Chapter 3 –– Legacy

“Hang on, lil’ bro.”

Suddenly, there was some weird orange aura surrounding my brother. He bared his fangs and let out a loud rumbling sound, like a growl of a hyena.

“Back off.”

The moment my brother rumbled towards my suitors, they flinched and immediately took a few steps back. They were intimidated by him. It was as if my brother was claiming that I was his and telling them that they shouldn’t get any closer to me.

While my brother was holding off the other two alphas, a woman came to me.

“This is gonna hurt a little bit. Hang on, okay?” she said while holding a syringe.

I didn’t know who she was, but I didn’t have time to think about that either. Since it was an emergency situation and we had no suppressant pills left, she injected a suppressant serum in my arm. A few minutes after the serum got into my system, my heat was stabilised and my body temperature returned to normal.

The effects of the serum were so strong that I couldn’t help but felt drowsy afterwards. I couldn’t keep my eyes open and kept wanting to go to sleep immediately after. Before I lost my consciousness, I saw my two suitors slowly returned to their normal state and looked at me with concern in their eyes.

A few hours later, I woke up in my room with my mama beside me. She had been tending to me the whole time I was unconscious.

“Are you feeling any better, son?” she asked me gently, concerned with my condition.

“Yeah, I’m better, mama.”

She then gave me a glass of water for me to rehydrate myself. I drank it in a single gulp and tried to look for my brother.

“Where is he?”

“He’s in the living room.”

I went to the living room to meet him. The moment our eyes made contact, his expression immediately changed from being concerned to relieved. He immediately hugged me upon seeing me.

“Noam!”

My brother hugged me tightly. It’d been a while since we last met.

My older brother’s name was Yeshua Mukhat. He and I were 3 years apart from each other. He was a beta male striped hyena, just like my mama. Although my brother and I were related biologically, he and I had different surnames. According to the naming customs of the realm, our surname referred to the animal we were associated with as opposed to the family to which we belonged. That was why it was common for siblings to have different surnames, unless their parents were from the same clan.

“Brother, who was that?” I asked him about the woman who helped me earlier.

“She’s my intended. I met her at work,” he answered.

Oh. I didn’t know that.

It’d been so long since I last saw my brother. He enlisted in the military several years ago, so he rarely had any chance to come home. Moreover, anytime he came home, he only visited for a few days before he had to go back to work. We barely talked to each other since then.

“Oh, are you awake already, Noam?”

My brother’s intended greeted me. She looked pretty. Judging from her looks, I believed she belonged to Parae clan, the brown hyena.

“I’m Talia Parae, a beta female brown hyena. Nice to meet you,” she stuck out her hand for a handshake.

See. I knew she was member of Parae clan.

“Nice to meet you, Talia.”

I shook her hand and smiled at her. Her paw felt soft.

“By the way, your mothers are calling you two to their room,” she told us.

My brother and I looked at each other, confused as to what was going on. We then immediately went to their room to hear what they had to say.

The moment we arrived in my mothers’ room, my mother and my mama were sitting on the bed, waiting for us. My brother and I stood by the door, waiting for them to speak

“Noam, your suitors apologized for what happened a few hours ago. They went home earlier while you were unconscious,” my mother explained.

I see. I’d been knocked out for a few hours, huh. It didn’t feel that long.

“Suitors? What’s going on?” my brother asked, confused.

Oh, right. He didn’t get the notice because he was out of the village. This must be his first time hearing this.

“We are looking for a mate for your brother, Yeshua,” my mama answered, softly.

“Wh–– why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, sounding betrayed and angry.

“You were out of the village. We had no way of contacting you,” my mother answered.

That wasn't true. They could’ve sent him a letter if they wanted to. They just didn’t want him to know before it actually happened. My mothers were just as surprised as I was when we saw him today in the living room, arriving home unexpectedly.

“There is no way those feral alphas are going to be his mate. Didn’t you two see what they were about to do to him?” my brother yelled, being protective over me.

This was one of my brother’s peculiar traits. He had always been overly protective of me, especially when it came to finding a mate for me.

“Watch your mouth, Yeshua. They’re sons of other tribes’ Chieftains,” my mother told him.

“So, what? Is this supposed to be a political arrangement or something?”

I remained silent the whole time, listening to them talking. Even though this concerned me, I felt like I had no say in this.

“...”

My mothers were silent. They didn’t respond to my brother’s question.

“I knew it,” my brother said.

My brother left the room in anger, leaving my mothers and I behind.

H–huh? What did that mean? Why didn’t my mother respond to his question earlier?

“Is it true what he said?” I asked them.

My mother and my mama looked at each other before answering. They hesitated on what to say to me.

“Listen, Noam. It’s not as simple as you think,” my mama said, trying to calm me down.

“Of course. It’s never as simple as I think. But how do I know that? You never tell me anything.”

I left the room, following my brother’s step. We then met up in front of the house and had a talk.

My brother and I took a stroll around the village. It’d been a while since he took a look around the village. After spending several years working in the military, he hadn’t spent much time in the village.

“So much has changed, huh....” he said, while taking a look around the surroundings.

“You think so?” I asked, doubting his opinion.

“Yeah.”

He noticed that there were some changes in the village since the last time he was here. The five star restaurant across the street used to just be a small tavern years ago. The blacksmith shop was just a small back alley workshop back then. So much had changed that it made him feel nostalgic.

