5. Home

To read the full version and the latest chapters, visit it on POPINK :)

ARK Bearer Of Curse

https://popinkapp.com/novel/200001866

You may also like:

ARK The Bane Of Spectres

https://popinkapp.com/novel/200001615

***

"Ouch!" A little girl exclaimed as she bumped on me. "Hey! Watch where you're going."

Examining her intently, I noticed how dirty looking she was. "An orphan. Same as me", I thought.

"You could at least say sorry!" The girl insisted. Her big black eyes glared at me but seeing how "cute" she was, it didn't scare me.

"You're the one who bumped into me. Say you're sorry", I demanded.

She must have been struck. Based on her rolling eyes, she could not believe how arrogant I was, which I agree. I may have bumped to her, instead of she to me.

"You little!" She exclaimed as she tried to punch me.

My enhanced senses perceived her movements in slow motion. The waving of her long black hair, like mother's. Her hands full of tiny scars. And her black eyes that seemed to sparkle in the dusty forsaken land.

Actually, not tried, she did punch me. It was way slower than the attacks of the fiends I fought but time seemed to froze as her fist hit my arm.

BLAM!

Did I just lose balance?

"Was that my head?" I thought. Touching the part that felt warm, I could feel a thick liquid flowing from my head.

"Hey, kid! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to!" She was now panicking. I would have scoffed in sarcasm that she couldn't live with her decision to hurt me.

Wait, how did she manage to hurt me again? I thought I was a superhuman fighting evil stuff. Yet here I was, with my sight slowly fading away.

"No! Don't close your eyes! Help! Someone help!"

The last thing I remembered was her screaming and her worried sick face.

***

I woke up to the sound of flies buzzing in my ear. Feeling the cold floor beneath me and seeing the dark broken place, I must be in some ruins.

"Where the hell is this place", I said to myself as I struggled to get up. My arms hardly supported my body just to sit up. Everything was shaking. Whether it was earthquake or explosions that caused it, I wasn't sure. Both were pretty common in the warzone.

"What's going on with me", looking at my hands, I noticed that it wasn't the ground that was shaking. It was me!

What came to my mind when I tried to get up only to lose balance, I didn't know.

"Hey! What are you doing?!" Shouted a voice that I now recognized. It was the girl who punched me.

Yeah, I remembered. She punched me, I fell, and I hit my head. I was knocked out by a girl smaller than me.

My body started to lose balance again and I braced for impact. Two concussions in a day wouldn't kill me, would it? But I didn't fall. The girl caught me, preventing another head bump.

"Are you trying to kill yourself?" She asked as she helped me sit. "You can't even sit straight yet you're trying to stand. When was the last time you ate?"

Ate? Right. People needed to eat to survive. After that gruesome slaughter, I just wanted to get away from that place as far as I could. Only then did I realize, I never stopped to eat.

"Here", she said, extending a bowl of hot liquid. "You don't look like you're from around here. But in this place, we're all stuck in this warzone. It's survival of the fittest."

I couldn't fully comprehend what she's saying. My head was still spinning, probably from loss of blood and lack of food. Still, I didn't reach for the bowl.

"Why are you hesitating? It's not like I'll poison you. Surely, poison is more expensive than your life", she said grinning. I just stared blankly at her as she added, "I'm just kidding. Of course, poison is more expensive that both our lives. HAHAHA!"

To still laugh in this kind of living situation, I find this girl odd.. and admirable. She offered her bowl of soup once more.

"This is instant noodles. It's a luxury here", she said smiling, but no trace of joke in her statement.

The smell of food got the best of my stomach. With complete disregard that this came from a total stranger, I chugged it down in probably less than a minute. I was starving for days, but my stomach had adjusted only for sustenance and survival. This much was enough to keep me going for days.

"So, what's your story?" She asked.

"Me?" I answered without thought.

"Silly. Do you see anyone else here? Of course, you! What brings you here in this forsaken place?"

I searched for an answer. When I ran away from the orphanage, it was because it's headed by a gorgon nun. Who knew if there were other monstrosities out there.

"Home", I replied.

"Hah!" She scoffed. "You call this warzone, home? This place is worse than hell!"

Judging from the demon and other manner of fiends I encountered, I was certain that nothing could be more or even half as insufferable as Hell.

"Hell is the worst", I shortly replied.

"No, war is worse. Hell only comes after the wicked", she said as she stoop up and took the empty bowl. "War spares no one."

She gestured for me to follow her to which I complied. We were going further inside the destroyed building. There was not another person in sight yet I could hear people talking.

