BACK HOME

It is a mysterious place. A dangerous mountain where humans don't dare approach. There, only mystical creatures that hunt and feast on the flesh of the mortals appear from time to time. They say, it is a cursed mountain that has been haunted by evil spirits for decades. It is called, the Lethal garden.

In that lethal garden, lived a divine creature that protected the mountain for twenty-five years. He is destined to protect the mountain and without any mercy destroy anything that went anywhere near the woods. They call him a 'wolf man'. His name is Pusetso the sangoma. For ages, people were not sure what it was that lived in the woods. They concluded that it was a large marine snake that migrated from some eastern oceans and inhabited the woods.

A man in his early forties was chopping down a tree in the lethal garden woods when suddenly he widened his eyes frighteningly as the tree started spitting out blood. He turned to look around and all the trees in the woods were bleeding. In great turmoil, he turned around to find a gigantic man standing behind him.

He had an unfriendly face and was covered in blood stains all over his clothes, his hands and his face. His nails were long and sharp like those of a wild cat, his teeth resembled those of a wolf. He was staring angrily into his eyes. He raised up his hand with all his strength and it came back down straight onto the man's neck, he fell on him and vigorously started scratching his face with his claws.

The man's body fell on the ground and a large foot stepped over it and walked away. Next, we see him, the 'wolf man' is kneeling before the lake listening to the voice from deep beneath the water. As he stood there, his wounds magically healed themselves and his flesh once again become as good as if he never had the wounds in the first place.

"This is the first time we meet after you came back from the city. I went out to meet with your fathers when you were gone, didn't figure you would be back so soon. How did you go?" asked the mentor.

"Everything went well father."

"Good. I hear you found out the truth about where you come from. Now you know that this doesn't only begin with the death of your father, but goes far long from your grandfather who was unjustly killed along with your aunt who you didn't get a chance to meet. So, are you still willing to go on with the tasks, now that you know that your father wasn't unjustly accused as you thought?"

"I am in father. Make me immortal. I want everybody who ever took part in twisting my fate to sit on a sharp rock like I did for 25 years."

"I hoped you'd say that. Then the journey continues, the rules are still the same. Stay away from humans, they are no friends of ours. And son..."

Pusetso was about to go but he turned to listen to what his mentor had to say, and by the sound of his voice, he could tell that it was really important.

"...remember, there are only ten days left before you become fully immortal. For you, love is a lethal weapon. Now go, make me proud."

Thato stepped out of the bus at the stop in the early afternoon. She looked around to see if there was a car that would take her to the village, but by the looks of it, cars could not even make it to the village. As she looked around, she noticed a footpath going through the fields, without thinking it through, she grabbed her bags and followed the path. As she walked away, a lady about her age came behind her running, when she finally caught up with Thato, she handed her a bracelet made of "Lifaha".

"This is yours, right? You must have forgotten it. I found it lying down where you were sitting."

"Yes, it is. Thank you."

She took the bracelet from the girl and threw it in her hand bag which she was carrying on her left shoulder. She did not look happy to be reunited with her bracelet after almost leaving it in the bus.

A little recap on what happened with Thato the day we last saw her when she was running out of the bushes after killing Mi No:

Thato had gone back to her house that day, picked up a few of her belongings and went back home to see her grandmother. On her way, she met an elderly lady who claimed that she was a fortune teller, she said she could see the future and the past. In her desperation, Thato asked the lady to read her fortune.

After telling her about her past which was not appealing to Thato, the lady advised her to go back home in Taung to solve the issue with the gods or her twisted fate will never be fixed, as the fight Thato was fighting was with the gods not people. Thato was confused and petrified but she decided to take the lady's advice and go back home. Her plan was to go and meet with the chief as she was told is the one who had answers for her, and that he was responsible for her twisted fate right from the beginning.

The fortune teller further told Thato that the bracelet on her hand was not meant to protect her from the gods for ever, it was meant to buy her time until she was old enough to go and take on the responsibilities the gods had for her. Because she had passed the time that the gods had given for her to grow up, that is why the bracelet had turned against her and started torturing her instead of protecting her.

