[ENG] The Exiled : Dark Stars

ลำดับตอนที่ #2 : On the Run

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The Exiled: Dark Stars

On the Run

I’m not destiny, but Destiny is my name.

Apparently I was named after one of their important government worker, Destiny Falto Rivera. Never met her, but she has a lovely name. And I like it.

The wet streets of Bangkok after a storm was not pleasant. It’s not the wet that makes your socks go splish-splosh, but the wet that you have to struggle just to get somewhere. Drainage system can go awry when trash blocks it. Sure, it’s the capital city, but floods do happen to this capital on sea level. And I am running away. With two gigantic plastic bags labeled 7-Eleven.

“Des, get yourself together. What’s she saying?”

Ignatius jutted me with his elbow. As the only one able to understand the local language, he depended on me for, like, everything.

“…She’s asking if we want a smoothie.”

I answered with a shrug.

“I’d rather have, like, a really, really long bath.” He put his arms on his hips while shaking his head, silver, almost white hair flopping from side to side. His hair would glow around him like a fuzzy halo whenever in sunlight. His glowing ocean blue eyes set on the chunks of watermelon in a plastic cup, even though I knew he can’t see them. “I’m not in the mood for a melon. And we’re broke.”

Just then I felt a light tug on my sleeves. Elliah stared at me with her bright red right eye. The other eye was bandaged to keep people from looking…and dying. Elliah was Ig’s sister, but in contrast to his pale appearance, she has jet black hair and big, bright eyes. He’s six feet, and she’s four. He looks authentic European, but she’s more like a Japanese doll. They didn’t even share the same surname: she was Elliah Ballad, and he was Ignatius Ride. However, they treat each other like siblings.   

“Do you want a smoothie? Sorry, El, we’re broke.” I patted her head. She shook it lightly. Elliah cannot speak. I never knew the reason why.

Ignatius tugged my other sleeve. These two are like siblings of one mind.  

“Lead the way, Des.”

“Fine. Let’s find the troublemaker.”

I’m like their big sister, even though I’m the middle kid. Ignatius has a hopeless quality of vision resulting from an accident when he was young, so he’s not anything useful in this situation. Elliah started munching on a bar of chocolate wafer labeled Shang-Hai.

I sent Raleigh to find us some place to stay for the time being. He never took this long. Something really awful must be happening. Worst case scenario: the Wolves found him.

Red, that’s what his name is. But once you see him, you’ll think it’s a stupid name to give someone. He’s got oak colored hair that looks like an upside down bird nest, and sun tanned skin. With his height and well-sculpted facial features, he’s our group’s lady killer even though he hates the idea.  

I felt like a mother with extremely problematic kids when Ignatius started playfully pointing in random directions and yelled ‘Look! Look!’ Sometimes almost hitting a passerby in the face. Elliah sucked on her thumb and followed obediently, without any interest of stopping her brother. After a good while, Ig would get tired of his child play and stuck his finger in my belt loop instead of tugging on my sleeves. If I didn’t have any belt loop on my pants, he would stick them in my pocket (be in shirt or pants), which is extremely unnerving. So I made sure I only wear pants with belt loops.

“Where did that idiot run off to?”

“Here.”

I almost leapt into the air when Raleigh stuck his head from the crossing bridge above our heads. His low, smooth voice made at least five ladies turn their heads around.

“The heck were you?” I lashed out at him, trying to hide my embarrassment of being startled.

“Found us somewhere. See?” He pointed the direction of the place with his thumb.

“Great. Like you’ll find somewhere clean for cashless kids to sleep in a city like Bangkok.” Ignatius laughs. These two had always been the frenemies kind. “I bet it’s going to be a bus stop somewhere. With the green poster that says ‘Bike around Bangkok’ or something.”

“It’s not the red light district, right?”

Raleigh cocked an eyebrow. Reliable as he is, I just want to make sure he didn’t risk Elliah’s innocence. In the center of Bangkok, a densely populated section like Sukhumvit, a wrong turn can lead you into wrong places. Very wrong places.

“No. You don’t trust me at all, do you?” He tried to put on a pouty face but failed miserably.

“I do. So where is the place?”

Raleigh walked without saying a word, so I grabbed Ig and El and dashed after him.

