City of Sinners

Chapter 5

“Before I could answer that, I wanted to know everything that is happening first.”

The men surrounding the fire were all gazing at me. Their scornful glares were definitely shaking my insides. Because who would not, if in this den of lions, I am only a poor sheep dressing up as a lioness? But ever since I joined the gang of Vultures, I’ve been receiving that kind of glares from them. I wasn’t always used to it, because I always feel uncomfortable from their glares, but what I was used to do now, is to act as if I wasn’t affected by them. By their terrifying presences. I’ve been doing this for five months already, and damn I feel like pretending I wasn’t affected has been a natural thing to me already.

I stretched my arms along with my body, and released a grunt—as if I have just woke up from a long sleep (which actually happened). Then, I walked towards the space where I first saw Gaston and Vultures was sitting. The Vulture gang followed me. As I walk, the booming silence of the surrounding was all I heard. Damn, it’s seriously terrifying, but I do not care. As I sat down, I once again looked at Solomon who was still standing in the middle of the circles. His stare was not breaking away from me yet.

I smiled at him. “What?” I asked, “do I have something on my face? Why d’ya keep on staring?”

“I was asking you,” said Solomon.

“Oh, but I am pretty sure I made clear that I would answer that if you’re going to tell me what the hell was happening in this city, right?” I asked.

For a few more seconds, Solomon has kept his stares on me. He was directly looking at my eyes, and though his manly beauty was totally distracting, especially his ash-blazing eyes, I composedly returned his gaze.

Until he gave up. He sighed. He closed my eyes, and I saw how he did his best to control his anger, and not to break out.

“Fine,” he said. “Though I think I shouldn’t be the one telling you what exactly is happening in this place. After all, I am not the one who specifically knew the legend.”

Solomon stared to Gaston. Because of that, I followed him too.

“What?” Gaston asked innocently.

“Mind if you re-narrate what you have told us yesterday?” Solomon said.

“Man, that was definitely a pain in the ass to do, you know?”

“Gaston, for the sake of me, just do it. You promised me to tell about it, right?”

Gaston looked at me, and hesitatingly, he stood up. He sighed. Having no energy, he went in the middle of the men to start re-narrating whatever the legend he had told these men yesterday. He couldn’t say no to me, so he had no choice but to do what I asked him.

“You need to do it once again, Gaston. Not just for the sake of Sitri, but also for the sake of other people who has just been saved since today. You know that it is not just Sitri who has just been saved today. There are other more.”

Okay, so I think I need to say this: Solomon is way different than other scrawny-looking guy circling around the fire. In fact, at first look, he was actually like a real professional model—or a celebrity. At first glance, one would not be able to immediately think that he is a leader of the most powerful gang in a well-developed city. Even until now, I have to admit that he is dazzling. He was wearing a fitted V-necked black t-shirt, a black pants, a clean rubber shoes, and wrapped on his arm is a branded golden-colored watch. Perhaps from Luis Vuitton. His jet-black hair was brushed up, making his ash-withering eyes dominate his facial features.

“Do I have a choice? The gem of the Vulture gang had asked me already. Couldn’t even say no,” said Gaston. I noticed that he was still wearing his white T-shirt, but it was now smoldered with dirt and dusts. There were even blots of blood joining through the dirt of his shirt.

Now as Gaston prepared himself to explain what he knew and thinks is happening, I started to notice that the men started to fall in an uncomfortable silence. This time, the silence that was wafting through the surrounding is not the same silence that they gave earlier to me. It was a grim silence. Grave. Terrifying. A kind of silence for the dead.

“Do I have to really tell this to everyone?” Gaston still asked.

I stared at him with scorn, which made him again, sigh. “Alright. This legend I was telling, dude, ain’t it popular unlike King Arthur or such.” He shook his head with a pursed lips. “Ain’t it like Beouwulf or Iliad and Oddysey. But this legend … it was real. A legend that is happening every seven hundred fifty-five years. A legend that is once in a blue moon, becomes real. A real legend that we … are experiencing.”

I sucked in some air. I know that I find Gaston’s way of story telling being hilarious. The way how he tell his words along with his facial expression really pushes me to laugh. But I did not. Because somehow, I can see how he’s damn serious with what he was telling. Somehow, with the tone of his voice, anyone would be convinced.