She asked how she could take it off her hand but the lady said there was no way of taking it out because without it she could die. Despite the fact that it was hurting her, she was better with it on than she was without it. However, there was another way that Thato could be marked for the gods to be able to identify her, but it was far more brutal than wearing a cursed bracelet.

With the new mark, Thato had to kill the person who was closest to her heart as a sacrifice for the gods. She found that harder to do and thought the bracelet was better than the second option, therefore, she kept it on. She left there and got inside a car that took her to Taung Village, here where we meet her today. When she was in the car, she had a lot of time to think and decided that she was wrong in deciding to keep the bracelet. She wanted it off and would do anything in her power to do so, even if it meant cutting off her wrist.

She reached for a mirror inside her handbag, put it down and stepped on it. She collected the broken pieces and placed all of them in a plastic bag, except one which she used to cut off the bracelet. As she cut it, it kept getting tighter and tighter but she did not give up.

She cut through her skin so that she would be able to cut off the bracelet. There was too much blood coming out, she pulled a shirt in her bag and used it to cover the wound to avoid making a mess. Finally, the bracelet came off after multiple tries that ended up with her leaving an open wound on her wrist.

With the first aid kit in her bag, she sterilized the wound and bandaged it. Then she took out her novella and read as she waited for the car to get to Taung. When the car finally stopped at the bus stop, she took her bags and left without realising that the bracelet had fallen down when she thought she had put it inside her bag. To be frank, she didn't really care if the bracelet got lost, the one thing she feared is that it could fall into the wrong hands and somebody could end up getting hurt.

Now you know why Thato was not excited to be reunited with her bracelet, or what she was doing there at the place she hasn't been since she was 5 years old. After the girl gave the bracelet to Thato, she noticed that she was bleeding but did not want to impose by asking, instead she offered to walk with Thato since they were headed in the same direction.

The two kids walked together, talking about a lot of things that youths normally talk about. However, Thato was not interested in talking about "girl stuff" with the strange village girl she did not know, the only thing she wanted was to know about the place she was going to.

"The chief, do you know him very well?" she changed the topic.

"Of cause. Everybody knows the chief. Can you believe it, he gave away his only child because apparently she had a calling to become a sangoma?"

Thato did not know a lot about the sangoma stuff, but here she had to ask:

"Why? Is there anything wrong with being a sangoma?"

"Everything is wrong with being a sangoma. You obviously don't know anything, do you?"

"Tell me, what am I missing?"

The girl told Thato about how the chief had banned traditional healing in all forms from his village after he lost his wife during child birth, because of a traditional healer who was also a sangoma. She further talked about how the chief raised his daughter in fear because the child of the sangoma was still alive out there somewhere, and feared that he would come back for revenge. And about how the chief's daughter had a calling when she was five but her father refused to give her up to the gods, instead he gave her up for adoption and never heard from her since.

"What happed to the son of the sangoma then?" Here Thato was really concerned.

"Nobody ever heard from him. We'd all like to believe he died but strange things have been happening since he disappeared."

"What things?"

Thato stopped and widened her eyes as she asked. The girl stopped too but it obviously wasn't because of Thato's question. At this point, I can't even say if she heard the question at all. She looked at the sun's rays, then at the road that leads them through the mountain. She was having a hard time making a decision.

"What's wrong? Did you even hear me ask you a question? What the hell is going on here?"

"The sun is going to set before we get to the other side of the mountain…."

Thato had no idea what the sunset had to do with the question she was asking the girl at the moment. All she wanted to hear was the strange things that have been happening. She wanted to know if they were worse than what has been happening to her.

"We won't make it through the mountain. I know another way, it goes around the mountain and there are tales of human eaters but..." she said panicking before Thato interrupted her, yelling.

"What are you talking about? Aren't you going to tell me what's been happening here?"

"Don't you get it? The village is cursed. We are all cursed, we won't ever make it through the mountain alive. The lethal garden will kill us as soon as the sun sets." Now she was trembling with fear.

