Prikhodko: The Dream of Nagykanizsai

By James Hendershot

Grip yourself as you discover Prikhodkos story about her quest to find love, and a dreamland to the cold north. Her mother, a widow fights for every inch along her bloody road while raising her two daughters. Beasts on horses raid the savages lands, cannibalizing their captured prey. Salko (the widow) defies all odds by keeping her family together. One morning she awakes and decides to chase the dream of her grandmother. They now discover that the beasts are not the only dangers on Lamenta. Death demands a high price for this dream quest as they to no avail try to squeeze past its hellish grip. Prikhodko finds love and tears many times. Her mission includes destroying many evil races that live in the underworlds. Her dream captures and destroys all her loves until she escapes her dreams bloody cage. She finds herself in so many different places, including Sharyawn, the next planet in their solar system. Prikhodko holds one great secret, that being the future divinity of her daughter (the Chosen One) who will someday rule more galaxies then Lamenta has grains of sands. Her daughters first throne will rule over demons as their Queen. She eventually escapes and creates the greatest empire of love and peace throughout the remainder of this series.

How can we not know about the millions of galaxies and different dimensions? Life does exist as so many great Empires exist and evolve. Some are from the light of good, while others are from the dark of evil. There shall come forth the chosen one. This first book shares the birth of the chosen one's mother, and her tribulations as the powers of the lights and powers of the dark fight so hard to capture the chosen one, who shall first be the queen of evil and then fight her way back into the light to be the Queen of Queens of light. prikHodko loses all to find her dream, only to have it taken from her.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Aug 30, 2013
• ISBN: 9781490711324

James Hendershot

James Hendershot, D.D., was born in Marietta, Ohio, and finally settled in Caldwell, Ohio, where he eventually graduated from high school. After graduating, he served four years in the Air Force and graduated magna cum laude with three majors from the prestigious Marietta College. He then served until retirement in the US Army, during which time he earned his master’s of science degree from Central Michigan University in public administration and his third degree in computer programming from Central Texas College. His final degree was the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity from Kingsway Bible College, which provided him with keen insight into the divine nature of man. After retiring from the US Army, he accepted a visiting professor position with Korea University in Seoul, South Korea.

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© Copyright 2013 James Hendershot.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

ISBN: 978-1-4907-1131-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4907-1133-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4907-1132-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013915906

Trafford rev. 08/29/2013

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Contents

This Is My Story

Chapter 01 Running For Life

Chapter 02 From Gyáli To The Black Hole

Chapter 03 Portal To The Dead and Beginning Of Misery

Chapter 04 The Loss of Mosyakov

Chapter 05 Four Take Away Three Equals a Couple

Chapter 06 Pétfürdo Leads the Way

Chapter 07 Up, Up, And…

Chapter 08 Deliverance

Chapter 09 Up, Down, In Light, and In Dark, Knowing Not What I Am

Chapter 10 Road to the Birth of Death

Chapter 11 The Beginning of the End

Book 1 And 2 Map Index

The Other Adventures In This Series

Time for the empire that destroys the beasts

About The Author

Dedicated to my favorite RN, my wife Younghee, with thanks for financially providing for our family during my days of writing and to my sons, Josh & John and daughter, Nellie

This Is My Story

This is my story

This is my song

Of my struggles

My whole life long;

Of how I was betrayed

By the light which is wrong;

