Emily was very tense. The darkness didn't allow her to see practically anything beyond a couple of steps away. It was a bit chilly, and there was a stale but tolerable smell of dirt, feces and food. Looking up, she could see the stars and the moon. A different moon from the one she was used to, which also had another one by its side. The largest one had a purplish hue and the smaller one was of a more reddish hue. Both were bigger than any moon Emily had ever seen in the night sky. She stared at them in wonder until some snoring and murmuring caught her attention.

Analyzing the situation, she thought she was in some sort of settlement even though she had never been in one before. She felt quite nervous, but to her surprise, she wasn't terrified as usual. Patiently, she lay on the straw, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the dark. Meanwhile, she watched the shooting stars. She had never seen any, but apparently, there were a lot of them there. All of them of a light blue hue. Emily thought it was a beautiful sight.

Despite the low temperature, she was not shivering with cold. A soft animal skin covered her, giving her a pleasant warmth despite smelling a little bad. In between, her body was still naked, so the contact with the straw was really uncomfortable. Some of the stems were bothering her excessively. After a few seconds she noticed that the pile of straw was directly on a layer of earth and small stones. Without barely moving her head, she also noticed that her pile of straw was not the only one.

"Shit! Did we all end up here? That means, so did they..." A knot in her stomach made her imagine how that disconcerting situation could get exponentially worse just by Beth and her filthy bitches being there.

As the minutes passed, the sky began to lighten. It was the first time she had seen a sunrise. She watched how the starry sky was gradually fading into a blue background. A dark blue that soon become more beautiful and lighter as time passed. She didn't see the sun, but she knew it wouldn't be long before it appeared and brought some warmth. A murmur began to become more and more audible. Emily kept pretending to sleep for as long as she could; and so she did, until a hoarse voice shouted.

"On your feet, you lazy bastards! It's about to dawn."

Some of her classmates, confused, woke up half naked and scared. Then, some humanoid began to hand out some sackcloth clothes to each of them, so that they could put something on. Emily poked her head out and held out her hand just as one of the individuals brushed past her. He gave it to her, trying to see if Emily showed any of her beautiful skin. Warily, Emily covered herself up even more. The humanoid threw two pieces of clothing at her, and whispered visibly annoyed.

"Do you think you just magically appeared on that bed? I have already seen you as you came into the world, you foolish human”.

Emily blushed deeply, imagining how that being and others had seen her naked and defenseless. A wave of impotence and fear ran through her body. She glared at the humanoid that was handing out the clothes while he laughed in complicity with his companions.

There were some students who protested demanding. "What joke is this supposed to be? Where are my clothes?" She recognized some of the demanding voices, Beth and Rebecca, accompanied by their stupid chorus.

Emily didn’t dare to uncover and see what was going on. She stayed under the animal skin, dressing herself in those clothes. She didn't even peek out when she heard a quick succession of heavy footsteps and screams that turned into sobs. Finally, after that, a succession of what she assumed were slaps. Emily froze, listening to their sobs. She had never heard them sob, yet she was sick of hearing herself do it. It seemed fair to her. Part of her wished that she could lean out and look them straight in the face. But she knew it would be a bad idea to see them right after such humiliation in front of everyone.

Rebecca was terribly vindictive. She'd shown it to her the first few years that Emily had confronted Beth when she had started bullying her. Beth had quickly teamed up with three other girls and the humiliations had multiplied by five. All of them conducted by fucking Rebecca. Emily gritted her teeth, remembering many of those bitter days. Days of having her clothes stained on purpose, painting her locker with a huge "Redcow" or telling lies about her, to everyone, leaving her as the ultimate shit.

Nina couldn't let her friend Beth get beat up. Nina wasn't very smart and rebuked the one who had just slapped them. "I'm going to report you to the police, you fucking son of a bitch." The humanoid approached her angrily, and punched her in the stomach. If Nina had had something in her stomach, she would have thrown it up. The blow was so strong that it left her unconscious for a few seconds.

"Stupid human!" Whispered one of the warriors surrounding them. Emily almost gasped at the sight. She had seen it uncovering just a little of the animal skin covering her, only to quickly cover herself again.

The humanoid that seemed to have hit several of them, raised its voice a lot, furious. "Put on your damn clothes! I'm sick of waiting!"

Before she fully pocked her head out, Emily thought the voice was too weird to be from a man's, but was too harsh to be from a woman's. When she finished dressing and saw her completely, she found her appearance fearsome.

The woman was much taller than Emily and very muscular. She had so much muscle that she looked almost like a man, except for her breasts. She was wearing tight skin clothes and pieces of what looked like wood. All tied together with thin ropes. Between her lips, fangs protruded from her lower jaw and her ears were pointed. Her hair seemed to be dirty and tied up in some kind of dreadlocks. She would look like an orc if it wasn't for the fact that her skin, was human. She was grotesque, but she still looked like a woman.

