Tilly Tiason

Prelude

 

The morning welcomed May’s heat; visible streaks of steam fluxed off the back of Amilo. He lied restless; his torso inclined like a bridge. He cupped his hands around his neck as if he could stop the choking sensation that occurred. It was as if he had a cork lodged mid-way down his throat. 

 

He was face down in a bed of grass, beads of sweat down his face, blades of brush stuck on his cheeks. A daring Filipino woman flipped him onto his back, he looked up as if he was studying the white sky. She kicked her leg over his waist. The yellow woman sat down, seeping low into his stomach, and I could see her body cave into his belly. 

“If you struggle, I will break you.” She meant that literally. He was soft, he was easily breakable since he was recently discharged from a hospital. She searched him with her hands, pushed down on Amilo’s rib cage. “Amilo, you’re getting on my nerves. Stop moving! Where’s the key, little boy!” He gripped her smooth hips and scratched at her in hopes she’d piss off and leave him alone, but she wasn’t going anywhere. 

 

I grabbed the yellow beauty by her shoulder. With a flick and a turn, she catapulted me into the air, and then I cannoned into the sundered, dry soil.

 

“Ha!” She flipped him back on his tummy like a spatula to Isle of Man Flapjacks and Amilo just led out a heavy pitched cry. As she struggled to pin him down, her hand pressed on the back of his noggin. He was having an even harder time trying to breathe. When he stopped flapping his hands around, he forked his head to the side. In his peripheral vision, he studied some stranger’s faces.  “H-LP!” In his broken accent, he tried to call for help. Amilio cried. A crowd assembled.

The Filipino woman followed his gaze. She wiggled a finger at the crowd, “mind your business! We’re playing a game.” Phones flipped out, flashes gone off, and the occasional giggle you get from bystanders carried among each other. Amilo led out a choked cry, gasped for air, but went right back to cupping his hands over his throat. She turned back around and stared into his blank expression. His breath came to a shortstop, his legs kicked less, and his arms only shook less and slowly to remind everyone he was choking.

​

“Get off him.” I yelled. I was pushing myself up when I said so. That was my warning; if I had to tell her a second time, it was truly the end for her.

“We’re playing a game, I just told you!”

“Get off my cousin, I won’t say it twice, sweetie.”

“You just did, sweetie.” She mocked exactingly. The woman leaned her bare body forward, right where her lips could brush along his throat. “We need you, Amilo, we can’t do this without you.” She kissed his vein that eagerly pumped just a bit more than the rest of them; his Herculean structured neck was gouging of visible veins. 

 

She could sense his blood swimming from one ligament to the next, through his heart and back up through the neck. She cast her head back, jaw extending, and then bucked forward down and ironed her head in between his head and shoulder where it fitted perfectly. She clamped her teeth in his throat; gripped his neck and thrust him closer to her. I could hear the unpleasant sound her teeth made as if she was ripping into a roma tomato. His flesh ripped like wax paper as her canines suck deep and juices seeped out from the punctured holes.

​

His blood gargle in her mouth, then she spat it right back into the bite. She pulled away and wiped her face with the back of her arm. As of Amilo, it was over for him, his breath came to a pause and all we could hear him do was push air out and never in. Eventually, someone stepped forward and pulled her off him. Then she didn’t care- she let the bystander tug at her until she was on her rear. Staring with a heavy laugh and smile that could put the Joker out of a cinema. I stared. I had no idea what to do, so I looked at the Latina woman and then back at Amilio. I could’ve done more; I could have saved him. That’s what hero’s do- they protect and fight, and instead I watched!

​

I cast out my wooden stake from my belt- allowing her to get a glimpse of the splintery mess that would shatter her into ash. Her eyes were wide from perhaps realization- yes, I am that bitch. And I am going to kill you. She stood. Kicked the bystander- he launched roughly 30 meters out. She leaned forward in attack, she had her hand out- fingers extended and curled to look like scattered branches on a stick. She could probably read my expression from the way I was teasingly looking at the weapon with awe. 

​

“You can’t possibly be a hunter.” She said.

“But I am.”

“No!”

“Funny thing about Amilio, he wasn’t the only one to survive that ambush, which in my defense wasn’t a fair fight. You and your friends ruined my ceremony. I say we have a fair fight now.” I ran at her, swung my pick at her chest. She dodged it quickly, but then I stepped forward with a low kick to her knee, and she had fallen forward with a hard thump! “It’s a shame beauty doesn’t always come with brains. Fun fact: a few of us made it out alive that night. So don’t think you’ve won; me and my family are going to destroy your clan if it’s the last thing we do.”