For a moment, Thato wasn't sure off what to do or say. She stood there and stared at the girl who was roaming about in fear. You could tell she was seriously frightened of the mountain; it couldn't possibly be a myth what she was saying about the lethal garden.

Even though Thato did not know how bad the situation was up the mountain, the one thing she knew is that she was not ready to be anybody's dinner that night. As she stood there and thought, she finally came to a decision that she knew the girl wasn't going to like at all.

"You said nobody ever came out of the lethal garden alive right? How do you know that? Have you seen their bodies? Those people could still be out there living their lives away from you'll. How do you know that they are really dead?"

"Because we've seen their bodies, stupid."

"Great. Then you probably know how the bodies look. Were they killed by an animal? Another person? I mean if we know what we are fighting up against, we could probably make it."

"You are crazy. That thing in there, you cannot fight against. It has killed men, soldiers, who are you to think you can make it out alive? Unless you have special powers, I don't know off…"

She stared at Thato waiting for her to tell her if she really has some special powers. Thato looked at her bag for a moment remembering the bracelet she threw in there not long ago. She then looked at the girl and told her that she did not have any powers but they could still make it, something no mortal would want to hear at a moment like that.

"Exactly what I thought. Good luck fighting against whatever it is up there. Say hello to the gods for me if you would…" she said turning away from Thato, taking the road that goes behind the mountain.

"Wait!" she yelled behind the girl who stopped and turned to listen.

"Isn't the mountain quicker than going around it? By the time you get to the other side, the human eaters will be waiting for you for sure. Isn't it better for your family to find and bury your body than for you to be eaten, for your parents to never find you? The way I see, we have a better chance through the mountain than around it"

"The human eaters are nothing but a tale. The lethal garden is real. You will never make it out of there alive." She says before she turns to walk away from Thato.

Thato stood there for a minute wondering about. She looked at the sun and started walking hastily. Even if she could make it on top of the mountain before sunset, she would never be able to make it to the other side, but she had to try her luck.

She climbed the mountain in a haste, constantly glancing at the rays of the sun. The sun was still there when she got on top but in would not be long before it set. As she walked on top of the mountain, she came across a beautiful lake with clean water. She stopped in front the lake, forgetting for a minute that she was in danger, she dropped the bags down and walked into the water smiling brilliantly.

She drank some and then walked further into the water for a swim. In the middle of the lake, she allowed herself to float on top of the water as she closed her eyes and enjoyed the sun's rays that were coming directly into the water at that moment. A young man in his thirties stood on the cliff and watched her as she swam, captivated by the picture he was seeing in front his eyes.

Thato ran out of the water at the thought that she had a strange sound from far beneath the lake. She grabbed her bags and ran to the banks and only turned back when she was convinced that she was finally far away enough from the water.

Pusetso stood there for a while and watched her before he finally came back to his senses and decided to leave. As he turned to go, he was startled by a strange, and yet familiar sound from the water. He turned back only to find Thato magnetized by the snake in the water. She was walking towards the lake like a possessed person.

Pusetso rushed to help her but stopped remembering his mentor's words from earlier that day.

"Stay away from the humans. They are no friends of ours."

He was not under any circumstance supposed to help a human, especially not the ones who walked into his territory. Those are the type that he was supposed to destroy without thinking, but how could he kill Thato? Every bone in his body told him not do it, in spite his nature that kept telling him otherwise.

A stone hit Thato on the back and she regained her consciousness. She looked around to see where the stone came from but did not see anything. She looks back in the water but there was nothing suspicious. She picked up her bags and leaved.

She stopped for a moment to read a notice board written in bold before she walked into the forest. She slowly went through the letters painted on it and then looked at the picture next to it. It was a picture of a human skeleton with the danger sign on it. She stared at it for a moment and then smiled.

"There couldn't possibly be anything that dangerous. Paranoia is a disease in this village."

Then she walked into the forest, occasionally glancing at the sun's rays that were about to disappear on her sooner than later. She walked for a while, the looked down at her white sneaker to see how the stain had evolved. She carefully jumped over the skulls and bones of dead people and animals, while also being very alert to avoid stepping on blood that was all over the place. It started to click that she was really in danger.

