Lin hadn’t had the intention of throwing the rock. He had barely even known that he was doing it until he saw Yullis lying on the ground howling in pain, the large stone lying a few feet away from his red and bruised eye. Lin stood in shock only a few feet away from the bully that had tormented him since he was a young child. Yullis’ best friend Jarl took one look at the boy on the ground and then spun and took a step toward Lin in anger. Lin swallowed nervously and then ran for cover as fast as he could.
Of course, he could never run fast enough.
In the world Lin had grown up in, humans and Illusimi were sworn enemies by birth. A human was taught never to trust and Illusimi and all Illusimi children were taught that no matter how intelligent a human may seem they were always weak and worthless. It was a giant feud that had gone on for decades, ever since human life began. The Illusimi hated humans, and treated them as nothing more than tools, using them for whim and pleasure, pointlessly sacrificing their lives in exchange for Illusimi happiness and sport. The Illusimi didn’t care, the humans bred so quickly that losing a few wouldn’t really matter to them.
Since the beginning of the human race, Illusimi had always ruled the cities and controlled human lives. It was the natural order, after all Illusimi were taller, smarter, stronger, and faster than humans, and there was no way that humans could ever muster enough force to fight against the Illusimi. Humans were fools if they tried. Thus, humans took over the harder jobs of the cities, slaves, yard workers, Slummers, Scrungers, everything the Illusimi thought too dirty or too repulsive for an Illusimi to do. That was how Lin was born into the profession of Scrunger, and that was why that was all he would, or could, ever be.
This was also why it was pointless for him to run.
In an instant he was caught in the back and landed on the ground in pain. He flipped onto his back and Jarl lifted him up by the front of his shirt, shaking him hard, “How dare you attack an Illusimi! I could have you executed for that!” Lin closed his eyes glumly, his head throbbing from the irritating shaking motion.
“Why don’t we have our own little execution?” Yullis was up again, walking slowly toward Lin and Jarl. Lin gulped, and wondered vaguely why he had been so foolish as to actually think he could get away with hitting him with a rock. He could still see the swollen place where the stone had hit Yullis in the eye.
Yullis had always been getting on Lin’s nerves. Yullis was a bully of an Illusimi and every young boy in the Scrunger profession knew that if Yullis chose to pick on you, you would have the worst day of your life. Today had been Lin’s day, and Lin had foolishly chosen to hit Yullis with a rock.
Jarl threw Lin roughly against a tree trunk and pinned him there. Lin struggled weakly, but he knew there was very little chance of escape. Illusimi were too strong for humans to try and contend with. Besides, as far as Illusimi went, Jarl was one of the strongest of his age of fourteen. His big muscles rippled slightly as he choked Lin and then he released, allowing Lin to get up. Lin shivered and Jarl kicked him roughly.
“How shall we execute him, sir?” Jarl asked, turning to Yullis.
Yullis had always been one of the most handsome of all the Illusimi. Many of the older human girls thought that he was adorable and swooned over him. He was always very sweet and polite, even though he treated the humans with barely hid contempt, he still treated them as living things which most Illusimi did not. Thus, he was better loved by the adults. However, the children thirteen and younger all knew that Yullis was purely and supremely evil.
Yullis brushed back his long silver blonde hair, the hair color that all the Illusimi shared, and smiled in an evil way, holding a long thin brown stick in one hand. Happily he thumped it once against the ground, “I think I have an idea.” He threw all of his power into the stick and slammed it into Lin’s stomach. Lin huffed as the pain rippled through his body. He almost imagined he could hear his bones cracking under the pain. He groaned and slid to his knees.
Jarl lifted him back up again, holding him by one shoulder against the tree and Lin weakly tried to raise his head. Pitiful, he thought to himself, one hit and I can barely move. What will happen after the next one?
It turned out that he didn’t get to know what happened. Right as the stick connected with his stomach again, it snapped in half from the force. Little pain actually got to Lin, and he was able to breathe a lucky sigh of relief. Yullis frowned at the broken stick and resorted to use his own fist, swinging it back until it connected loudly with Lin’s face. Lin was out cold within a few minutes.
The next thing Lin knew, he was being dragged up against a wall and propped against it. This simple movement seemed to throw pain into every corner of his body and he let out a small moan of pain, “Shh…” a voice said. It was female, obviously fairly young and Lin wondered vaguely who would’ve dared stand up against Yullis when it came to him hurting a human Scrunger. The only person who could’ve stopped him was another Illusimi, and none of them would’ve done that for him.
“Who are you?” he managed to groan out.
“A friend,” The voice replied, “That’s all you need to know.”
Lin agreed with that remark thoughtlessly and relaxed against the wall, breathing heavily and falling back asleep.
When Lin finally awoke, he found himself against a wall near the Scrunger House surrounded by some of his closest friends. One of which, a young human boy named Quinnan, was leaning over him, shaking him slightly. The movement sent pain through his arm and Lin groaned, “Stop that.” He said, but it only came out as a mumble, he didn’t have the strength for much more.