My gut turned hot. I learned that it was the instinct when people anticipated danger. But the girl was unable to notice my moment of hesitation.

"Where are we going?" I asked her, purposely slowing my walking down.

"To the ring leader. The only place with value in this city is the Den of Thieves", she replied, turning her head closer to mine. "And we're going to meet the Chief."

The way she talked sounded like she was much older than her age. To know a lot of things about war and criminals was a genius one could not be proud of, but certainly one needed to survive in this place.

"You're a thief?" Maybe I sounded mocking because she glared at me. Still, it didn't faze me.

"You think a little girl like me can't be a thief?" She asked.

"No. You're either slow or you run short strides-".

Leaning closer to my face, she interrupted the insult I was about to make. Perhaps for the better, because I didn't know the concept of insult. I was just being honest.

The next couple of seconds, I didn't know what came over to me. My heart pounded like it never did before. As her face got closer, mine got hotter. Before I knew it, I closed my eyes and heard her laugh.

"HAHAHAHAHA!" She sounded teasing rather than mocking.

"What's funny?" I asked.

She looked at me with amusement. The feeling of embarrassment was foreign to me, I was only confused why she acted that way. Then she extended her palm to my face and I felt a familiar cold.

"Huh?" My eyes widened with awe when I saw the cold thing. It was the red dagger. Or rather, the red blade.

"How did you do that?" I asked with amazement. She just pick-pocketed me!

"Trade secret", she smiled. "You don't always need speed to steal things."

Knowing nothing about thievery, I didn't argue. The only thing I knew, this was how I was going to survive.

We got closer to where the voices were coming from. In the dark corner of the room, I spotted three silhouette of grown up men sitting around a small table. They're probably playing cards. The smoke from the cigar made it more difficult to recognize their faces in the shadow.

"Chief!" The girl called. "I got a new guy."

I saw the man in the middle react at the word Chief. Apparently, he was the ring leader of the notorious anonymous thieves that were given many names that they never claimed nor acknowledged.

While the Den of Thieves was an infamous name, it was basically a legend. The only thing known about them was they mostly assembled near the strip in Palestine. If one wanted to be part of the crime circle, you could never find them. They would find you.

"The spider is back", the Chief said with a deep voice. It sounded like he was inside a box. He leaned closer to the dim light which exposed his face. The usual scary face with beard and scars on a big man. But I wasn't scared of the usual.

"Looks like you came with a new bug", the Chief turned his eyes on me.

Our eyes met in a staring contest. Perhaps it was my brush with death that I was now able to recognize the dangers that lied beneath the face of a man.

"Sister Ann was far more terrifying than this fraud", I thought.

"What the f*** did you say?!" The Chief furiously said.

Oh, sh*t! I thought I was just thinking it, I didn't realize I said it out loud.

Talking with, what's her name again? Right, I didn't know. But the girl was so talkative that it was contagious.

"You dare call me a fraud and compare me to a wh**e of god?!" The Chief was getting enraged.

I knew better than to talk back. He quickly pulled a revolver from his pants and pointed it to my head. In the corner of my eyes, I could see the girl still observing me.

"Very scary. Pull it. Pull the trigger. Come on, see if I care", this time I was sure it was just in my head but I had the strong urge to really say it.

One look at this man, I already knew that he was merely a face of the anonymous thieves. Chief was an undeserved title just because he started the organized group. He must be skilled in managing and scaring his people. But other than that, he was simply a jaywalker in the world of criminals.

I cleared my mind in the split second I had to react after he pointed the gun at me.

"P-Please!! D-Don't shoot! I'll do anything", I cried. "I don't wanna die!!"

I bowed, my face almost kissing the floor. Then I felt a kick to my stomach that threw me across the room.

"Chief!" The girl exclaimed in a measly attempt to stop the big man.

"You better teach your bug to know their place, spider!" The chief shouted, walking back to his table with the two snickering guys. "Even the expendable should learn manners. Now get the f*** out of here before I blow his brains out."

"Yes, Chief!" The girl replied, supporting my weight to walk outside.

I noticed her expression change from serious to smiling, which she quickly removed when she saw me looking.

"Your name is spider?" I asked.

"Of course, not. Who's stupid enough to name their child, Spider?" She laughed. I didn't know how but her laugh felt genuine.

"Ali", she said, extending her hand.

"Ali, what?" I followed up, remembering that people were supposed to have last names.

"Who cares. Just Ali. You?"

"Lucian. Just Lucian."