Chapter 3 - Yerasgic-krasic

Nelson washed the dried blood off of the towel and put the knife on the ground, next to the stack of bowls. As he finished the first plate, he heard footsteps from behind him. Nelson looked back to find it was the young man who had come from outside of the small town, Warren Wheatly. The young man sat down next to Nelson, grabbed a bowl, and started helping Nelson clean.

"Mr. Kemp and your dad are both getting our sleeping areas ready, so I thought I would come help you," he said, as he put a bowl in the creek. When he took the bowl out of the creek, he didn't have anything to dry it with so he used his shirt.

Nelson put his second finished bowl on top of the other one and asked, "What exactly did you and Mr. Kemp cut with the knife?"

Warren put his bowl on the new stack and responded "Just some small mice in the area," as he grabbed another bowl. "That's normal enough," Nelson thought to himself, putting his third finished bowl on the stack. "He's probably lying though," he thought.

Sybil's family came home shortly after her encounter with the figure. The children prepared salad for themselves. Sybil and her little brother, Leopold, who was also a candidate, both put their "Ukacop-jucop" seasoning in it, one requirement of being a candidate was to put this special seasoning in every meal they had. It's effect depended on the meal, this time it added a seasoning similar to pepper.

After dinner, Sybil went to her study and her siblings all went to bed. She looked at the bookshelf, with books provided to her by her parents and by Mr. Greene. She had not read all of them yet, but has skimmed through all of them. She started to grab books, one by one, looking at their titles before taking them off of the shelf. When she sat back down she had pulled out four books, Introduction for Candidates: The History of Candidates and Common Practices, Ancient Creatures and Monsters, The Cave of the Callah, and The History of Wimborne. She picked each book out that she remembered to stand out, or be associated with similar features the figure has. The only exception to this was the Introduction for Candidates, which she grabbed to review the material and to look over the history again.

She drew up the figure and listed it's features on a blank sheet of paper next to her books. It's a figure of a tall man, it has no color, it speaks ancient tongue, it has an overwhelming presence, it can transform into other people, and it doesn't do much other than watch. After she finished, she grabbed The History of Wimborne, and was about to read when she heard a knock on her front door. She went out of her study and answered the door, Lewis's dad, Mr. Gibbs was on the lawn. "Sorry to disturb you this late," he read outloud, from a card in his hand, "but tomorrow is going to be the passing ceremony for Mr. Matt Townsend." The man then walked away, folding the small card up even smaller. "I guess I won't have time to study tonight," she thought to herself.

When she came back inside, her siblings were at the door. "We have to wake up early tomorrow for a special event," she said, realizing the small children still didn't know what had happened to Matt, or what the adults said had happened to Matt. The children had trouble sleeping that night, their parents weren't home, the rain outside hit the roof with a stab.

The next day, Sybil and Leopold both woke up earlier than the majority of the town had, with hardly any sleep. They both put their passing ceremony gowns, tan in color with leather decals. Leopold wasn't so fond of having to wear what he called a dress, especially since he had only worn it one day ago. They woke the other younger siblings up since their parents still haven't returned home yet, and left the house.

As Leopold repositioned his grip on the robe, to stop it from hitting the muddy ground he asked Sybil, "How far do you think Matt went?"

"What?"

"I haven't seen any wolves, so I think he had to have gone away from here," he said, as he jumped over a fallen log,

"How old are you again?" Sybil asked, looking at the ground and stepping over the log Leopold had just jumped over

"10, only 2 years older than you,"

"That was rhetorical question,"

When they arrived, they were the third family to arrive. Matt's family were the first to arrive and set up the hay bed, some of the presents, and Matt's body, Otis Estrada was the second to arrive. He was by himself and was trimming the hay bed when Sybil and Leopold arrived, when he saw them he got up and walked over to them.

"We need some unbloomed Reknag-ukdal," he said to them. After he said that, he looked down at their gowns and noticed a stain on the end of Leopold's gown. Leopold and Sybil looked down when Otis said "You could wash that in the creek, Sybil, you can pick some of the Reknag-ukdal,"

Sybil immediately walked toward the land and Leopold nodded before walking toward the creek. Leopold put his gown in the creek when Woody Kemp and Warren Wheatly arrived, earlier than anyone else in the village had to. They stood on the edge of the land next to the bank but not touching the bank, all they did was stand and watch.

"Who are they?" Otis thought to himself, as he watched Leopold finish washing his gown. Leopold twisted the end of the gown, after he took it out of the creek. Otis then took the small scissors from his pocket and returned to trimming the bed of hay. "I don't like doing this," he thought, as he trimmed the bed of hay his old friend's dead body laid on.