And was saved and loved

By those who others gong

This is about our life

Of how we grew strong

As I raised my daughter

Who would rule so long

And to her would

All the great belong

And of the love

Her parents their lifelong

As with the love

We shall forever prolong

And the joyous seasons

Of a power that is to exist lifelong

As forever love we shall belong

Singing each day with all along

Chapter 01

RUNNING FOR LIFE

This story begins when my life started to change and my beasts started appearing. As I am trying to wiggle into a comfortable position on a rather-limber tree branch, I move my leg and the leaves rattle as my mother looks at me with her stern face. I wonder if she could make it on this branch without falling. I do not think I will take the chance because she is a good mother. Daddy is not with us anymore. He was trying to catch a big animal, Mommy calls them bears, and he had a boo-boo. That prevented him from being able to run; and the bad things or beasts, is what Mom calls them, got him. She has taken care of Mosyakov, my younger sister, and me forever. She is strong woman, as every time we run she carries Mosyakov while holding tight to my hand. I sometimes do not even feel my feet touching the ground as we go so fast. She tries to keep us away from everyone, because she says the only thing men, whatever that is, bring with them is stuff to make babies. She laughs as she hugs us saying, And yes, little girls, they brought the stuff to make both of you. I wondered if mommies could make little girls, could little girls make mommies because I think it would hurt having to run around with a big mommy in your belly or maybe even two since Mommy said sometimes woman have two babies at the same time. I often wonder why she made me bigger than Mosyakov. Maybe she was in a hurry. Later I would discover that the helper we called Daddy was not our father. It did not matter to us because Mommy knows where the good stuff to eat is and has always taken care of us. Her mother taught her which green things that grows on the ground and some things that grow under the ground. She is so smart, and every time she gets some green things, she shows Mosyakov and me. Mosyakov does not pay attention, as she wants to eat it. I asked Mommy, Why don’t we hide from Mosyakov? Mommy tells me, Because. Therefore, it looks like she is staying with us. Mommy has some long stuff she calls a rope. She made them, and she ties Mosyakov on the tree branch at night. She also puts a rag over her mouth anytime she makes noise during the day. Mommy wants us to be as invisible spirits as we wonder from hill to hill, going way up then way down. Mommy learned about these desolate places, and that is why I think we may be the only people alive. Sometimes Mommy makes what she calls a bow and arrows. She will practice shooting them and then put us in a hole that she finds or behind some big rocks, and then she is gone until the sun gets in the middle of the sky. She then most often comes back with many little rabbits. She is good with the sharp rocks around her and some bones of big animals that used to live. She takes the big bones, rubs them against rocks, and makes them sharp. Mommy can cut the rabbit open and take away the poopy and pee-pee parts. We eat the rest. If we are hungry, she and I will take rocks and mash the bones into little easy-to-swallow pieces. Mommy tells us that the bones are good for our bones. She takes their hairy skins and makes some clothes, shoes, and hats for us with a skin bag to carry them. I carry our clothes when we are running, as Mommy has to carry Mosyakov. Mommy does not like to wear many clothes because it makes it harder for her to run and hunt. She says men only have to wear skins over their pee bugs because they are different. She tells us they are filled with poison. This will hurt us, and to never look at them, because if you do, maybe the spirits will make you do strange things. We girls have to cover our pee bugs and our top brown spots because when boys see them, it makes them crazy. I can understand why she likes to keep us in secret places because with all us of being girls, we might drive a whole bunch of boys crazy. I have often wondered how Mommy really got not only so smart, yet also be the strongest person I ever knew. Her daddy named her Salko; nonetheless, we are not allowed to call her that. We must call her Mommy because she said we came from in her belly. I so often think it strange that I cannot remember ever being inside her. She tells that we were kickers and used to kick her backbones. I tell her I was sorry; nevertheless, Mosyakov has not told her yet. I think she will when she learns more words. Before the suns go away at night, she will teach us words. Mommy says maybe someday we will meet some nice people. I have been living for twelve winters now, at least that is what Mommy tells me, and I have never seen a nice person yet. I think something like that would be fun. Our mommy is dedicated to us and truly wants to be with us until we get big. She tells me this is a rare thing because the bad beasts usually catch us before we get that old as they got her mommy. They take the girls away, but for some reason, they kill the boys and leave them on the ground. She is not going to tell us anymore because it might make us see bad things at night when we are sleeping. She also does not like us to see the stars at night when we are sleeping. The trees usually have many leaves and sometimes a bird’s nest where we can eat some eggs. Mommy believes the trees are safer because the bad beasts ride horses and do not like to climb trees. Caves are too dangerous because of bears, snakes, and the beasts will block the front and then make a fire that burns from dried grass. The fire then makes a new colored thick, stinky air that makes the people in the caves come out into the beasts’ traps. They always stop at every cave, and someone is caught each time. When we see the funny colored air go up in the sky, we hide and are very quiet. Even a movement that makes the birds fly up could be trouble. If we are in a steep area high up and behind some rocks, we are safe. The beasts do