The Dusk of Dawn

Chapter Two- The Rain Temple

The sound of pens scraping on paper filled the room. She couldn’t exactly say she liked this— but it was better than doing chores at the orphanage filled with kids. Worthless, annoying kids, no less.

The Flow Jungle was always quiet except for insects and birds chirping, the rushing sound of waterfalls and streams roaring in the distance, or the constant dripping of raindrops on their roofs. Rays of gold and green sunlight cast on their tutor, who was blubbering away at the front desk, droning on about some stupid math stuff that she already learned two years ago. She sat at one of the front desks and caught her tutor turning around to the blackboard, scribbling nonsense about a person called Polya and his great problem-solving methods.

Kitty craned her neck and looked up at the desk, spotting a pile of exercise papers. While the teacher was still explaining part D of Polya’s problem-solving process, she quickly flipped through the papers and found the one marked with her name. She pulled it free and tossed it out of the window beside her.

Suddenly, ‘psst’ came from behind her, she turned around and saw a few classmates, signalling the exercise papers.

Pleased with her first successful attempt, she flipped through the papers again and pulled out everyone’s worksheets except for the few boys that were simply dead annoying, and tossed all of them outside the window just as the teacher turned around.

“Do you understand? You can use this method in every problem you come across in life; for example, if you’re stuck on the road in a car jam in that dirty city of Ling’s, you can apply this method.” The teacher said proudly.

“That car would die of old age before that person can even reach Part B,” whispered a classmate behind Kitty. She and a few others giggled at the idea of their teacher sitting in his old rusty car and shouting Polya’s method at the Ling City’s road.

“That gangster head might kidnap him and save him for his ultimate t*****e machine!” Kitty whispered back and they laughed again.

“Where are the exercise papers?” Their teacher exclaimed in his nasal voice, shaking his folders and pulling out drawers. “Anyone seen where it is?”

“No, Mr Lagez,” The class said robotically, Kitty sniggered.

“Class captains! Where are my class captains? I’m going to get some new ones from my office. Watch over the class while I’m gone.” Mr Lagez commanded, storming out of the classroom.

As soon as he left, the class started talking again instantly. The class captains soon had to shout over the sound of others, and a few really loud boys started yelling ‘shush’ brainlessly, basically making the class even louder, and a few girls trying to ‘stop’ the atrophy.

“What did you do last weekend?” Asked a girl sitting beside Kitty.

“Stole the silver cup in the temple and left it beside the door of a public toilet.” She replied casually. 

“It was you? Did you see how mad that Pope is?”

Kitty shrugged. “He needs more than two expressions— eyes opened and eyes closed on his face for his own mental health,” she chortled, imitating the Pope’s blank face with a ghostly smile. “Plus that cup looks more like a toilet seat than a cup anyway. Maybe that was what the ‘ancestors’ intended to build it into at the first thought.”

“Well— it’s still a century-old thing!” The other girl beside her protested.

“If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t bother stealing it,” Kitty pointed out. “Anyways, have you—”

“Where did all these papers come from?” Someone screeched.

The class stopped chatting immediately and all rushed over to the windows. Peering outside, they spotted Mr Lagez kneeling in dismay on the muddy jungle floor beneath their school, the rain pattering down on his orange hair and pineapple shirt and shorts. The new exercise papers he retrieved were spread across the ground and stained with mud, unusable. In front of him was another pile of exercise paper with a muddy shoe mark on it.

The papers Kitty just tossed out.

“Who did this?! It’s not funny!” He hollered. “Not funny at all!”

“It was Kitty!” The girl beside her unexpectedly yelled. “She threw them! I saw it! I swear!”

Glaring at her, Kitty ran across the classroom and jumped out of the window on the other end just as a few of her classmates tried to pull her back. She escaped across wet wooden bridges and disappeared into the undergrowth beneath the overgrown fern valleys.

So. She’d spend one whole day in detention, including cleaning the whole Rain Temple, which was a total waste of time since it was cleaned by others every day anyway. Pruning the garden, which was another waste of life since that garden would be covered in weeds within a night, being so close to the forest outside, and some other life wasting chores like scrubbing the roofs and feeding the pigeons as if they won’t get enough food in a whole jungle.

