Desert Company: Retrospective

“Alam Sariqat: Smitting Drain.”

Mouka snatched the remaining particles in his body away from Suruj, as if extracted by force. He was powerless. Mouka stood up and distanced herself. Struggling to stand, Suruj didn’t understand what was going on. Until the moment she conjured one spell.

“Alam Alkhafa,” Her green eyes intensified into a neon glow, She disappeared into the background. The timer reached seven minutes.
“Mouka!” He ran to her spot, ignoring the cramps in his knees and torso. His face turned into a frantic one. He darted around the field. He cried her name. “Mouka! Oi! Where are you!? Why are you doing this?!...”

“Letting you win, that’s what I’m doing,” A voice called out from one direction. Suruj reached for where the voice came from. Nothing was there.

“Letting me win?... When the time runs out they’ll draw a random vote!”

“And when that comes, they will vote for you. As a Khoitan it’s taboo to run away. Yet you are searching for your opponent,” She responded from another direction. Suruj couldn’t find her anywhere.

“You can’t do this!”

“Then would you rather kill me? Or maybe it was better if I killed you? Either way one of us has to go…” She silenced him with her words. He wiped blood off his mouth.

“.... Toqemur! Mouka Toqemur! Where are you?!...” He ignored her reply, shouting at the top of his lungs. Suruj didn’t want to lose anyone close to him. He didn’t want to lose anyone else.

“Now, I’m not going to tell you ‘live on for me’ or some sappy stuff like that, because I’m not that type of person,” Mouka’s voice echoed throughout. The audience began to stir. “I’m Mouka Toqemur, the last Kalyk of Dyak-ar-salaam, who ran away in confronting her frien- opponent!!” She roared with all her might before calming down, “And my memories… belong to me, and me alone. The things that happened in the past are still ingrained in my body, the scars between my legs… in my mind, and in my soul. They are the blemishes that I will take with me even in my time of death. Just thinking about them makes me want to hide and cry…” Her conviction struck Suruj to everlasting silence. “Yet, I found out with everyone, through you and Jose, that not all Buhang were full of malice. Until the end, I couldn’t unlock the chains that bore with me. But you since you actually want to know who I was, I’ll offer them to you, although I won’t be alive to tell it to you, heh.”

“No… You’re wrong Mouka… You changed without ever changing!... So stop with this and tell me where you are!” He dropped to his knees. Tears hit the dirty sand. “I don’t want anyone good to die…”

“Tvuj is waiting somewhere in this world.”

He heard her delicately utter those words into his ear. He turned around to grab only the air.

“Tvuj Hosyi is waiting for her friends to come back alive. Whether, it be you, Saya, or even Niktar Shunji, she’ll be waiting for the day that those precious people she spent two months with to return since the day we left her high and dry in Wakoku.”

“... Mouka…”

“Three minutes left, Suruj. This will be the first time you’ll see what happens when a fighter gets voted out, right? I’m probably going to die according to rules, so when it does happen, take the remaining particles from my body. They will manifest as my memories as long as my brain survives last. When you receive them, maybe they’ll make you want to throw up, or wail till your eyes dry out. But I don’t want you to despair. Think of it as a remembrance gift,” She said in an uplifting tone. He hopelessly searched for her.

“Don’t… No…” He waved his arms forward, as if trying to grasp for someone. The timer reached zero. A low-pitched alarm sounded, followed by the commentator.

“Looks like we have reached the one-hour limit. This is a pretty rare occurrence. Okay, audience! For whoever think deserves to be the winner, please vote using the handheld transmitter below your seat!”

A hologram displayed a live chart, the votes coming in quickly. As the numbers climbed, fighter 10 Zundui posed a landslide victory over 09 Toqemur. A victory melody commenced when Suruj accumulated the most votes, just as Mouka said.

“And the winner is the Buhang, Zundui!” It was announced while they cheered for him. “Toqemur will be administered the punishment very shortly.”

Suruj couldn’t believe it. They all voted for him. His mind swelled up in so many emotions. He did nothing but leave his mouth agape. Mouka tapped his back, now appearing behind him. For the last time, she gave her final words. Her face gradually drew a gentle smile, all true emotion in its purity. She leaned forward with her hands behind her back.

“Heheh, till we meet again, Buhang boy. Or should I say, Suruj Zundui.”

