Chapter 2- “Kreons”
A loud cheer close to my ear woke me up.
“Happy Birthday, Trinity!”
“What-who-how-” I mumbled, trying to focus.
Haley, Wanda, Natoe and Leon were sitting beside my bed, their faces beaming.
“How can we ever forget your birthday?” said Haley.
“Well it’s not really a day every human in the world can forget, Haley,” I replied, stretching my arms.
“Hey, we know that, but let’s just forget that and remember this day as your birthday,” said Leon, the annoying optimist.
I did not say anything and got up from my bed.
“Where are you going?”
“To work of course,” I answered
“Have you seen the time?”
I looked at the clock.
“11am?! Why didn’t you guys wake me?” I said and added, “Leon, you were snoring again, I couldn’t sleep!”
“Hey, it’s good that he snored and didn’t let you sleep. Now you overslept and don’t have to work, we covered up for you,” piped in Wanda.
“You guys didn’t have to do that,” I said guiltily.
“Hey, it’s the least we could do for your birthday.” said Haley. She walked over to me and gave me a hug saying, “Happy Birthday, Trinity.”
“Thanks, guys.” I murmured and really meant it.
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The most beautiful spot in the farm was beside the river. On one bank stood a tall, slightly bent Weeping Willow, its leaves almost touching the water, looking like it had waited an eternity just to reach that position in its short life. Beside this melancholy tree stood more willows, and thick, short shrubs growing along the bank of the river. The river’s shallow waters had no fishes, and the water was clear enough to see one’s reflection. On the far bank was a forest deep, silent and foreboding, and not a sound erupted, or an animal stirred in that menacing forest, at least none that I heard.
It was here that I would spend most of my spare time, surveying my surroundings, or enveloped in my own thoughts and here I was, sitting pensively, when the Kreon family’s youngest, Yonza, sat beside me.
Kreons have little resemblance to humans. Of course, they are taller, stronger, and far more advanced in terms of intelligence when compared to humans. Their appearance is another matter. They have large, round heads to house their enormous brains and long, fingers with no nails. Their eyes are completely black with white pupils. They have five fingers and four toes. The male Kreons are all bald but the female Kreons have long, silver, wispy hair that trail behind them. The interesting fact about Kreons is that the colour of their body changes with their mood. If a Kreon’s happy, then its yellow, dark blue when its sad, red when its angry, green when its jealous, light blue when its worried and so on.
It is hard to differentiate between a male and a female Kreon so they wear different clothes whose colours depend on the gender and age. Like, a male Kreon child wears blue, an adolescent wears black while an adult wears gold. A female Kreon child wears pink, a teenager red while the adult wears silver.
Yonza wore a pink, robe-like dress and she was a light shade of blue. Yonza was the nicest Kreon I had ever met. She was very fond of humans and had taken a particular liking to me. Many a time she would come to me to play with her or share her childish worries. Kreons speak in Krel, a language I surprisingly understood and could speak, although I did not know how. Yet, I dared not speak in Krel for that might land me in a science lab where I would be experimented upon.
Yonza started to speak to me in Krel, as Kreons did not understand any of the many human languages, “Mommy says that I have been a very naughty girl and that she would send me to boarding school. Have I been naughty, Trinity?”
I shook my head to that. Yonza smiled and said, “My sister said you humans can’t understand us but I know you can. You always respond to everything I say.” She carried on, “Hey, I know, I’ll ask daddy to operate on you so that your body colour changes with your mood like us. That way I can understand you better!”
Looking at my alarmed face, she laughed.
“Hey, I won’t do that, I’m just kidding,” she said and laughed again, changing instantly to bright yellow.
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I went back to the others when Yonza left me.
“Hey, why so blue?” asked Wanda.
“Who? Me?” I said and pretended to look at my hands and feet and added, “Where? My colour’s normal.”
Wanda laughed and said, “No, you know what I mean. You look sad.”
I shrugged my shoulders but before I could answer, I heard someone shout,”Wanda, Trinity!”
It was Leon. He stopped before us, panting heavily. Gulping in deep breaths, he said, “New…human…brought…now”.
“What are you saying?” asked Wanda in confusion.
I was already running out of our quarters towards the main gate. The Kreon family would buy humans from the market and bring them to work in their farm (humans are almost extinct, by the way, and Kreons sell them in markets to other Kreons like the way we used to sell cows and goats.).
The Kreon family might have bought another human and I have been waiting for someone ever since I was brought here. I knew that it was one in a million chances that they would find him but…
