40 CHAPTER 41: HOMELESS CHIKO

Chiko looked around and even walked around several times the same path but he failed to find the farmhouse he was expecting.

Even the small rivers, the usual big fruit trees, the bustling flowers, the different animals that he used to tend to, the small farmhouse and the wooden fence are missing!

"Am I really lost?!" Chiko tried hard to recall if he really did walk the right path and his memories can confirm it.

"Aha! I think I know what to do!" Chiko immediately said to himself. He remembered his grandmother's words that in any case he got lost in the woods, all he needs to do is to take off his shirt and wear it inside out!

He closed his eyes and slowly wore his shirt in an unusual manner, the moment he opened his eyes, he realized that he was still in the same place. Chiko is now really confused.

He sat on the ground helplessly. His spirits are down and his eyes have tears slowly creeping out.

"I don't understand." Chiko started sobbing. "Where is everybody?"

Chiko missed his grandmother so much. It has been a few weeks since she died and was buried in the public cemetery. He missed her care. He missed his grandmother's touch. The soft and calming voice. The hot food she would prepare every time he comes home.

He missed the big trees he used to climb with the green phyton. The small river he used to swim with Lolong the crocodile. The cute oinking sounds of the boar's younglings. And the distant moos of his best friend Birang. The chickens that used to chase after him when he was feeding them. The barks of his dogs. They are all gone.

Chiko missed everything and everybody. He has never been so lonely in his life before. He is just alone, in the middle of the dead forest, with no one to talk to, and no one to listen.

It was a creepy and depressing place.

"Granny..." Chiko missed his granny the most. Without her, his life feels like nothing. Realizing that even the farm where he used to live with his granny is now gone, Chiko lost his motivation to live.

He does not have a clear idea of where to go now.

"I want to go back," Chiko said as he sat over a dead tree.

"You cannot go back. You have to go forward my prince."

suddenly an unexpected voice came from behind. It was an old and calm voice. Chiko was startled and immediately looked at the direction of the voice.

An old man is standing not far from behind him. He is a bald man about eighty or ninety years old and was standing with crouching back and a brown complexion.

He was wearing a shining white robe with dangling earrings. Chiko can see the tribal tattoos all over the old man's body except for his head. The man exuded majestic aura and Chiko knows that this person is not just an ordinary person.

The mysterious old man smiled at Chiko wholeheartedly as if seeing a king and bowed before him like a slave.