There was one young boy of only six by the name of Nim who could recognize the evil around him for what it really was. It repulsed him. He dreaded the day of homecoming. The heads terrified him, and the stench of death turned his stomach. Nim loved the other children in the compound and the motherly figures who took care of him. Their compound had dozens of women which meant there were dozens of children.
While there were some who seemed to love the cruel and grotesque practices of their culture, many were just as scared as he was. They dreaded joining the military. They were frightened of the lifeless faces on the body-less heads. These children wanted to play and laugh and learn like any other child. Instead they were spat upon or kicked aside if they were ever seen. Detesting the men who were returning from war. The men they were destined to become.
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One unfortunate evening, Nim was in the kitchen when the men returned. While he hid out of sight he saw the men beat the eunuchs and concubines before taking them away to have their way with them.
It scared him so much that he ran away. He didn't know where he was running until he reached the edge of the river. He felt safer there than at the compound, so he stayed there until morning. Too young to fully recognize the danger of the wild beasts of the land, but wise enough to know the beasts of his home were worse.
This became a place of refuge for him.
Nim quietly retreated to this spot over the next five years each time there was a homecoming of warriors. He escaped the stench of death and the victorious bon fire rituals.
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"Adah, you need to comply or your beating will be worse. The king is god and this is his direction." Mahlah advised her friend.
"Oh, Mahlah, there is no god. Not on this earth or in any other realm. If there were a god we wouldn't be put through all of this." Adah refuted.
Nim overheard this debate and made him think about God in a wholly new way. A god in any other realm? He had never considered this. He pondered on this often and found himself hoping it were true and finally decided to try talking to it.
One evening when he had escaped to the waterside. He figured that if it were at all possible for there to be a god in any realm, then it might be possible for it to hear him.
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When Nim finished his prayer he stood up and looked at the water rushing past him. An overwhelming feeling of peace entered his heart and mind and goosebumps raised on his skin. As he turned away from the seaside an angel appeared to him.
"Blessed are you, Nim. You have shown great faith. God knows you and loves you. He is proud of you."
Nim's mouth fell open.
The angel continued, "You will construct a vessel."
"What's a vessel? And how do you make one?"
"You have the resources around you. It must be air-tight and modeled after the design which I will show you."
Nim was utterly exhausted after this interaction that he fell to the earth and slept for two days. When he awoke he thought it had been a dream. But then the reality of it set in and he felt the urgency to go and tell his peers at the compound.
When he stumbled back into the compound he confided first in his closest friend, Mara, a girl a few months younger than him. She was the only one who had noticed him missing. She had worried that he had been trampled or taken when he didn't return after the first day. She advised him not to tell anyone else or he would be killed. She had so many questions.
"Are you sure it was an angel? How do you know it wasn't evil?"
"Yes. I know it was and I cannot deny what happen. He stood in front of me in the air, surrounded by light. He spoke to me and taught me about God."
"But how will building a vessel help us?"
"Yeah... I thought that was a very strange, too."
Nim was dumbfounded as to why this was the answer to his prayer. How on earth is a vessel supposed to help him? Much less save his people.
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