The man marched the woman forward, his hand gripped tight on her arm, forcing her to stumble toward the largest building in the clearing.
His voice wasn't a whisper anymore,
it was a bracken-grit that tore through the night.
"Chief! Chief, look who I found!"
Chief Maluma emerged from the low opening of his home.
His movement was urgent and stiff, his eyes narrow as they adjusted to the light.
As he saw the woman, his lips pulled back into a thin, almost invisible smile.
The man shoved the woman, and she dropped to the ground like a fallen fruit.
He stood behind her, a stark contrast in his silent, predatory grace, his lean, long-limbed skin was like polished mahogany—smooth, and firm.
His face was a mask of coldness. His cold obsidian eyes stayed fixed on the back of her head.
All at once, The clearing suddenly teemed with movement.
Figures blurred into the frame from every shadow—villagers appearing like ghosts summoned by the noise, their eyes reflecting the fire.
"I was keeping watch," the man announced, his chest heaving. "Until I saw her on the path where the brothers are kept. She didn't seem to have good intentions. It's possible she might have killed Bako."
The woman pressed her forehead into the dirt, her body a trembling curve of regret. "I'm sorry, Chief. Forgive me. Whatever he told you was not my—"
CRACK.
Maluma's sudden clap was like a lightning strike. His scarred hands met with a bone-shaking force.
Then again—CRACK—and another.
He kept going, a constant beating of palms that acted like a sonic-wall, ringing in the ears of everyone standing there.
The woman jolted, her spine straightening slowly as the clapping continued.
Her stretched eyes turned wide, reflecting total shock, the whites of her eyes visible all the way around the dark iris, creating that frantic, predator-prey stare.
The shadows beneath them were sunken and hollow, framed by lashes so thick they looked like ink strokes.
Nearby, Tenia stood close to the thatch. She didn't move, she just watched the Chief with a fearing curiosity, her gaze skipping between the woman and Maluma.
Maluma stepped closer, his shadow stretching over her until she was swallowed by his darkness. That rare, menacing smile deepened, making the scars on his face dance.
"Isn't this a rare event?" he purred, his voice a low rumble. "Our first meal of the night. I've been waiting for someone to make a mistake, and now here you are, weak and on your knees."
He leaned down, his breath likely smelling of bitter Wild Tuber and old smoke. "Tell me... how does it feel to be here?"
The woman remained pinned to the earth by the weight of the silence. Her skin was a flawless, deep bronze, but now it was slick with a cold, grey sweat.
Maluma broke the quiet with a heavy stomp, his foot hitting the packed coral ground with a sound like a hammer on stone.
He clapped his hands once more. a sharp, violent crack, and his voice exploded.
"SPEAK UP, FOOL!"
The woman jolted as if struck by a physical wave.
She forced her head up, her eyes meeting his for a fraction of a second, a constant tremor in her pupils, as if she's seeing Bako's ghost standing right behind Maluma.
Her voice came out in a shivering, broken rattle, like the sound of a ritual drum echoing from a long way off.
"It— I—I feels scary, Chief Maluma. I feel scared."
Maluma's smile didn't drop, it dissolved, leaving his face a flat, unreadable stone.
He nodded slowly, suggesting he was processing her fear like a predator tasting a scent.
"Interesting," he whispered.
Maluma raised a hand, his scarred finger touching the tip of his nose as a dry, hollow chuckle escaped his chest. It was a sound that had no joy in it.
"You know? Let me tell you a quick story about the land of what happens when you try to cheat your way out of the Laws of nature," he said, his tone shifting into a deceptive calm. "So in the future you know, and whoever helped you to do this knows, are sure to think twice."
The woman didn't dare use her voice again. She simply shook her head in fearful compliancy.
The firelight danced over Maluma's scars, making his face look like a shifting landscape of bone and shadow.
"You know, just a few years," he began.