not want to get off their horses and climb the cliffs. Another thing Mommy is real serious about is when we have to poopy or pee pee, we all do it at the same time in a small hole she digs. This is so the beasts cannot find us. They will see that and know what we have been eating and almost how far we have gone. In addition, insects swarm around this, making it so easy for the beasts to see. Today is going to be an easy day for us. Mommy tells me that she sprained her ankle on a rock and wants to rest it today. She tells me about a berry patch two trees over and for me pick them for us to eat. She was correct in about all things, and we had some nice mountain berries today. I had to ask her how she knew about the berries. She tells me that when we were coming down the hill, she saw them. Her eyes are like the eyes of some of those eagles that like to fly around up there. Those eagles are strong, and that is why we keep hold of Mosyakov so they do not take her. There are so many things that Mommy tells me that I have not seen yet. Mommy tells me it is best that we do not see them. Today, the suns (see map index) are making a whole bunch of hot, so we have to stay under the leaves in the shade as much as possible. Tomorrow, we are going to play in the water. Mommy wants to put her ankle in the water a long time to help it heal faster. When the suns are in the middle of the sky, Mommy likes us to take naps, if we can. This way our bodies can change what we ate into poopy and we will be rested. It is important to always have energy because if you do not and the beasts show up, ouch. Everything I know and do has been taught to me by my mother, for she has made my mind. She very much wants to care for and have us in her life. The way her eyes lighten up each day tells her story. Family is everything to her, and we are her only family. Her brothers, sisters, and parents are all dead. The beasts got them. The days will be getting shorter soon as we will start drifting down some toward the lowlands. We are very careful where we go down at, since Mommy scouts the area very good by looking for poopy and footprints to ensure no horses, people, or beasts have traveled through the area. Even if they are over one moon old, we have to worry about them, because with mountains, what goes up will come back down. We eat many leaves, as overall they are cleaner than much of the ground foods unless there has been some rain. Leaves can also be eaten while in the trees. We learn what to eat by watching the animals. The fast ones like deer, and the horses ridden by the beasts, run fast; and they eat grass. We like the yellow grass more, yet we only get it in the fall when we leave the high mountains. I love looking back at our summer homeland. It rises to the top of the sky. The mountain in front of us is much higher, and it has no trees, just lifeless rocks. Those are the mountains we stay away from because on the other side is flatlands, a few rivers, and a giant ocean. The beasts live on the other side of the long river. They ride their horses all the way to our steep mountains, then venture into our little haven, and get their food from us. They should be able to have food from all the lands they have, yet they want to have food from this land also. They are very greedy and bad, as greedy people always pay in the end. My summers are as if I was living among the clouds, as many mornings I could see the clouds below us. That is when it is important to walk with a stick because the ground can disappear so fast. Our skin is tough as the summers in the mountains are cold, and the winters in the lowlands are cold. The cold lands are harder to find food; however, it is also harder to find people in which we do not want to find. I do wish our pee bugs will not make the boys so crazy, for whoever makes us like this is bad. We have a strong mommy to protect us so we can survive by staying away from the boys. I saw a little boy once when I was hiding in a tree. He looked nice and did wave at me with a smile. I remained froze because I did not want to make him crazy. He then tried to show his daddy who told him, Little girls do not live in trees, now let’s go. He hit the little boy and pulled him by his hair. I am lucky that our mommy tries never to hurt us. She tells us that when you love your babies, you could not hit them. I am glad she thinks like this. My skin bag is getting heaver now, and Mommy has a skin bag. She put a lot of our animal hides together with some thread she made from drying thin vines to make us two blankets, one for her and one for Mosyakov and myself, although we most of the times sleep on Mommy’s and share our blankets. The nights in winter are very cold since we are still in the lower parts of the highlands, as no one lives past the dividing mountains except for the beasts. The bitterness of the nights feels as if the world has stopped all movement. The cold has a deep bite to it. I never did like it as I can still remember last winter. I know what is ahead, and I do not like it; however, we are still alive and Mommy truly knows best. She reverses her strategy in the winter, as we stay in caves. The beasts are seldom in these hills in the winter, so we do not have to worry about being trapped. In addition, we can feel the thunder of their horses on the cave’s floor and thus get a jump back up to the cold places. Luckily, we have never crossed that bridge. Sometimes it snows even above my head, and when the wind blows, it goes over Mommy’s head. The inside of our caves are so much better than outside our caves. These caves feel like mansions to Mosyakov and me. Mommy drags in a big deer today for some meat for us to eat. She gets it shooting her bow and arrow. Then she hangs it by a rope on a tree branch and takes out its poopy and pee things while also letting all the blood drain out. The other animals like mountain lions can smell the blood and will follow it to get the meat. She can pull the deer on the snow easy as it slides behind her as she runs. This woman runs all the time, as she also makes us run everywhere. We all have to be thin and fast if we are to live. Mosyakov is learning to run now. We will