Children of Chaos - Book 1

“You were happy...”

“But it didn’t last, now did it?”

I wasn’t sure what exactly it was that I expected when Khai had asked me to ‘get out of here’, but it definitely wasn’t this. I stared at the scene in front of me with wide, disbelieving eyes. I just couldn’t wrap my mind around what I was seeing.

We had left the camp and met up with a group of his friends’ right outside the borders. I knew some of them, although only by name, and others I had never even seen before. Not that I could claim that I’d been particularly attentive. There was Asim, a short dark-haired fellow who reminded me of a monkey. He was grinning at Khai in an almost maniacal way, his hands fiddling with the hem of his shirt. Next to him stood Eshe, a redhead with pale green eyes, and a tan face. She was fairly tall, the second tallest in the group, and had an icy elegance about her that made me want to keep my distance. The rest of them were strangers to me.

“Hey guys!”, Khai had hollered. “Meet Kyra. Kyra meet the gang.”

He pointed at a tall broad-shouldered man, who looked as if he’d been crudely cut from solid rock.

“This is Sefu. He’s our walking brick wall. You do not wanna get into a fight with him. ”

I thought that I didn’t really want to get into a fight with any of them, but Sefu did look like the wrong guy to mess with. He raised his hand in a clumsy greeting and I saw him blush in the darkness.

“This is Siti”, Khai continued, pointing at a beautiful athletic woman with black eyes and hair. She had something regal about her, and I immediately felt intimidated. Then she gave me a smile, and the difference was so strong it startled me. Her entire face lit up and I instantly felt warm and accepted.

“And this”, he pointed at a lean blonde man with a huge grin on his face “is Haqi. Do not ask him anything unless you want an honest answer. He never lies, not even when he should”, Khai gave Haqi a pointed look, but the blonde just shrugged it off with a laugh.

“The rest you’ve met before.”

And now? Now I was standing on top of a huge dune, looking down at a family of giant turtles. And when I say giant, I mean giant! They were six feet long at the least, their shells big enough for two grown men. I watched Khai and his friends coax one of the smaller ones towards them with some food. I didn’t know what they were feeding it, but the turtle seemed to love it and was slowly climbing up the hill towards them. I had a feeling that I knew where this was going, and it gave me a sense of dread. There was no way that they were going to do what I thought they were. But sure enough, as soon as the turtle had arrived on top of the dune, Asim, Eshe and Siti hopped on its back with shouts of glee. The turtle raised its head in confusion and made a sort of gurgling sounds. I felt pity for the poor thing right until it turned around so I could see its face and what I saw there could only be described as the turtle equivalent of a grin.

The turtle spun around and, with a speed I had not thought possible for the giant creature, flung itself down the dune on its huge belly. It raced down the dune at an insane speed, its legs pulled into the shell, with the three riders hollering in joy. I laughed as I watched the turtle swerve in-between its fellow turtles, making a noise that, if I had to guess, was laughter.

As soon as the first turtle had started, the others had begun climbing up the dunes as well, sliding down all on their own. Sefu and Haqi jumped on another one, right before it was about to leave. Sefu was actually standing up, his legs apart, an insane grin on his face, while Haqi held on to the shell. About halfway down the dune the turtle swerved hard right to avoid one of the other ones, and Sefu went flying. He flew through the air in a huge arch, pulled himself into a ball, and landed on the sand, rolling. He came up laughing, spitting out sand and swearing after Haqi and the turtle.

“You son of Ahriman!”

I didn’t know much about cussing in other cultures, but at the Reservoir, Ereb’s name had often been used as a swearword, which had been severely frowned upon. Calling someone a son of Ahriman, the Shemsuddin’s equivalent of Ereb, seemed like a huge insult to me, but Haqi just laughed, and stuck out his tongue at the burly man.

“Wanna try?”, Khai asked as he came up next to me.

“You’re turtle surfing!”, I exclaimed, still not fully believing what I’d just seen.

“Well… technically, since they’re on land, they’d be tortoises”, he winked at me,” But they’re called Shetas, magical tortoises who can swim in the sand like turtles in water. And yes. We are”, he laughed.

The other tortoises or I guess I should call them Shetas were making their way up the dunes for the second time, obviously eager to continue the fun. One was heading straight towards us, and Khai grabbed my hand, pulling me up behind him on the huge shell.

“I’m not standing up”, I exclaimed as he pulled me up.

“You’d be crazy if you did”, he laughed. “Only Sefu does it, and he’s pretty much indestructible.”

I laughed and sat down on the shell. I was surprised at how comfortable it was. It wasn’t hard, like a normal tortoise’s shell, but soft and malleable, forming itself to my butt. It had little nubs that Khai told me were used for handles and I grabbed on to them just in time. The sheta let out a cry of excitement and jumped down the dunes. I felt the impact of us hitting the sand all the way to my bones, and then we were on our way. Surfing a sheta was a little bit like riding a sledge, only with less control over the ride, and about a hundred times more fun.

We raced down the dunes, swerved around oncoming shetas and people, jumping over smaller dunes, at a breath-taking speed. We were so fast that all I saw were blurs and colours, as the night passed us by. I heard Khai shout out in joy, and joined him, laughing and screaming as loud as I could, the warm wind tossing my hair around my face.

When the ride ended, I felt energised and more alive than I had ever before in my life. Every nerve in my body seemed to be on high alert and the adrenaline was speeding through my veins at a sheta-like speed. My hair was a windblown mess, and I had wet cheeks for the tears the wind had forced from my eyes. All in all, I must have looked like a mess. And I didn’t care.