Mouka’s bracelet gave off a warning, bleeping rapidly. An explosion of blood flew out in all directions. It drenched him in a crimson color, his eyes wide. He didn’t say anything. Suruj limped his way towards the remains. It was still intact, but her torso looked as if all of her internal organs imploded. With a delicate touch, he held Mouka in his arms. He brought her face towards his, touching her silver hair and soft brown skin. Filled with grief, he let out a deafening cry. He wailed so hard that the world crumbled to pity. Not even the guards wanted to escort him off the arena, but just let him stay. Suruj cried his lungs out, until he stopped crying.

From his blurry vision flooded with tears, a glowing light emitted from her head. He touched her forehead, as he was transported to a time before Al-Wa ever wanted them.

 

The ash of corpses polluted the air. A huge conflagration raged throughout a ward of Dyak-ar-salaam. The Kalykeño Ward, that housed the largest Khoitan population. It belched in flames as fire danced from building to building, charring people to black and encouraging the cries of children. The Buhang searched every door, slaughtering anyone who had even the slightest resemblance to the Khoitan.

“Death to the terrorists! Mga nognogan!” They chanted while bodies fell. Large groups cheered as they tossed Kalyk naked women and children into the blaze.

Suruj wanted to gouge his eyes out. He had lumps in his throat while his skin crawled. His own people were monsters. The red inferno that burned their bodies came cold as chilling frost in the Valleys of Bathala. Everything, every principle, every last drop of morality, evaporated into the freezing flames. The thousands of people of the ward died that day, except for one; a lone girl who hid in a steel box of smoke.

In the year of 1968, Suruj was only six during the massacre. After the gray skies cleared, after the bodies were nothing but black ash, after the atrocity that had befallen the third ward of Dyak-ar-salaam, the municipal government never condemned it. Life continued for the little Khoitan girl, who had no family nor friends.

“If you want to eat, then go entertain some customers!” She received a slap as a man threw her into a cell. “Ah, welcome to the Bahay na Ulaan Spring Seasons Brothel, how may I help you?”

The little girl did nothing but tend to clients and grovel at the Azu honcho’s feet to survive. On days when business were low, she couldn’t eat anything. The food given challenged the national food hazards. Rotten rice, rotten tofu, kalabaw blood, she ate them and vomited the contents hours later. She refused to eat anything at all. The girl’s face became emotionless and jaded, steering away from boys and men alike. Afraid that they were there to attack her. She hid the scars on her legs, where she etched with a sharpened hairpin a curse that would bring a bad omen. By doing this, she deterred clients from renting her, because Buhang still believed in superstitions. When she went out to the palengkes, they bound her neck and wrists to chains to advertise to the public. Mouka couldn’t wipe the people’s spit off her hair.

Observing all of this unfold in an omnipresent state, Suruj scratched his arms and face, even when there was no pain at all. People called all sorts of names, ‘terrorist’, ‘bomb-child’, ‘pobreng tae’, but her real name would always be Mouka Toqemur.

“Toqemur. The most important thing to survive here is to smile. Smile even through the pain, smile through the hardship, and smile through the happiness,” The paraluman calmly pointed to her expression. “See? Easy eh? Smile for the day that a brave person will take us out of this place called hell.”

The paraluman taught her various sahar spells, using Alkhafa to hide from certain clients, or draining particles from someone else. Mouka learned basic words in Galag, but never to a full extent.

After months passed, help came. The roof of the brothel collapsed inward as dust flew. When Toqemur and the paraluman came over to investigate, they discovered a boy that fallen. To Suruj’s surprise, he knew who that person was. It was none other than he himself. The young boy stood up as debris floated around him, his body outlined in a white hue. Suruj remembered that he had entered that condition long ago. He flung himself from his school into a random building. The Dyak-ar-salaam ‘Basad Kapulisan arrived at the scene, while the adolescent Suruj disappeared shortly after. But unknowingly to him, the Kapulisan caught wind of the Spring Season's Brothel’s ‘Bahay na Ulaan’, and immediately prompted a formal investigation. It resulted in the owner being charged for unsafe work practice and forced to lay off all staff. Freedom came to Mouka and the paraluman, but what did they have left to return to?

 

Putting on his Khoitan hat, he fastened it while picking up her body. Stained with blood from head to toe, he walked off the field. His memories, his ala-ala, belonged to him alone. Yet now, the ala-ala of a Kalyk Khoitan intertwined with his. The calm grief that lingered in his face came to silence the stadium walls, the cracked dome above.

“L… Lanu… Hyun-woo… Mouka… We will end the Dineh Kazaàd… no matter what it takes…”