His voice was deceptively smooth, like oil over a blade. "My friend Rabakai came to me one early morning. He told me a few local workers were navigating the deep narrow limestones by the Central Plateau, to get a few rootstocks for herbs as always. As they got there, they caught a villager trying to 'Block' the deep caves, digging the rocks with an array of tools."
Maluma raised his arms slightly to the side.
"Why so? No one knew. The locals dragged him out of there by force, but the cave was already half damaged. They brought him to me. but it was no use to retaliate when he already placed hundreds of lives at risk."
He moved his head in, his eyes unblinking. "I respectfully spoke to him. I asked him 'why did you feel the need to do something so self-destructive?' He didn't speak. I asked him again, didn't speak. I knew he was ashamed, that words were useless, so i let him go home."
Nearby, Tako and Rania pushed through the crowd, their heart hammering a frantic rhythm against their chest.
Tako watched the woman's shoulders shake, a small, pathetic tremor that wouldn't stop.
—Why is he explaining all this to her? I don't get it—
Tako's mind raced, his eyes darting between Maluma's posture and the woman's dirt-streaked face.
Maluma continued, his hands moving in slow, hypnotic gestures. "The people asked me why did i do that? 'He obviously did a crime'. 'Punish him' they said. I said no, let him go. He doesn't want to talk, so, we let him go."
Tenia's face stiffened into a flat, hard mask, her eyes squeezing into thin lines like she was trying to see through a thick fog.
She kept her arms pulled casually against her ribs.
One of her eyebrows pulled upward in a sharp, questioning look.
Maluma paced a small circle, his feet making a gritty, grinding sound on the coral. "The next day i came by his house personally and he stepped outside the thatch. He 'stayed'. I greeted him and his family. No fuss, you know? I respectfully asked him. 'Why did you do it?' He didn't answer me. He walked away angry."
The woman pressed her hands into the dirt, trembling. Her pulse thumped in her ears with every word.
"The very next day i saw him by the canoes. I asked again. 'Why did you do it?' That's all i asked..."
Maluma's patience seemed to leak out of him like a slow drain. "He Refused to answer my question yet again. I tried to be nice, but he kept ignoring my question."
He clapped his hands lightly—a dry, hollow sound—and cleared his throat. The sound was like sandpaper on wood.
"So, a few weeks passed by and one morning he came to me. We sat together, man to man and he told me the reason why he did it. I listened thoughtfully. I told him we all have burdens, we all feel angry. Eventually i told him let us fix the cave."
The woman flinched at each syllable, shoulders curling inward. Smoke from the fire curled across Maluma's face, shadowing half of his smirk.
We were at that cave for hours, but still failed. Do you want to know what we did next? We went back home, nothing happened."
He stopped pacing. The village seemed to inhale with him. Flames flickered over the rough coral, painting the crowd in trembling light and shadow.
Maluma stopped moving. The silence of the village was heavy, broken only by the crackling of the flames.
"Days later we went back. I called out for the villager to help us out. He didn't come out. After a long hesitant moment we went inside, and the result was heart-aching. He went blind. His eyes were white and his mouth constantly spit out white foam. He shivered of cold, meaning he couldn't even stand the wind anymore."
Maluma's voice dropped to a whisper that felt colder than the night air. "He kept going through a tough time. His face turned saggy, voice turned heavy. His nails grew longer. Until one day we went to check up on him and he just simply... disappeared. Never to be seen or spotted again."
He clicked his tongue—a sharp, final sound.
"We went back to the cave. We had our execution fully planned out, but when we stepped inside.. It was already fixed. There were no cracks, no drops of water, like it was never touched to begin with."
He smile turned edged, but subtle. He took a step forward.
"You see?— When you try to 'Block' the deep caves, you are interfering with the ways of Banaba. The island is like a closed system. If you break the stone, you become the stone. Do you understand what i'm saying?"
The woman nodded, her chin jerking up and down frantic, and fearful. "Yes, Chief. I understand."