Case Closed Fan Fiction ❯ The First Woman In The World ❯ 2 ( Chapter 2 )

Eight Thousand Years Ago

Eta coughed as she awoke, the air suddenly thick and foul. She slowly sat up, pushing aside a log of wood, which had perhaps once been a supporting beam of their house, but now was only a burned and broken mess, as was their town.

“Ushi?” she cried. “Ushi!”

“Eta?”

“Ushi!” she half-sobbed, running over to him. She tripped over something, and he caught her in his arms. She glanced down at what she had tripped over and gasped as a wave of nausea hit her. It was an old woman, one of the elders, her head almost separated from her body. Eta sobbed in Ushi's arms as she took in what had become of their town- burned buildings, rubble, and everywhere, bodies, many with their head smashed in or limbs severed.

“It was another town,” Ushi said gruffly, angrily. “They stole all of our animals, and our harvests, too. Their crops must have failed. Worse...” He held her close, rubbing her back to subdue her sobbing. “They took the star.”

“What?!” Eta cried angrily. “How dare they?!”

“We have to go find the other town,” Ushi said. “It might only be a couple of days away.”

“Of course,” Eta agreed. “But we must bury everyone first. They cannot sleep if they are being devoured by birds and animals.”

Ushi wanted to go after the star straight away, but Eta insisted. She had known these people, known their parents, known their grandparents, known all of their ancestors for a hundred generations. She could not stand to let them be devoured by wild animals.

They salvaged or fixed what tools they could, and Ushi set to work digging a huge firepit while Eta collected scrap wood. Then they began piling in the bodies, the elders on the bottom where they could support everyone else, and the children at the very top. Eta kissed their foreheads and closed their eyes as she laid them to sleep. They looked so oddly peaceful. Eta wondered what it would be like to die, as someone who never would. She had come close in the attack. That sickle to the head, she knew, should have killed her. Instead, she had simply blacked out while her head healed. Ushi, too, had holes and slashes in his clothing, stained with blood though there were no longer any wounds beneath.

As she worked, Eta thought of her dream. She had not only been playing with her children, but hundreds, thousands of others. Now she realized that it was the children of the village, and all of the villagers as they had been as children. Then, a few at a time at first, then all of them, they had walked away into a Shadowland where Eta could not go. Only her children had stayed with her, insisting that it was a bad place that she didn't want to go to anyway.

Finally, she laid the last burnt baby in its mother's arms, feeling a sort of sick jealousy of the woman who could now hold her baby forever. Ushi helped her stack wood around them all, and then he lit the fire.

The whole task had taken two days. They hadn't slept. It was something neither had confronted before, but they didn't have to sleep, not if they didn't want to. They hadn't eaten either, and while Eta felt a little skinnier she didn't feel weak. The spirit drink had made them something special, something more than human.

Something vengeful.

As Eta watched the remnants of her town burn, she felt a fury, something that she'd never felt before in their peaceful world. She saw a thousand children burning, and she wanted the ones that had killed them to pay. She wanted to force them into the Shadowland kicking and screaming, make them feel the fear that the dying children had surely felt. She was angry.

And she was strong enough to do something about it.

“Let's go find them,” she said quietly. “Let's get the star and avenge our people.”

“Of course,” Ushi said, holding out a hand to pull her to her feet. She leaned up to kiss him as she stood. “They deserve to pay.”

It wasn't hard to find the other town. The tracks of the animals stolen from their town left a distinct path through the forest. Three days of travel later, they found it- the other town.

It was huge, twice the size of theirs, with maybe over two thousand people. Eta stared in awe at the sprawling fields, the huge pens of animals, the hundreds of houses built so close together that they shared walls.

“It's so big,” she whispered. “How do we find the star? Or the people who killed our town?”

“Simple,” Ushi said. “It's the men that would have come to attack us. So...” his face was hard, cold, reflecting the same anger that had burned in Eta as she'd watched her people burn. “We kill the men until they tell us where it is.”

He walked out into the light of the torches ringing the town, allowing guards to see people approaching. “If they have guards, then they must have attacked a lot of people,” Eta thought. “Otherwise why would they suspect that they would be attacked?”

