Since the tribe's defeat in the conflict, Dodolu has experienced far too much.
He witnessed his father's throat being slit, saw his mother being dragged into the enemy's dwelling with grass ropes around her neck.
Subsequently, he endured even more agony and torment, ultimately found himself bound hand and foot, offered as a sacred sacrifice, destined for that distant island.
For this still naive young boy, life and death remained a vague concept.
He only knew that when blood poured out, his father departed from him forever, never to return.
He once naively believed in the omnipotent Celestial God spoken of by the tribe's Priest, believed his fallen companions had gone to the eternal Celestial Kingdom, a place with endless food and never-ending songs...
But the tribe's High Priest had already perished, killed during the post-conflict reckoning—executed personally by that enemy Priest, keen-eyed and wearing a feather crown, a gaze so sharp Dodolu dared not meet it.
