It has now been eleven years since Hana was born, and five years since she found her best friend Isa Lilana. They talk and jump and play and sing and laugh and run together, every single day for the past five years.

For the most part they would just goof around and call it a day, but sometimes their talks get more serious, for example there is this one time when Lilana got interested in Hana’s family.

It was around three and a half years ago, so only after a year and a half of their friendship. Isa and Hana were at Hana’s house, eating before going outside. Otowa would usually be in her garden while kids eat, as she was this time. Otowa really likes her garden.

“Do you have any siblings?” Isa Lilana asked

“No, I don’t, but I used to have.” Replied Hana

“Oh really, what were they like?”

“Well, I used to have five brothers but I don’t know much about them, only what my mother would tell me about them. Of course, she would always talk how they were good kids but never anything specific. They all died long ago, neither of them got to get to my age, so even if I was last born, I am the oldest now.
I can only remember how they died, that’s all. Most of them died from plague but one of them got killed by Filipino people, I was just a baby when it happened. I don’t know what exactly happened as I was in my bed whole time but I can remember their screams and cries that could be heard from another room.

There is also one more brother of mine I didn’t mention, he was adopted from the Filipino family, by my mother. At the moment I didn’t know why she would do something like that.”

“Is he dead too?”

“No, mother says that he is with his people, she sent him in Filipino school in the city of Cebu.
What about you? Do you have any siblings?”

“Yes, I do” said Lilana, “I do have one older brother, he is six years older than me. I don’t like him, I live with my father and brother because my mother died long ago. They are mean to me. My father would hit me several times a week, just because he can, my brother is allowed to hit me too. They are very mean to me. Whenever they are angry, they would come to my room and yell at me, often tossing me around the room as well. I don’t know why my father lets my brother be so mean to me, they are really, really mean to me even when I don’t do anything wrong, I don’t know why.

One night my father came home late at night, all red, my brother told me later that he drank whole night. I was really scared when he came through the door yelling and punching the walls through the house to bed.”

“You should do something about that Isa, have you tried telling that to an adult? Maybe someone from the village can help you. We can tell my mom”

“I don’t want to talk about that now, sorry. What about you Hana, what about your father?” Lilana asked

“Sorry. My mother told me he is not from here. She always tells me we come from land far away and that my father is somewhere there. She says she will tell me full story once I turn thirteen.”

This case of Lilana’s, increased drastically once Hana heard about it since Hana always hated the fact that evil people, even sometimes, get what they want, let alone to get to abuse little girl for several years without anyone knowing.

Lilana has very hard time trusting someone as both her brother and father, have tricked her multiple times to get herself in trouble. As one time her brother tricked her into going in the forest, just to leave her there alone, to see if she would find her way back. It took her half a day come back home.

It took Hana, a year and a half of being incredibly nice and helpful to Lilana, for her to feel comfortable with sharing her story.

Lilana has been abused by her family for many years, and both of them being males didn’t help at all, as now Lilana can’t stand being close to a guy without getting her stomach to twist. She never said that to Hana, as she never felt that to be relevant to the situation, sure it’s connected to her family but regardless if Hana knows that or not, nothing much would change. Hana already knows enough.

Sadly, nobody would care for her getting abused at house, even if she said something, as at that time, laws were much different than right now. Otowa, of course listened to her kid and her friend but was unable to do anything even as her condition is much better now, she is still damaged from what happened to her many nights ago.

Also, even if she was able to do something, what was there to do? Nobody that represent the law cares for Lilana’s case, and she can’t just go there and kill two men.

Hana felt anger once again, similar type of anger she felt when her brother was getting killed in the room next to her. Knowing of such a horrifying thing but being unable to do anything while people who are able, just simply don’t care.

Very next day when Lilana came to play at Hana’s house. Hana for the first time realized several injuries on Lilana’s body. She never saw her bruises until now that she is aware of where they come from.

“You should really do something about this, Lilana.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know”

Lilana is sweet kid, she is a bit weird but she is very cheerful and happy. Sure, she has family issues, but you would’ve never guessed she has one if she don’t tell you. Some people would say she has mental problems as she would either act dumber than kids her age, maybe she would say something that doesn’t make sense or she would have weird face for some time. All this can be explained by her trauma at home. From physical abuse she developed some disabilities other than post-traumatic stress disorder and social anxiety. She developed stuff like stutter and paranoid personality disorder and some signs of schizophrenia.

Why is all that important? To act as an excuse.

Next day Lilana comes to Hana with news.

“I have great news, I killed them both” on which Hana had no response.

“While my brother was yelling at me, I stabbed him with needle into the eye, and finished him with a kitchen knife through his neck.

My father was even easier target as he was asleep at first which gave me time to get creative. I tied him to the bed and then I started cutting his fingers one by one, he died from too much pain but I still cut his head, just in case.”

Hana was speechless, her best friend just admitted to murder, what is she supposed to say to that. First thing Hana thought of, is to tell her mother but if she says that her friend is a killer, they might not be able to see each other again, but also if she doesn’t tell her mother about her friend killing someone, what is she supposed to do, and how are they going to cover up the murder in Isa’s house, someone is eventually going to notice.

“Okay, listen, we need to do something about dead bodies of your brother and father.”

“Oh…I forgot about that, I left them in the house. What are we going to do? Should we dig them a grave?” Lilana said

“No.” Hana replied

Firstly, they went to Hana’s house, to get something form Otowa’s room. Otowa wasn’t in the house at the moment, she was outside, buying some veggies for salad. They ran towards Lilana’s house and immediately after getting there, she looked around and asked for some palm wine or tuba.

Both palm wine and tuba are type of drinks people today use to get sick in the head for short period of time, probably even then. This type of drink comes in various forms. Various colors, tastes and prices. But one thing that this type of drink always has, one thing that ties every single form of alcohol…its flammable.

Lilana and Hana poured as much of alcohol on the house as they can. It was everywhere, at the floor, walls, tables, plants, stairs, doors, father, brother, it was everywhere. When they finished pouring it all across the house, Lilana asked “It was fun but why did we do this? Pouring drink all across the house?”

“Because we are going to put the house on fire, with this flint and steel I got from my mother’s room”

It took her a minute of hitting the steel, to finally produce a spark, but she did it, she put house on fire and once she did, Lilana started running out of the house, when Hana stopped her.

“If you run away now, and just say nothing, people will know it was you who started this fire. You need to act as if someone else started fire and you didn’t notice it immediately.” Hana said and then, immediately starts rolling on the floor to get herself dirty as if she fell while trying to run away. Of course, she didn’t get soaked in alcohol as they left hallway untouched.

Lilana starts rolling as well, almost gets caught in fire as she went a bit too far but gets up.

Turns out that since Lilana didn’t know exactly what is going on while they were pouring the drinks, she drank a bit. Looks like some of it fell on her left cheek that got caught in fire and is now burning her left side of face.

Girls start to panic… they get out of the house and then Hana tries to get it off of Lilana buy slapping her, which didn’t help, eventually she starts rolling on the ground, which helped her get rid of fire, but her left side of face is now burned.

They got to Otowa and told her they were playing at Lilana’s house when it got caught up on fire so they ran away to Hana’s house but that they don’t know what happened to Lilana’s family.

Later both Lilana’s father and brother were pronounced dead as they were found in ashes.