She reached for the hanger chief from her denim pocket and used it to cover her nose so as to minimise the smell she was inhaling. She raised her head disgusted after almost stepping on a human skull, only to find a vicious, wild looking dog, standing right in front of her, staring at her. She slowly dropped everything she had in her hands and let them fall to the ground. She took a step back and tripped and fell on the skull she had jumped over earlier. She raised her eyes to look at the wolf, but it was gone. Slowly, she stood up, constantly looking around for the wolf.

She moved one step forward, but instantly fell to the ground and inevitably clapped her hands over her ears and buried her face under her arms. The harder she tried to block the sound, the louder and clearer it got, like it directly being injected into her ears. Without realising it, her whole face was covered in tears, either from irritation or fear. She cried on the top of her voice, but as she did, the screams and cries she was hearing got louder and more vivid.

She stayed down for a while, trying to figure out what was happening to her. At last, she let go of her ears, realising that trying to block the sound was not fruitful. She raised her head and started looking around eagerly, trying to figure out from which direction the sound came from. The sound was coming in from all different directions, which made her wonder if there was any sound at all, or if she was losing her mind. As she looked around, her eyes caught side of one tree of all the many trees in the woods, she stared at it for a moment without blinking.

As her eyes remained fixed on that tree, it started spitting blood. At first, as if it was crying, but later more blood started coming out, as if it was leaking out from a wound. She widened her eyes frighteningly and scratched them speedily, but the more she wiped them out, the clearer the picture got. She looked around at other trees and realised that they were all bleeding. The more blood that came out from the trees, the louder and more irritating the cries and screams got.

She clapped her hands over her ears and hit her head under her arms. When she thought the noise was fading away, she raised her head and looked around. She witnessed shadows of people walking towards her. They were all coming out of the bleeding trees. Looking at the number of trees there were in that woods, there was no way she would be able to walk past them, no matter how fast she could be. And worse, even if she could manage to walk past the shadows, there was no way that angry wolf was going to let her out of there alive.

With her whole-body trembling in terror, she crawled further away from the shadows, except she was crawling closer to the ones coming behind her. With her eyes closed, she stood up and ran out of the forest in a breath-taking speed, bumping into bloody trees and staining all her clothes and hands in the process.

A little distance away from the outside of the forest, she tripped and fell on a man's body. Trembling in fear, she opened her eyes to a body of a dead man with a much-disfigured face, she stood there for a moment screaming and yelling for help, forgetting for a while that she was still on the run. When she finally came to her senses and thought of getting away from the corpse, she bumped into what felled like a man for some time there.

She turned around to find a mythical creature standing right behind her. It was the kind of being she had never seen before in her entire life. The hands and legs were covered in fur, with sharp claws like a wolf but the face was off a man, and even then, his teeth were too sharp to belong to any man alive. Thato fearfully kept walking backwards, away from the "wolf man". As she kept taking a step back, the wolf kept taking a step closer. Out of fear of what was standing before her eyes, she tripped and fell, giving an opening for the mythical being to attack.

As Thato fought for her life from under the mythical creature's large body, their eyes accidentally met, they stared into each other's eyes for a minute without any movement from either one of the two. It is at that moment that Pusetso started to recognise Thato, but Thato did not know him, or it. To her, he was just an ugly creature that wanted to kill her, and she would obviously have to kill it before it killed her, if she wanted to make it out of the woods alive.

She reached for a sharp stick while still maintaining eye contact and vigorously stabbed the mythical creature on the chest. With the bracelet in her possession, Thato was the only other person who would be able to kill Pusetso and stop him from becoming immortal in 10 days, but she did not have it at that moment, it was still in the woods with the rest of her belongings.

Pusetso fell off from Thato's body, giving her a chance to get up and run. She ran out of the forest but was stopped by a steep slope in front her. She stopped and turned to look at the mythical creature walking towards her hastily. She looked back inside the slope, but when she turned around again to look at the creature falling closer to her by the second, she tripped and fell down the slope. When she got to the bottom, she hit her head and got knocked out.