go much faster once she runs with us. We have spent other winters in this cave. At least it gives us some relief from the cutting winds. It is beside a nice lake so we can get plenty of cold water. A nice stream runs into it, and its overflow runs down a waterfall on the other end to keep the water running and not freeze up as fast. It has a rock stream beside it that we can walk in and prevent exposing our tracks. If we walk back into the cave, it is cooler. Mommy keeps a lot of our deer meat hidden back there. Once it is frozen, no longer does it have a smell, which helps keep away the predators. If the beautiful white trees and ground were not cold, it would be wonderful. I like the color white better than green. Movement is easier to see in white than green; however, if a white object does not move, it is hidden. Mommy found some white fur from a dead bear two years ago. She made us some white animal fur from it she discovered floating in the lake. He must have died far away and floated here. Mosyakov and I each have a special white coat that we must wear when the ground has snow. We keep the coats in the back of the cave when we leave in the summer. We have a lot more freedom when we stay here even though Mommy keeps her eyes on us. She watches her little people since sometimes we might make a mistake. In addition, wild animals are more afraid of her than they are of us. Our whole lives have been blessed by knowing Mommy is here. Sometimes I think she has an invisible rope that holds us all together. I hope I am a good mommy if I ever become a mommy. I do not think I will ever have children, in that I am going to hide from the boys for the remainder of my days. I asked Mommy if that was possible, and she tells me, All the little girls say that until a boy puts his magic spell on her and bites her with the baby bug. It must be a very powerful magic spell if it got Mommy. Thus, I know how dangerous and powerful it really is. Babies can be a good thing to have because you always have someone to talk to, eat with, and sleep with. You can do everything together. Since we have plenty of leaves that Mommy found in a nearby valley and we also have our deer meat, she is spending more time in the cave with us. She wants us to exercise every day; thus, we are going for walks to the other parts of the cave. She makes a pile of rocks when we turn into a side tunnel. We then go to the end of our pile of rocks and start making more piles. We are deep inside. Mommy can see perfect in the dark, and for these trips, she does tie us to her. A kid could get lost down here and never be found again. Keeping this in mind, we hold on to Mommy’s rope, making sure it does not come loose. As we are going down, Mommy hears what she says is running water. She thinks it is maybe one more hour ahead of us. She is afraid that this it too far from our entrance without making some security arrangements like moving the meat and our fur clothing much deeper into our cave. She never likes to take chances as one miscalculation and the game is over. As we get to within about thirty minutes of our cave entrance, she hears noises from the ground. She unties us and says for us to stay here. She will throw our meat and clothes down if danger is near. She tells us that if she misses, do not go after them. We will go together. Then like a snake, her thin body weaves its way back to the top. We hope she does not throw anything down, as that would mean danger. She makes it to our entrance where she can see the beasts coming from the other side of the lake. They will come to this cave, so she must make the front part look empty. We never stay in the front part, so we are safe from that part. Now she knows we will be down deep in the cave for some time, so she is now throwing our meat and furs down as fast as she can. She never spreads things out to much, always trying to be ready to move if necessary. Without a doubt, it is necessary now. She has boxed herself in a cave; and for the first time, she can ever remember the beasts are raiding in the snow. As she is coming down, she makes one more adjustment. She rearranges her stones in front of the other entrance that goes down a sharp cliff. This tunnel has always been off-limits to us. She walks into it then jumps up and, with one leg on each wall, walks straddled along the top back out of the entrance and into her tunnel, about fifteen feet, in case they check to see if there was any activity in this tunnel. She is praying that they go in the wrong tunnel, as many will fall to their deaths. This little firecracker is cracking as fast as she can, as within minutes, we gathered our things, as we whisper to her where they went. She tosses them again much deeper as we begin to make our next descent. Suddenly, she grabs us and puts her hands over our mouths. She has her ears against the cave’s wall. We all now hear banging sound. I never heard this sound before, and Mommy whispers, It is the beasts playing their drums, calling all of them to come together. I wonder why, for I know they would never embarrass themselves asking for help catching girls. I then asked my mother, Why would they be embarrassed fighting girls. You are the strongest person in the whole world. Mommy then pinched my nose and said, At least you think so, honey. All of a sudden, we hear load screaming. This is the screams of men. Next, we see someone’s hand come flying down hitting the wall in front of us. We had never seen something like this before. When the beasts are killing human men, they sling their swords full force at them; and when they cut off body parts, those parts go flying in all directions. They never collect them if they are from male bodies. They really like to drink the blood from these fresh kills, since it is warm, which is always attractive in the cold winters. I never heard of anyone drinking blood before. Mommy always drips the blood out of our animals she gets for us and buries it in a small hole. She believes blood is life, and if we take it, we should put it back into the ground to give life back to our world. Now a man’s head just hits the wall beside me. As it hits me, Mommy comes flying over to me, putting