The only not-so-life-wasting punishment she received was the one for stealing the silver cup and leaving it outside the toilet (apparently that girl had spilt everything). Normally touching sacred objects would lead to death sentences, let alone playing with them. But as a ‘child’ Kitty was just sentenced to a week in prison.

The third night in her cell, the servant who brought her food was a woman. Along with her, she also brought a book, which was kind of a relief since it was so boring without anything to read or draw on.

“What book is it?” Kitty asked as she flipped through it, setting her bread beside her.

The servant shrugged. “I don’t know. The Pope said children should still be educated even in prison, so he ordered for books to be brought to you so that you will learn from our ancestor’s words and not cause trouble again when we let you go.”

Oh. So it’s a book of old men telling you what to do. Kitty tossed the book to the end of her bench and started eating her bread instead as the servant made a disapproving look and retired to her station.

It was nightfall. The candle in her cell flickered as a cool wind from the window blew in. She could see the tree canopies of the jungle outside with the shadows of night predators leaping past from time to time. She wished she could also move so silently… She could slither into the temple at night, steal all of the artifacts and dump them somewhere disgusting just to annoy the Pope. She didn’t like keeping the things she stole, she was not short on money or food, and all these idiotic priests deserved it anyway.

In fact…

She turned around and glanced around the room, stopping her gaze on the worn, leather-covered book.

The priests always liked these books, huh? She notioned. She could perhaps do something sneaky about it.

She picked up the book and scanned through it more carefully this time. But when she reached page 456, a paper fell out.

Did the book break? Because too many people read it?

Well, it deserves it. Torturing a large number of innocent victims requires payment, book.

She picked up the page as it landed softly onto her rocky cell floor. She turned it over and noticed that the page’s handwriting was different from others.

The paper looked new too, unlike the yellowish ones in the book. She squinted. There was also a date written at the top-right corner of the page, with names written on the bottom right.

It was a letter.

Kitty was just on the brink of reading it when she heard sudden footsteps outside. She quickly folded the letter and tucked it into a slit between the bricks on the wall, then lied down and pretended to be asleep— listening carefully to the conversation outside.

“…You gave her that book? Of the whole library?”

Oh wow. The Pope himself?

“I didn’t know it was that, the title was unclear!”

That servant who brought the book. And the letter.

“You didn’t know? Do you know what kind of secrets are in that letter? Do you know what is hiding in that letter?”

Huh… I definitely need to read that letter now.

“Shh! You might put her on guard!”

I am already, slowpokes.

The voices and footsteps suddenly stopped. The door of her cell creaked open slowly, sending a ray of light across the dark floor.

She tried not to open her eyes too wide as attempted tip-toes edged closer to her. She saw the Pope picked up the book and flipped through it nervously, the servant looking over his shoulder.

“It’s not here!” The Pope voiced quietly, the servant looking shocked. “She must have it!”

The servant and the Pope searched around the room and tried poking under Kitty, who was now strongly tempted to bite them. They searched dangerously close to the letter’s hiding spot, but finally gave up and sighed.

“If she has the letter, and read it, a troubled child like her would cause a large problem.” The Pope said quietly.

“We’ll stay here,” The servant said. “We’d stay here and watch her all night if she really has the paper. Then tomorrow morning I’ll change the cell for her.”

Stupid servant!

But the Pope nodded, and the pair of them sat staring at her with dead, boring eyes for the rest of the night.

The next morning when she woke up, the Pope was gone— likely for his morning speeches, leaving the servant. Luckily, she was asleep.

As silently as she could, Kitty reached out and tugged the letter free, then pushed it into the fold on her sleeve’s cuff.

Then she did a pretend yawn, waking the servant up from her slumber.

“Oh, morning,” Kitty said innocently. “Just wondering why you’re here.”

“Never mind that,” She said crossly. “How was your bo— I mean— food last night?”

“Disgusting,” Kitty replied, raising her brows. “As always.”

The servant coughed meaningfully, but Kitty ignored it.

“Anyways, why are you here?” She asked.

“I said never mind that.” The servant snapped. “How was the book I gave you?”

“Never read it,” Kitty shrugged. “Who would want to read such a pile of nonsense anyways? And where is that book?” She asked, glancing around the room.

The servant paused for a minute, her mouth half-opened.

“Uh… Never mind that!” She hesitated. “I’m here to inform you that your sentence is going to end early. You’re free to leave now.”