Emily looked around, realizing that it was a primitive settlement made of earth, stones and a wooden palisade that crowned the walls. She remembered many video games and stories where they recreated ancient settlements of this type, with great detail. She felt a sense of euphoria at actually being in a place like this; so ancient and precarious where the most advanced technology was a rope. For Emily it was an authentic place to live adventures with a newly created character. As if something imaginary became real. But it didn't last long. She understood that if she was there now, and that woman was real, something much more dangerous must be on the other side of the walls.

Surrounding all of the students, and close to the walls, there was a line of warriors standing guard. There were even more warriors on the wall, but they were looking outside. They were all visibly strong and wore armors made of skin, rope and pieces of wood just like the grotesque woman. There were so many warriors that they easily doubled their numbers. After a few seconds, spurred on by the muscular woman's screams, they were finally dressed up.

Emily counted them quickly. There were about twenty-eight students, of whom more than a quarter were from her class. All of them, including her, were visibly uncomfortable in clothes that didn't belong to them. Clothing made of very primitive sackcloth, rough and stiff. No underwear. One pair of pants for everyone and an extra piece of clothing for the girls; a kind of T-shirt made of the same fabric.

More than one began to scratch, complaining. "I think this is giving me an allergy."

The huge woman glared at him furiously and moved very close, raising her fist. "You can always go naked."

The boy was terrified, shielding himself with his hands. "No, please! I can handle it! I can handle it!"

The woman lowered her fist slowly as she smiled sadistically. "That's the way I like it, smart boy."

A voice raised above them, and all the students turned to look. Several individuals were walking towards them, calmly. One of them, was a male version of the woman who harassed them relentlessly. He was slightly slimmer than her, but still muscular. He must be a high rank, because no one was looking directly at his face, and everyone stood at attention

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"My name is Tught and you are on Zurah, an insignificant place on a planet that is not your own, humans. However, that doesn't seemed to stop you from coming here." Several students murmured among themselves, but others shushed them. They wanted to listen.

Tught continued. "This settlement is our home and, in here, you will follow our rules. Anyone who wants to argue with this will be our dogs lunch. It's not negotiable." The man paused slightly, checking that everyone was watching him, then he revealed several scars covering his face. "I regret to inform you that there isn't enough food for everyone in this shelter. If you want to eat and sleep under our roof and protection, you will have to contribute. That isn’t negotiable either."

The muscular woman was keeping an eye on Beth and her friends, in case they could add something to the speech of her visibly fierce companion. Tught continued. "You will go out there, and bring wood to create weapons or to fuel the fire. Of course, we will accept it depending on the quality. You will hunt any vermin or animal that can be eaten and bring them back. We also need plants, both to eat and to make ropes. The latter is better you do it later, when you know how to distinguish them. Anything that is useful to us, will be traded for food, coins or other items we make here.”

A murmur coming from the students began to mitigate the next words of the humanoid that was not so different from an orc with human skin. "Silence, wretches!" The muscular woman shouted threateningly with her fist.

Tught raised a bone pendant with carved letters on it and explained. "If you are not interested in these conditions, you can leave and never return. But, if you don’t carry this, you will be our enemies out there. I warn you. There is no room for prisoners here, and what you’re going to encounter outside will make you suffer so much that you will be wishing to die. We're the last redoubt of our people in this place. We have been isolated by the various invasions of hateful creatures."

After a short silence, someone more human-like than the previous ones approached. He tapped Tught's shoulder and whispered something in his ear, which amused them both. Tught laughed out loud. "You're right, human! You should continue!"

The human male raised his voice. "I know you are confused and don't want to go out there, where death lurks behind every tree. But that's the way it is. If you are not part of us, you are against us. I was in your place long ago, and here I am." He showed a necklace similar to the one his companion held in his hand. "All of you who contribute will be well received, and will be eligible to get one of these. You will also be given options so that you don't have to risk your lives out there every day. By the way, I recommend you to make groups of at least five members. Out there, whoever goes alone, dies alone. Believe me when I tell you; death is not the worst fate here. Forget about fundamental rights and mercy, that doesn't exist here."

Then, after a signal from the muscular woman, all the warriors who had remained still surrounding them, began to approach and force them to go in one direction. The exit.

Emily began to get very nervous at the thought that they were going to expose them to death. "Come on, Emily! Remember everything you've learned by playing, reading and documenting yourself. Make all those hours that seemed pointless count for something." Little courage came out of those words. She was getting more and more afraid.

They walked as a group, surrounded by the warriors, following the human man. This one looked like a bad tour guide. "If you look to the left." They all turned almost in unison to see a huge pile of shoddy lumber. "You can see we cut wood but that's out of your reach. First you will have to trade what you get for an axe. By the way, they are stone axes, which sucks. Metal is conspicuous by its absence here. He smiled mischievously. “And this is not a video game where you can chop down a tree trunk with your bare hands. Ha ha ha.”

