Jiji no. 8

Introduction to the hero

Pass the kingdom full of abundant food, blessing, wild and harmonically created music, beautiful architectural structure, and a place concentrated with the power of Sen; the highly-concentrated items filled with Maji, is a region who may be abundant of crops—rice, corn, potatoes and green vegetables—but is scarce of food to eat.

A certain child, pale and malnourished-looking boy who seems to eat only a single time a day, was lying down on a wooden floor, coughing, and was about to pass out.

“Mama,” the child whispered. Tears was about to fall off of his eyes. He can feel his weak body. He was out of nutrition, out of strength—for he was able to eat insufficient food every day that passes.

His parents were not inside their home. They were outside, trying to find and ask food to their neighbors—who, as far as the kid knows, has no food to lay on their table either.

He has been calling his parents, for the pain in his stomach was too much for him to handle. A child of pity, he was about to lose his consciousness. His life. His eyes started to fall into shut, and he cannot do anything but to pray to the gods—for him to have a beautiful and abundant self in the afterlife.

What he would miss, probably, was his parents. They were a loving a parents, a good one, that even though they have no food to lay in the table, still, he felt full because of their love.

“Mama, Papa, I will miss you,” he said in between his tiny breaths.

Then their door flung into open. A forced and rushed sound has banged through the door.

“Bevin!” the child recognized whose voice does it belong.

“Papa,” he whispered.

His Papa rushed towards him. He half-expectedly thought that his father brought a food, or—even though a little chance he had, a Sen pill. But nothing. Instead of food, his father welcomed him with tears and despair. He cannot do anything but to wrap him with his also thin and frail arms.

“I’m sorry,” his Papa said. “I cannot find any food for you. Maybe your Mama found something.”

He was sobbing. He was the pillar of the house, the father of the family, but he too was helpless. He too, was having a hard time. His stomach is empty. He too was hungry. That is why it was so hard for him to accept what was happening. That through hunger, their family would now be crushed. Fallen.

His child was not yet dead, but he was mourning.

Because he knew what to expect next.

“Papa, do you know how the heaven looks?” the child asked.

“Hmm?” the father hummed, pretending that he did not hear his child’s question.

“I said, how do Nosheh’s garden looks.”

“Ah, Nosheh.” The father smiled. He held his tears as he tried to recall the description of his deceased grandfather about the garden of Nosheh.

“It was the garden filled with white roses, dancing along the cool and peaceful wind from the north.”

“Not warm and dry and heavy, just like here in Hem?” his child interfered.

“No, son. Here in Hem, this is the considered hell of the Middle Continent. But in Nosheh’s garden, it was cool and wet.”

“I cannot imagine a cool and wet wind. Nor a cool and wet place.” His eyes gleamed in fantasizing how the cold wind will feel upon his skin.

“It wasn’t as much as cold, however. It was just enough to make the place not dry and not so warm. Too much cold will make the roses wither.”

“What is the purpose of the rose then?”

“Hmm…” the father looked on the tattered wooden wall. “The rose is the symbolism of every lives that is worth to remember. Each white rose is a seedling of life that after it spent its peaceful time in the garden, it would ripen. And then wither. The seed of soul inside the rose will come back to the world, and would reincarnate into a new person.”

“Will I become a white rose if I die?”

His father then froze. He held his tears warning to fall. Then he nodded. “I am sure you will.”

“Papa, I am tired. I want to sleep.”

His father closed his eyes. He pursed his lips, and the tears that he tried his best to hold, has finally fell into his cheeks. “Let’s wait your Mama.”

The child nodded. “I think I can, Papa. Maybe for a few more minutes.”

As if his Mama had heard him, a shadow appeared from the seemingly too bright doorway. His mother. And she too was crying. Disappointed and mourning.

Instead of crying and feeling disappointed too, the child smiled at her. “Mama, thank you.”

His mother came to him, sat and held his thin hands. The warm tears on her cheeks kept falling. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t find any food for you.”

Just how dire is the scarcity of food at the region of Hem. That even most of them are farmers, a skilled workers, most have no food to offer to the family.

For all of those are food made only for the people in the central kingdom of Agnosbadtt. Not for them. Not even a single fruit nor crops.

That even they were working too hard, rigorous and full of sacrifices, they were underpaid. A kind of injustice that the central kingdom has long been turning a blind eye.

“It’s okay, Mama. I will just sleep.”

His Mama shook her head. “No, Bevin. Please don’t. It’s still twelve of the daylight.”

“But, I am too tired, Mama. I want to sleep.”

His Mama then wailed. With too much sadness creeping through her, she held her son, hugged him tight. And inside her arms, the kid smiled. He realized how blessed he was as the child of this two loving parents. Two misfortunate yet loving parents.

“I need to sleep,” he said. And then closed his eyes.

Yet, before he fell into the pit of pitch darkness, into the pit of death, another loud banging in the door had made him open his eyes.

He saw his parents looking at the doorway with glint of hope and, at least, a bit of happiness peering through their faces. He looked at the doorway made from the frames of bamboo, and there he saw . . . a hero.

A man, seventeen years old-looking guy was looking back at him. His auburn burnt hair was dancing along with the swirl of the dry wind. His green-colored, deep eyes was looking at him with too much worry. And sadness. And pain.