“What happened, Lin?” Quinnan asked.
Lin tried to tell them but all that managed to come out was, “Yullis…” and that was all the children needed.
“Yullis, of course.” said Arbetur, a burly fifteen-year-old boy who could nearly compete with Jarl if they were both the same race, “One of these days I’m going to knock out one of his pretty little teeth.
The children laughed. They all wanted that chance, but if any of them would’ve gotten to do it, it would’ve most defiantly been Arbetur. He was always itching to beat Yullis senseless, especially for the time when he beat up Arbe’s little sister. Arbe wasn’t happy about that, not at all, and no one blamed him for it.
“Don’t bother Arbe. You’d just get beaten to shreds and then where’d we be?” Quinnan said. Arbe shrugged, but he knew it was true. The only one who kept other bullies away, the other child-bully Illusimi, was Arbe. Lin smiled a little, as much as he could, remembering how much Arbe had become the children’s protector. Then the smile vanished as he thought about the one thing that Arbe could do best of all, and the one thing that Arbe would never be allowed to do.
Because Illusimi thought of humans as inferior species, humans weren’t allowed many choices of things they could do in life. For example, Quinnan was almost sage-like in thinking, and he always dreamed of becoming an advisor to some noble, or even the king. He was great at strategy, but he was a Scrunger and a human, and the Illusimi wouldn’t let him be anything more than that. Arbe was a fighter, and he would’ve done well as a knight, but they would never allow him to be one. After all, he was a pitiful human to them.
Quinnan lifted Lin up a little, helping him to stand, “Don’t worry about Yullis, Lin. Eventually he’ll grow up like the other Illusimi and then he’ll ignore us just like they all do.
Lin knew he was right, but that didn’t mean he was very happy about it. In the Illusimi world, children weren’t considered adults until they were about eighteen years of age. As Yullis was fourteen, he wouldn’t come of age for another four years. That was too long in Lin’s mind. That would make him sixteen, and thus he was already of age for humans. That would mean that the Illusimi would transfer him away from the town he had lived in his whole life, and he wouldn’t have to worry about Yullis anyway. They needed to get rid of Yullis now, before he was transferred somewhere else. He vowed to himself that he would never, ever look at an Illusimi and think of them as kind for paying attention to human-kind.
Quinnan helped Lin limp over to his room in The House, helping him into his bed as well. This was where Lin spent most of him time, but he had a small home where he was allowed to see his parents for a day each week. It was the one day that they had off, and the kinder of the Illusimi would take over their jobs for the day. Lin’s father was a miner and his mother was a Grunger, one of the humans, normally women, who would clean the clothing of everyone in the town. He also had a little sister, Ulia, who he had only met once. She was one of the Learners, the littler children who were taught how to do the jobs before they turned seven, then they were sent out into the world to do what they’d been taught. Learners were not allowed as much time off as the actual workers were so he hadn’t seen her for awhile. Ulia was only two, so she was often at the School when they had Family Days. The last time Lin had seen his little sister, she had been just about to turn one.
“Thanks” Lin managed to say before he collapsed on the bed in exhaustion.
Quinnan smiled and sat by him, “Sorry about Yullis.”
“It’s okay.” Lin was finding his voice again, slowly. The shock of his actions was beginning to wear off and he was slightly glad that he’d given the bully what he deserved.
“Are you feeling any better?”
“A little, I guess. My stomach still hurts considerably where Jarl hit me."
Quinnan whistled, “Jarl hit you? You have a lot to tell.”
Lin explained everything, from the moment when Yullis was taunting him, to when he blacked out. He considered telling Quinnan about the strange girl, but then he decided against it. It might’ve been a dream or a hallucination, and there was no reason to tell Quinnan about it, if that was all it was.
“Wow.” Quinnan had said when Lin told him about hitting Yullis with a stone. “I don’t think anyone but you would have the courage to do that. What if someone saw? What if one of the adults got mad at you for that?! What would you have done?”
Lin shrugged, “I don’t know.” When Quinnan gave him a look as though thinking he was just keeping his mouth shut, Lin shrugged, “It wasn’t as though I consciously thought that I should hit Yullis with a rock, I just did, before I took the time to think.”
Quinnan laughed, “You had an instinct to hit the biggest trouble spot for the human children right now… with no weapon but a rock?”
Lin blushed, Quinnan had a point but that didn’t mean that the comment didn’t smart any less.
“It’s alright Lin, I was only kidding.”
“I know you are, Quinnan, I just wish I had thought things through. I never would have gotten beaten so badly.”
Quinnan nodded. “You’re mother said you had to get some rest, you can’t get your strength up if you stay awake all the time.”
Lin nodded and closed his eyes. His heartbeat was fast and hard in his chest but he was smiling now. He was back among friends and allies. There was now war.