her hand on my mouth. That is good because I am just about ready to scream. I think I have now been touched by a man. I hope he did not put a baby bug in me. Mommy tells me not to worry, the boys have to have their heads on their bodies before they can give you baby bugs. She tells us we have to stay still now; we cannot take a chance on making a noise and have them chasing us. Then some more of the beasts come in screaming. They have lost some of their party to the cliff in the other tunnel, so we can be assured they will not be taking any chances with this tunnel. Nevertheless, they are tossing down hands, feet, and inside poopy parts of the boys. Since it is winter and food is scarce, they will take the boy flesh with them. I really do not want to know what they will do with it. I then ask my mother, What do they do with the girls they catch? Mommy tells me, They take them back to where they came from. Sometimes the girls can walk with their hands tied to, sometimes they put a pole through them, as they did my mother and take them away. Either way, nothing with them is good. We must hide from them at all times. Let’s get our meat and furs and see if we can find the water. Thus, we started to go down deeper and deeper; however, Mommy had us tuck in under a little ledge she found. During the next several minutes, heads and other body waste parts and extremities continued to fall down. A short while later, Mommy tells us it is okay and away we go. I am so amazed how she knows these things, so I asked her. She tells me that boy groups usually only travel in groups of six to eight, with a couple of them small to get water and such things. She was simply counting heads and body parts. The beasts are fast to clean up their prey and to get back on their horses. They enjoy the hunting and the element of surprise with the fright and flight. The thrills from the look of death on their prey’s faces as they pound down and end their lives gave them the motivation to carry on. They were effective hunters as our people seldom were able to escape once spotted. My mother’s secrets were not ever to be spotted and to be two steps ahead of whatever is behind you. Friend or foe determine when secure. Sounds like good ideas to me. Those beautiful white trees on the surface now feel to be miles and miles above. We are now at our farthest depth and have all our furs and meat. We are no longer going down for now we are walking straight through a semidark tunnel. I look over and notice Mommy sweating. I think this is strange since this cave has been so darn cold. I ask her, Why are you sweating? She asks me the same question, and I discover the reason I have been cold was from the sweat soaking my skin. I do not understand why we are so warm now. Even Mosyakov must take off her white heavy fur coat. She asks Mommy if there are any boys down here because she does not want to excite them. Mommy tells her to stay close to her and we shall see. She is wrapped tight by her arms around Mommy’s leg. She is not going anywhere. I just cannot remember being this warm during the winter months, actually even most of the summer months. Even Mommy has to remove some fur due to the warmth here. She said since we are safe from boys and so hot, we can take our shirts off. Mosyakov is so happy now. Then I looked at Mommy’s big bumps on her chest, then looked at mine, and started to look sad. She tells me, Prikhodko, do not be sad, this is only your thirteenth winter. When you get to your twenty-eighth winter, we will be twins. I think to myself, Oh no, that is an eternity away. We are lucky there are no boys here because if they saw Mommy, they would go crazy indeed. Mommy tells me that my bumps are getting big very fast. Mosyakov is very sad because she has no bumps at all on her chest. Mommy also tells me that I might have another surprise in the new future that she has to talk to me about. She is going to wait until I get the surprise, so I do not worry about it. How can I not worry about the suspense? At least I have something to look forward to receiving. Now, I can understand why she has two little girls, because those boys must have hit her very hard with those baby bugs. I know every boy in the world would want to go crazy over our mommy, yet the only thing in all her world is Mosyakov and me. Maybe it is something that happens in the belly when making babies that causes you to love them so much. Actually, it seems like a lot of work over little people. Mommy says it is because she made our bones and faces and all those things in her belly and that it is really a gift to get little people to give all your love. We know she loves us especially when we see her in pain pushing hard to keep us safe and fed, minute by terrifying minute. She tells us now that the eight heads that were thrown in the hole of the cave were eight men that wanted to get and hurt her. The beasts caught them because they became careless in their greed. They wanted something they did not need. That is why she only keeps absolutely only what she needs. Keeping extra things of no value is one way of saying, I wish to suffer a painful death. We are all so happy just not to be cold. I hope Mommy’s face will change back to its mountain color rather than this burned red from the cold winds. The three of us are so used to being wrapped around each other we decide not to separate. Cold together, hot together is the way we shall go. Mommy found some fur she was keeping in case we had a real cold night or one of us lost a fur and making some tops for us. She says girls must be careful not to get the cave excited, for everything a girl does, the whole world knows. I wonder how this can be. However, she is a big grown girl, so she knows everything. We have to be careful about things like this because she tells me about a woman that had eight girls. She had been bitten by the good baby bug, as Mommy was bitten twice by the good bug. Boys come from the bad baby bugs. Mommy tells me the bad thing about that woman is the beasts took all eight of her girls. Those beasts are very bad, as those bad boys discovered today in our cave. The warm cave offers something else to go with the