Sybil walked past the closed gate of the town and out into the field of flowers that surrounded the whole town. The whole section of the flower field dedicated to Reknag-ukdal was entirely black, nearly all of the flowers were bloomed. Mr. Sadiq was already in the field, picking unbloomed flowers out for the ceremony to use. When he heard Sybil rustle in the grass next to the flowers, he raised his head and said to Sybil "I'm almost done picking the last ones out."

Mr. Sadiq never liked Sybil, and he wasn't subtle about it. He and his wife had also had health troubles, but recently his health problems went away. He picked a flower and said to Sybil, "That's all." He walked over to Sybil with the handful of flowers looking directly above her head as he did. Sybil walked over to meet him, when she noticed him looking above her head. She looked behind herself and saw nothing but trees and bushes, separating the town from the field. When they met Mr. Sadiq kneeled to meet her short height and when he did he said, "Yerasgic-krasic, you have a lot of potential Sybil."

Sybil swiftly stole the flowers from his hand, "You shouldn't be talking in that tongue," she said to him, then quickly distanced herself from him. She walked through the gate, looking back to see Mr. Sadiq had immediately gone back to working on the field.

Nelson was awoken by his dad who knocked on his bed frame. Nelson used his hands to sit himself upward when his dad said, "Get ready for Matt's funeral ceremony, Woody and Warren have both already left." Nelson tore his covers off and immediately jumped out of bed and ran to the rack in the corner of his room, where he kept his clothes. He put on a dirty cotton shirt and slightly baggy, tan, shorts. He ran to the front of the house when his dad interrupted him, "The ceremony won't start for about another 20 minutes, you can slow down. In the meantime, let's talk about mom."

Nelson and his father walked over to the dining room, to sit down. As Nelson pulled his seat out his dad said to him, "She had more fits last night, Nelson."

Nelson didn't wake up at all last night so he was only a bit surprised to hear this. He already knew the rate at which his mom got fits was increasing over the past couple of weeks, but she had never had fits for two days in a row. At that moment, Nelson remembered when he and Warren came back to the house after washing the dishes, his mom was having another fit. She would probably have more fits today. As he thought of all of this, images of what had happened to Matt suddenly appeared, "Do you ever think of leaving Rivumpt?" he asked.

As Nelson asked that, his dad sunk more into the table as his posture got worse. He told Nelson, "Out of all of the places I have been in all of my life, this is the one place I have been to that is exempted from all of the world's events and politics..." he continued all of this without moving his face away from his hands, "...although this place is isolated from the world, a lot of that isolation is what makes it as good of a place as it is. We have no reason to leave and leaving will only cause your life to get more complicated, you should enjoy your time here while you can."

Nelson was disappointed with that answer, but he now knew his dad wouldn't be hiding anything from him and nothing as big as covering up their murder of Matt. At that moment, Nelson was convinced his dad had nothing to do with what happened to what and is not aware of what had happened.

"That didn't take Sybil very long," Otis thought, as he saw her returning with the unbloomed flowers needed for the ceremony. As she left the land and set foot on the creek Otis noticed her gown had gotten dirty. "Your gown," Leopold said to her, right before Otis was about to say something. Sybil looked down and ignored it. She started to put the flowers across the body, and only put some of the flowers on the bed of hay.

"Sybil, you need to wash your gown before the stains become permanent," Otis tried telling Sybil, but Sybil was lost in thought. "How does he know those words? Not even the candidates know the specific language, only the words," she thought. "Sybil? Sybil!" Otis continued to yell at her to get her attention, as she made the motion of putting flowers after finishing putting all of the flowers on the bed. "His health got better almost overnight, could that be connected? What was he looking at?" she continued to think, before noticing she had run out of the flowers. She ran for the river to wash the mud out of her gown.

Woody and Warren were still watching as all of this occured. "I'm thinking we have that blonde kid, Otis, on top? He's basically running the whole thing," Warren said to Woody.

"That is true, but Leopold has been out waking everyone up so no one misses the ceremony which in itself is a difficult job of having to run around this whole town and not mess the gown up," Woody told Warren, as he took a piece of paper from his pocket out. He put the paper on the floor and started to write out various things that Warren wasn't able to make out.

Sybil finished washing her gown when Otis came over, "Are you alright? If you're not feeling well you can sit out until the ceremony starts," she said to her as she wrinkled her gown to dry it, the same way her brother had earlier. "I'm fine, just thinking," she responded as she walked away, looking at the ground.

Nelson heard a knock from his door, his dad went over to open it and saw Leopold standing there. "Good morning, Randall Greene..." he said, "...I'm just going around to make sure everyone was awake to come to the ceremony later."

"Thank you, Neopold. We'll be there soon, actually, I think Nelson is ready to go," Mr. Greene told him. "I'm actually not entirely ready yet," he yelled at both of them from the dining room. Randall didn't say anything, and Neopold left saying "Thank you, hayradrascka!"

"What else do you need to do to get ready?" Randall asked Nelson, as he made his way back to the dining room.