The two of us went to the village park to have a leisure talk. While we were having a talk at the park, Talia–– my brother's intended–– remained at home to get to know more about her future in-laws. The moment we arrived at the park, we took a seat at one of the benches under a geoxyle* tree.

I just noticed that the water from the pond at the park was all dried up. I didn’t realise when it started to happen, but I was sure that this just happened recently, at least within the recent few months. There used to be a lot of fish in there, now they were all gone.

After a few moments of silence, I decided to start off the conversation.

“How is it in the military, brother?”

“It’s not so bad. I got assigned to the Garrison Legion.”

“What’s that?” I asked him, not familiar with military terms.

“It’s a department in the military. We guard the border of the realm, the barrier under the surface.”

Oh. So that was why he hadn’t been much in the village lately. He was busy up there, near the border.

“Does that mean you get to go to the surface!?” I asked while raising my voice, unable to keep my excitement to myself.

“Shh. Noam. Keep your voice down,” my brother said, telling me to lower my voice.

I was shocked and confused by his response just now. Why did he say that? That was so unlike him.

“What’s wrong?” I asked him, literally had no idea what’s wrong.

“Let’s not talk about that,” he replied, trying to change the conversation.

“Why not?”

“You know why. That could get us killed,” he answered, with a serious tone.

I took a moment of silence to process the information. After he enlisted in the military, he sure had changed.

I remembered the time when we were young, my grandpa from my mother’s side used to tell us stories about the world above. He told us that up there, beyond the surface, there was land so wide and broad where we could walk aimlessly without having to bump into a wall; a lake so vast that it would take more than a lifetime to swim the entire area; and an infinite amount of space, more than the eyes could see, right above us. He showed us a picture book containing how they looked like. I still remembered clearly how they looked. It was so magical that they seemed like something out of a fairy tale.

In the boundless amount of space above, there were fluffy cotton-shaped objects and twinkles of light in the air, which were called clouds and stars, respectively. Ever since my grandpa showed us that book, I’d been wondering how they would look in person. If it was anything remotely similar to the ones I saw in the book, I bet I would risk anything to be able to see them with my own eyes. My brother and I then decided that we were going to the surface together one day. We didn’t know how yet, but regardless, it was a fraternal pact we made to each other.

However, around the last hundred years, going to the surface had been prohibited by the central government, agreed upon by the 7 tribes. Anyone who dared to blatantly claim that they planned to go up there would burnt on a stake in front of the masses. The crime was so severe that anything involving information of the world beyond the surface was completely wiped out from the realm by the central government. As the government was trying to prevent the ideology of going above from getting more wide spread within the realm, the practice of discussing–– or even just mentioning––the surface was considered heresy. Even until now, the government was still hunting for anyone possessing any item or object related to the world above, as the crime was punishable by death.

My brother and I used to ignore these warnings and discussed about our plan to go to the surface every day when we were young. However, our grandpa told us that we had to keep it between us and must not to tell anyone about it, not even to our mothers. Thus, we only talked about it when there were only the two of us. We once thought that the central government wiped out all information of the world above because they had something to hide from all of us. We started to think that it was our duty to find out what they were hiding.

After my brother turned of age, my brother decided that he would enlist in the military so that he would be one step closer to go to the surface. Since then, I’d always admired him, thinking that we were one step closer to our dream.

However, after our talk today, I sensed that he was not like he used to be. Enlisting in the military changed him.

“Did you give up on our dream?” I asked him seriously, asking if we still had the same vision.

“I never said that,” he replied, defending himself.

“Then why can’t we talk about it?”

“The central government didn’t prohibit us from going to the surface because they had something to hide, but because they wanted to protect us.”

“Protect us from what?”

“I.....I can’t tell you. But, it’s dangerous up there.”

This didn't sound like him at all. He changed so much that I almost couldn’t recognise him.

“Are you sure about that?”

“What do you mean?” he asked, confused by my question.

“How do you know it’s dangerous if no one’s ever been up there for the last century? How do we know if the central government is not lying to us?”

“Noam. This isn’t the time to play mind games. The circumstances are more complicated than you think.”

“Right. Of course. Everyone keeps telling me that. What? Am I not capable of processing something so complicated that they refuse to even tell me the truth?”

My mothers said the exact same thing my brother just said to me. Why did everyone keep underestimating me? Was it because I was younger than them so they thoght that they could treat me like a child? Was it because I was born as an omega male within a tribe that valued alpha females more? What was it?

“...”

My brother had nothing to say. He remained silent.

“I don’t know what they they taught you in the military, brother. Your resolve may have changed, but mine will not.”

“Noam, that’s not––”

“I will prove it to you, even if I had to do it alone. I will carry on grandpa’s legacy.”

I left the park and returned back home, straight to my room.

The next day, my brother and his intended left home to return to work. They left early in the morning, before the first daystone** on the ceiling even lit up. I didn’t see them leaving the house, but apparently, my mothers did. My mama handed me a letter from my brother right after I woke up.

“Noam, I promise I will tell you the truth one day.”

That was what was written in the letter. I didn’t know what he meant by that, but I assumed it was something related to our conversation yesterday.

I clenched the letter tightly, keeping it for future purposes.

*geoxyle = a type of an underground tree

**daystone = Artificial lighting to replicate sunlight, made from an illumination stone