Weak White Sheep in a Fence

Chapter 4:Ian's Memories

Ian’s POV

“He’s still a baby…”

I heard a man’s voice somewhere.

“The thing in his body is still unstable.”

As I tried to open my eyes, what came to my sight first are the unfamiliar glitters above the dark horizon. They twinkled around. It made them attractive.

“You can only use this once he can talk and is capable of asking for help. This is enough for him to take for twenty years. I hope by that time, I can still see you and your child.”

The voice was talking to someone.

I moved my eyes and saw two people talking. They were blurry, but I was capable enough to distinguish their heights.

One was tall who was currently talking. Another one was shorter, a person listening to the man talking.

“Can I trust this?” The second person’s voice was soft and feminine.

I don’t know why but I kind of felt a connection to her.

“I-I can’t really be sure. This is all I can help you. I’m sorry,” the man responded, scratching his head. “We have only tested this up to a second trial. It was never tested on humans. Your child’s life might be put in danger, but we don’t have any other way to bypass every wall’s security.”

“Thank you. I really appreciate your help,” I heard the woman’s voice again.

I like her voice.

“You and that child are the only family I have left.” The man spoke, a word I can’t understand. “I want you two to survive as much as possible…”

I saw something like a box from the man’s hand which he handed to the woman.

“I can only contact you whenever I’m inside, but since I still can’t use this on my baby yet, it might take a year or two before I can go back inside.”

“Where will you go this time? He’s still a baby. All he can do is cry. I’m worried how a woman like you could survive in this… wilderness.”

“Shh. Hush your worries, brother. You know what I’m capable of, and you also know what your nephew is capable of. So, no worries…”

Wait...

I felt wetness below me. I had the urge to make a noise, but my eyes were heavy…

Everything went black as darkness consumed me. The coldness of the night was disappearing. It slowly gave way to an intense heat that I felt like if I try to stay frozen, I might get burned.

I decided to wake up.

What came to my sight first was a red carpet woven with geometrical patterns. I sensed my head on a hard pillow. It seemed there was a need to change the pillows here for me to comfortably sleep.

I turned my gaze around and noticed that I was in a wagon. The sun was likely so bright outside since it’s so hot even when I’m in this heatproof shade.

I wanted to sleep more so I flipped my body to the other side, but I saw a familiar face smiling at me like a true sun in the morning.

“It’s time to wake up, princess!”

This was my mother. She was very beautiful.

Should I consider her as my first crush?

Her wavy hair was white, somehow crystal-like in appearance. According to the books I read, your hair color is often the same as the hair color of your parents. But my hair was brownish or reddish. At first, I thought I inherited my father’s hair, but Mother said that Father has a mix of green hues in his dark hair. I don’t understand, but my mother said I will get the hair color she had in the future.

“I don’t want to wake up. It’s still too early,” I complained, covering my face with a pillow.

“No, don’t be a lazy creature because a lazy creature won’t get what they want. Now wake up!”

She pulled the carpet under me, forcing my little body to roll over and hit the side of the wagon.

“We have to find some food so you can prepare for school later.”

“School?!” My body rose up hearing a word I only read in mother’s textbooks.

“Yeah, school. Where young ones like you learn a lot more than the rules of survival in the wilderness.” She pinched my nose, moved it a little, making my head move as well.

“I get that, but how?!” I was so confused since I haven’t thought of experiencing school as real.

She didn’t answer my question. She just went outside the wagon.

We were entirely surrounded by hundreds of waves of sand and I don’t know where we were supposed to get food from this place. I simply followed her as she brought me somewhere lower.

We entered a huge cave. I started hearing a noise of something clucking.

She grabbed me as we hid a behind giant stone.

She pointed to where the noise was heard, and I saw a giant bird nesting her egg.

“That’s a hen,” she said with excitement.

I’m sometimes confused with how she explains things compared to how the books explain what she meant.

“Why is it so big? I thought hens were this size…” I questioned, my hands measuring the probable size of a hen for about 30 to 40 centimeters.

As I observed the giant hen, I saw its eggs bigger than my head.

“The bigger the merrier!” she simply responded with excitement on as she pulled me closer to explain her plan. “We’re going to take both the hen and its eggs, but first, we have to get the eggs before the hen, deal?”

I’m worried about this plan, but as a good and obedient child, I simply nodded.

It was late for me to realize how smart my mother can be to use me as a bait.

“Waaaaahhhh!!!! Noooo!!! Don’t chase meeee!!!” I ran faster outside the cave while crying as the giant hen started chasing me.

Why did the one with small legs have to be the bait?

In the end, we killed the hen after how hard I breathed for air after running a marathon.

My mother enjoyed the giant meat she roasted while the giant eggs were kept in a container inside wagon.

I bit the roasted meat while crying.

We were sitting at the end of the wagon with our legs hanging. I saw the large feathers we’d plucked from the hen a while ago.

“…”

At least I can change our pillows.

My mother simply tucked me on her tight embrace. Despite the heat, I felt her warmness was relaxing so I rested my head on her chest.

I loved her so much.

She’s all that I wanted to have in my life.

