Over the next days, we continued searching... as my shoulder recovered, I built a tower and filled it with lights, hoping perhaps they would see it in the distance... but my children did not come home.
This was the worst time of my life. Worse than being alone, worse than being injured... what if they are dead? How long can they stay alive out there? It's all my fault... I shouldn't have been so hard on him, I shouldn't have gone to search for him so carelessly, I should have kept a better eye on him and on her, I should have kept running after her... it feels as if I've done everything wrong...
But the days go on, and I've searched far and wide, we have even broken down walls to create straight paths to make it possible to walk far through the maze without having to make turns. Every day I search, sometimes neglecting to eat; I illuminate the paths with light and continue to search at night, for a ten bones, or a hundred days, I do nothing but search...
"Armun... enough.." Arbella says. "You must rest... and take care of Ellei too..." her eyes look tired.
I sigh, staying home that night, helping Ellei stay on her feet, she has learned to walk but it is still difficult for her. She seems impacted by the tense air around her... after so long, we still are afraid... really, it's more sensible to be more afraid the more time goes by... I don't want to acknowledge the possibility that they are no longer alive...
I focus on encouraging Ellei. I can't neglect her... and Arbella is far along... she will have another child soon.
I attempt to balance taking care of my family and searching. It's very lucky that Filiny and Gatyk are here to help.
Time moves forward, and soon Arbella has a child. Another daughter... I hold the young one in my arms, for a moment feeling joy again, yes, I still have my children... I am not alone yet... we name this one Janea.
Slowly as time goes by we fall back into the rhythm of life. Even though I never stop missing Bansel and Dinna, I cannot take my attention away from my youngest children, who are still here. I must protect them and take care of them... and make sure that this never happens again... I never leave them without supervision of adults, and I make changes to the yard, putting a short stone wall at all entrances that only adults can climb over.
Even though Arbella is no longer carrying, her health doesn't seem to be getting better... she still looks tired and sluggish. She spends a lot of time looking after kids. Filiny often assists and watches all of the children. I watch Ellei and Hast playing games together.
Ten bones more have gone by. I have tunnelled far into the maze and created many side paths as well, but they are nowhere to be seen. I stand up, about to spend one more day searching, when Arbella takes my hand.
"It is over..." she mutters.
My heart clenches as I hear her. "Do not say that..."
"If they are alive... we can see by now that they do not want to be found... and if that is the case... we will not find them."
I want to protest... but she is right... this is fruitless. There's not much choice... I have searched as far as I can. I have yelled for them as loud as I could, I have built paths and towers, they would surely have found the way back. But I don't want to accept it...
"Be here, Armun. You have two daughters. They may be small, but they feel your distress."
"Yes..."
And so I would stop searching. We had to return to our lives. The pain never would go away, but I had to go on in spite of it. So I raised Ellei, and she and Hast became bigger, until they were running and playing around. I built taller stone walls, and I created a second "gate", a skin stretched across the passages that could not be opened until you reached the far upper corner to pull it aside, which only adults could reach.
Ellei and Hast would sometimes sit and stare at the gates in the evening. I always kept an eye on them, making sure they weren't unsupervised.
"Why is it so bad to go outside?" Hast says.
"You know my siblings disappeared." Ellei says.
"I know... but it's boring in here."
I sigh as I overhear them. I know they will grow tired of this place... but there isn't much of an option... I just can't risk that tragedy ever repeating itself. They will not leave until they're grown up.
More skulls went by. Filiny and Gatyk would go on to have another child. This time it was a girl, and they named her Katika.
Arbella and I decided we should make our family as big as possible, so they can all protect eachother when they grow older... soon, we would have more children, but something strange happened this time... when Arbella had the children, two came out at the same time, two young boys. We had never seen this before... nevertheless, we named them Leon and Laut.
Time went on. It had been 22 skulls, or 2200 days since we started counting. The world has been unchanging since, and yet our lives did change a lot after all. But I permit myself now to hope that the future holds better times...16Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡS10Gjjn79k
