Sisam - Fruit of Endurance

One month passed with the blink of my eyes. I thought it would take far too long to pass this month. But it seemed that when you are in a good environment, time around you passes a bit too fast for one to notice.

My wounds had fully healed in this last month, and my blood was nearly restored. My body had regained the same strength as before, and all the pains in my joints were gone. I could finally get out of that damn room. Even going to the bathroom, I had needed someone else’s help, which was really embarrassing.

Also, after learning about the village’s dress code, things between Sora and me changed. We might be siblings, but since there’s no blood relation between us, I should have been more careful from the beginning.

Anyway, aside from all that, there was one thing that had been bothering me. Something I couldn’t ask anyone. Why did I sometimes not feel that much cold? And also… why did the nanananggal not attack us before? Why did it wait two days?

These were te toughts that had been bothering me for the past couple of days.

After that month finally ended, I was told I could walk outside a bit. My legs felt weak at first, like they had forgotten how to carry me. Still, I didn’t want to waste the chance, so I pushed myself. Ricky said he would take me out for some fresh air, to a more open place.

We walked through narrow paths between houses, then down a slope where the snow seemed untouched, like no one had stepped on it for a long time. The cold bit at my skin but… strangely, it didn’t hurt as much as before. I wondered again why sometimes the cold didn’t feel like cold to me. It was weird, almost scary.

When we finally reached the open field, the whole place looked like a white sea under the sky. Snow stretched endlessly, and the sunlight reflected off it so brightly I had to squint my eyes. The air was clean, sharper than anything I’d breathed before. It felt like my lungs were waking up after sleeping for ages.

Ricky folded his arms and turned to me.
“So, Ruu. There’s a lot I wanna ask you. Don’t mind, okay?”
“Sure, go ahead,” I said.

Then he started.

First he asked about Sora. “She’s your sister, right?”
I hesitated for a second, then nodded. “Yeah. She’s my sister… but we aren’t blood related.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Ohh. I see.” He didn’t say anything more about that, but I could tell from his eyes he was thinking something.

Then he asked about our homeland. Where we were from. I didn’t know how to answer properly. “It’s… really far away. You wouldn’t know it even if I told you.” That’s all I could manage.

He asked about my fight with the Nanananggal. “Tell me honestly, Ruu. How did you kill it?”
I paused, my stomach tightening. I couldn’t say I had ripped it apart with my teeth like a beast. No way. So I just shook my head. “I don’t remember much. I was panicking… acting on instinct. That’s all.”
He kept staring at me for a while, maybe trying to see if I was lying, but then he sighed and let it go.

Then he asked if I planned to stay in their village. I said I didn’t know. Because truthfully, I didn’t know what the future held. I had no answer for that.

We talked like that for a while, question after question. Ricky was serious most of the time, but sometimes he laughed, trying to ease the mood. He told me about his village too—how they survived in the cold, how the men hunted in groups, how the women worked together, how the elders taught children.

At some point, he looked at the sky and said, “Well, I think that’s enough for now. You’re probably tired already. Rest a bit, Ruu. I’ll go back, there’s some work waiting for me.”
I nodded. “Okay, Ricky. Thanks for bringing me here.”
He smiled and patted my shoulder before leaving. His footsteps faded into the snow until I couldn’t hear them anymore.

I stood there alone, staring at the vast white field. The silence pressed in on me. For a moment, I almost thought I was back in that forest again—except this time, it wasn’t death waiting in the shadows, but… something else.

Then I heard light footsteps behind me. Not heavy like Ricky’s. Softer. Almost cautious.
When I turned my head, I saw Luna walking toward me. She was dressed in the same outfit , the village clothes that covered her whole body, only her face showing. The faint wind tugged at the cloth she wore on her head, but she held it in place with her hand as she approached.

She stopped just a few steps away from me, her eyes calm but sharp.

“Ruu,” she said, her voice steady.

“What are you doing here, Ruu?”
“Ahh… nothing… just looking at the sky. Been a while since I looked up at it like that.”
“I see,” she said.
“But you’re in these thin clothes. Aren’t you cold?”
“Haha… yeah… but not much…”
“Hmm… really?” She kept staring at me.
“Yeah. Do you know what could be the reason behind it?”

She didn’t look away. Her eyes stayed fixed on me, like she was trying to read something hidden under my skin.

“Clouds don’t stop cold, Ruu. People do.”
“Eh?” I tilted my head, confused.
“I mean,” she said slowly, “maybe it’s not the weather that changed… maybe it’s you.”

I laughed it off weakly, scratching my cheek. “Haha… me? Changing? Nah, I’m just a normal guy.”

“No, I am not talking about that kind of change.”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

She didn’t answer me right away. Instead, she looked at me for a long time, her face half-shadowed under the cloth that covered her hair. The snow crunched faintly as she shifted her stance, pulling her thin robe tighter around her arms.

“...Maybe you really don’t know,” she finally said. Her tone was quiet, but not soft — more like she was testing me.

“Know what?” I asked, a bit annoyed.

“There’s something in everyone here,” she said, lifting her hand slightly, as if feeling the chill in the air. “We call it Sisam. It’s the endurance inside the body. The spirit’s strength against the extremes. Without it… no one survives long in this world.”

Her words made me straighten up. “Endurance…? Like just lasting through pain?”

She shook her head. “Not just pain. Conditions. Harsh ones. Cold. Heat. It splits into two.” She held up two fingers between us. “Sisqar. Cold endurance. And Sisnar. Heat endurance. Every person has both a little, but most only grow one strong — depending on where they’re born, where they train. Snow-lands make Sisqar. Deserts, volcano-lands make Sisnar.”

I frowned, trying to take it in. “So… it’s just about not freezing or not burning?”

Her gaze snapped to me sharply, like she didn’t like how simple I made it sound. “At the bottom level, yes. Just staying alive. But Sisam is more than survival. It becomes power. Focus. Calmness under the worst extremes. The higher you go… the more it bends reality. Ice, flame… even blood, sometimes.”

The last word hit me harder than the cold wind. I stared at her, but she didn’t flinch.

“And me?” I asked slowly. “Which one are you saying I have?”

Her eyes narrowed slightly. “I was watching you. Thin clothes, standing in snow… and you’re not even shivering. Most outsiders would have collapsed already. That means your Sisqar is shifting. Growing without you even noticing.”

I looked down at my right hand, curling it into fist. The thought of my body changing by itself made me uneasy. “Shifting… how? Why now?”

“Sometimes after heavy wounds… after your mind is pushed to breaking point… the body forces itself to adapt,” she said, her breath visible in the air. “It jumps ahead, even without training. But that kind of growth…” She trailed off, her hand brushing the snow at her side. “It never comes free. The more it rises fast, the more it drags you down later. Collapses. Pain. Sometimes worse.”

The silence between us grew heavy. Snowflakes drifted slowly, landing on her shoulder, melting quick against the cloth.

“So,” I muttered, voice low, “my endurance… this Sisqar… it’s the reason I don’t feel cold anymore?”

She nodded once. “Yes. But don’t mistake that for strength yet. If you push it without knowing how to handle it, you’ll break faster than the snow under our feet.”

Her words lingered in the freezing air, pressing on me harder than the cold itself.