Natural Enemy 2

Chapter 2

Salt. 

Thick on his lips, his tongue, and everywhere in his mouth, all he tasted was salt. 

His mouth opened in a rattling breath, more salt coating the back of his throat as he took in air and Kai couldn’t do anything but cough.

The sound rattled as much as the breath did, more even, but it fixed the taste at least.

Only thing was, salt changed to sand. 

Wh-what the f-

Blue eyes cracked open and the kid immediately regretted every decision he’d ever made that led him right to that last one. Nggghhh!.

The light was a punch right to the retinas, the sun brighter than he’d ever seen it in his whole life; so bright it made his head pound like someone took a hammer to his brainpan, tears already trickling down the corners of his eyes.

If it was just the sun, that’d be one thing but it couldn’t be.

It wasn’t.

Wha… He coughed again, hands coming up to cover his eyes. What happened to the sky? 

‘Cus it wasn’t just blue.

It was too blue. 

That fake kinda postcard cartoon video-game blue that looked like someone picked out the perfect color for the sky rather than how the world was supposed to look, almost technicolor and perfectly blinding bright of a blue.

Kai squeezed his eyes shut again, a low groan escaping his lips as he suddenly realized it wasn’t just his eyes that had been punched. 

His whole body… from the inside out, felt like it’d been hit by a hundred tiny trucks, like a parade of RC cars treated him like an obstacle course and left him one giant bruise. 

Another groan spilled out, a flash of memory hitting him as he realized it might not have been a parade, but just one giant truck; one made of light and noise and in the shape of some weird circle sci-fi bomb.

Kai tried again, opening one eye in something that might have been the slowest one-eye blink ever; the kind of wink you’d expect from a really really old person. Either way, it did the job, letting the world come in through a single slit.

All of a sudden, he realized why his lips tasted like sand too. Huh?

Because he was lying on the stuff. Why… Kai winked his other eye, letting the first one close first. Why am I on the beach? It was the clearest, shiniest, prettiest sand he’d ever seen; no trash or grime on it like the beach in Fort Lauderdale, the turf almost glittering like a desert of diamonds. 

Kai blinked, both eyes working as he fought through the pain from the too-bright sun and sky to take in everything in front of him. Palm trees? 

Yeah, palm trees stood not too far from him, their leaves stupidly big, with coconuts easily the size of his whole head and even bigger than that sitting under them. Where am I?

The blue light from that briefcase, that weird bomb… it had swallowed everything in that alley. Even the alley. He’d seen the crazy guy right next to him get erased and from what he felt, he was pretty sure it happened to him too. 

But he was still here. Wherever here was.

Kai pushed himself over, catching himself on shaking hands; every muscle screamed at him as he tried to push himself up. Hungry. 

Great, and of course he was starving too, the pitbull in his stomach barking for something to keep it quiet for another day. Kai just managed to get himself seated up on the sand, wincing eyes staring out at the ocean just as blue as the sky above, after what felt like forever.

A sigh slid out of his throat. Could this day get any worse?

Of course it could. It didn’t even take a full minute for that question to be answered, as people made their way over to him from the far end of the beach.

Greeeeaaaat.

It was at least six of them, an easy half-dozen; he could tell that much even from here with squinting eyes against the sun. His heart beat faster and faster as he tried to think of any way to get out of here, to not be dragged off by whoever these guys were.

Unfortunately, every escape route required running, and his legs were still pretty much jelly.

By the time he finished panicking on the inside and his heart had slowed back down, they had already gotten close enough for Kai to make them out better than he could from a distance.

They were tall, for one. Even sitting down, he could tell that much; taller than most people he’d ever seen. Their hair was long too and their skin was dark, but not as dark as his; more red than anything, kinda like a dark tan.

Not… He took another low breath, relief letting his heartbeat slow all the way down. Not cops. Cops didn’t usually look like they were about to audition for extras in a stage play for Lilo and Stitch, for one.

Two, they didn’t have that stiff, angry way of walking he’d gotten used to seeing from cops in the last couple years; the badge and gun giving them way more power with most of the local governments down. They weren’t DUP, either; no bullies looking for a target or an unlucky idiot to mess with. 

No, they just… walked. 

And they looked curious.

That could be good, but it could also probably be bad.

At the last minute, when the footsteps got close enough that he could hear them over the seagulls and the surf crashing up against the shore, Kai clenched his fists tight in his lap, fighting the urge to do his best at a scrambling crab-walk away from them. Don’t look weak. Don’t look scared. 

Easier said than done, though.

An old man broke off from the group, stumbling forward with a long walking stick almost twice as tall as he was keeping him upright on the sand. Kai blinked up at the old man, a map of wrinkles staring back at him as wincing blue eyes met a clear brown. A long white beard sat below those eyes, the whole thing braided and twisted up with little shells. 

“You are far from your own shores, little one.” Kai’s mouth fell open at the voice, staring a little bit at a voice so deep coming from someone so old and shaky looking. “Are you hurt?”

• Kai stared back, voice locked up tight somewhere in his chest as he tried to figure out how he could have gone from Floria and landed all the way in Hawaii or whatever island this was. Samoa? 

“...I…I-” Before he could figure out how to make words again, a sound like a wild animal sounded off loud across the beach, Kai blinking for a second before he stared down at his stomach. “...hungry?”

The old man just smiled.

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

He was on his fourth plate.

Or maybe it was his fifth, it was hard to keep track.

Either way, it didn’t matter as his tongue cleaned another piece of fish, the flesh of it roasted on a stick and perfectly flaky and white as he swallowed another mouthful after only a single bite. A piece of pork on his plate joined the fish as he shoved it in his mouth with his fingers, teeth barely even getting to work on it before it found its way down his throat.

He knew he was eating like an animal, but being this hungry and with this much food just being handed to him, Kai didn’t know how he was supposed to even care a little bit.

It had been almost a full hour since they brought him into their village, not like he’d had a choice anyway. One big man had just picked him up, Ken getting a perfect view of all his tattoos slung over the man’s shoulder for the good twenty minutes of a walk it took to get back to where he was now.

There was no point even trying to fight, his body too weak to even use his water.

So, head full of sirens and blue light and his mom screaming his name, he let them take him wherever they wanted.

Wherever they wanted turned out to be a village made out of wood and leaves and rope, big houses and huts with thatched roofs sitting under the palm trees and a giant fire in the center of it all. The whole place was thick with people, all eyes on Kai as soon as they saw him, but thicker with the smell of woodsmoke and roasting fish. 

The smell made his stomach cramp, another loud roar leaving his gut that was almost embarrassing.

Almost.

He found it really easy to forget all that the second they plopped him down at a table and dropped food right in front of him.

And more food.

And more food.

And… well, you get the idea. Mountains of stripped pork, roasted fish on sticks, fruits and coconut water and so much else that tasted better than anything he’d had in the last couple years of living on the streets. Nobody asked him for money or shooed him away from the table as he shoved himself as full as he could get. 

No, they just watched him, some of the kids giggling behind their hands.

This was a trick. It had to be. Nobody was this… nice.

As much as he wanted to be suspicious, though, it was really hard when a whole plate full of sauce-covered pork was placed down in front of him by an older lady with a smile that was only outdone by the size of her barely covered chest.

…kill me, I don’t care anymore.

A handful of pork went into his mouth again.