ScarRED

“Thank you dearie,” Hope said as she reached slowly for the coffee cup from her first-born teenage grandchild, Nerissa. Doing that takes out a lot from her. It is very trying for her to keep her hand twitching in check.

Nerissa sat down across from her in the small round wooden table in the upstairs landing right after one enters the front door. On a corner of this 40 square feet landing is a wooden stair case which leads down to the small modest kitchen adjoining the living room and bedroom. Most of the surfaces of this underground home is wooden, glossy to the touch due to their reddish brown plant extracts that they were brushed with. In the kitchen counter tops, there are clean white ceramic pots arranged in increasing sizes. The pans are hung neatly underneath the overhead glass cabinets containing white plates, cups and mugs. Many of the table adornments and living room furnishings are white with some having hand-painted floral designs.

Nerissa putting the second cup of coffee by her pen and paper asked, “Why does your hand twitched a lot of times in a day, granny?”

Hope, afraid to take a sip of the hot liquid, got contented smelling the aroma of the coffee wishing it would help calm her nerves. She looked at Nerissa, fixed the grey wolf fur cape around her shoulder, looked at the darkly-stained wooden shelving fixed on the wall of the landing that housed a bow, a dozen arrows in a quiver, three sets of deadly metallic boomerangs, guns, battle axes and throw knives. With a hand on the table and another on the cup, she stood up and walked towards the landing’s metal reinforced windows overlooking the other earth mounds beside towering red trees where other tribesmen reside underground, safe from the cold relentless snow.

“From years of fear, my dear,” she replied remembering the day she, together with the heroes of the Dauntless tribe, Tris and Four, met a pretty lady from the other side of the wall.

“They said she came from a city behind the dark forest of Amidala where even the swamp can eat you alive and every living thing is out to kill you. When the diaspora begun and people climbing over the towering walls, our people saw her lying facing up the sky that had a hint of a gathering storm. Her back soaked by the small shallow river that runs through from underneath the concrete walls,” Hope paused looking at her coffee. “I could see she was breathless, confused and alarmed at the people’s sudden presence. She mouthed something unintelligible. Her deerskin coat and fur cape had some leaves and dark green sludge stuck to it. She reeked of decaying matter and her hands had some bleeding scratches on them,” Hope said.

"Hi, I am Tris Prior and this is Four. We are from the city behind the wall,” Tris said.

The lady scrambled to her feet then pulled the long hood off her face revealing a highly proportioned oval face topped with long wavy black hair. Her brows rising gently up the brow bone then curving smoothly down. Long lashes shelters her caramel eyes. Her thin nose rising upwards in a smooth straight line complementing her lips with moderately defined cupid's bow and her skin was a nice chestnut color. She quickly took out her three-edged boomerangs from a pouch bag by her chest and poised to defend herself. The weapons had some green blood dripping from them.

Tris raised both of her hands up and said, “We are not going to hurt you. We were asked by the founding fathers to rejoin them out here. Are you one of the founders?" The lady didn’t answer, just gave them a measuring look. "What's your name?" Tris asked.

"Akila,” she said putting a hand on her chest. “Misery here for your people. Go back," she said putting the boomerangs back in her chest pouch the reached out for Tris' hand. She pulled on the hand, tugging Tris back in the direction of the towering walls. She walked Tris back close to the wall dragging Hope with them as the small 8-year old child clung tightly behind Tris’ knees. When they reached the wall, she said pointing above, “Go back.”

"But we have to find out the reason for our being," Tris pulled her hand back trying to free it from Akila’s tight grip.

The people who walked past looked on with curiosity. Young boys running around chasing butterflies or grasshoppers while young girls picked flowers and berries. Mothers and fathers carried bundled supplies on white linen cloths and cardboard boxes. 

“Hope, come here!” Hope’s mom came running to pick her up.

"Bad here! Bad here!” Akila kept screaming and pulling on Tris’ arm.

“Enough!” Tris yelled while at the same time freeing herself from Akila by pushing her away with a foot. The latter fell on the ground.  “Can’t you see everything’s alive out here? The flowers and insects knows no prison. I’d rather be here than in a city filled with advanced technologies,” Tris said her neck muscles tensing up.

From under the shadows of the forest, Akila saw large red glinting eyes moving from trees to trees. When Tris, Four and Hope’s mom turned to check what Akila was looking at, they saw nothing.

“Beauty here skin-deep. Not safe. Me beautiful but,” Akila said as Tris and the others looked back at her. “this not beautiful,” she said taking off her clothes and revealing deep long protruding scars scattered everywhere from her chest down to her feet. They looked like haphazardly done surgical incisions with many having threads going in and out of Akila’s skin.

“Who did this to you?” Tris asked holding Akila by the shoulder.

She bent down to her pouch bag and held out a metal finger. “Metal monsters,” she said.