“That was amazing!”, I shouted, not caring at all that I was loud, or that I looked crazy with the big grin on my face. I heard Haqi laugh at my comment. He passed me by and clapped me on the back on his way back up the hill. Khai laughed and pulled me in for a bone crushing hug, then released me just as quickly, still laughing. He beamed down at me and I felt my face blush, a fact nicely hidden by the darkness.

“Wanna go again?”

“Heck yeah!”

And we raced up the hill.

“Who came up with this?”, I asked as we headed back towards the camp. I was walking with Khai and Haqi. The others were walking ahead of us, the two women teasing Sefu about his repeated crash-landings while he insisted that he’d get it down eventually. Haqi put his arm around my shoulder, a big grin on his face. He smelled like sand and a something else I couldn’t quite place.

“That would have been our esteemed leader”, he said as he pointed at Khai.

“Oh?”

I looked at Khai in surprise. He seemed so collected, so together, and not at all like someone who would come up with something as reckless as sheta surfing.

“Don’t look so surprised! I’m a fun guy.”

I blushed, and tried to stammer an apology while the two men laughed at me.

“How old are you Kyra”, Haqi asked.

“Almost nineteen.”

I regretted the answer immediately.

“Almost nineteen huh? What? Eighteen and a half?”

“No eighteen and three-quarters.”

I rolled my eyes at the two men, which only aggravated them more. I was saved by Siti.

“Haqi! Get your butt here! You owe me a back massage.”, the tall beautiful woman yelled in a very unladylike fashion. Haqi saluted.

“Yes, ma'am!”

He turned around and looked me straight in the eye.

“I like you Kyra. If Khai doesn’t go for you I will”, he winked and sprinted after Siti.

Startled, I looked after him, trying to wrap my mind around what he’d just said. If Khai didn’t go for me? What was that even supposed to mean. Khai came up to me, and I couldn’t help but wonder whether he could see the blush on my face, or if he’d heard Haqi’s words. He’d spoken in a quiet voice, but it was still possible.

“You two seem to get along.”

I shot him a curious look, trying to figure out if there was a deeper meaning behind those words, and then shrugged.

“He’s funny. I like him, although he’s a little blunt.”

“That he is”, Khai laughed. “But it’s refreshing. You always know exactly where you stand with him. Although his brutal honesty does scare away a lot of people. Especially the girls.”

“I can see that. I mean, most girls have specific things they want to hear, and it doesn’t matter so much whether it’s true or not. “

He gave me a curious look.

“And you? What do you want to hear?”

Something in those words, or in the way he looked at me, made me wonder if the question wasn’t as blasé as it appeared.

“I? I’m somewhere in-between, I guess. I want to hear the truth, but I don’t want to feel it, so I choose to accept lies that feel good.”

The mood had changed, taking on a heavier, more serious feeling. I looked at the ground as I walked, watching the sand move away from our feet as we stepped down, waiting for him to speak.

“Hmm. I think I know what you mean. You wish you could hear the truth without it causing you pain. But that’s why most people lie, isn’t it? To avoid pain either for themselves or for others. Haqi doesn’t believe in that. He believes that the pain a lie causes outweighs the pain of a truth.”

“And what do you believe?”

“I believe that the world is mad of endless colours and layers. There is no ultimate answer for everything. Every person needs to judge each situation individually. And we can only judge according to what we perceive. Which is why it's so wrong to judge others. We simply don't see enough.”

There was a silence after that. We had stopped a little outside of camp. The others were long gone by now, but something kept us from entering. There was something between us, I just didn’t know what it was, a calm familiarity.

“Kyra, can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Have you ever been in love?”

The question caught me off guard. Had I ever been in love?

“I think so”, I finally said, suddenly uncomfortable.

“Can I ask you another question?”

I hesitated. I wasn’t sure that I would be able to handle another question like that. My answer had surprised me. Just a few weeks ago I would have said yes. And now? I no longer knew.

“Sure.”

“What’s your favourite colour?”

The abrupt change of topic startled me and I laughed, the mood lightening instantly.

“I’d have to say blue. It’s such a deep, calm colour.”

Just like his eyes. He nodded in a very serious manner and then gave me a sheepish grin.

“Mine’s yellow.”

“Yellow? Really? Why?”

“Because it makes people happy.”

“So happy people are yellow?”

He laughed at that.

“Yes. Yellow or orange, that’s nice too.”

“Alright. I shall only trust yellow and orange people from now on.”

“Oh, you should! Everyone else is a liar.”

We laughed and there was a moment of comfortable silence. I had missed this, being silly. It felt liberating somehow.

“Thank you.”, I said, giving him a small smile.

“For what? Unveiling the secret of yellow people?”

“Yes, amongst other things.”

He gave me a long look, smiled and finally said: “You’re welcome Kyra. You know…You should smile more. It makes you pretty.”

I laughed and blushed, grateful that he could not see it in the darkness.

“I’ve actually heard that once before.”

“Really? From whom? I need to beat them up for stealing my amazing quote.”

“From a…” Friend? Acquaintance? “someone I knew.”

He must have realised that there was something more behind those words, but he didn’t say anything.

“Well. That someone was right. You have a beautiful smile.”

And I smiled again. Less shy, happier.

“It’s pretty late.”

“Yeah. It is.”

“Maybe we should head back?”, it was more a question than a suggestion, a hope that he would disagree.

“Maybe we should.”

But he did not move towards the tents. Instead he took a step forward, until he was close enough for me to breath in his scent, and hugged me. His arms were strong and gentle, encompassing me as if he were afraid I’d break, and yet hard enough for it to be a real hug, the kind that warms you to your core. My face rested on his chest, right beneath his chin, and I could hear his heartbeat, a steady drum. I wasn’t sure what was happening right now, but I began to think that perhaps Haqi had missed his chance.