I hoped moments like this won’t end, but as my days with Mother grew deeper, I realized I was also growing to know what our world really was.

I opened my eyes to see the tall wall that looked like a thick metal ahead of us. I was hiding in a military-grade-equipment bag that could carry my size while Mother was wearing a suit that made her look so different, scary, but cool.

I’ve seen suit like hers from the photos she had. Something related to brave people that protected other people.

She only told me to observe the surroundings, and when it was time for me to go out, she would inform me so that I could go and have fun.

If someone asks about our identity, she told me I only have to answer them based on what we had memorized. The truth would be kept secret. Other than that, I have to act innocent.

I didn’t understand what she meant. I just obeyed.

We hid in a strange big box that moved because of what Mother called ‘wheels’ attached to it. There were several voices, the first humans I encountered aside from my mother.

They had different types of voices. Some were deep while some had slightly similar voices as my mother’s. I couldn’t see them since I was hiding and I don’t want to see them. Everything was dark and all I know was that my heart was beating so loud.

I never questioned when we would be going back to the wilderness. The walls prevented us from easily going in and out. But as I encountered more humans than I could count, I realized how much differently me and my mother lived compared to others.

Humans are scared to go out. Only few of them who were brave and willing to sacrifice their lives could go out. They were entirely protected by the walls surrounding them. They had built a kind of civilization that had enough level of progress for them to survive despite possible dangers.

I have come to realize their side, that the wilderness was actually the danger. But was it really what was outside that was haunting?

My question remained the same as I grew up going in and out of the walls with mother. Sometimes we took several months inside, then we would go outside again.

We journeyed through the dangers they mentioned and found several other strongholds protected by the same material.

I learned quite a lot from the ‘schools’ my mother mentioned, having different names as I studied from one place to another. When time required us to go out again, I left no memory for friendship knowing that I would never see those people again.

Whenever it was time to go out, my mother would first show up as if she was being chased by something. I have to hurry and pack my belongings. I simply obeyed when we needed to go out. I can easily adjust. I did not think to have a normal life.

“Your father and brothers are just somewhere in there, waiting behind those walls.”

She kept telling me I had a father and older siblings. At least I knew that I was the same as those children I met. I’m not freak or a monster. We’re just hiding. I know we’re just trying to run away from something. I don’t need to ask my mother. I’m simply willing to obey her words.

But when did things go wrong?

The last day I hugged my mother was when we were caught by those men guarding the walls. They wanted to capture us, but things turned different when a colossal monster appeared, a gigantic centipede with a length they could not measure. It can stand as tall as a skyscraper with exoskeleton as hard as the walls that protected the humans.

Those men who tried to capture us were late to detect the anomaly. Only my mother came to save them.

I saw her jumping towards them with such a speed those people could not comprehend. As they were about to get eaten, she came, directly facing the huge grotesque mouth of the creature.

The last thing I saw was her blood, spilling out everywhere.

“M-mom…”

My vision became blurry as tears started falling down my cheeks.

I heard the breaking of bones and the crunching of flesh. Half of her body was already inside the mouth, yet my mother still managed to look at me.

She saw me crying and yet, she smiled as charmingly as she could without any hint of pain.

Then her body went inside.

The monster’s mouth closed.

I heard the sound of a life getting swallowed.

That moment felt like the end of my life.

“NOOOOOOOO!!!!”

I ran towards the monster, but those men that mother protected immediately caught me and stopped me from getting close.

“BRING HER BACK!!!” I shouted, tears wouldn’t stop falling as an indescribable pain keeps echoing inside.

“PLEASE BRING MY MOTHER BACK!!!” The little me begged to the monster to bring my mother back. Being a child, I felt small and useless. All I could do was to beg the monster whether it understood me or not, but it never fulfilled my wish.

I woke up and saw a white ceiling and a steady light hanging. I felt my tears on each side of my eyes.

I heard the beating sound of a machine from the side. As I turned my head, I saw some hologram screens with some kind of body status displayed.

One of them displayed a graph with lines moving up and down. The other hologram displayed a three-dimensional image of a brain with some of its areas highlighted yellow, red, and green.

I looked at my body and noticed that I was wearing a patient’s gown.

I tried to sit up, supporting my body with my hands on the bed, but my strength gave in when felt I a strong pain in my head.

Beep!

The machine that displayed the holograms beeped.

“Ian Velen, you are awake.”

My eyes narrowed, surprised to see a man in his fifty that appeared in front of me as a three-dimensional hologram.

“I am the doctor who’s in charge of your condition. You have a severe concussion from a head injury. Your body only had few wounds. What was worst was how you seemed have to exhausted your body beyond what it could handle causing it to self-induce a long period of sleep.”

I didn’t listen to him saying further. I was slowly remembering the incident that happened to me, but I don’t remember how I end up in a hospital. Right now, there was only one thing in my mind.

“I know you’re still processing the events, but I want you to know that your body was very unpredictable. I’m impressed.” The doctor still kept saying something. “Your body was so weak that’s why I expected that you’d wake up only after a month. I can’t believe you just wake up in three days.”

After I heard what he said, my body immediately rose from its lying position.

“Three days?!” My voice came out.