One day, Taen and Rhodri were playing together like usual. But Taen looked especially tired that day. His face was red and he looked like he had a headache. Rhodri noticed this change in his best friend's temperament.
"Hey, umm.. are you okay, Taen?" Rhodri asked. Taen shook his head. Rhodri questioned him again "Are you having a headache?". Taen replied "Yeah".
Rhodri took Taen to his home, then gave him the medicine for his headache and fever.
Rhodri handed Taen the medicine. Taen asked "Is this bitter?". Rhodri replied "yes, do you want a candy after taking the medicine?". Taen said "You have candy? I didn't know they had candies in this village, but i would like one"in his soft but a little bit horse voice.
Taen had actually asked in shops in that village if they had candy or any other sweets available there, but there were non. It wasn't a big surprise that those things were not available in the village as the village was located in the nowhere of the desert.
It was a bit surprising that Rhodri actually had candies in his house but Taen really didn't think much of it because his head was in excruciating pain because of his fever.
Taen took the medicine handed to him by Rhodri, then he drank the water which was, again handed to him by Rhodri. He was getting pampered by Rhodri and he liked getting pampered by Rhodri.
'I like this feeling of getting pampered' was what little ten and an half year old Taen was thinking.
After drinking water which was handed to him by Rhodri, Rhodri handed him the candy "Do you want one more?" He asked while unwrapping the candy for him and handed it to him.
Taen said while eating the candy "No, it's alright". " Don't talk while eating. It's not good", Rhodri lectured him as an adult would do to a child forgetting that he was also a child.
"Sleep"Rhodri basically commanded him. Taen nodded and led down on the bed.
Rhodri pulled the blanket over him and tucked him in the bed. "I'm here if you need anything, I will be in the room next to this one". Taen nodded again as the reply to his sentence.
After Rhodri walked out of the room, Taen was sleepy but he couldn't fall asleep. He was a bit sleep deprived from the nightmares gets every night. Every time he fell asleep in the past ever since he came to this village, he would get nightmares about his younger step sister dying in front of him. His mother tried to find him every day but failed in his search.
In one of his recent nightmares, he finally finds his mother but not in good condition. He holds his mother's body in his hand , his mother being unconscious. His mother having scars all over her which were caused by herself . The president of country Nica killed herself by suiciding.
Her investigation of finding her children showed that they died.
Her children died , when this thought crossed her mind she couldn't even imagine how she would live with that fact. So she conducted many more investigations but the result was same. In the end, her situation was really pitiful. She thought the ones wanted to protect weren't their anymore. They don't exist anymore. They were her whole world. How would she live if they weren't there anymore? So she decided to sucide.
But all of this was just Taen's nightmare. It was all his subconsciousness that was thinking that way.
He couldn't fall asleep but finally he did. He fell asleep. Maybe, it was the medicine's effect which made him sleepy.