Most of the students understood the reference, but hardly anyone laughed at the joke. "What a shitty audience!” Still offended, he asked very seriously. “How many of you have seen those panels and the character menus?" Emily tried to raise her hand out of inertia, but someone stopped her. Ian grabbed her hand. Emily hadn't realized he was so close to her.

The murmur among the students made that gesture go unnoticed by the rest. Questions were heard everywhere, while, Ian didn't even flinch. "What panels are you talking about? Menus? I didn't see anything!" Emily got terribly nervous. She understood that most of them hadn't seen the panels. But then… Had Ian seen them? For some unknown reason, Ian thought it was a bad idea to reveal it.

It had been years since Ian had touched her. She felt strange because Ian was usually quite scary and was never afraid of anything. That made her hair stand on end. Ian walked away from her and went to the back of the group. She wanted to follow him, but Beth and Rebecca stood in the way. They looked at her for almost a full second. But Emily couldn't hold their gaze and nervously turned around, silently cursing them.

The guide saw them all with raised eyebrows. "Really? No one has seen them?" Then he noticed something without seeing anyone in particular. "Oh, I see! Clever guys! Heh heh heh!" He turned around and seemed suddenly friendlier. "I'll be honest with you. There's not much wood, edible plants or fruit outside. But there are plenty of enemies. From small vermin like rats, moles, lizards and rabbits; to medium-sized ones like wolves, foxes and lynxes. But there are bigger ones, like those bastard apes".

A worried murmur began to spread. The muscular woman shouted. "Shut the fuck up, you shits! Listen to what he has to say!"

Silence reigned until the guide let out a choked laugh. "Excuse Kalha. She doesn't like weak humans like most of you". He paused, not looking at anyone in particular. “Whiners even less!” A jerk glanced at Beth and her friends, then someone elbow him very hard.

Emily was distracted from what the guide was telling them, but attentive to her surroundings. She looked excited at everything that was there, trying to compare things with the video games, movies and stories she had read in her short life. She saw skins stretched on wooden frames, from what she understood that they hunted and stretched the skins to make those primitive clothes.

She saw neat piles of clean bones and wood near the craftsmen shaped both them. They were making clubs, stone axes, bone knives, modest bows, arrowheads or spearheads and an endless number of small objects that she couldn't make out. She also saw some cooks removing the contents of huge clay bowls with long sticks. She didn't know what they were cooking, but it didn't smell very good. At that moment, she missed the food of her demanding mother.

She saw other humans wearing similar outfits to those of the huge woman, although visibly different from each other. Some were whispering among themselves with pity faces. Other jeered yelling. "Have you seen?! Look at all this fresh meat! I've never seen so much at once. They're more than twice as many as when we came here." Emily felt the same as when she arrived at that new school she had only been to for two years. They had treated her like shit.

A shiver ran through her body as the realization hit her. "This is going to be a thousand times worse" Without realizing it, she was already trembling.

One of the adventurers shouted to them. "Stick together! You'll have a better chance of survival. Leave whatever differences you have behind. Trust me!"

Emily felt a small glimmer of hope hearing that, but Beth brushed it away by whispering behind her back. "You're crazy if you think we're going to forget about you, Red Cow." Those words nearly made her run away.

The guide, oblivious to this, continued, pointing to a rudimentary sign made of sticks, which had the nearest hut. It had some pieces of slate hanging on it. All of them had different strange symbols.

The hut was made of stone and covered with a roof of wood and straw. It had no door and didn't look too spacious. Emily imagined that two people could live in some comfort. At the door was an elderly woman with a creepy wooden mask covering her entire face. Emily guessed she might be a shaman or something.

The shaman watched them for a few seconds until the guide interrupted, greeting her. "Good morning! How many do you think will survive this time?"

The shaman asked without removing her mask. "Am I hearing your money backing the bet?"

The guide burst out laughing. "I would never be stupid enough to bet against you." Then, he looked at the group and made an estimation. "I'd guess five... maybe six. Not counting that big guy." They all turned to look at Ian.

Ian, looking annoyed, joined in the bet. "Well, I think we'll survive two."

A murmur suddenly arose, but was quickly stifled by the huge woman. "Shut up, you scum! No one has given you permission to speak."

The shaman laughed and turned to the guide. "Survive? How many days are you talking about. I meant the first day!"

The guide pondered the unexpected question. "Well, my bet was at the end of a couple of weeks, but I understand that the first day more than half will survive, right?"

The shaman looked at Ian and laughed. "I like your bet, boy. But I wouldn't be so generous to include you between those two."

Ian instantly replied with a cocky look on his face. "I bet your head."