She woke up moments later and took a minute to recuperate. Guided by the pain, she reached for her knee to find that she had twisted it when she fell. Her knee bone had lost its positioning and her whole flesh was torn apart, because of that, she lost too much blood that her leg was beginning to get numb. In desperation, she ripped the sleeve of her shirt and used it to bandage the wound. After many attempts to climb up and failing, she fell asleep.

When she woke up, she was laying in the cave deep in the woods. She took a second to look around and figure out what happened to her. Hastily, she rushed to look at her knee, only she was healed and had no sign of ever being hurt in the first place. In deep thought, she wondered if it had all been a dream. While her wound was fully healed, the memories of the mythical creature forced her out of the cave running and bumping into things on her way out.

Outside, she stopped running, startled by another human standing in front her. Pusetso smiled and walked past Thato, continuing with his chores as he spoke to her.

"I see you are awake then. How do you feel?" he asked placing her food down and keeping himself busy with the firewood.

"Yeah. A lot better actually. What did you do to me? In fact, where am I? Who are you? Why the hell are you still alive? Shouldn't that crazy monster have killed you already?" she fired her questions all at once.

Pusetso once again smiled passionately and went on with what he was doing. For a moment there, it felt good to be with someone who was not a wild animal or a marine creature that would not even show itself to him. For the next seven days, Thato spent every moment of the day following Pusetso around asking a load of questions which she never got an answer to either one of them.

On the seventh day, Pusetso decided to visit his mentor in the lake. At his arrival, he knelt before the lake and summoned him as he usually did in all the years they have spent working together. Soon as he called him out, the water in the lake rose up and made waves that hit Pusetso vigorously, pushing him backwards in full force.

"You have betrayed me, Pusetso the sangoma. You have let me down, not once, not twice but countless times. I wanted to disregard the fact that you have neglected your duties and spared her life back in the city, but saving her…" the voice spoke angrily.

"I am sorry father; I tied but I could not do it. I cannot kill her no matter what I do. It breaks my heart to see her suffer."

"Your heart? Why did you let her into your heart in the first place? That girl is your doom son, she will destroy everything I have spent centuries building. She is the darkness to your light. With her alive, you will never be able to fulfil your destiny. Do you understand these, that human is the only weapon in this world that can kill an immortal? None of us are safe with her alive."

"We? Do you mean there is more of us?"

"Kill that human and fulfil your destiny."

"What if she was to become one of us?" Pusetso asked in desperation.

"We are long passed that, son. That human child has to die."

"That's the reason why I came here today, father. I want to be human; I want to spend the rest of my life with that human. I want to grow old by her and die in her arms. I am sorry father, but I think, mortality is always better than immortality. I don't think I can afford to live a thousand years with an empty heart, feeding on innocent humans. Look what it has done to you, immortality has completely clouded your judgement. Your hatred for humans is a doom to us all, not that girl."

"Innocent? Humans? I did not raise you all these years to be weak." Angrily.

He pushed Pusetso violently into the slope, hitting his head against the rocks. Pusetso stood still and contained his anger while his mentor punished him. When he was done, he turned into a wolf, climbed up and started walking towards his cave. Deep in the woods, he stopped, widened his eyes and promptly turned and ran in the opposite direction.

He followed the trail of the humans far beneath the woods, headed towards his cave where he had left Thato. As a wolf, Pusetso was faster, which is why he kept trying to turn but failing, and as such, the humans kept faller closer and closer to the cave.

Coming back from collecting firewood, Thato is startled by humans appearing out of the woods and surrounding her in totality. In shock, she drops the firewood she has in her hands on the ground and stares at all the heavily armed humans miserably. In her despair, a wolf appears out of nowhere, jumping in between her and the chief's soldiers. Due to his magic malfunction, Pusetso turns back into a human as his feet bits the ground, everyone falls to the ground in shock, Thato involved.

"What business to you have in my woods?" asked Pusetso angrily.

"She is the chief's daughter; we are here to take her home." Replied the leader of the army.

"She is my guest. She will leave only when I say so. You don't want to piss me off. Leave now, before hell breaks looks."

