The Forsaken

and teeth throb, and I clutch my face.
    Right then I spot Gadya racing out of the trees ahead of us. Behind her come more hunters from the village. They’re heading in our direction, streaming toward us.
    We’ve been rescued.
    The fireworks cease, but the strange noise continues. Its pitch and volume make it hard to think.
    “Whatever you do, don’t move!” Gadya yells at me, as I start to realize we haven’t been rescued at all.
    Zebra-face turns to run, outnumbered and evidently frightened by the noise above us. David tries to rub the red paint off his face, but it just smears. And even though he has dropped his spear to show his peaceful intentions, I know that the villagers don’t realize his identity. They start racing toward him, weapons drawn, about to attack.
    Unless he starts running too, someone is going to kill him by mistake. They think he’s a drone, instead of a normal kid who was forced to act like a drone in order to stay alive and reach our camp.
    “It’s okay! He’s one of us!” I yell, but nobody is listening to me. “He’s on our side!”
    Then, inexplicably, both lizard boy and zebra-face fall to the ground, like an invisible force has shoved them down onto the dirt. David scrambles sideways, trying to get to the safety of the forest before a stray arrow from a villager can hit him. Zebra-face manages to do the same thing, scuttling away toward the trees.
    But lizard boy remains frozen. Pinned to the ground, seemingly by fear. I stand there watching in horror, pressing both hands against my ears.
    “No!” lizard boy screams into the air, like he’s talking to some invisible entity. “Not me! I didn’t do anything!”
    I glance back at David. Zebra-face has found him and is dragging him away into the forest. There’s no way to rescue him. My only hope is that zebra-face and the other drones don’t kill David, and he’s given another chance. Whatever is going on has brought an early end to the raid. With no more fireworks in the sky, the flames in the fire pit are the only source of illumination.
    In addition to the high-pitched sound, I suddenly hear the clatter of military helicopter rotors above us. I glance up but can’t see anything.
    A stark white beam of light abruptly appears. It’s a spotlight, blazing down from a point of unknown origin in the sky. It fixes itself directly on lizard boy.
    “God— No! Please— I’ll go back!” the boy starts screaming loudly. “Just don’t—Just don’t take me!”
    I peer at lizard boy through the beam of white light, squinting to see better. In the brightness, I can see all the holes in his tattered clothes. His emaciated arms are like sticks, and there’s dirt all over him. His hollow cheeks make him look half starved.
    His green face paint glistens in the burning white spotlight. The noise of the rotors is even louder now.
    As I watch, a thick black wire—almost like a tentacle—uncoils from the shaft of white light and races down toward the frozen figure. Another one follows it. Then another. And another.
    Lizard boy has stopped screaming. He’s just gaping in horror at whatever he sees above him in that white light. I wonder why he doesn’t try to run, but obviously he’s panicking. I can’t tell if the tentacles are alive or mechanical. They move with terrific speed, like writhing snakes in search of prey.
    The tentacles wrap themselves around the boy in one second flat, pinning his arms and legs tightly to his body, immobilizing him. He starts sobbing, words giving way to cries of pain and fear.
    The tentacles tighten even more. In an instant he’s jerked upright. For a moment, he dangles a few feet above the ground, like a spider at the end of its web. He opens his mouth to scream, but he can’t get enough air.
    “No,” he mouths.
    Then he’s whipped straight upward into the beam of light, right toward its source.
    The spotlight immediately cuts off.
    The rotor noises diminish, as does the high-pitched whine. Within thirty seconds, the night sky is calm and peaceful again. I hear only a distant thrum as whatever it was moves rapidly onward.
    I sink to the ground, shaking and dizzy. I don’t understand what I just saw.
    What were those tentacle things?
    Why did they kidnap the drone?
    Gadya crouches down next to me. “You okay?”
    “No.” My lips are numb, and my mouth is dry. “What the hell just happened?”
    “We got attacked by the Monk’s drones. From the looks of it, three of ’em almost