death would relieve his misery. His fate was in the hands of these children.
The girl gasped and her eyes flared up with rage. She stalked towards Yeke and snatched the
bow and arrow from his grasp.
“Hey, give that back Oyunbileg!”
“Stop tormenting this poor creature! Look at the state he is in! Do you really think he can hurt
us?” The girl, called Oyunbileg, retorted.
“Um…” The boy’s brows knitted together in contemplation. Then, he flushed and he lowered his
gaze. “I guess not, but if it is a demon….”
Oyunbileg threw a stern stare at Yeke and let out a loud sigh.“ Stop being so impulsive! I’m
going to get Mom and Dad.”
She trudged into the ger, her ponytail swinging.
Oyunbileg came back with her parents momentarily. The man’s face turned deathly pale when
he caught sight of Hamel and the women gawked in disbelief.
Hamel bit his lip and hanged his head low. Was he going to be stared at for the rest of his life?
Always the rejected misfit? The freak?
After they got over their initial shock, they covered their mouths with their hands,
murmuring. Then the man seemed to have made his decision and nodded at whatever the women
was saying.
“Bring the visitor in.”
Hamel felt a wave of relief but also felt as if foreboding things were inevitable.
After Yeke and Oyunbileg helped Hamel into the ger, the family offered Hamel a cup of camel
milk, cheese and oats, the diet of nomads in the Gobi Desert. They gently cleansed and applied an
ointment on Hamel’s wounds.
Hamel wrapped his hooves like hands around the cup then bent over it, savoring the warm
and mildly salty taste of camel milk; it left a lingering sharp taste on Hamel’s tongue.
There was a worn out stove in the middle of the ger, with coal stacked upon it. The flames
glowed and looked like little fingers, bending, twirling and waving. Hamel was mesmerized at the
sight before him, scooted closer towards it, and placed his hooves like hands near the fire. He felt
a warm feeling within, at first it was only a flicker but it swelled more and more. For a moment
all the feelings of sorrow slowly disappeared.
However, Yeke eyed him warily so he grunted, limped away from the fire, and eventually
dozed off into a restless sleep.
“Perhaps I was right about him,” Oyunbileg thought to herself, “He just seems like a poor,
misunderstood creature that is intimidated by this inhumane world. He is spellbound by the fire
just like me, maybe I’m not that odd after all.”
As the sun rose above the horizon, Hamel’s eyes snapped open when he heard footsteps.
He glanced to his right as he saw Oyubileg leaving the ger with a metal bowl. She turned as if
sensing Hamel was awake. She made a beckoning gesture and left.
Oyunbileg was outside milking a camel. Even from afar, Hamel could sense the confidence of
the magnificent creature. When Oyunbileg saw Hamel, her eyes glistened like the flames Hamel
saw last night.
“Did you sleep well?” She enquired tenderly. “I’m truly sorry for our behavior yesterday. I hope
we can be good friends.”
Hamel looked at her, incredulous. There was something so genuine about her smile that Hamel
