2 Ra, The boy in the basked part 2

The old woman didn't shed a tear, she cursed the old man for leaving all the work to her, then followed to finish her meal before taking care of the old man's corpse, it was fortune that the orphanage was right above the coffin maker situated on the first floor, that day the children could hear the old woman yelling and shouting at the poor man running the shop until he agreed to donate a coffin to the orphanage, in tears. The coffin, like all the coffins, was made by a mixture of sand and other materials then cast into a stone mould containing a hollow cut-out with the desired shape, the final product was a sandstone coffin.

It was said that a long time ago they were made with wood, to the amusement of whoever heard that. How expensive was wood? It was even more expensive than water and that was saying a lot, water was directly related to the power of each kingdom, the more you had the better, it was treated as currency and strictly controlled. Every family was given a weekly ration of water based on the members of the family; the orphanage was given water in the same way.

That day, the older boys pulled the coffin with the old man's body inside with ropes to the Min river of sand as it was custom for the dead to be thrown inside and be taken by the current to the Great Whirlpool where he would vanish forever.

As to what the great whirlpool was, we will have to talk about the whole continent first.

The Nihil continent, the only continent known to man, it had a round shape, and it was cut by four rivers that met at its centre, cutting it in four similar parts. From the top of the continent, where the sun set at, flowed the Alt river, from the bottom, where the sun rises from, was the Min river, left was the Sin river and right was the Dex river. The four rivers meet at the centre of the continent forming a big whirlpool of sand named the Great Whirlpool thus creating the four kingdoms ruled by a King or Queen.

The four kingdoms were respectively named, Altsin in the upper left, Altdex in the upper right, Minsin in the lower left and the last one was the Mindex in the lower right of the continent. The top being where the sun rises from and bottom was where it set to, the motion of the sun cut the continent perfectly in half.

The four kingdoms were neither friendly nor hostile to each other, they maintained a purely trading relationship between each other, but were connected by the Explorers guild.

Switching back to the old man's coffin, every two weeks the flow of the river was reversed, thus the corpses would have to be left rooting in the coffins until the river flowed to the Great Whirlpool as tradition dictated the corpses to be swallowed by the whirlpool to find rest and not to be swallowed by the monster swarming sea of sand. It was good fortune that this week the Min river flowed towards the Great Whirlpool, so the children didn't have to live with the rooting stench of the old man's corpse.

With the body disposed of, life at the orphanage resumed its usual flow.

Or so it should have been.

The red-haired boy, Ra, as was written on the basked he was found in, at the beginning seemed to be as any other boy, only his unusual hair colour made him stand out, but that changed slowly. The old woman noticed something strange, the boy never cried, a child his age should cry every day, but he didn't utter a sound making the old woman think that the child may be retarded. Then, a strange phenomenon happened, the bed the little child slept on started to have traces of sand, every morning. Despite the old woman cleaning and cleaning, the sand always came back, in the end she had to keep the baby separated from the rest in an empty room, fearing him cursed.

Then, when he was five, an older boy stole his food, for the next week the older boy always woke up with a mouthful of sand, his cry could be heard every morning as punctual as a Roko's.

Another similar event happened when he was eight, some of the boys didn't like his attitude and tried to beat him up, but they were found beaten instead, they cried to the old woman calling him a monster but even they couldn't explain what happened.

There were many incidents like those until no one dared to speak to him anymore, no one interacted with him anymore, the fact that he could also be heard having a conversation with himself didn't help, everyone at the orphanage was scared of him, but no one dared to kick him out, but since he became 9 years old, no one in the orphanage bothered him anymore and they started treating him better.

Going back to the present.

Ra descended the stairs and took his place at the dining table, there were twenty kids in total, the food was as always polenta with some cheese and smoked meat, a simple but filling meal, but not for himself, he lived with constant hunger.

Despite that, he didn't complain and started eating, he liked to cover the cheese with some hot polenta so that it would become more soft and edible, he tried different ways but he ran of new ways to eat long ago because it was always the same meal.

Once the meal was over it was time for cleaning, they had to take turns cleaning and today it wasn't Ra's turn so he could go to his usual place.

Getting up from the table, he left for the main door, he put his leather shoes on and left the orphanage, he had to walk for some time until he was on the main streets. The streets were bustling like always, people were going on with their lives, some pulled their charts along the road, some were just sitting on worn blankets in the shadow of the buildings, hiding from the sun, no one gave Ra a second glance as most people were used to him.