Five years ago…

“Now is the hunting season. This is your first hunt. Whatever happens, this will be memorable for you.” My brother Aei said as he dragged me towards the Great Pit. The Great Pit is a wide hiatus in the planet’s crust which is the only way in and out of the underworld.

Illums are racing towards the light; they are darting out in all directions like arrows being swarmed. Everyone is salivating as they fly towards the dark and thundering clouds. As fast as the lightning, sounds of crying, screams, and demonic laughters take over the once silent atmosphere. The echoes of perish are resonating at the back of my head like nails clashing inside my brain and drawing sanity out of me. Blood is falling from above like rainfall; some have splattered on my face and it sends shivers down my spine.

I came back to reality at the sight of a little boy about my age. He is a young Innoc who is lost between the cracks of two protuberant dark nimbus clouds. Maybe not lost, but hiding. His head is slumped on his knees as he tuck himself deeper in to the crack.

As quiet as I could, I come closer and closer to the young Innoc. His wings are wrapped around himself, but its white color and his shivering couldn’t help him to camouflage well. He’s too much obvious. If I do not get him now, I know that somebody else will.

I am about to dart towards him but two hands suddenly popped out behind him and it gripped around his body. “Alright honey, I got you. Calm yourself down,” said his savior.

It was the boy’s mother. She gave him a gray coat and both fly slowly across the dim clouds. I was about to turn around and find another victim when all of a sudden, someone caught my attention and gave me words that delineate any choice other than preying on my first victims.

“Hue! What are you staring at? Get her before she gets too far!” Aei commanded forcibly. He must’ve caught me staring at the prey getting away.

I have no choice but to do it.

I race towards the woman, grab her through her neck and bring her out of the camouflage. Even from where I’m at, I can see her dumbfounded son whose face is flooded with fear. I noticed the cut on his shoulder that my fingernail has made on his flesh when I quickly grabbed his mom. But I don’t stare at him that long, I don’t want him to be caught by someone else. I am the one who found him, so he deserves to be eaten by no one else but me.

“Don’t bring me there. Please bring me back to my son.” The Innoc woman said as I fly her towards the Great Pit. I put my grip on her wrists so it would be easier to carry her; and also, so she could talk her heart out. This will be the first pleading that I will hear, and as what Aei has said, this will be memorable.

“Not bad for a twelve-year old!” A friend of Aei bellowed towards my direction as he looks at the woman that I am gripping. I smirked to myself because he is already far away carrying two male toddlers that do nothing but to cry and shout for ‘mommy’.

“Mon, let me go.” She spoke calmly, her voice is as sincere as someone that you have known for years.

I glance at her face for a second before looking back at the direction where I am heading.

“You look like Mon when he was at your age,” she continued with hope in her tone.

Mon-- must have be the name of my dad. No! That’s not possible! How can she tell who my dad is?! She lives up above! If she ever knows someone down here, she must’ve been eaten a long time ago because Illums look at Innocs solely as foods.

“Just shut up woman. I’m not Mon and I don’t know him.” I blurted out bluntly.

Her smile suddenly curved downward. Her eyes start to be puffed with tears and she looks like a young girl robbed of her favorite pillow. She looks devastated and hopeless—and it fires me up.

“Please let me go. My son needs me,” she whispered softly.

I don’t know if I will laugh about this woman’s absurdity or if I will complain about her idiocy. I mean, Innocs are such stupid creatures. They know that we Illums are brutal and merciless, but still they try to plead on us as if there is a chance for us to free them. Add the fact that this happens for about millions of years, isn’t it foolishness that they have never ever planned to develop an army or do anything that could counter us from preying on their fellowmen?

“You know, when my son is scared, I sing him a lullaby and that will stop him from crying.” The woman suddenly whispered as the light started to diminish out of sight. She is trying not to cry as she tries to breathe in air towards her faint lungs. She knows she can’t change my mind no matter what.

“He is a cheerful kid. He loves to be friendly with everybody. In fact, he knows more people in our town more than I do.” I am listening still. I don’t know how much hurt and sorrow she feels right now because first, I don’t know who my parents are, I don’t know if they still exist, and lastly, I am not a mother and I don’t have a son. I couldn’t relate at her at all, sorry not sorry.

She started crying and she started to shiver, too. “In case you find him, please tell him that I love him so much.”

I let out a sigh of disgust as we get closer to my cabin. “Just shut up. In case that I’ve found your son, I’ll devour him alive as I tell him that I gave no pity on his mom. Or maybe, I could do what you ask and tell him you love him… but that is when he’s already in my stomach.” I cackled at my own joke as the fear enveloped her. But before we get inside my cabin, she’s already passed out because her feeble heart has suddenly collapsed.

Because eating dead Innocs wouldn’t do any good, I plan on preserving my first hunt. I covered her body in a mummification way, buried her and make a little grave entitled “The M(u)mmy”. Her jewels were on my dusty old cabinet, of course I wouldn’t bury such precious metals.

I went on to my brother Aei afterwards to eat supper which is a young Innoc guy that screams for excruciating pain as we pinch muscles out of him and gulp it down our throats.

There are two things that I learned from that day, women have feeble hearts so they must be eaten the moment they are caught. Male Innocs do taste better, not only because they have more meat and they don’t easily die, but also because you can torture them while you eat them; you can see the agony in their eyes and those reasons make eating them more exciting!