ASRAN SERIES- ACROSS THE BORDER

Chapter - 28

As he noticed Nina’s hungry eyes on the food in his hands, he immediately hid it behind his back.

“Brother, what are you doing? Did Mom not teach us to share food with our friends?” Elly noticed his behavior and complained.

“Yes, but she is not our friend,” Peter said with a poker face.

Elly sighed and said, “I can’t believe you…”

She then gave her portion of the food to Nina, much to Peter’s objection. Still, he did not stop her from sharing her food. He gave his food to his sister, Elly, and then leaned against the wall.

“You too eat some brother. This is too much for me alone to eat,” Elly gave half of her food back to Peter.

He did not refuse her and accepted the food with a smile. He then caressed her head and said, “You are still my kind-hearted sister. I was worried that after you were being held captive by that old witch for a long time, you would have changed but you did not. I am proud of you.”

“Brother, I really did not know that our grandmother would turn out to be such a person. After I got lost during the war, Grandma Rose found me and gave me a place to live in her house. I never expected that she would actually be an Old witch and would have such a secret place under her house,” Elly said in a sad voice.

“I trust you but always remember she is not our Grandmother Rose. Once we go back to our parents, let’s not tell her about what happened here. She might get very sad and may start to think that it was all her fault for being unable to protect us properly.” Peter said and patted her shoulders.

“I understand, brother. My mouth is zipped and I would never tell our mom about what happened here. Maybe we should all stick with one story and inform them that a caring and warmhearted old lady saved me and then after you found me, we all went back…” Elly stopped speaking as tears rolled down her eyes and then said,

“Brother, will we be even able to go back home from here? We are now stuck in this cage and I don’t know how we will get out of here.”

“Don’t worry, once Robert wakes up, he will always have an escape plan. Let’s wait for him. He is the smartest one among us,” Peter said.

Nina listened to them quietly and did not interfere in their conversation. Instead, she very much concentrated on eating the food in her hands while feeding the minia’s little bit once in a while.

…...

‘Even if they crossed the border and entered the city, all that awaited them was death. They need to have a proper plan before they could even proceed into that war zone,’ David thought and clenched his fist.

Brenda noticed the couple’s sad face and in a comforting tone she said, 

“Robert is with Peter now, so please do not worry about the kids. His dad had taught him survival skills from an early age as he is in the military. Even though he is a militant, I can assure you that the minute Robert’s dad comes to know about them crossing the border, he would definitely not let anything happen to our kids. At least that much, we can have faith in him.” 

Brenda’s only pain in her life was her husband’s betrayal. She had begged him several times to stand by their side but he refused. So, she left with her family leaving him alone on the other side of the border.

‘If only he was a little bit more considerate and supported their clan, then all these would have not happened in the first place. He could have stood by my side and fought for us.’ She thought and rubbed her chest as she felt the pain in her heart.  

She still could not understand how he could choose to be on the neutral side and decide to do nothing. He behaved as if he does not care about his own wife and kid when they could have faced eviction. 

His betrayal brought disaster to his own family and he even had the guts to act as if there was nothing wrong. Basically, at that moment, she understood that he does not care about her or their son… sons.

Sussan tried hard to swallow the sob that almost escaped her mouth and left David’s embrace. At least she has someone to lean on right now but Brenda stood all alone with no one around her and she thought it was partly her fault.

“I am sorry, Brenda. It's my fault, I did not teach Peter well and let him take Robert along with him. I promise you, I will definitely find a way to bring our kids back to us. I promise! I promise,” Sussan held Brenda’s hand and said with determination.

Brenda shook her head and removed her hands from Sussan. She then stared into space and said,

“Please don’t be so hard on yourself. It was neither Peter’s fault nor Robert’s fault. Actually, Robert is just like his father. He would always take sides with his friends first rather than his own family. So I do not blame you and can never accuse you of the choice my son made.”

Brenda then took a deep breath and said, “In fact, if we think about it more specifically, I think it’s all my fault for falling in love with a person who doesn't care about his family. All the love and affection he showed us disappeared, once we were faced with an issue. Or else why would he leave us even after knowing that we would face eviction after the new rule was forced to become law by the militants.”

“Do not you feel there is definitely something that was quite not right about that law. Why would they implement a law that would be a loss for them too? When we were all together nobody would have been able to fight us and win the war against us. I think that it was like someone is deliberately trying to drive a wedge between us.” Sussan said as she thought that the whole situation was totally absurd.

They had all been living happily together for several hundreds of thousands of years and then suddenly something popped up and broke the bond. 

‘It did not seem like the militants worked alone. Someone powerful from behind their back is using the militants to drive the wedge among the people of this planet.’ Sussan thought.

“Why are they trying to separate Lambanies and Sabers? Only when we both are united, we stay stronger and powerful than any other planet in this entire galaxy. Even though we have never got recognition for our work for almost a decade now, still we never felt that as a reason or an issue that needed to be raised to the militants. We all lived under one roof merrily and helped each other without expecting anything in return,” Sussan said after she tried to think deeply into the issue.

“We have always thought of each other as one and not as separate clans. We had inter-clan marriages and it had always worked out well. Everything was more than peaceful and that’s why we failed to notice that the core was breaking apart,” Brenda finished what Sussan did not want to say.

Moreover, Sussan regretted that when she went to Asran last time, she should have raised the issue in front of the council and got recognition from their people. If she had done that, those militants could have got no power to evict their clan from their city.

But at that time everything was picture perfect and everyone was on friendly terms. There was never a need to make such arrangements and their life was always filled with joy and happiness all the time. 

“Most people never even knew about their difference in clans until the war broke out. Then they realized that there was actually a difference among themselves and their neighbors or even some of their close family members did not belong to their tribe,” Sussan mumbled.

She now started to see that everything about that law was completely lawless. She had to do something about it but there was no way she could do that while standing here... almost middle of nowhere.