“Who are you?!” a man demanded as he took in Ushi's bloodstained and battered appearance. Many other men stepped forwards, clutching sickles and hand ploughs, anything that could be used as a weapon. Eta stepped forwards, next to Ushi.

“I am the headman of the village that you destroyed five days ago,” Ushi said, his voice booming out amongst the many buildings.

“What?! I thought we killed everybody!” One man said. Eta felt her hatred reunite.

“You did,” she said. “Unfortunately for you, we are not like you.”

“We are so much more,” Ushi said. “But I invite you to try to kill us again...”

One large man, much larger than Ushi, laughed derisively and stepped forwards. “I fear no man, and certainly no woman,” he said arrogantly. Eta saw, around his neck, a stone necklace that had been worn by elders for centuries.

“He deserves to die,” she growled.

“Our minds are one, Eta,” Ushi said, stepping forwards. The man laughed again, and swung his hoe at Ushi. Ushi ducked and reached up, grabbing the man's arm. The big man's expression changed to one of anger as he tugged his arm against Ushi's iron grip, strong enough to carry a whole dead bear. Ushi jerked his arms, snapping the man's arm with a crack, causing him to howl in pain and drop the hoe. Ushi grabbed is and swung it at the man's throat, cutting it open. The big man clutched at his throat as he fell to his knees, gasping for air as blood poured from between his fingers. Eta made herself watch his face as he died, saw the pain that he must have inflicted on so many others of her people, watched him fall fearfully into the Shadowland. With a last, desperate gasp, he fell still, his eyes rolling up into his head. Ushi yanked the stone necklace from around his throat, now stained with blood, and tied it around his own, holding the hoe between his teeth.

“He killed Iro!” Another man yelled. “Kill him!”

Dozens more men ran forth, brandishing their tools and yelling angry cries as other ran for their hunting weapons. Ushi slashed out, killing the first one to reach him, and Eta grabbed his sickle, eager to join the fight. The men seemed so slow, so predictable, and they were afraid, while Eta and Ushi were angry.

It was like a dance; Eta gracefully dodged every swing, every slash, swiping out with a sickle in either hand, severing limbs and throats, ripping skin and guts. She and Ushi were both drenched, partially with their own blood from hits that they could not avoid but had ignored in their anger, and mainly from the blood of their enemies, enough to drench the earth. They felt powerful.

“Stop! Please, stop!”

Eta paused, panting with adrenaline and exertion, sickles still raised. Ushi had also fallen still. They were alone, except for the dead littering the ground, the few men left living in flight. The horrified survivors watched as their wounds slowly knitted themselves together. The one who had shouted was an old man, presumably one of the town's elders. He raised his hands pacifyingly.

“Please,” he said, “no more bloodshed. Your clan are avenged. We will return the star. Please, do not destroy us all.”

“Why shouldn't we?” Ushi snarled. “You destroyed all of our people.”

“Elder!” a woman screamed. “It is Han! He sneaked away from the flight and fled with the star!”

“What?!” the elder cried. “That craven fool!”

“All right,” Ushi snarled, stepping forwards, weapons raised...

... and it was then that Eta saw the children, cowering in a doorway, faces pale and terrified. Mere babies, like those who had been killed in their village...

... frightened of them.

“Stop,” she whispered, dropping a sickle to lay a hand on Ushi's arm. “We would be no better than them. We will search the village for the star, and should it be gone we will hunt the thief Han to the ends of the earth... but...” she looked again at the red earth and the white children. “... no more blood. Not today.”

Ushi looked down at her for a long moment before nodding, stalking forwards. The people fled before them.

They did indeed almost literally tear the town apart. But there was nothing- only the empty basket where the star had been.

“We will hunt him to the ends of the earth,” Ushi swore as they left the town behind.

“Of course,” Eta said, taking his hand. “We have forever to search, after all.”

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This was released alongside chapter 43:Unknowing.

The next will be released alongside chapter 48:Reunion Awaited

I just put Boss and Chris Vineyard as character fillers, Mel72000, since it wanted one or two to list the story under. Their connection to Eta and Ushi will become clear in time...

Sometimes, Pretztailfan95, I wonder if my Vermouth actually has a plan, or if she's just poking things with sticks to see what happens...