“Ocha… Is there any rope or something to bind them with?” Felzein inquired, his voice calm yet urgent.
A flicker of remembrance crossed Rosa’s face, “There’s some beneath the cashier’s drawer. Hold on! I'll fetch it,” she replied swiftly, striding purposefully towards the front room.
No sooner had Rosa passed through the doorway to the middle room than a sudden, piercing scream rent the air.
“ARGH!!!”
The room fell into stunned silence. Felzein and the others froze. What had befallen Rosa?
“What is it, Ocha?” Melati asked, rushing to her side.
“ARGH!!! Dewi!!!” came the anguished cry.
Melati’s voice joined the desperate scream as her eyes fell upon Dewi, lying motionless upon the floor.
“Someone! What happened to Dewi?!” Felzein demanded, still pinning Abdi firmly to prevent any struggle.
“She’s fainted!” Rosa gasped. “Doctor Cherlyn, please, help her!”
Cherlyn hurried forward, with Rasya and Wina close behind, their focus finally drawn from the skirmish to this new crisis.
Cherlyn knelt down beside Dewi with swift, assured movements.
Her fingers found Dewi’s neck, seeking a pulse with practiced precision.
Then, moving to the wrist, she confirmed the steady, faint thrum of her heartbeat.
Holding Dewi’s wrist firmly, Cherlyn leaned in to scrutinise her breathing. Gentle, slow, but regular.
Carefully, she brushed Dewi’s hair aside, exposing the nape of her neck.
Her keen eyes caught sight of a faint, bluish bruise on the lower right side.
With tender pressure, she palpated the injury, measuring its severity with professional exactitude.
Dewi appeared to have been struck unconscious by one of them, Cherlyn observed, her voice calm yet resolute.
“There’s a faint bruise on the lower right side of her neck.”
THWACK!
Felzein’s fury erupted, “You! Did you knock Dewi out?!”
Abdi, still pressed face-down on the floor, was slammed repeatedly as Felzein drove his head into the ground.
Once, twice, again and again.
Rosa and Melati exchanged anxious glances, rushing to intervene.
“Enough! Felzein, stop! You're going to kill him!” Rosa implored, desperation tinging her voice.
“And what happens to you if you end up behind bars?” Melati added, pleading.
Abdi, despite his position, laughed bitterly, “Go ahead, try and finish me off! Melati’s right! You’ll be the one locked up,” he sneered.
THWACK!!!
“Quiet!” Rosa and Melati snapped.
No longer able to contain themselves, Rosa and Melati struck in unison, their blows landing heavily on the back of Abdi’s head.
“UGHHK!”
Abdi’s head jerked violently, his body tensing briefly before convulsing. His mouth gaped open as consciousness slipped away.
“He’s dead!” Rosa and Melati cried out in horror, their voices shrill with panic.
They trembled uncontrollably, faces drained of colour, eyes wide with disbelief at their own actions.
Felzein moved swiftly, pressing fingers to Abdi’s neck for a pulse before placing his ear against his chest to confirm his heartbeat.
Moments later, he lifted his gaze, expression unreadable as he met theirs.
“He’s merely unconscious,” he said plainly, offering them a fragile thread of relief.
“Thank God!” they both breathed, collapsing as though a great burden had been lifted.
Felzein shook his head slowly, a long breath escaping him.
Only minutes before, they had begged him to temper his wrath.
Now, it was they who had rendered Abdi senseless.
The irony was so profound, Felzein was left uncertain whether to laugh or marvel at the cruel twist of fate.
“Enough... Ocha, fetch me some rope,” Felzein said after a brief pause.
Rosa nodded and hurried to the front room. Before long, she returned, clutching a length of coarse twine.
“This is all we have, Felzein,” she offered, holding it out.
Felzein cast a sidelong glance at the rough cord, one brow arching in mild disbelief.
“Raffia string?”
“Heh… it’s the best we’ve got,” Rosa replied with a teasing smile, attempting to ease the tension.
Felzein exhaled slowly, conceding with a faint shrug, “Better than nothing, I suppose,” he murmured, and bent down to begin binding Abdi’s still-unconscious wrists.
But then his hand faltered, the twine still loosely held yet left unused.
His gaze grew piercing, as though weighing thoughts far weightier than mere restraint.
“Why did you stop?” Melati asked softly, apprehension threading through her voice at the subtle shift in his demeanour.
Felzein turned his head slowly, a shadow of a smirk curling at the corner of his mouth.
“I have a method that’s decidedly more... effective,” he said quietly, eyes fixed unwaveringly on the prone figure of Abdi.
“What kind of method?” Melati pressed again, her tone trembling with a mixture of concern and curiosity.
Felzein offered no immediate reply. His eyes swept over each face in turn before he crouched beside Abdi’s inert form.
“Pay close attention,” he murmured, his voice low but laden with intent.
Without haste yet with startling precision, he hauled the unconscious bodies of Welly, Diga, Gaga, and Aryo one by one, dragging them into a circle around Abdi.
Their backs were propped against one another, forming a crude ring of fallen men.
Then came the binding, not crude, makeshift knots, but a methodical design, as though conjured from a tactical manual unseen by most.
It was a seamless fusion of mountaineering ingenuity, prusik knots, constrictor loops, and tension hitches interwoven with deliberate care.
He handled the raffia cord not as if it were cheap plastic twine, but a repurposed survival rope.
Each wrist was tightly bound and linked across to its counterpart, forming a web of reciprocal restraint.
At the centre, he fashioned a convergence knot, a pivotal axis to which every strand paid tribute.
And then, the finishing touch, a cord so fine it might have gone unnoticed, coiled deftly around their chests and secured to slipknots just beneath each man’s nose.
These were not simply knots, but mechanisms.
Should one of them move, just once, the tension would draw sharp against the face, pressing into the tender space beneath the nose, both painful and suffocating.
It was elegant, ruthless engineering. A net of pain held in stillness.
Felzein stood at last, casting a brief glance down at his work, his breath slow and steady.
“If even one of them moves,” he said coolly, “they’ll all pay the price.”
Rosa and Melati stood frozen, eyes wide, heads slowly shaking, as if reality itself had been upended before them.
And within the hush that followed, a silent question bloomed in both their hearts.
Who was this man?
Only days before, he had crafted a miraculous balm that could heal deep bruises in seconds.
They had followed him to his home, only to discover a hidden laboratory, a sanctum of instruments, chemicals, and notes scribbled in an arcane script that defied understanding, as though belonging to another dimension.
And now, this Felzein had defeated five grown men without aid, dropped them one by one, then ensnared them in a trap that would have confounded any military strategist.
What kind of past did such a man carry behind his tranquil eyes?
Was he some disavowed operative, a reclusive genius, or something else entirely?
Perhaps he was not meant to be ordinary at all. Perhaps he had come into this world with a purpose no one yet understood.
A man whose gifts, knowledge, and strength outstripped what the world dared call human.