Hanamal was born in a small village called Gorob Village located near Walvis Bay.

For as long as he could remember, he never felt like he could fit in with his brothers and sisters.

He was an extremely curious child who constantly hounded his parents with all manners of questions. He would ask them how day and night came to be, why the winds howled during a storm, what was on the other side of the sea, and countless other questions.

Hanamal's parents were constantly pestered with numerous questions ringing in their heads to the point they became fed up with it.

When Hanamal grew older, he began to understand that not even his parents knew the answers to these questions…

Now and then, there would be large groups of people carrying large pouches and bags appearing at their village to sightsee. These people had different skin colors. Instead of a palm black texture, theirs was a strange light color. They also spoke a language he could not understand.

Some of them had pale blue eyes while others had the same black eyes Hanamal had.

Hanamal was mystified by the people who came from the outside world. However, the village elders did not allow children to approach these people. Whenever outsiders came to the village, Hanamal could only observe them from afar.

When Hanamal was around 10 years old, he overheard a conversation between the elders and the outsiders.

Their conversation was conducted via a man with a profession known as “translator”.

Hanamal came to know of this profession known as a translator because the people in the village would always say: Learn another language and you can be the translator in the village to get easy Namibian dollars daily.

Namibian dollar was extremely useful to have.

One day, the translator brought in a group of outsiders. As usual, he took them to the most knowledgeable elder.

“Nasara, these are guests from Mainland China, they're greeting you.”

Nasara was the name of the elder.

“From Mainland China again? Where exactly is Mainland China, how far away is it?” the elder seemed amused.

“Even with the giant winged bird, it took them around fifteen hours to get here!”

“Oh, farther than Angola even?”

“Yes, farther than Angola!”

“Farther than Cameroon?”

“Farther than Cameroon!”

Cameroon was the farthest place that Hanamal and the villagers knew of.

Shortly after that, Hanamal saw the elder ask a follow-up question, “How about children. How many children do these outsiders have?”

“They say they don't have children!”

“How is that possible!” Hanamal saw the color of bewilderment appearing on the elder's expression.

“It's true. They say that children cost a lot of Namibian dollars back in Mainland China. Having children required a great deal of consideration!”

“How can that be? Who's supposed to watch the cows then? We need to have a lot of children so that someone could watch the cows. The more children you have, the more cows you can have, and that leads to more income. How is having children supposed to cost more?”

Hanamal looked at Nasara prattling on and on with a baffled look on his face. He then saw the outsiders who seemed to find the entire ordeal hilarious. He was quickly consumed by an emotion known as shame.

At the time, he was not sure what sort of emotion he was experiencing, but he was able to read the look in the outsider's eyes.

There was a distinct pity in their eyes. They looked at the elder the same way the elder looked at Lilia, Panama, and the other orphans.

The way these outsiders saw it, Hanamal's little village was like an orphan abandoned by the world…

From that day onward, Hanamal was determined that he was going to get out of this village. He was going to leave this place that his parents never ventured out of.

Unlike his equals, Hanamal possessed an unwavering spirit that allowed him to press on endlessly until he achieved his goals.

Little did Hanamal knew, his opportunity arrived sooner than he had expected.

By the time Hanamal was eleven, his father's health condition constantly deteriorated by the day. The entire village was no stranger to occurrences like this.

Some of the people in the village were simply destined to not make it past thirty.

Just as expected, his father heaved his last breath within a few months. His mother followed his father shortly after that, leaving Hanamal with his three elder brothers and two younger brothers.

After losing their parents, the mood in the family continued to grow tense.

To not add to his brother's burdens, Hanamal made up his mind and committed to leaving the village he had spent eleven years in…

Hanamal slowly opened his eyes.

He rose in the pitch-black room and sighed slowly.

For some reason, he continued to dream about the small village he was born in even after thirty years. He dreamt of the blurred faces of his parents…

Hanamal wondered, how were his brothers doing?

He glanced at his clock, it was only 3 o'clock at midnight. There was still some time to pa.s.s before daylight.

Hanamal did not bother turning on the lights. He lit up a cigarette in the dark and let the loneliness course through him.

The world was such a mysterious place. Even though both of his parents were infected with HIV, he was born without any form of disability. It was for that reason that he was able to survive for many years in this world.

Hanamal did more than just surviving. He also got out of Namibia by putting himself through school and getting admitted into the Polytechnic Inst.i.tute of Cape Town University in Rainbow Country.

It was the best university on the African continent.

After graduating at thirty years old, Hanam was recruited into Cape Affix Electronic Technology Company as an electrical engineer.

Who could have ever known what strange mysteries life had in stock for us?

As Hanamal was contemplating all the things he went through in this life of his, his finger holding the cigarette suddenly halted.

He stopped because he heard the sound of the door being unlocked coming from the living room outside his bedroom.

“Clack…”

Human senses tend to be sharper in the dark. Despite being more than ten meters away, he heard the sound of the door being unlocked.