"We cannot leave without her; the chief will have all of our heads if we return empty handed."

"Either way, you are going to die, either by the chief's hand, or mine. You choose."

"We are taking the girl, even if it's over your dead body."

"Die you will." In a trembling voice, Pusetso said his last.

In a blink of an eye, his nails grew out of his skin into sharp claws, his teeth grew longer and sharper, he made a roaring sound as he fell on the chief's man, scratching them and biting off their throats; chasing them out into the woods, leaving Thato startled, in disbelieve, in doubt of what her eyes were telling her she had seen. From the ground where she had fallen, she stood and made her way back into the cave, only she stopped startled, in terror of what was inside the cave.

Motionless, she stared at the large snake that was resting comfortably in what she once knew as home. She attempted to run but the snake grabbed her with its tale and threw her in the dam next to the cave. Holding her under water with its tale, it watched her drown, while patiently waiting for Pusetso's return.

Covered in blood, breathing heartily, Pusetso ran back into his cave to find his father waiting for him. With the first glimpse, Pusetso recognised his mentor. It was the same snake that had attacked him back in Korea, taking him to that place where he found Thato drowning and saved her life.

"What did you do to Thato?" he asked softly.

"What you failed to do in ten years" he answered arrogantly.

Pusetso stood stalk-still and stared at his father for a while before a thought came into his mind, he looked inside the water and saw a familiar picture, one he had already seen before and decided it was not pretty to watch. A picture of Thato drowning. He jumped in and pulled her out as she had done once back in the city as Mi No.

"How romantic, Romeo saves Juliet again."

"What do you mean?" asked Pusetso impatiently.

"You think I didn't know about your encounter with Miss Morapeli here back in the city? About how you saved her life and let her get away from you with the bracelet, not once, but twice?"

"What is that thing talking about? You knew who I was?" asked Thato looking into Pusetso's eyes in tears.

"I didn't know you back then. I…I hadn't learned what an amazing you are. I… I am…" Pusetso tried to defend himself, panicking.

"Come on, son, why don't you tell your little lover here how you twisted her fate? Let's see if he sees you the same after she finds out that you were behind all that has happed to her for twenty years. About how Mr. Perfect performed a spell that made her think she had a calling to become a sangoma? How that little practical you did forced her father to send her away, leaving her life like a lost sheep not knowing who she was, only that she was a monster that got people killed everywhere she went? Come on, tell her." Jumped in the snake.

"You did these to me?" asked Thato in disbelieve.

At that moment, Thato was waiting for a response that she knew would be too hard to get from Pusetso. After what she had seen him do, it was naïve of her to expect him to say that he had nothing to do with what has been happening to her all her life.

"Thato, I was only ten back then. I had just lost my father and the whole village had turned against me. I thought doing that to you would be enough revenge for your father who couldn't spare a second before killing my father, and would have done anything back then to kill me too. I hated him, I wanted to ruin his life as much as he had ruined mine. But when I met you and got to know you, I didn't mean for it to happen, I fell deeply in love with you, that's why I saved your life and disappeared from your side, I couldn't stand to see you hurting."

Thato did not know what to believe or not believe at the time. There were too many details coming in all at once, she needed a second to digest everything and make sense of what they were telling her.

"Tell me everything?"

"Thato…I…"

"You owe me at least that after what you did to me. How many times did you meet me? When was it? How do I not recognise you?"

"I can body jump. My mentor, the snake sitting in my cave right now, he made me a spell that allowed me to jump into other people's bodies. The first time I met you, I was inside a boy named Paballo."

Thato's tears do not sooth her.

"If you say you fell in love with me, why did you just leave? Do you have any idea what I went through after you left? I blamed myself, I hated myself for a long, thinking I did something. And all this time, I was just a part of your little experiment?"

"On our last date before I disappeared, you almost drowned but I saved you. You thought it was an accident, but it wasn't. The man who raised me and made who I am now tried to kill you that day, Thato. I knew it was wrong, but I risked everything and chose you still. I had to stand by and let you die, but I couldn't. He got mad at me, and extracted me from the mission, send me away and ordered me never to show my face in front you again. That's the deal I had to make to save your life. But, on my final day in the city, I met you again, as Mi No, the Korean boy who saved you from drowning."

