Baido was dead. Or so he believed he was. He had died last night, had he not? Running on an empty stomach and what water left of his body leaving him only to soak through his worn garments once again. He remembered falling. Seeing flashing light then nothingness. Surely this was the next life. And boy was Baido happy to have left the other one behind. Except he hadn't.

He was sat up in a chair, wrists and ankles tethered to its arms and legs. The space was dimly lit, with a light source behind him. He was in a house of some sorts. And someone was behind him.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. He barely saw her in the corner of his vision for she stood as still as a statue and as quiet as a mouse.

"Who are you?" Her silky smooth voice trembled slightly. "How did you find my home?"

Baido twisted his neck, but still she was out of sight. "I'm not looking for trouble. I didn't mean to find your home, I only wanted to get away."

"Away from what?"

"The surface dwellers."

"Who exactly are you?"

Baido swallowed a breath. "My name is Baido. My home was invaded by the same men I'm running from. The same men who killed my parents. I had nowhere else to go but here."

She didn't speak a moment. Then came light footsteps and a girl stepped in front of him. Skin as dark as charcoal, dark wavy hair that cascaded down her back and eyes as bright and blue as the sky.

Baido couldn't keep his eyes off of her. The men from the surface were disgusting, blood-thirsty and just plain vile. Baido never thought the women from the surface would look this fine. She had an otherworldly beauty that would leave men scrambling for words to describe such a sight.

"Then why," she said, her voice shaking slightly, "do you look the way you do?"

Baido broke from his trance, remembering where he was. "I guess, it's because where I come from we barely see the full light of day."

But she was as astounding as she was nervous. Her gaze was shifty. She rubbed her hands together, jittery. It was as plain as day, she'd never done this before. Tied up a man and questioned him. Especially someone who looked like Baido. "Are you from Drait?"

"No, I'm not from Drait. Dhulka, that's where I'm from." He wished to explain more but his growling stomach finished his reply.

Her eyes rounded into glittery blue disks. "You're hungry."

"Starving," Baido sighed, "would be the more appropriate term."

"I'll be right back." She stepped behind him and disappeared from his sight once again. But she was gone only a moment before she returned with a tray of strange looking food with the familiar scent of smoked meat, sugary fruits, roasted nuts, steaming spices and everything else good.

With the first spoon of food, he melted into the chair. Starvation may have made the food taste like the best food in the world, but even without an empty stomach the food was delightfully  delicious. "This is amazing," he moaned, as he was fed another spoon.

"Thank you." She smiled. She watched him eat, studied the way his jaw moved, his nose and eyes and hair. On his better days Baido would've been flattered, but he knew his face was layered with dirt, he smelled like shit and he wasnt in his best shape.

"You're very strange looking," she finally said. "Where you're from, does everyone look like you?"

Baido straightened as best he could in his position. "Well, I've been told that I possess the features and physique of a Greek god, but I digress."

"Greek...?"

Baido sighed. "Yes, they all look like me."

In the next moment, a bang came from the next room that shook the walls and a stomping that sent tremors through the floor. Fear replaced her curiosity in the blink of an eye.

"Mahina!" A deep masculine voice called out.

"I'll be right back." Before Baido had time to register what was happening she rushed out of sight. A door slammed and she was gone.

Baido gazed at his bleak surroundings in the silence when he saw that she'd left the bowl and spoon on the table next to him. He didn't trust this girl, whether she was with them or not, the surface world only promised danger.

He reached out to the bowl as far as fingers allowed. But the bowl was too far below. He leaned back, grasping, desperate. The legs of his chair teetered and he crashed to the floor.

Baido sighed. What had his life come to?Where would he go from here? Back to Dhulka where life was as good as hell? Or out into the surface world where just a second in the sunlight would snuff out his soul?

He closed his eyes only a moment when the sound of a door slamming forced his eyes open again. Footsteps, heavy pounding footsteps, approached. Upside down in his vision was a mightly large man with a full grey beard staring down at him through bloodshot eyes. Where his arm should have been was a sword, sticking out of his sleeve like a tooth pick in a slab of steak. And he could very well wield it even without a hand. The sword lunged towards him.

But it failed to wound him. She threw himself in front of Baido before the sword met them both. "Papa please!"

"Mahina get away from him!" His voice rumbled like thunder out his throat.

"I won't let you hurt him Papa!"

"You don't know this man! Where he came from, what he could do if he wasn't tied to that chair, now get away from him!"

But she wouldn't let up. She had balls, big balls. Because if anyone was scared of a man who looked like him, then what would that fear become if he were your own father.

"I found him, unconscious at our front door. I know I shouldn't have. But I couldn't let him sleep out there on the cold forest floor. I tied him up just to be safe. He didn't hurt me, he couldn't have, and I don't know if he will but I hope he won't. I want to trust him. I want to help him, like he helped us."

He fumed then faltered. "What did he tell you?"

She told her father everything Baido had told her. The large armless man considered this all the while blood pooled to Baido's head.

"Mahina, is it?" Baido said. She turned round, downside up in his vision. "Thank you for the meal and for not leaving me out there at night. You don't have to trust me, I'm nothing more than a thief and cheat. But I don't take from those who've given to me. Not anymore at least. So I'll go, and I won't ever come back."

She didn't say a word. But instead adjusted the chair so he was lying on his side.

"Cut him loose," the burly man instructed.

A small smile lit her features as she sat him up and untied the ropes. "I'm sorry for this," she murmured.

