Kanan sat beside the broken window, eyes closed. The warmth of the elder's stone pulsed faintly against his palm, though he wasn't sure if it was real or imagined. He could feel Nilo nearby, humming a nonsense tune as he scraped patterns into the dirt floor with a stick.
Their mother had laughed earlier. Not a joyful laugh. A brittle, bone-dry one. She had held an empty bowl in her hand and whispered words to the air, speaking to someone who wasn't there. Then she dropped the spoon — that same old spoon — and simply… wandered off.
She hadn't come back since.
Kanan didn't cry. He just sat there, feeling the stone shift slightly in his grip, like it wanted to speak.
"Do you think bugs in other places taste different?" Nilo asked suddenly, looking up from his drawings. "Maybe, like… lemon?"
Kanan tilted his head. "Lemon?"
"Yeah, or spicy. Or maybe meaty." Nilo grinned. "I bet the bugs over the hill have flavours we can't even imagine."
Kanan didn't answer. The faint glow of the stone buzzed against his fingertips again. For a second, the dust by his feet trembled. A soft circle cleared in the soil. Barely noticeable. But there.
Nilo leaned over. "The rock's doing weird things again, huh?"
"…Maybe," Kanan murmured.
They both sat in silence.
The village around them creaked. A child cried softly in the distance. Somewhere, an elder chanted something wordless — just another night in a place where the days never changed.
But something had changed.
Kanan could feel it in his bones. The stone had been given. The elder hadn't returned. Their mother… was gone, even if she still walked.
And Nilo, despite the light in his eyes, was coughing more often now. Thinner. Hungrier.
"If we stay," Kanan said softly, "we become like the walls."
Nilo looked up.
"Dry. Quiet. Forgotten."
"…Then let's leave," Nilo said immediately, without even thinking. "We'll find different bugs. Better ones."
Kanan looked at him. Really looked. Nilo's smile didn't break. His stick tapped gently on the floor like a rhythm.
There was no fear in his face. Just faith.
Not in the world.
But in Kanan.
That night, Kanan packed what little they had. A bowl. A few roots. The stone, tucked close.
They didn't speak of where they'd go. There were no maps. No names. Only stories. Whispers of green places with all the bugs they could eat.
But that didn't matter.
[To Be Continued...]