“You see, every seven hundred fifty five years, there will be a prophesied falling of a meteor. It would fall on a certain place; on a certain space.”

“Every seven hundred fifty years?” I asked.

“Every seven hundred fifty five, Sitri. And to where the meteor fell, this thing we’re experiencing would happen.” Gaston corrected.

“And you are meaning that the seven hundred fifty five year lapse was the now, on this year?”

He again nodded.

“And that the location of the fallen meteor was on us? On the Sao Garde City?”

“Well, ‘ya see the fallen meteor, have you?” he asked.

“I … I did,” I said. “But … if you said that this whatever legend is ‘real’ and that it is ‘happening in the reality’, then that means there are previous events in the history that is like this, wasn’t it?” I asked.

With that, Gaston smirked. Confidence was on him as he looked on me. “Yeah, Vulture gem. The hell there is. There were few events in history that has been recorded which people or group has mysteriously disappeared in their settlements. Most famous was the Roanoke Colony. They were mysteriously disappeared without any clue. Just like the Roanoke, Vikings from the Greenland has disappeared too. In ancient civilizations, Cahokian, Anasazi and people of Indus has disappeared in the traces of the world too. Though there were few evidences and explanations how they disappeared, none of it were still proven true. And ‘ya know what? the next big news of disappearance was the people of Sao Garde. I don’t know how will they see us, but I know we’ll be like those people and colonies. Do you know the epic poem ‘Inferno’ by Dante Alighieri? That Divine comedy something? It is the only surviving evidence that we can refer to, about this legend—the legend of the Circles of Hell.”

“You mean, this thing that is happening now, and that boring literary piece we’ve learned now in highschool was somehow connected? And … what is that, Circles of Hell?” There was a chill running through my spine as I re-uttered those words. ‘Circles of Hell’.

“Guess it’s just on your high school, Sitri. ‘ter all, you’re just the one who has the guts to join with brainiacs and brainiac wannabes.” The crowd laughed to Gaston’s joke.

“I’m confused.”

“Everyone is,” Gaston said. “Even me, the one who originally knew the legend, man I found it hard to believe. Like dude, it wasn’t supposed to be real. It’s just a legend.”

“But it is becoming true,” I said in whispers.

“Yeah, it was.” Gaston shrugged.

Suddenly I looked at him with eyebrows meeting each other. “But how?”

“How?” Gaston replied with the same confusion that I have.

“I mean, how have you related it to the thing that we’re experiencing right now? I mean, the legend.” My mind wasn’t working as how it was supposed to be. Being a survivor in an apocalyptic impact of the meteor in Sao Garde had surely made one’s thoughts not in straight condition.

“I have four reasons why, Sitri,” Gaston said. He positioned his fingers into a sign of four, and showed it on my front.

“Spill it.”

“First one is the explosive impact of the meteor. Second one is the blazes of the fire in the surrounding, which made us isolated from the outside real world.”

“But aside from this campfire in our front, there were no fire that can be found in the surrounding.”

“That is because we’re on a safe zone. Being in the safe zone would keep our asses safe from the scorches of the fire. And a free airconditioner every night. But the moment we get outside of this zone, we’ll be experiencing the scorches of fire once again,” he said.

“Did anyone of you guys tried asking for help to other people? Anyone who got out of the city? Remember we’re on the outskirt of Sao Garde.” I again asked.

Solomon was the one who answered me. “I did. But it’s hopeless.”

I looked at him with confusion. “Why?”

“The boundary of the Sao Garde was not the same thing anymore. It was hopeless.”

“But … what has it that become?”

“River of fire. Lava. Magma. The Hell,” he said. He wasn’t looking at me as he answered. Instead, he blankly stared at the sprinkles of fire from the burning woods of the campfire.

I nodded. Hearing that, I can see the seriousness of the problem we’re facing. Because, this is something that is not ordinary. It is different. Horrifyingly extraordinary.

I sighed as I process my thoughts. “Then what’s the third and the fourth reason?” I continued asking. Gaston told me he have four reasons why he could consider this as related to the legend he has told. But he was only able to tell me two reasons. That is why I have to ask for more.