Somebody was trying to break in!

Thief? Robber? Or was it his girlfriend who he broke up with just a few days ago?

As Hanamal was letting his imaginations run wild, he heard a loud crash and the door was swiftly kicked open!

Just how brave was the person coming in?

Hanamal felt his hands tremble, the cigarette slipped out of his hand and onto the bed. Hanamal could hardly be bothered about that. He quickly hopped out of the bed and went for the window!

Before he could crawl out the window, he heard a round of stomping footsteps coming from behind him. It was followed by a big rough arm grabbing him by the back collar and fiercely tearing him off the windowsill!

“Don't kill me, I have no money!” All Hanamal could muster was a terrified shriek before he felt a numbing pain on his head and blacking out.

Hanamal awoke abruptly to cold water being splashed on his face.

There was a terrible, burning sensation in his head as he inspected his surroundings. He noticed that he was tied to a chair. In addition, a cloth which reeked a G.o.d awful stench was stuffed into his mouth.

He found himself in an unfamiliar room with several men in black surrounding him. Right in front of him was a somewhat slouched figure.

Kidnap?

Hanamal felt his heart tightening. He quickly began begging for mercy but the only thing that came out was m.u.f.fled whines.

“Everybody head out first.”

It was then when the slouched figure spoke.

“Yes, G.o.dfather.”

The ferocious group of men in black shuffled out of the room like a flock of sheep. The last one made sure to lock the room after exiting.

The man with the slouched figure began approaching closer. It was only then when Hanamal noticed that the other person's eyes appeared somewhat familiar.

Oh G.o.d… Was not this Dlamini, the Member of Parliament who always appeared on the news?

Dlamini pulled the cloth from Hanamal's mouth and asked in a bizarre tone, “You're Hanamal, the Hanamal born in Gorob Village?”

“Sir Parliament Dlamini!”

Hanamal quickly defended himself. “I was wrong, I swear that I'll never ridicule you online ever again. Although I voted for the current mayor during the election because your proposal was absolute bull- I swear that I'll vote for you if you run again, please let me off the hook…”

Hanamal immediately rambled incoherently, he was not even sure what he just said.

“Enough!”

Dlamini scoffed. “I'll ask you one more time, are you born in a village called Gorob?”

“Yes, I was born in Gorob Village. But I swear in G.o.d's name that I'm not a spy of Namibia!” Hanamal explained himself in a panic.

“D*mn it, don't talk about G.o.d in front of me!”

Dlamini suddenly got angry. Though what exactly provoked him to this degree, Hanamal did not know.

Dlamini sighed heavily when he seemed to catch himself losing his composure, he went on. “Since you're Hanamal, I take it that we have the correct person.”

He turned around and went to the desk where he opened a laptop.

The laptop display showed the Windows interface as was the norm when it was turned on. However, the image quickly flashed and turned into a pitch-black screen with a strange logo on it.

Hanamal was certain that it was not the logo of the computer…

“Good morning, Mr. Hanamal.”

Amid Hanamal's confusion, he heard a voice coming from the laptop. At the same time, he saw a scribbled hand-drawn map appearing on the display.

“Mr. Hanamal, please excuse our unseemly intrusion. If I may ask, where exactly did you acquire this map?”

“This map?”

Hanamal was slightly taken aback when he heard the question. Upon closer inspection of the map, his confusion quickly turned into fright. “How is this possible! I drew this map a few years ago based on what I could remember from my childhood. I never posted it online. How did it end up in your hands?”

“I take it that you're the author of this map then?”

The voice from the computer did not appear to be bothered by the lack of clarity in Hanamal's answer as another question followed. “Are you sure that the contents of the map are true?”

Hanamal hesitated for a moment, but when he saw Dlamini glaring at him at his side, he quickly nodded an answer. “Yes! I discovered the cavern when I was a child, I'm sure of that. Apart from me, there were a few children my age who knew about it as well.”

“A few children your age knows about the cavern as well?”

The person on the other end seemed to fall silent for a moment to allow some time to think when another question followed after. “Do you know their names?”

“Sorry, I'm not so sure anymore…”

Hanamal hastily shook his head. “It was more than thirty years ago and my memory of it is pretty hazy now. If it wasn't for my dream about that cavern I'd have discarded the memory entirely!”

“I see, such a shame.”

The voice on the other hand gave a blank response. After that, it spoke again, “Mr. Dlamini, I'll entrust the delivery to you, I'd hope I can see Hanamal in person in a day.”

“Understood, Lord Judas.”

Dlamini nodded in response and informed obediently, “I already had someone get the flight tickets, you'll see him very soon.”

“Wait!” Hanamal was struck with horror upon hearing their conversation. “Where are you guys taking me?”

“Well, we're bringing you home, of course.”

There was the faintest hint of a snicker in the voice from the computer. The computer turned off on its own after that…