A searing pain ran through my body as I returned to consciousness. I could feel my hair sticking to my clothes from the pool of sweat that I had been lying in for who knew how long for.

There was a short moment of disorientation as I briefly thought that I’d just woken up from a terrible dream, it was the most logical explanation considering what I’d just been through, but I threw away the idea in despair once I opened my eyes.

The ceiling that I woke up staring at was clearly made of mud, and a fire burning in the corner of the room helped me remember everything. My breaths came faster and faster as I quickly remembered what I’d just experienced. The bear-like man, with his enormous mouth, huge teeth, and a roar which had knocked me out, making me taste blood and see stars.

I was too afraid to look around. Was I in the crazy man’s house right now? Shit, shit, shit!

I really didn’t want to die, that guy looked like he could probably eat me, and maybe he did, normal people didn’t grow that big, did they?

Maybe the other huts were just empty, and he’d eaten all of the previous owners himself. Countless theories and thoughts raced through my mind, in time with the unnaturally fast beat of my heart. I quieted my thoughts though and decided that if I wanted more information, I would need to look around, but I would need to be careful, I didn’t know who was in the room with me right now.

I very slowly turned my head, like you’d do if you shifted in your sleep, just in case somebody was watching, I grimaced a little as I did so, my whole body hurt, what the hell had that guy done to me?

I slowly turned my head, taking in a smallish room with a large pile of assorted furs in the corner, a fire with a pot hanging above it. There was one exit, a door shaped gap in the wall with a slab of wood placed over it, but it wasn’t fixed in place by any hinges.

That slab looked heavy, I’d probably struggle to move it on a normal day, let alone when I was feeling as shit as I did right now. The slab which was guarded by a brown-haired woman who was staring directly at me with wide eyes, her expression covered by a strip of cloth.

She took a step towards me, something in her hands, and I scrambled up with my hands outstretched, keeping her back and away. I groaned as I did so, my body was clearly still injured, but I had no idea what was wrong with it.

I stumbled until I pressed my back against the cold wall, propping me up and make me calm down a little. The woman held her hands up, a brown cloth in one hand, which she then pointed at my body. Her intention was clear, she was probably just cleaning and/or tending to his wounds, he didn’t know if they needed that or not. There was a very real limit to the number of sinister activities you could do using a cloth.

I was breathing heavily, but I still wanted to talk to her, I wanted to know what the hell was going on, both with me being here and what the hell happened with that big guy earlier.

“Hah … Hah, who … who are you?” Why the hell was I so out of breath? I’d taken a total of two steps since I woke up.

“Mera. You should really lie back down.”

“Where am I? Who was that guy earlier?” She just motioned towards the bed which I was lying on previously, in answer to my questions, which made me think that she probably wasn’t going to answer any more of my questions. I sat on the bed and told her my name. Gifts generally received a reward, even small ones.

“Alright, fine. My name is Le-George.” My eyes widened. I’d tried to say my name, but it was like someone suddenly doused me with cold water when I tried to, and I lost control of my mouth, it was like I’d started the sentence and someone else finished it.

The woman, oblivious to what was going on inside my head, just started answering my questions. She also started talking in a way in which I was very familiar with due to my high turnover rate, she was in a welcome speech mode.

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“You’re in Green Hill Village, and you know why. You made a choice to be here, and the rest of us made a similar choice at some point in our lives. If you want to tell us your story, you can, but there is no rule requiring you to do so. That ‘guy’ is my husband Alguk, you can apologise to him yourself later at the Feast, but for now, you’re going to need to lie down, your body needs to not waste any energy right now, as its using it all on much more important things like keeping you alive rather than answering questions which you can get the answers for any time.”

I’d always had a weakness for authority, and this woman radiated it like nobody else I’d met in a long time. So I laid down on the bed and did what the scary lady told me to do.

A lot of what the woman had said didn’t make sense, but it made me think a scary thought. Had I known how and why I’d arrived here, but I’d lost the memory somehow? That … didn’t seem so far off of the truth honestly and a lot of what I’d seen so far seemed to support the theory.

Kidnapping and taking someone abroad was a lot of hassle to do to a regular office worker. It was much more plausible that I’d taken a plane abroad, gone hiking in the woods, and tripped and hit my head. But what with all this talk about the ‘Feast’ and mud houses, I was starting to suspect that I was in some sort of Cult town.