"Just socks and shoes," he said. As he said this he readjusted himself in his seat and looked out through the window. He also had to wash his mouth, but he had never liked doing that so he left it out.

"Then why didn't you go?"

"I don't really like Leopold that much, he acts like he's a know-it-all while he eats mud," Nelson responded, still looking out the window.

Randall looked at his son for a moment before his son looked back at him. Randall then got up and said, "Alright then, I'll go get ready and we'll both go," as he walked toward the room Mrs. Greene was in.

Once everything else was ready, Otis stood on the opposite end of the creek bank to where the creek was, so he could greet people and take their gifts. Sybil did the same thing but in another area of the bank. Leopold returned shortly after and once he did many families started to arrive.

Otis and Sybil collected gifts and handed them to other candidates to take to the bed of hay. The Gibbs family brought a small coin collection, the Estrada family brought a copy of Matt's favorite childhood storybook, but when the Benson family arrived they didn't have a single gift. They also didn't have any parents with them, so Leopold ran over to their house to get a gift. Once he ran over, the Sadiq family arrived. The family included Mrs. Sadiq who was walking with the help of Mr. Sadiq and a walking stick, Imaan Sadiq who was the oldest of all of the children at the age of 16 and had been sick the past couple of days, a couple of smaller children who were well behaved, and Mr. Sadiq. Mr. Sadiq handed Sybil their gift, which was a book Sybil had never seen before. The book had a black cover with no images or words on it. Sybil would've looked in the book if not for one rule being "no gifts shall be looked in."

Nelson and his dad arrived, their gift was a pie which was one of Matt's favorite foods. Faye had already arrived with the Gibbs family but Chris was still not there. Otis took the food over to the bed of hay. Chris arrived last with the Kain family, once they arrived the ceremony started. The seven candidates stood in front of Matt's body on the bed of hay and started chanting "Al-gabisach, renksdagaf." After enough time Bernard Townsend, Matt's father, walked to the front of the bed and gave his speech before Sybil pushed the bed of hay down the creek. Once she did, the bells were rung. Once it was over and families started to walk back the Greene family decided it was time for them to go back home and try to sleep before the sun was too high. As they started to move Sybil stopped Nelson and told him, "Can we talk?"

"Right now?" He asked as he stopped and looked directly at Sybil.

"Yes, right now,"

They walked to the creek bank they had talked last, and where they saw Matt. The creek was flooded from the rain the night before. Once they reached the end of the creek and made sure no one followed them Nelson said out loud, "The two older men, Woody Kemp and Warren..." Nelson said, suddenly stopping, "...I forgot his name, probably cut Matt up."

"So he wasn't actually attacked by wolves?" Sybil asked, as she looked at the flowing creek crouched down. "Even if some of the adults here don't know, they definitely know," she thought to herself.

Nelson picked up a rock and as he did he said, "Yes, and I don't think my dad knows. I think he genuinely wants all of us to live here, happily," he then threw the rock at the creek and skipped it, it bounced across the water 4 times.

"Ok, but we now know Wali Sadiq and those two older men know about it for sure," Sybil told Nelson, who was picking up another rock to skip, as she looked away from the water and at him, still crouched.

"Wait, Mr. Sadiq?" Nelson asked, as he stopped his hand from throwing the rock in the creek.

"He spoke in some tongue earlier, while I was getting reknag-ukdal for the ceremony. Which would probably explain how his health got better so fast, one day he was coughing up blood in his bed and the next he was working in his flower field. I don't know what word he said, it was something along the lines of heraska-draska"

"So do you think the whole Sadiq family is in on it?" Nelson asked as he threw the rock in the creek, it only skipped twice this time.

"No, if that was the case I think Mrs. Sadiq's health would also be better. Also, I think I figured out which potential creature it was." Sybil said as she pulled out a piece of paper from the back of her gown. The paper had a shape similar to the figure she had seen, but this figure had longer feet. Attributes were also written out on the paper including being the loudest creature alive and imitating certain smells. "Not everything matches up, but this is the best I could find in the book, it's called a Haragcstic. It's a monster that is able to change its shape and other physical properties like sounds and smells it can create. It's one of the only humanoid figures in the whole book, this also tells us some of its other properties that it has which could help us kill it..." at this point, Nelson sat down to stare at the piece of paper. Sybil pointed to an attribute on the paper, "...For example, lizard saliva is poisonous to it."

As she was talking about this a loud drop was heard from the small slope that connected the land above and the bank below. Sybil stopped talking and looked, it was Imaan. "What are you two talking about?" she asked as she stepped closer.

"There's this monster called a Haragcstic that we think is in this town..." Sybil told her and Imaan immediately stopping in her tracks, Nelson also looked directly at Sybil to try and signal to stop. "...we also think your dad is working directly with it to help it eat our organs."