INITIATION ULTIMATE, Chapter 13.1: Narrated by Tharseo

Is Unari the Demon all in Tharseo's head, or does he exist in a human form?

            Blueberries.  The tart flavor spreads across my tongue, and with every berry, my confidence grows.  This is the first time I've willingly fed myself in a week, without the force feeding or food testing.  I'm glad that chapter of my life is behind me...

            "Tharseo," a lilting voice calls me from the shadows.  I'd know that voice anywhere.

            Immediately, I throw the berries and pick up my katana, wiping my mouth.  "If you come any closer, Unari, the next stain upon the ground will be your blood," I threaten, raising the katana to an on guard position.

            "Demons don't bleed," the shadow sings, dropping out of the tree where he was hiding.  "You're powerless against me, Tharseo.  But using my own will, I'll leave...for now."

            "Cut the 'for now' crap, and go back to hell where you came from," I shout as he once again fades into the wind.

 

***

 

            "You okay down there?" a voice calls from behind me.

            I look up to see Unari standing on a hill behind the blueberry bushes I found.  "Stay away!" I shout, slashing at the air with my katana.

            "Whoa," he holds up his hands in surrender, like he did yesterday at the ledge.  "Let me explain myself, because I don't want any misunderstandings between us, okay?  First of all, you're in my blueberry patch..."

            "I found it!  I have every right to be here!"

            "Well, I planted it," Unari explains, calm voice shaking.  "And second of all, I've been watching you for a while now...don't want that to sound strange...but you've been talking to yourself a lot lately, and you're too close to my home for me to leave you to your own devices.  No offense, but I don't trust you that much, and I don't want you to burn down my house or anything...that's why I thought we should work things out."  There's a slight panic barely hidden beneath his tone, unlike the bold personality he carried earlier.  "So, why don't you drop the sword and come up here, away from my blueberries, to talk?"

            "Fade," I demand.

            He looks at me with confusion.  "Alright, don't know what you're talking about there, but I really think it would be a good idea.  Seaweed?”  He holds out a repulsive looking, dried bundle of algae. “This type helps stabilize mentality and cure diseases, and it might help you out some…”

            There is something not right with me, I know that much.  Treatment in the form of seaweed might help, but I already know I will not be able to trust this boy with a demonic mirror image.  “I’m bringing my katana,” I insist, then go up to meet him.

 

***

 

            Human Unari and I sit around a fire, sipping tea.  “This is my farm,” Unari claims proudly.  “I worked two years to get it up and running.  I have blueberries, raspberries, tea leaves, and cabbage, and they’re watered by the rain.  I get the seaweed from the ocean on sunny days, and I’m starting a rabbit farm for meat.”

            Distracted, I take a delicate bite of the seaweed, grimacing at the taste.  I don’t enjoy the salty, aquatic flavor of it at all…

            “So you’re new around here?” Unari asks.  “I guessed that,” he continues, after I nod.  “There aren’t many people around these parts, if you haven’t noticed.  The most socialization I do is with this girl named Eleftheria, or Ellie.  You probably won’t see her around much.  She kills the night creatures.”

            “Night creatures?”

            “Yeah.  Cantiko, we call them.  I’ll tell you more later, but first you need to give me some answers.  Tell me.  Who do you think you’re talking to when you speak to yourself?”

            Demon Unari fades into the wind…  “You.  A demonic version of you.”

            “Explains a lot,” Unari growls derisively.  “So why me?  I heard you say my name.  Where’d you learn it?”

            “Coincidence,” I guess, my voice wavering.

            “It can’t be!” Unari disagrees.  “If you haven’t noticed, I don’t have the most common name in the world.  None of us do any more, not like the days before the Atomic War and the United15 when all the males were named ‘William,’ ‘Robert,’ ‘Jacob,’ ‘Jack,’ or some other mass produced name.  You couldn’t have created an illusion in your head with the same name of a person you meet a day later… too suspicious.  Either you are lying, or there’s another more convincing reason.”

            I have nothing to say to that, because I don’t even understand how I knew his name.  Instead, I focus on Unari’s small house, which is built of wood panels bound together with ropes made of strong reeds.  Projecting from one wall is a crude fireplace, built of rocks that are plastered together with clay. My mind flashes back to Ionracas’s new rental house that he had shown me a month or two before his death.  He seemed so pleased that he had the money to rent it, and he didn’t even assemble it by hand!  Shows how the value systems in the Initiations differ from back in the country.  Money speaks in advanced civilizations.  Effort speaks in less advanced ones.  Ion was never really an Initiations kind of person, having returned as early as possible.  Unari is the closest Initiations type I’ve met thus far.

            “I have a theory,” Unari presents, “on how you know my name.  Maybe your mind was preoccupied as you were wandering the area yesterday, the same time that I was talking to Eleftheria.  She probably said my name, and you picked it up while you were walking around.  You might have even seen us as you passed.  When you began hallucinating, or doing whatever made you see a demon version of me, your memory is what automatically came to your mind.  Sound convincing enough?”

            Could be the effect of the force fed drugs, I think to myself.  “Quite convincing.”

            As I say this, Unari’s eyes linger on my facial scars.  I look away, searching my mind for a distraction.  There’s tension building in the air, and a strong desperation to leave the area has overcome me…  I have to get out of here.  Unari seems to sense this, and he stands up to leave.  “I have an old tent from before I built my house.  I can give it to you, if you want to live in it for a while.  Meanwhile, I’ll be inside… please don’t come in.  I have one pistol and only a few bullets left, and I don’t want to use them.”

 

***

            That night, Unari lets me set up his tent on his property.  “It’s safe around here,” he assures me.  “Cantiko don’t come to my land anymore, ever since I used a strategy Eleftheria taught me.  I’ll have to teach it to you sometime.”   

The moist, salty breeze of the Island Initiations is aerating my tent when I finally close my eyes.  It’s the greatest rest I have had in a while, I’d say.