warm air, that is warm floors and walls; and even when I touch the top of this cave, it is warm. I want to investigate the great wonder that we have discovered. I should not say we discovered, for Mosyakov and I were sleeping when Mommy was exploring, in her calculated increases, in distance. She pushed harder into the unknown, and we are rolling in a treasure house now. Everything is warm now, and although I see no light, it is not as dark as the other parts of this tunnel are. Mommy is wrapping our meat tight into our coats so that is will last longer. I hope it does last a long time, because I can feel blood going inside my bones again, if that is possible. Cold, go away, and with me again never play. We keep on moving, since Mommy does not want to be in a situation that has no escape route planned. Our cave is now high enough that Mommy can stand up. As she goes to stand up, I can see some pain in her eyes, so I grab her and start rubbing her back. Mosyakov also joins me. We seem to have a wavelength on Mommy’s well-being; and if there is something we can do, we try to do it. Mommy drops to the warm rock floor of this cave as we both are now down with her, rubbing her back. We see her smiling, and we both get very happy. Soon she tells us, Those precious little hands have put magic into my back, and I am new again. We look at our hands in surprise for we never knew they had magic in them. We are now very happy because our magic hands can make Mommy feel better. Mommy now says she needs our magic kisses. This mommy is so lucky to have magic daughters for sure. As Mommy gets up, we wipe the dust off her long powerful legs. She carried me until I was big enough to run, then she was bit again by the baby bug and now is carrying Mosyakov only when we must go fast. I tell her she must always carry Mosyakov because when she stops, she might be bitten again by that baby bug. She tells me that might be the best advice she has received in years. Notwithstanding, for this she gave us both big kisses. I truly know that if Mosyakov and I had a choice of food or a mommy kiss, we would take the mommy kiss. Nevertheless, we have gone to sleep at night with only a mommy kiss to put some love in our empty bellies. We honestly do not care. She is trying so hard against a world that wants to take her life and body after they fill it with baby bugs. I remember seeing some other mommies a few times, and they were ugly. Mommy tells me it is a bad thing for a woman to be pretty like us. All the girls hate you and the boys only want to hurt you. It is better for a pretty girl to lie down and let a lion eat her than to have boys behind her. I think a lion eating me would hurt worse because if boys were behind me, I would use my legs that are made like Mommy’s and run very fast. Sometimes when we are about to go to sleep, Mommy will put her legs beside ours, and we will look for the things that are the same. It is the little things like the shape of our kneecaps and which toes are shaped the same. This is hard to explain; nevertheless, when we put them in line, we all can see the things that are the same. We know for sure we came from inside Mommy. She tells us that some children also have daddies, yet our daddy is gone. She does not know where he went. She thinks the beasts killed him. Then we had a second pretend daddy. He was nice, and I did like him. He knew many fun games to play. That always made Mommy angry because she said, We need to be careful, because death was hanging over our heads. I think she moved us in time; however, death also got him. She cried when we found his head cut off and thrown on the ground. Death truly was hanging over our heads then. After that, we went very high into the mountains. The secret to living up there is the ability to go without food for many days. That is when we learned to put grass and weeds into our bellies. At least this made our bellies work. I sometimes also feel sorry for Mommy when she carries too much for too long. She will have blood run down her legs. She has special furs that she wraps around herself to hold her sore part tighter so the bleeding will slow down. Usually in a few days, she is back to normal. I would be so scared if something broke inside of me as often as it does inside her, yet she never complains. She finds a stream somewhere with some rocks and cleans that special fur and then strangely puts it back in her carrying bag, as if she knew it could happen again, which for some strange reason does. She is still alive so that is the important thing. It is rather strange that I be thinking about that as she calls me to walk with her, going just around the bend. She tells Mosyakov to stay beside our meat and to protect it, giving her a stick. We walk around the bend to an area that appears to have more light. She asks me to sit down. She then sits down and pulls her emergency rag out with blood on it. I start to cry, Mommy, are you okay? She smiles and kisses my forehead and then tells me, Prikhodko, I am okay. This is why I must talk to you. Since your bumps are getting big like mine and your winters are now many, you will soon be a young woman who the baby bugs will be chasing. Just about each moon, our bodies clean out the yucky stuff we breathe in from the air that the boys breathe out. I always tell you girls something else because I wanted your baby years not to be occupied worrying about this. You must always make sure to keep yourself clean. I always use the same rag, washing it in water each day. Wash it in water, and if you use rocks, make sure the rocks are put back in under the water. Clean all blood from the ground. Wild animals and the killing beasts can smell your blood, and that will make it easier for them to capture you. I want to keep you around many more winters so I can love you a whole bunch more, okay, baby? I look at her, now scared, because that thing will soon start happening to me. She gives me a special fur she had prepared for me with strings around it so I can use it many days in a row, if I have to. This stuff is starting to get strange for me. It appears as if everything wants to get us caught. I am now even more amazed that the