?"
"I don't know. People say that. So, right now you seek your old life, right? What kind of life did you seek when you were living that life?"
It was a simple question. But something about it felt odd.
“I don’t remember,” answered Zohaifa. He felt like he was overlooking something. But he couldn’t figure it out. He decided to ignore it.
Gradually, the rain stopped. Nature woke up. The light shined bright and the environment was as if someone pushed the refresh button on nature.
"Let us go now and continue training," said Zohaifa.
As they reached the hill, they noticed that the ants were missing. They must've escaped to survive the rain. Thus they can continue their training without worry. At last, they finished training and finally headed home that day.
"That was fast!" said Lazuli to the two of them.
"What training comes next?" asked Zohaifa
"The yellow splash"
"Finally!" equivocally exclaimed Zohaifa and Marium.
Lazuli took them to the backyard and showed the ‘Yellow splash’ couple more times and told them the details of executing the move.
A week went by. Lazuli showed them the move everyday in the morning.
“I did it!” exclaimed Marium.
“Me too,” joined Zohaifa, “I guess ‘Yellow Splash’ isn’t as hard as we thought.”
“Wrong!” Lazuli just came to the backyard, “All of these training was to prepare you for this move. You can even say that this whole training was ‘Yellow Splash’ training. Anyways, you two are free for the rest of the day. Enjoy!”
The next day, Lazuli told Zohaifa, "The training is over. We still have three weeks before the tournament. Zohaifa, you can come back after two weeks. I will teach you the basics."
Zohaifa was perplexed. "What? You will not strengthen our Yellow Splash? Where am I supposed to go? And wait. Basics? I am supposed to learn the basics after learning the advanced moves?"
"You can strengthen it. But that's not needed. Trust me. And about where you need to go. I don't really care. But the logical approach would be to go to the forest. You won't find food in the city without money. You should remain in the forest. The monsters in this forest are easily beatable. There aren’t any poisonous berries either."
"Okay," answered Zohaifa without any other words, as if he wasn’t surprised.
Marium dropped her gaze to the ground. She had nothing to say, only wished that her mom would have taken a different decision.
The next day.
"It has been a few days since I have been in the forest. How many days has it been?" thought Zohaifa.
Then Zohaifa wiggled his finger ready for calculations. But he realized he had been there for only one day.
"Oh, but nothing new is happening. I think I should move past the forest. The only things in the forest are Green goats with red eyes, Short blue bears, bees, ants, and various plants. I need to meet new people. Someone or another must have my answer and I cannot find that if I stay confined to a forest."
Thus, Zohaifa started to head outside of the forest to explore the vast Cant World.
"I am going to see something new if I am headed in this direction. I just know it," said Zohaifa with excitement.
That is when he met Flirtic.
"It's you again," said Flirtic keeping his cool.
"In this vast world where there is an endless possibility of what I can stumble upon, it just had to be you again," said Zohaifa with disappointment in his voice.
"Ready for a rematch? I am unsatisfied with the last fight and also still boiling in anger for the comments you threw."
- Writer
