Please note: If you have lost track of the storyline since it has been a month-long gap, please read the ending of the previous chapter to have a glimpse of past events.

🔸▪🔸▪

Multiple gasps stretched across the room, each louder than the last one. The east wind flared the crowd gathered around Trar's house, sending the shimmering ribbons limping in the air.

"Intruders! Woah, it is such a feat to steal from your hosts who sheltered you. Well performed, you thieves." After a second of jerking his jaw down, Trar continued, "and look! This fellow, holding my stolen jacket!"

Opeul was squeezed in as the crowd outside increased to witness a crime nobody dared to do- no, not even in their wildest dreams.

"Explain, we..well, I am stoked enough  not to decipher this just by looking at it!" Opeul's voice echoed in the almost empty room.

Zen and Scarlett stared dumbly. What explanation can we give? How do we claim this jacket to be ours? How can we reason for breaking into this house? They tried to draw words from an empty well. Their marred hearts could launch no words to explain their offence.

"The guilty either chatter rubbish in an attempt to mask his crime or dries their mouth with silence. The innocent knows his words. You seem to choose silence, huh?" Opeul questioned.

Outside, the islanders climbed coconut trees, peering into the room through the small ventilation holes and some nosy ones even climbed on the thatched roof. A young man held something of a whiteboard, drawing ink onto it- imprisoning the crime scene perfectly in his cloth canvas.

Scarlett lost words of defence as she was soaked in fear. She saw Opeul's face tighten up every second. A feeling of betrayal etched on his rough face. A sharp sword of humiliation stuck them both as they shuddered in his sizzling sight

"An excellent model, wasn't he?- Reso? I thought you knew the extreme laws against theft." Opeul turned towards the crowd huddled around, "wasn't his execution enough punishment to never again steal?!" This line he screamed with all his might.

"You know what to do!" Opeul yelled at his people as he strode out, yanking his robe all along the way. "I had warned you of these foreigners before, Opeul! They eat our food first and later our lives!" Trar screamed at the figure moving away.

Scarlett fixed her eyes on Zen, who was a few feet away. Zen didn't dare to move his gaze anywhere away from the floor. He heard a muted whisper, "tell him the truth!" It was Scarlett who said this.

"Like he is going to believe us." He nipped his words like he will be never again speaking them.

Zen saw Scarlett standing on the verge of defeat. A woman so strong shattering before his eyes. He saw her step back, actions of a human giving up.

Scarlett perched back, stomping her feet on the suspicious area, draining her foot pressure on it. For people outside it seemed like a manifestation of her frustration.
Two men immediately crossed their hands behind their backs, thrusting them into the crowd.

Through their clogged vision they saw flags of different shades of black hoisted. The kids stole a look at the young humans who now were termed as 'foreign criminals'. Low whispers fell flat as a loud going went off in the far corner of the island. Some islanders scooped empathy in their eyes, while the others, particularly the older ones burnt them with stares forged in rage. Men holding whips and bows escorted them in the front while men with the sternest face pulled their bows as if preparing for an unheard battle.

"Scar! Speak up. I can't feel my body!" Zen blew those little words, his creaked voice disappeared even before it reached Scarlett. Scarlett dipped her eyes in the wet sand, her neck craned down as she pulled the right corner of her lips high up A position she builds up when she is digging into her brain.

After a few long steps, they entered an area bounded by pleated rings. Zen and Scarlett stood on the dry land inside the ring, outside it, were the stirred up audience, howling shouts of mockery and insults fit for traitors. The blue hydrangeas seemed to weep, rolling drops of clear water on its polished bossom as the heaven cracked open, pouring rain onto the land. This was the long-awaited rain, a moment to celebrate with riots of laughter and cries of joy. Instead, people stood around the ring plastered with fury and grimness, ready to witness death. The islanders moved the air in and out of their bodies so steadily that after witnessing so many deaths another death like this is as negligible as an ant bite in their heart. The sky turned into ebony black. This island indeed had something with colours. Zen and Scarlett were made to stand at the two far ends of the ring. Three men guarded them. A dark man with piercings all around his body showed up.