three of us are still together. This woman has devoted every fabric of herself for her little family. All this stuff confuses me. One minute I have magic hands, and the next minute I bleed every moon. It may be the mission of my life to tie it all together. Moreover, when I do tie it all together, is that when it all falls apart? I now think that by not using my entire mind to fight off the bitter cold, I am using the warm to drive myself crazy. Who we are must be a screwed-up question. We are bags for pain and can only have love if we pay for it with everything we have. Mommy has our real love because we can feel ourselves inside her. When she hurts, we hurt; when she is happy, we are happy. Strangely, I know I actually have things that are more important to do now like hoping this warmth does not leave until summertime. I really do not know if Mommy can stay in one place that long. I know she would love to do so; however, the ghosts of death are just around the bend, she is always telling us. They are ghosts so I cannot look around the bend and see. I will take her word for it, since I believe it will be a long time until I see her head being thrown away, which is what we savages have to look forward to. We do not know what savages mean except the beasts like to yell, Die, you worthless savages, when they swing their sword to behead another helpless person begging beneath them. Mommy tells us that her uncle bit the beast that tied him in the leg so hard the flesh came out in his mouth. The beast screamed in pain yet still had enough consciousness to swing that sword, saying, Die, you animal. They were so proud that beast could no longer walk in this mission. No one knows if it came back for more killing, because one can never hope to see that many raids without leaving your dead body to show for it. I am so amazed that we are able to stay just ahead of all this killing and misery and now we are staying just below it as the heads that bounced around us in this cave remind us. I do not even know what these people are like. I just see the leftover hands or sometimes a handful of long female hair where a beast pulled it out of her skull trying to chain her. I have figured out that blood must be important and it must be kept inside or released in a precautious method, as Mommy taught me for when I get the woman thing. Blood flowing from my pee bug, blood spilling when something cuts me, men searching for us to enjoy our blood in pain, and the beasts taking our blood from us must be the woman thing. I am old enough to know that not only women bleed. Nevertheless, I wonder, do we even have a chance? Mommy did tell me that the first time the boys give us the baby bug, they will make us bleed. Hey, boys, here I am. Do you want to watch me bleed? Will that make everyone happy? As each day, each moon, each winter goes by, I become even more confused than before. How can we even think of enjoying this nice warmth, deep under the surface, when our creator has created us in such a manner we must go back to the surface to survive? An even greater question is then, why should we fight to survive? Is it to get hugs from babies that just about everybody wants to kill? I have wondered why Mommy just does not try to kill us first with her bows and arrows. She tells me that honor is a great thing to have, knowing that you do not hurt innocent people. They may hurt you, yet that might does not permit you to kill in cold blood. My mother has many rules; nevertheless, I guess that is what keeps her feet running and her babies alive and still with her. She always tells us that even if all the good in the world is only in her hands, there is still good in the world. We do not need to worry what other people are, if we keep them out of our world. We will always have bad things around us, so we must spend our time searching to find the good things. That is our mission now, to find the good things down here that can keep us alive. We keep walking toward an area that is not as dark and actually, we can now see some light ahead. Mommy tucks us behind some rocks, as she carefully goes ahead to investigate. She suspects it could be an entrance, and if so, we need to bundle up and hit the snow. I personally think that it cannot be an entrance, because if it were, we should have a lot of cold air funneling into this cave tunnel. It is better to be safe than sorry, after all, that is why we are still alive. Mosyakov and I always stay where Mommy puts us, and we stay quiet because we do not want her to be worrying about us while she is scouting, which is a dangerous work. She returns to us standing up, walking in the middle of the cave, smiling. That tells us we are not in danger, yet we must stay put until she actually comes up to us and tells us it is okay. We like to do things the way she likes them done so she will be happy to have good kids. As she walks by, she smiles and says, Okay, pumpkins, help me get our meat and fur to our new camping site. We jump out and rush to help her, even though I still do not know what a pumpkin is. Someday Mommy will show us when we find some growing wild. She tells me the beasts like to take them, remove all the fruit or whatever on the inside, and then let them dry so they can store blood in them for their trip back to where they came from. We now enter a really rather-strange place that has colorful water with giant bird wings coming down from the top. I cannot figure out what the light is on the other side. Mommy is gathering up what I call long bird feathers that are lying on our small beach. We later learn that light was from a crack in the wall, which had a rumbling volcano on the other side. Either way, we had light and a dead end. We can stay here as long as our deer meat lasts. I now wonder if we are in this world’s belly. Mommy now jumps into the water and swims around. She then pops up to the surface and yells, Catch, as she throws two big fish. We see them hit the ground and start flapping. They scare the both of us; however, lucky for us they did not know this, in that as we stood in front of them, they flapped the other way, away from the water. We held the battle line long enough for