“Bevin,” he called.

“Holder,” the kid replied. He cannot deny the happiness he was feeling as he saw the man. He was his hero. His idol. The role model that he always look high at.

“Holder, Bevin needs help.” The father rushed towards him. He held his hands, begging towards him, as he lay his knees on the wooden floor of their house.

“Papa Joseph, please stand up. You don’t have to beg on your knees.” The man lifted the now sobbing father.

He tapped his shoulder, and with a pursed smile, he stared at them, at Bevin’s mother and father, with a glint of persuasion.

“Bevin, how are you feeling right now?” The man asked. He sat beside him. He placed the back of his palm on the kid’s forehead.

It was burning.

“Bevin’s having fever,” the man said.

“He hasn’t been eating for two days already, Holder.”

The man’s eyes grew in shock. “Two days? Why did you let him not to eat for two days, Papa Joseph?”

The father then looked down on the floor, saddened. The man then saw how the father closed his fist too tight.

“You already know the reason, Holder.”

The man sighed. His fist balled into rage as well.

He knew the reason, of course. After all, he was the first person to voice out to other people about the discriminated position of the farmers of Hem.

He grabbed something in the pocket of his tattered pants.

Seeing the small thing that appeared in his palm, the eyes of the kid’s parents grew wide. Shocked.

“H-Holder, where do you get that?”

Holder smiled with a trace of sadness. “It doesn’t matter, Papa Joseph.”

“Holder.” The voice of the father was with intense warning.

Holder sighed in defeat, again. “I—I sold my late father’s Maji necklace to the guards.”

Their eyes then grew in more shock. “Holder, that is your late father’s lone memento to you! Why did you sell it?” the kid’s father was shaking from the news. “You yourself know how important is that to you!”

“It was,” Holder answered. “But what is an important memento of a late loved ones, if you cannot use it to save your presently loved people? Here lies in my heart is the most precious memento I have with my father. Not the necklace.”

“Holder, please, we cannot accept it,” the mother of the child told.

“Mama Fessa, what can’t you accept? The gone of my late father’s necklace, or . . . the gone of Bevin?”

By telling the kid’s name, the voice of Holder fell weak.

The parents of the kid then fell into silence as well. The words of Holder rang through their heads.

Gone of Bevin . . .

Earlier, the thought had given them despair, but, they had accepted it. In their subconscious mind, they accepted the fact that Bevin . . . will be gone in this cruel world. At least no suffering. For they were hopeless. For they knew, that even they found food, and gave it to their hungry and weak child, it will be senseless. For the Majicule in his body was as well, depleting.

And the only way the child could survive it, is through drinking a Sen pill—which they will never afford.

But now that they have the slightest chance to save their beloved child, their one and only child, is it sinful to be selfish? To accept a young man’s help even if they knew that if they accept it . . . something big would be gone from him?

“I—I don’t know, Holder,” the father’s kid told.

“Please, Holder, please save my child!” But the mother had given an answer that no one wants to reject. Even of the kid’s father.

Holder smiled. “Thank you, Mama Fessa.” He quickly grabbed the Sen pill on his palm, and carefully placed it to the kid’s mouth.

“Bevin, please swallow it.”

The kid then followed Holder’s plead, and swallowed the bluish glowing pill that the man placed inside his mouth. It tastes sweet. The sweetest food he had ever tasted in his entire life.

As soon as the kid swallowed the pill, his frail body glowed in blue. The kid’s parents held their breath as little by little, they witnessed how the Majicule in the kid’s body was rising up. Their mourning and despaired faces grew into hope—that their child would be saved.

“Now, eat this.” Holder grabbed a freshly cooked sweet potato from his bag pocket. Soon as the child smell the sweet smell of the food, his stomach crumpled in hungriness. He quickly grabbed the potato and ate it as fast as he can.

The parents gasped. Their child’s energy is finally back! He was moving in the same energetic way he was; eating the same way he had used to be.

And all thanks to Holder, who did his best—and even went into roughs (but he wanted it secret)—just to save a young and innocent child’s life.

“Holder, I owe you my son’s life!” the father told. Holder stopped in the bamboo-framed doorway. He looked back at him, and smiled.

“You know no one owes me, Papa Joseph,” he said. And then looked at the kid’s mother, and smiled. He then looked at young Bevin. “Take care of yourself, Bevin. There is a rightful time to visit Noshe’s garden. But now is not the time. You still have a lot of plenty time to spend with your loving mama and papa.”

Young Bevin then, smiled. “Thank you, Holder. I want to be like you someday!”

Holder felt flattered. From Young Bevin’s words, he chuckled. “Yeah. But you still needs to grow healthy if you want to be like me.”

“I will!”

Now, Holder stepped out of their house. His smile beamed the whole farming region of Hem. He was happy, of course, for he saved someone’s life, someone’s despairs.

He tried to remembered the image of his father’s necklace. But he dismissed it soon.

“There’s no time to be sad!” he told himself. Then smiled. “After all, I am now going to fulfill what I had promised to my Papa.” He closed his fist tight, and nodded to himself. “I will become a valued knight in the central palace of Agnosbadtt.”

And from there, the journey of Holder, our hero, is about to unveil.