"The boy I killed." In tears.

Pusetso looked at Thato mercifully, his heart broke seeing how his revenge damaged an innocent soul, someone who should have never been caught up in any of it from the beginning. He moved over to Thato and tried to hug her, but Thato pushed him away, turned her back on him, and let the tears flow out of her eyes.

"I know what you are thinking Thato, that I am a monster. I promise you that can change, in three days, I could either stay as a monster forever or become human again. You and I can grow old together."

"Not if I kill you first." Jumped in the snake.

Both Thato and Pusetso turned to look at the snake who they had forgotten about for a second. Pusetso stood up and helped Thato up, who in fear of the snake, let her enemy help her.

"Stay behind me."

"What is that noise?" asked Thato fearfully. "I had it in the woods before."

"It's a distraction. Don't let it get to you, concentrate on me for." Pusetso tried to calm her down.

The snake looked at the two youngsters wearing a smile on his face before the water in the dam next to them turned into blood. The trees around them started bleeding as well, flooding the ground beneath them in blood. As Thato and Pusetso struggled to keep their feet try, they stopped to stare in astonishment at the sight of multitudes of people walking towards them hastily.

"What's happening now?" asked Thato, confused.

"This are all the people I killed since I got here."

"Not just you, I can see some who died because of me as well."

The snake lay comfortably in the cave and watched as the two kids fought against the corpses, when they were almost all down, he got down from the cave and joined the fight.

"Thato, get out of here. Run!" Pusetso yelled at Thato who stared at him like she didn't hear what he said.

"Get out of here."

"I am not leaving without you!"

"Go. This is my fight; I can handle it."

Thato watched the snake fighting with Pusetso for a while before she started running out, bumping and tripping over corpses as she did. She ran a long distance before she got out of the bushes, so long that she thought she would never make it out, but at last, she did. As she jumped out of the bushes, she fell into the chief's hands, who was with his men making their way into the bushes to save the princess.

"Please save him. It's killing him. Please..." Thato said before she collapsed in her father's hands.

Morapeli and some of the men went back home while the rest of them went into the woods to find Pusetso. They came back later claiming that they searched the entire woods but did not find him anywhere. Thato packed up and decided to go wolf hunting. Her father tried to stop her but she insisted. At night, when everybody else went to bed, she went into the woods and searched every nook and granny for the bracelet she had lost on her arrival. She went on and looked for Pusetso the whole night but did not find him anywhere.

Just when she was about to give up and go back home, Pusetso appeared. He had been hiding away in the cave from the chief's man.

"I bumped into them and convinced my father to help you." She explained.

"Your father would never help me, Thato. He wants me dead, and he won't stop until I am."

"He will not kill you; he wouldn't do that to me. He knows I love you, he is willing to put everything behind, for me."

"For you? He is only known you for two minutes and already you think he cares about you?"

"He is my dad. Everything he did has been to save me."

"Either way, it's best if he kills me now before I become unkillable."

"You are going to give up now? I stayed with you, I risked defying my father defending you, and you are just going to give up on me."

"Then what am I supposed to do?" Yelling. "In two days, if I don't find that snake, I will be immortal. I will be a monster for eternity. I won't be able to stop, I will hunt, I will kill humans until there is no one left. I can't live like this." In tears.

"Then we are going to find him. We are going to kill him so that he can never do something like this to anyone ever again. He is immortal like you right, he created me as a weapon against the immortals, then let's use his own weapon against him."

"But first, you'll have to learn how to defend yourself, because believe me, he's not going to go down without putting on a fight. Let's hope you can learn everything overnight, otherwise, you'll have more than one immortal in your hands. And please, promise that after we are done here, you'll come with me to Japan to find my treasure. You and I can begin a new life there away from the fake gods and the leadership. Just you and me, together until we die." He said showing Thato a golden bracelet with some numbers on it.

"First, let's find that con and end this once and for all."