Kitty was openly surprised. That wasn’t what they discussed last night. Did they change their mind after she fell asleep?

“Oh… Sure,” She said instead. “Thanks?”

The servant growled and stood beside the door. Kitty exited and she shut it closed behind her. Feeling her stern gaze on her back, Kitty ran along the corridor and out of the front gate before the servant might change her mind and stuff her back inside the cell anyway.

Kitty climbed up the wooden stairs and arrived at a higher tree platform, then spotted a golden crown glittering behind an old priest, who was writing something on paper. She smiled wickedly and climbed onto the tree above.

The crown was left in a toucan nest as Kitty crept forward, swinging between trees and crossing bridges across rushing rivers.

She stumbled as she reached the jungle’s outpost. The Flow Jungle flourished on an island that rose far above the sea. They didn’t need any guards at the border, barely anyone could go in or out from such a height anyway. 

The sea smashed fiercely against the rocks at the bottom of the cliff, bits of sands that clung to the slits of the rocks washed away into the sea as the waves pulled back. There was no beach, just piles and piles of gigantic rocks in colouration of black and red at the bottom. Anyone who slipped from the edge of the island would face certain death. No one wanted to leave the place anyway since it was so ‘quiet’ and ‘literary’ and ‘educational’ and ‘historical’ and ‘memorable’, plus another few thousand of noble awesome tags. Kitty did not know her surname, or where she came from, or who her parents were. All she knew was that she was not born in this boring place. Hopefully, one day when she did find out about where she was from, it might be from one of the adventurer camps around the Ling City.

Although it still bothered her why someone would put so much effort into getting her up here to this terrible, isolated island, they must’ve hated her so much. She was utterly sorry.

Sneering at that imaginary person, she pulled out the letter from her wrist cuff and unfolded it carefully. It felt much more delicate after hearing how important this might be.

Or how important it might be to the Pope. Which is the opposite of important.

But she still laid it out on a rock just beside the cliff’s edge and read the letter carefully. At first, she did not understand the complicated handwriting, and the piece of paper indicating the person that it was addressed to was ripped off. But as she read on things started making sense.

32.4.5001

To: Your Majesty— (ripped off)

I am hereby to announce that I have collected the third fraction of his jewel. It was found frozen amid the statue’s head. Using our technology, we were able to pry it loose and take it back without making further damage to the original stone. We’ve felt its power; it is not strong enough, but with that, we can control feeble sea movements.

I have it now hidden inside the machinery in our jungle. In order to keep it safe from any other thieves who intend to steal the jewel and read this letter, I will provide a hint instead of the accurate position.

2(7)=x.

We’ve also heard surprising news that you managed to find the fourth piece. We are curious to hear what it can do.

May our ancestors have blessing on you— the sky will turn to the land of South when—

Kitty rolled her eyes. There goes the Pope’s favourite lyrics that last for a whole six minutes.

The rest of the letters were just ancestors' blessings and the last part indicated it was written by the Pope (obviously).

She sighed and leaned on the rock, facing the sea.

So… Who was this letter addressed to? Who is the ‘he’ this ‘jewel’ belongs to? And what does that equation mean, anyways?

She frowned. It must be something really important for the Pope to work his brain on the concept of math to keep it hidden. And did it mention feeble control of the SEA?

Kitty sat up and thought over the equation. The first message was clear— 2(7). That basically meant 2 times 7, which is 14. But the x…

She tried to remember the book this letter was in. It was a book about letter creation history (letters as in a, b, c…). So… Counting 14 down the letters it would be n.

North? The Northern side of their island? She’d explored it at least a thousand times already, there was nothing special about that place.

Although this equation was clearly incorrectly written, it must have had some meaning. When calculating algebra… Letters and numbers moved across the equation mark. When they move…

She gasped.

Their operator changes to their opposite.

So if it’s multiplication, it becomes division.

And in this case… If it’s North…

It becomes South. The f*******n Garden.

She hadn't been there. In fact, no one had been there. The guards guarding the f*******n Garden were the top of troops, with superior listening abilities and fighting skills.

But Kitty’s quite sure she can be quiet if she wants, it’s a skill she’s born with. To see in the dark and to move silently, like a cat.

Now she would use this skill… And check out what secret is hidden in the part of the island where only the Pope himself is allowed to go to.