He yelled something at Zen which Opeul translated as, "Your last wish, young man?"

Zen flickered his lashes. He pinched his eyebrows together, panting under the mad rain he said to Opeul, "we were destined to die no matter whose hands- the smugglers or the islanders. No matter where- in a dingy cellar or a lovely island like this. And so I choose to die side by side, holding hands with that woman right there, who seems to be least afraid of death or perhaps of these arrows which are aimed at her doesn't make her flinch. Let me die tangling my fingers with hers. Yes, that lady," he turned to Scarlett, "my home!"

Opeul redirected the words to the other man who seemed to be a self-acclaimed judge, like a person to whom the laws never apply. They held a small discussion and let Zen slip his fingers along Scarlett's. Zen tightened his grip around her little hands.

"And yours, lady?" The man screeched in a tone so rigid.

Scarlett snuggled her fingers into Zens. "I beg Opeul to come with me to Trar's house."

The giant man moved his torso, making the metallic sound when the ornaments struck each other. Nodding his head as words of refusal raved out of his mouth which Trar translated, "that you can do," after a quick look at the mad crowd, he added, "if you can walk past this hysterical crowd alive!"

"What for, Scar? Nothing can save us, not even those papers!"
Zen found no reason to get back to that house where sunshine never visited or a house where life never strolled in.

"This move will save us or....add another reason to convict us- thieves and liars with crooked motives!"

Suddenly Opeul, who was tight-lipped, cleared his throat and said, "What if I agree to go along with her? Would they still hurt her?"

Scarlett and Zen were shocked at his words. They let a loose smile under the heavy rain on hearing Opeul's defensive words. Did he still speculate them to be innocent somewhere in the far corner of his heart? Another mistake of sympathy?

The ferocious crowd settled down like the rippling waters as Opeul, his royalty walked out alongside Scarlett.

The town recited the sound of rain as they walked in. The island was emptied as the islanders were pulled towards the death ring in the outskirts of the city.

Scarlett, Opeul and a couple of guards walked into Trar's abode. They saw someone else enter the house. Not one but three others- the judge, Trar and Zen.

"I suppose this is the house we were a while ago. A trap or a cynical escape, if that is what this is then your chopped corpse will be taken back to the ring." Opeul warned her with no humour intended.

Scarlett turned her back, facing the walls. After a few seconds, she tilted her head towards Opeul. She forced a large amount of air, moulding herself into a stiff stick she said, "what do you think this is, Sir?" Water slid down her fingers as she pointed at the area next to the tools piled up.

"Ha!" Opeul scoffed, "his dog house..that's what he said." He stepped ahead, tracing the wooded frame of a little dog embroidered onto a white cloth.

"I reckon this place is more than a dog house..!" Scarlett stressed her statement. It took everything in her to guess this place to be something else. She had no basis in her words, it was purely a wild intuition or a skill grabbed over the past week- finding hidden places.

"A lie, Opeul! Plain lies! Find a better way to distract us, you little traitor!" Trar screamed to persuade Opeul.

"Hush" Opeul trimmed Trar's words.

Scarlett produced those agreement papers to Opeul. He read every word like it's the beginning of a terrifying era, shivering and panting. His face braided a story, perhaps a feeling of history repeating.

He yelled something firm,  on his orders the guards pounced on Trar, holding him captive.

"Open this!" Opeul commanded as he unclothed his black robe, a cloth worn when a criminal is being punished.

The sturdy man lifted the 'door to Trar's dog house' they stooped down to find a deeply excavated hole. It seemed to extend to lengths so far that the light from the lamp would never reach.

"My dog," Zen came forward, "would have long back escaped through the hole, or even swim off to a better master," he turned towards Trar, who was whining, "loyalty works both ways- dogs and masters!"

Opeul bent down, "A tunnel.." He ripped the dog frame off the wall.

▪🔸▪🔸

A/N: hey guys! Thank you for your patience with me as I did not update for so long!