"Don't be."

Her dad strutted out the doors. "Follow me," he said.

"Can you walk?" Baido couldn't help thinking she was too gentle and kind to be his daughter.

He nodded, but stumbled when he tried to take a step. She gave him a shoulder to hold himself up as they left the room. Their home was small and strange, and it even had windows beyond which was trees and trees as far as the eyes could see.

They were about the leave the front door when Baido halted. The door led out into a world exposed to the sun.

"What's the matter?" She said.

"The sunlight, I can't." Fear glued his feet in place.

"Oh come on, will ya!" The father shouted, "there's barely any sun under the trees."

Baido swallowed the fear and took the first step. Five seconds passed before he took the second. He hadn't died. The sun, was warm. He gazed at his arms in the light of day, at the tiny green plants beneath his feet, the towering trees around him, at the girl beside him. The thin streams of light that rained down did him no harm. He was still alive.

"Let's go." The large man was growing inpatient. They started towards him when he shook his head. "No, not you Mahina. You stay."

"But Dad—"

"Mahina," he growled. "Stay."

She stepped away, reluctantly. "Promise you won't hurt him?"

His scarlet eyes, swung from his daughter to Baido and back, scowling when it landed on the boy. "What would it matter?"

"Please Papa."

He sighed. "Promise."

~~~

Baido trailed behind the bulk of a man, further and further out from the little cottage home. If he hadn't have promised his daughter not to harm him, Baido would've suspected he'd led him out here to kill him. But he could've done it anyway.

The armless man froze in his steps. Baido stopped as well, unsure, afraid. Then the man swung around, his sword swinging through the air. Baido saw his life flash before his eyes. Only for an ear-piercing squeal of an animal to jolt him back to his senses.

At Baido's feet was the maimed body of a massive beast with fur as dark as night and menacingly large tusks. A pool of red formed around the beast from the gash in it's side as it only continued to cry out. And it only fell silent when a sword was driven into its skull.

"How did you get here?"

Baido lifted his gaze from the dead beast to the true beast standing before him."I escaped, my home has been invaded."

"No." His gaze holding a recognition. He knew something his daughter didn't, thats why he brought Baido out here. "How did you come to the surface?"

"The invaders, they used us as slaves. Till the earth at night and back into Dhulka during the day. I took the risk and ran right into the forest last night."

"You shouldn't have come here," he chided. "There's nothing for you up here. Go back to Dhulka where you belong."

"There's no point, I can't."

His eyes narrowed. "Then leave the forest. Go, and don't ever come back."

Baido took his leave. But he knew he was talking towards his death. He turned back. "Are you two from Drait? Or are you Cadits?"

The man shook his head. "Drait has fallen to the hands of the Cadits."

"I knew a man, before all this happened, he was from Drait."

That piqued the man's interest. He moved towards Baido, eyes hungry to know more. "Who?"

"His name was Lua. He was the son of the Drait Chief, I believe. I don't know if he's dead or alive, but he wasn't like them."

"The Cadits have killed all the Drait men, and left only the women and children. It would do you no good going to Drait."

"She doesn't know, does she?"

"She's safe here. A father would never allow his daughter anywhere near men like them."

Baido nodded and turned away. Even on the surface, it was every men for themselves. But Mahina was different, and that gave him hope. Baido would pleade his case, he'd try. "I can't go out there without any knowledge of what I could meet. Teach me about the surface. Help me survive, because if you send me out there right now you might as well be sending me to my death and you promised her you wouldn't harm me."

"Whether you survive or die has nothing to do with me or my daughter." He stood stubbornly in his stance. "I'm keeping my promise, now go."

But Baido didn't move an inch. "Then you might as well just kill me now."

Onwa studied Baido, searching his face, perhaps contemplating whether to take him up on his offer. "Do you want to live?" Onwa finally said. "Or do you just want to survive?"

Baido was left bewildered a moment. "Are they not the same thing?"

"You'll never live a day up here because you don't think living and surviving are any different. You'll keep running and before you know it you'll be dead and you will never have lived. I'll teach you about the surface only if you live a day and return." Onwa turned away, returning to his daughter and Baido didn't follow.

~~~

"What was the right thing to do?" Zemlya asked Qalbi but she knew she questioned herself as well. For the millionth time, she asked herself what she could've done better. "Should I have just kept quiet and let them hurt him or should I have pretended his pain was justified?"

But silence was his reply.

She crumbled under the impact of her ever churning thoughts. "I'm sorry. I don't expect you to give me an answer. I just hope I'm not sorry for what I did because every which way I look at it, I could never believe that what was allowed to happen to him was right."

She wished he could speak. That he'd say she was right in doing what she did.  But his reply instead was wordless. She heard the knock and felt it. She hesitated. She didn't trust her senses. But she knew, he had his hand out for her.

His hand was burning wood. Or what she imagined burning wood must've felt like. A comfort for the cold and lonely. She took his hand in both of hers, carefully, delicately. The whole world was in his hand. For a brief moment his hand was strangely familiar. But he pulled away, only a second later.

"You remind me of someone I know, I once knew," she smiled as she said it, and hoped he heard it in her voice. "He had a warmth to him I've never found in anyone else but you. Even when he tried to be cold and distant, he never made me feel alone. I always felt that he was trying to be someone he wasn't, when he was actually kind and gentle. He was warm."

A/n: hello humans and ghosts, forgive meh for the late update. Literally been so long but hey I'm back😅