I lay down, doing what the scary woman with the even scarier husband told me to do, but while also telling myself to keep an eye out for a way to leave quickly. She rolled up my shirt, putting her cold hands on my honestly extremely flat abdomen. I had my eyes closed but I could feel a warm sensation, following which I could feel my heartbeat sped up. Was she doing some sort of strange massage technique? Either way, I quickly felt very warm and comfortable and the sensation sent me fast asleep.

~

I woke up, the ceiling is the first thing I see, and my entire body feels like I’d just been in the most comfortable bath in the world. I sat up with ease, swinging my legs around onto the floor with no change in my breathing.

The wooden slab which had previously covered the entrance of the door was gone, and the ground outside was dark but lit by bright flickering flames. I got up, marveling at how relaxed I felt compared to earlier, that woman's massage technique was really incredible, it made me wonder why she lived in a mud hut in the middle of nowhere when she could be charging thousands for every session with rich old fat white guys.

I looked around for the source of the fire, and spotted it quickly, it was hard to miss, a towering pillar of red which was blindingly beautiful to look at. Did they do this every night? If so, that would readily explain that burned out remains of a fire I’d seen on my entry into the village, but I could have been out for more than one day so it was useless to speculate.

As I got closer, I could see that people were rushing about, putting seats around the outside of the fire, facing inwards, and cooking food on smaller fires in pots or on skewers. Some people were sitting down, but most were rushing around, trying to do something to help. It was quite wholesome to see. As I approached, one of the shadowy figures looked over and rushed over to stand in front of me. It was that woman from earlier, Mera.

She wordlessly handed me a cloth and pointed to the seats, then left.

I did as I was told, I still had no idea what her husband had done to me, but it frightened me all the same.

I dipped the rag in a bowl of murky blue liquid which she also handed to me, and wiped down the seats. Curiously, the cloth didn’t seem to clean the seats all that much, its main purpose was to make the seats shine a little in the firelight. I moved on once I’d reached diminishing returns with the first stool and moved onto the next seat, an actual chair. Some of the seats seemed to be just wood stumps like from traditional campfires, and some were full chairs, with a rigid back.

I’d made it maybe three-quarters of the way around the circle before Mera came back up to me to take the bowl away. And sat me down in one of the unfinished seats. I watched as a group of people came to the fire and sat down, as someone started walking around with several large plates of food which people would take skewers, soup, and bread off of. People sat down in the varnished seats first, with the people with the better clothes choosing the ones I’d done first, first.

I took a skewer, soup, and bread from the hooded man as he passed me by, nodding in thanks.

I was looking around nervously at this point as I had yet to see the man who attacked me earlier yet. I heard a loud thump next to me, not needing to check to see who had sat down next to me. He didn’t say anything. Neither did I.

The food was ridiculously good, and I was a lot hungrier than I’d given myself credit for.

As the seats filled up, conversations started up, but only after people had finished their food. I’d finished my food, and I didn’t want to be alone with my thoughts, so I turned to the only person who had sat next to me.

“I apologise if I upset you earlier.” Alguk the huge man, just grunted in response. So I continued with my questioning.

“I wanted to ask how you did that thing with your mouth? You know,” I motioned to him by opening my mouth wide and tilting it upwards. The big guy just looked confused for a second with his big furrowed brows and then laughed loudly.

“It’s not a blessing. It’s my bloodline.” He turned away after he finished speaking, leaving me with more questions than answers.

What was a blessing? What was a bloodline? Also, this guy had seemed a lot simpler when I’d spoken to him earlier. But before I could start interrogating the guy much more thoroughly, an old woman stood up and clapped once, silencing everybody, including my thoughts.

She took a step towards the fire, then got down on her knees and clasped her hands together. I’d almost forgotten that this was a cult for a minute there. In unison, people put their bowls and skewers down and stepped forward, falling to their knees, both young and old. I followed along, I stuck out enough here as it was with my clothes being so different from everyone else's cloth garb.

“Oh holy Leon, we beseech you…” They went on and on like that, the older woman leading the rest in prayer, with the rest intoning in low voices after her every line.

I only had one thought though.

‘Why were they praying to me?’