“The third … I think you yourself had already seen it.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Sinners, Sitri.”

Sinners. I secretly bit my tongue after I heard those words. Instinctively, the face of the horrible woman that I saw earlier—the way how it bent her body, poured her blood from her mouth, and walked as if an inverted four-legged creature—has flashed at the back of my mind.

“The Sinners are the reason why I have finally decided to share this legend to everyone.”

“What about this Sinners, Gaston? I wanted to know more.”

“You know, it was basically just creatures coming from the circles of hell. You’ve seen one right before Valour saved you.

According to the legend, these creatures were originally human. Living beings. But the way how they lived their life was so dire and full of sins that when they died, they were banished to the circles of hell, depending on how morbidly terrifying their sin was.”

“And what about the circles of hell?”

“That’s the fourth reason, Sitri,” Gaston quickly answered. “You see, this is the seed of the legend. My grandmother used to tell me this shits when I was a child. I never thought it could be real. Let me cut this legend short for you guys: the legend begins in the falling of the meteor. It would fall on a certain place where people lives prosperously. On that place where the meteor has fallen, there will be survivors. Well, you see, we’re the survivors in this present reenactment of the legend. Then, these survivors, though they have no idea what surely is happening, like us, were forced to enter the nine circles of hell the meteor has created. Every circles of hell is what we can call the category of the sins. And just like Dante Alighieri witnessed and wrote in his ‘Inferno’, these circles, the nearer you are in the center, the heavier the sin you’ve got. Every circles of hell, the survivors shall do their best to keep their lives. To survive again. Or else, their souls will be thrown to the river of magma found at the vestibules of hell.”

“And that’s what I wanted to ask you, Sitri.” Solomon started to stand up once again. He came to my front, and with an inquisitive look, he once again asked, “Have you seen it? The arc towards the first circle of hell?”

First Circle of hell. The arc.

I once again bit my tongue. Another flashback came to my mind.

Arc. Fire. Neon-red lights. First Circle of Hell.

“The Limbo,” I whispered. But I wasn’t expecting that Solomon’s body would stiffen as soon as he heard what I told.

“S—So you’ve seen it?” he asked. I could sense the looming fear from his voice.

I looked at him straight in the eye. Then nodded. “I’ve seen it. Valour had seen it too.”

“See?! I told you I am telling the real thing here!” Gaston exclaimed. “I wasn’t just making any bluff story mah man! Damn, it’s so hard to convince all of you.”

Solomon has snobbed him. Now he turned his back to me. But before he walked away and leave us hanging, he started to speak. Loudly.

“Tonight is to rest,” he said. “But tonight is not to ease. Prepare yourself because we’re leaving tomorrow.”

Now, I immediately observed everyone who were surrounding the blazing campfire. No one is reacting negatively, not even the other group of gangs that is present in this ‘campfire meeting’ (I suppose I could call this thing we’re doing as a campfire meeting).

“Wait, who are you ordering around, Solomon?” I asked because I’m damn confused.

Solomon sighed. He looked back at me once again. “Everyone, Gem of the Vultures. As the leader of the most powerful gang among you, I would assume the leadership towards all of you,” he said.

Surprisingly, no one is disagreeing. Not even me. There was something in him that was imposing that makes me sulk in the corner and not disagree. Much more than that, I hated the fact that … when he told that he would assume leadership, something in me … felt calm. Confident. Unafraid.

The hell that was annoying to think! But, I guess I should maintain it as it is. Even though I know that I hated Solomon and his dominating presence, but I somehow know … that in this kind of situation, his leadership is what we could agree to accept.

“But wait, where are we going?” I asked once again. Why was my mind really floating at this moment?

It was Gaston who had answered my question. In the black sky, he pinpointed something. I followed it, and there … I saw a needle-sized glimmer of light. It was coming from the sky, then down to the city. To the center of Sao Garde city.

“You know, Sitri, the legend says that in the centermost of the center circle of the hell, there was a portal.”

“Portal? To where it would lead us?” I asked.

“Paradiso. The only place that would lead us to escape from this horrifying hell.”