The Hero's Conundrum/Chapter Two

It must be a mistake I saw him die and to erase all traces of the stupid legend, I burned what was left of him in front of everyone, there was nothing left of him. Marcus must have been killed by an impersonator trying to keep the Bansao legend alive, but we are prepared and we will stop whoever he is. We made all arrangements and waited for the alleged Bansao and his crew. We knew he and his people were relentless, but we are prepared and without the real Bansao, they won’t stand a chance. We waited for two days and we were ready to wait a lot more.

A couple of years ago, I was relatively new to the camp, but I managed to become one of the leaders, by working hard, I care about this people. They have suffered much, but we have managed to survive, we have lost people and gain others on the way. Here I am with some of them, sitting around a bonfire waiting for Bansao. We cooked some rabbits we found and the guys started talking about what they’ll do once this is over. Joseph is the biggest and strongest guy here and he said that he will look for survivors and offer them a place in the village that we are going to build. Joseph also has the biggest heart. John said that he will look for his family, he is the serious one, he rarely talks, and he keeps to himself. Sarah is one of the women we have in charge, I think she is the most courageous of us all, but she said something that pierced my heart, she said that she had no one since all her family died in an explosion at the village we she was rescued her from. We stayed quiet for a while until Robert aka Bobby the cook said that he will start the first post-apocalyptic restaurant and we all started laughing, everyone but John. Then there was a sudden silence, everyone was thinking about what we talked about.

Then the silence broke with the sound of a bomb that hit our camp, then another, we could see the bodies flying, then after the explosions, three other men came with flamethrowers, burning everything, the others with machine guns shooting everywhere. They were as relentless as we were told, it’s a good thing we were not at the camp, it was a decoy camp we play it smart, our people are safe. We were right behind them hiding waiting for our moment, we stayed quiet while they were looking for survivors. There was no one alive to begin with, we made a decoy camp from a destroyed camp we found. I couldn’t see Bansao anywhere, I knew he was dead it was our moment to attack. We went behind them and killed them all, but Bansao was nowhere to be found, that confirmed he was an impostor. Maybe even some of his people don’t know he is already dead and the ones that know are trying to make everyone to believe he is still alive.

We gathered all the weapons and ammo we could and headed back to the real camp where everyone else was hiding. I told the crew

“Today is a day of victory” and they started cheering, then I continued,

“But we can’t claim total victory yet, Bansao may be dead but there will be others trying to take his place. All I can tell you is that if we could beat Bansao, the boogieman, we can beat them all.”

They all agreed, I could see their faces, they were motivated now, we now have a fighting chance. We stopped to hunt, we wanted something big to celebrate a deer or a pig, because we can’t have animals since we are always on the move. All that changes today we will have a celebration, I will announce our victory and the future plan for our people. Sammael asked me

“why are you smiling Marduk?” and I told him

“I saw the future” then he smiled too.

Sammael is our youngest soldier, but he is extremely skilled at everything, he is the best hunter, he cooks, he fights and he is an expert marksman. Some say he is going to be the next me, we are the most skilled men in our camp. In some ways Sammael is just like me and he is always by mi side, always learning from me. We hunted two deer, then gathered some wood for the fire and headed to the camp. Moses was leading the way, he was the one who found me, and bought me to the camp.

He said, “I don’t think we’ll be needing the wood, look” when we look at the camp direction there was smoke coming out of there.

“NO” I yelled, “It was a trap, run!”

I ran faster than everyone and when I got there, my whole body paralyzed as I saw Bansao, pointing his gun at one of the elders. How? Impossible, I killed him, how can this be? He smiled at me and pulled the trigger.