Mommy to come rushing over and grab the fish. She puts her knee on one and smashes its head with a rock before doing the same on the other one. She found some of the sharp feathers in the water, and as they are hard, she uses them to get the yucky out of the fish and we have some fish with our deer tonight. Before we eat, she takes us to a big round rock that is hot. She throws our meat on the rocks, and soon the deer meat turns brown and the fish looks a soft white. We eat this meat, and it tastes so good. We never had what Mommy calls cooked meat before. We do not mind either way, although Mommy tells us that the cooked may have less bad things in them. The warmth down here can allow the bad things to grow fast in our deer meat so we will have to cook it. She is worried about the fish, since they are the same kind of fish that is available on the surface, which means that if the outside fish got in, other things or dangers could also get in. She shall still look for ways in under the water; however, she thinks since we have had a rather-unusual day today, we can have a nice warm night to sleep. Mosyakov and I jump, each aiming for one of her arms, as she catches both of us; and down we go off to sleepy land. Upon awaking in the morning, we each see beside us our cooked deer meat with some more fish and some slippery green stuff. Mommy only gives us safe things to eat, so we both start chopping away. We cannot see Mommy, so we figure she is under the water. When she returns, I will ask her if Mosyakov and I can go swimming. I will bring Mosyakov because I am scared to swim in new places the first time. Mommy does arrive soon and allows us to swim. She has discovered an entrance, and it leads to another entrance the leads to another that finally has a small entrance into a final long cave that wobbles to the sea. The opening is closed most of the day, only open to the outside during low tide. She tells us where to swim and lays her long slim body on a large rock by the water so she can keep a watch out for us. She knows we have the same curiosities as her, so she accommodates us, as we now go forth for our adventures into the unknown. We see something new and rush to the top of the water to tell Mommy, We saw a rock that has a head that goes out and then in. Mommy rushes in, picks it up, and brings it to our camp. She tells us this is a turtle and it is not small. We had to help Mommy bring it to the camp. She tells us, this is a lot of good food for us. She decides to cook all of this meat just enough to help preserve it a little longer as we will all be eating good for a while. Mommy is always still very tidy in our cave, erasing as much evidence of being here as possible. She tells us that good things do not remain a secret for too long. She has moved our campsite to the other side where it is in direct line with each escape opening. This way if they come one way, we go the other. She is always thinking. The days are going by steadily, then Mommy tells us she loses track of the days, so she will have to sneak up to the surface and look to see if there are any signs to tell her the season. When she goes up, the trees are still without leaves although the grass all look green now. She sees many of the little yellow round flowers that we eat the roots thereof. This tells her that soon it will be time to go back up in the mountains. She slowly glides to the bottom of the lake beside our first entrance, then she swims through the next two, taking breathing breaks of course; and then she swims into our cavity, grabs a few fish, and then comes to our little campsite. She makes a few marks on the ground behind where we sleep and asks us not to bother them. She then starts to gather up our winter furs and says we shall keep them here. She will pull Mosyakov with her, and I will swim beside her. That makes me feel good since she is now treating me like a big girl; however, I do not realize that being a big girl will be so soon. Some of the things she has told me about the world will soon be things in my world, things I do not really want to be a part of my life. Now we are sorting everything out, keeping the things she wants us to take. These are feet furs, two top wrap furs, and two bottom wrap furs that would go into our skin bags. She says we have about another two weeks then we will start back for the mountains. Before we go, she wants us to start running around this lake since we have to build up our wind. Once we hit the outside, we will be moving fast until she gets a feel of the area. She will naturally look out across the valley below and make sure no beasts are in the vicinity. She warns us that the first few nights will be hard, as we will have to get used to the noises again and the chilly winds. We will make it, she tells us—just nature’s way of getting even with us. As we go to sleep in the middle of the night, I feel something run down my leg. Some of it run on Mosyakov, as we are all sleeping so close together. I get up and go over toward the light to see what it is. Oh no, it is blood, this is the blood thing Mommy was talking about. I go back and wake her up. Mosyakov also wakes up. I tell Mommy, She is going to find out with both of us now, and so we might as well tell her so she will not have fear of it as I have now. Mommy looks at me and shakes her head yes. She is always so good about allowing and accepting our suggestions. We get this mess cleaned up, as Mommy puts these rags in the water by our camp to soak before she will finish cleaning them in the morning. Mosyakov is so scared that I spend most of my time telling her it will be okay, thus forgetting how scared I actually am. One down and I hope a lot more to come. Mommy puts her hands on my shoulders and says, Prikhodko is now a woman. Mosyakov asks Mommy, Is it okay if I wait some more time before I become a woman? Mommy shakes her head yes, and we all once again go to sleep. The next morning do not turn out the way we have planned. Mommy makes our morning food, and we eat it. Mosyakov and I start on our run around the lake. When we are on the other side behind the bird feathers, we hear loud screams. We then start walking carefully,