We arrived at an abandoned building, dusty, old, and covered with black stains from the polluted rain. The owner ran out of construction money and left it as an empty frame in the middle of the city, ready to be torn down. There were no safe working stairs, and Raleigh stared at me expectantly with those cool, dark, alluring eyes.

“I get it. I have to get you up there?”

“You know the drill.” He gave me the faintest hint of a smile.

“What? What’s going on? I can’t see!” Ig started his yammering ritual.

“We frigging know that, Ig!” I yelled over his hollering. “You don’t have to stress it so much!”

His sister tugged his sleeves and began writing on his palms.

“Too bad it isn’t the red light district. I would love to visit there sometime.” The pale guy shrugs. He took his sister’s hand in his and smiled at her. “Want to see all the ladyboys, right?”

I gave the groceries to Ig, grabbed Raleigh’s arm and dragged him to the balcony of a nearby apartment. Then, I kicked the rails and leapt into the sky, gusts of wind supporting my feet. I held on tight to Raleigh’s muscular body and kicked the air again, sending me at least another ten meters up to the upper floors.

Raleigh went inside, and I came down to get El. After El was safe with Raleigh, I went down to get Ig.

When I came back up, I saw El curled up into a ball in Raleigh’s lap. Ignatius didn’t see that, of course. If he saw that, he would beat Raleigh up instantly out of jealousy.

I led Ig to a comfortable and considerably clean looking wall and sat him down. Raleigh scooped El from his lap and set her beside Ig. After his sister was next to him, he began to do his secondary job, which is to let out a kind of sound wave to repel the swarm of mosquitoes present during the rainy season. I sat down beside Elliah and stroked her soft hair, leaning against the wall. Then, I rummage our 7-11 bag of rations and pass it around to everyone. It consisted of tuna sandwiches with too much preservative, jam rolls with close to spoiling cream, too sweet grass jelly, bags of Lays, bunny-shaped steamed buns and some chocolate wafer bars. We munched on them hungrily, not spilling a single crumb. We never know when we would find a lucky job and catch some money.

We sat there, sweating in tropical weather.

“You know,” Ignatius, the chattiest one out of all of us, said between bites. “We should perform a street show. I mean, we look enough like freaks to get attention, right? Just look at how much those beggars on the bridges make. Why can’t we do that?”

“You want the Wolves to find us that much? Congrats, Ig. You’re the first out of the four to die.” Ig shrugged at the sarcasm and opened another cup of grass jelly. His fingers ran along the perimeter of the cup, and he started gulping it down.

After we had finished our junky dinner, we gather our garbage into the plastic bag and set it aside. Bangkok’s got too much trash as-is, and I didn’t want to contribute to the problem. The siblings fell fast asleep. I consider going to the market out of town to buy cheap 10-baht vegetables for lunch instead of convenience store stuff.

Raleigh pressed beside me, his arms so hot I thought my skin would burn.

“Move aside a bit, you.” I whispered, trying not to wake the other two up.

“…I need it. Blood.” He whispered back in a monotonous voice that sent chills running down my spine. This particular occasion isn’t the first time he had to ask for it. He asked for my blood several times within the past few months, and every time I had no choice but to give him, or else he would die.

“Suck Ig’s blood, then.”

“I like Group A blood better.”

 When he tries to be annoying, he can be.

The reason why they call him Raleigh is because he had to drink fresh blood to maintain his health. He had troubles with lack of iron before, and I couldn’t say it’s his fault.

I held out my left arm and looked at him with a sour expression.

“Just a little. I don’t feel good today.”

Raleigh nodded and took hold of my wrist. I closed one eye, knowing what is to come.

He gathered his saliva and spat it on my wrist. Even though it looked like any normal saliva, it has chemicals that caused numbing of pain in it. He then ran his moist, warm tongue on my skin, making sure the saliva distributed properly. I shriek a bit as he ran his tongue further up than usual, but soon he went back to the business of licking my wrist.

Then Raleigh bit. Red blood trickled down my hand, and he licked them off. It didn’t hurt. It just felt really funny and ticklish.

Just as he was about to suck the blood from the small cut, Ig sprang up and looked around.

“Great.” He said, oblivious to Raleigh’s glowering eyes. “Wolves.”