Saving Neba

𝐗𝐈𝐈: A Survivor in Every Battle

Sand. Bright fine grains of rock.

The idea was to go to Bhishon because I wanted to see what it was like to own Neban's most powerful oils, having knowledge of its background and worth. According to Crypta, Bhishon was supposed to be on either side of the house. He just didn't tell me with one.

I kicked a rock and sighed. I was in Asterion, judging by the endless sand area and no human life.

My legs didn't seem like giving away any minute though. I had the assurance of a powerful potion in my pocket. All I had to do was spray -and boom!- I could be anywhere. I had been using it throughout to shorten the journey.

The sand was fine, nothing as crystalline as I'd ever seen before.

I jogged casually, turning left and right and observing. Not like there was much to see, anyway. Sometimes I came across a plank or some old piece of what was left of Asterion.

What exactly happened to this district? How did they all just. . .disappear?

The whole scenario reminded me of Nora. She was not so far from us, even though it would take a car's journey to get to Dad's other house. But she wasn't there.

We may not see Nora again, not as much as we'd want to. Or perhaps, they'd bring her when she wouldn't remember us as siblings, just like Rowan had guessed. Probably, Rowan would be getting married at that time.

Maybe. Nora may still not forget us. Maybe she wasn't as young as Rowan had assumed. Maybe Nora and Mum I have had such amazing experiences that just cannot be easily erased.

I kicked another rock. I slapped my forehead.

There's always a survivor in every battle. There had to be.

A cat meowed. I shook my head, trying to brush off that image. But it meowed, again and again, a piercing, crying 'meow!'

I turned my head and tried to sense the direction. The cat could be a pet, a person's pet. There could be someone out there, just not known because Crypta had given up on trying to find his lost people.

I ran towards the sound. The cat sounded like it was in pain. There was an animal ahead of me, lying helpless on the floor and meowing. It was larger than a normal dog, brown with orange marks around its entire body. Its stomach was dirty, a white-stained-with-experience-and-pain shade of brown.

The cat sensed my slow movement toward it and got on its feet defensively. It tried to maintain an equipoise with three feet; its left hind leg had been hurt. Then it took slow steps backward.

"Hey, I'm not going to hurt you. Let me look at your injury." I kept my voice low. I didn't want to put fear in the bigger-than-normal cat.

"Meow!" It snapped, somehow, and took one step forward, raised its right forelimb, and scratched the air as a warning. Unfortunately, two legs for balance weren't enough as I watched it fall to the floor.

"Look what you're doing. I know a guy who knows carinian oil." I took slow steps toward the cat. "Except, of course, they don't work on you. But you're a Neban, right? Don't you have an owner?" I was only a step away from it when it got up and ran in the opposite direction, really fast.

"For an animal with three legs, you are fast!" I chased after it. I wanted to know its destination, where it lived, and who it lived with. There had to be someone. Even an old lover-of-pet man was something.

The cat ran super fast and my legs began to wobble. But I wasn't giving up anytime soon. We were approaching what I assumed to be the end of the road. There was a large fence made with bricks and it extended so far I couldn't see where it ended. Piles of planks made a shed at an edge and there were berry-like little red spherical objects scattered around on the sand.