Chapter 20

James - Day 1 of Landing

Day 9 of First Landing

Population of Thornhill - 27

If heaven existed, this is what I would imagine it to be like. Take it all in, James.

Pristine beaches with no trash or empty bottles littering the picture-perfect sands. Clear blue oceans without a single boat or jet ski noisily buzzing by. No tourists crowding the beaches with their stupid selfie cams and Hawaiian shirts. What’s more, two lovely women before me, perhaps to service my every whim and desire.

My two attendants at the gates of paradise greeted me with welcoming smiles as if to say, 'Welcome to Paradise, Master". One of my lovely angels was wearing a stewardess outfit, and the other was an auburn-haired twenty-year-old with tender doe eyes, a real girl-next-door type. Lovely, just lovely.

Heaven certainly got my kinks down to a tee. Thank you, Gods. All of them.

Upon closer inspection... the ginger did look a bit plain, but I can’t complain now, can I? With makeup, some lipstick, and eyeliner, she would be gorgeous. Hmm... deary me... It looked as though the pearly gates skimped on her clothing budget; her stained shirt and pants made it seem like she had been stranded on a deserted island for weeks.

Upon even further inspection of the flight attendant, a beautiful young black woman, it looked like mascara was running down her face as if she’d been crying all night yesterday.

Alas, maybe it’s not heaven after all; maybe it’s a sort of limbo, I suppose. Still, a man could do worse than two pretty girls alone on the beach.

“Good afternoon. It is noon, right? Right? Okay.” The flight attendant whispered to the ginger for reassurance, “My name is Aaliyah Tarwater, I was one of the flight attendants on your flight from Miami to New York. You must have a lot of questions right now and we are here to… guide you through this ordeal you are going through.”

I brushed the sand off my suit as I stood upright. The fine ladies gave me some room as I stretched and took a look around my new paradise.

“We first must ask you a few questions. What seat were you on the plane and what is your name?” The attendant asked, to which the young auburn-haired woman beside her nodded and supported her with, “Good job, Aaliyah.”

“Name. My name is James Taylor, milady,” I said proudly.

“Like the singer?” The young red-haired one asked.

“Please, do not mention him to me. I get enough of that at work,” I lamented with an exasperated sigh. “As far as my seat goes, I was somewhere near the front… I can’t seem to recall.”

“Oh… so you were in business class,” Aaliyah remarked, and the two had a worried expression on their faces, both looking at each other conspiratorially as if reading each other’s minds.

“I can assure you I am no mogul or businessman. The firm always gets me business class tickets on my way to these damned conferences,” I said, laughing merrily to put these women at ease. It’s clear they had some misguided views or biases against the rich folk here.

“Do you have any skills or hobbies? What did you do before… I mean, what is your profession? My name is Bianca, by the way. I am… well... I’m one of the people on the welcoming committee.”

“Skills? Why, I am a master of tongues. I am fluent in French, Italian, and German, and I dabble in Japanese and Mandarin. My profession is a legal translator. My hobbies? Well… you can say I like to partake in some wine and fine dining on occasion.”

I wanted to leave a good impression, that I was a worldly man who enjoyed the finer things in life to these fair ladies.

Again... that damn look between the ladies as if they caught a boot on the end of their fishing line.

I, James Taylor, am no boot.

“James, do you like gardening or collecting rocks or carpentry? Anything like that?” Bianca asked.

“Collecting rocks? Are you taking the piss? What kind of silly questions are these?”

“James. I don’t want you to panic but it’s been nine days since the plane incident. The survivors of the flight have been transported to another world. I know it’s a lot to take in but we need you to just trust us,” Bianca explained.

“Wait, what… what are you on about?” I scoffed.

These people were crazy. Have I joined a bloody cult?

“I’m going to do something and I don’t want you to panic. It’s just proof that we aren’t on Earth anymore,” Bianca said.

The next thing I saw was a blue card appearing out of nowhere in the auburn girl's hand. It was a blue light in the form of a playing card with the word 'Founder' on it. A cheap magic trick, no doubt, but when she presented the card to me, it disappeared as I tried to hold it. A hologram?

“It’s not a magic trick. It’s not lights. It’s not some holographic ploy. It’s part of the laws of this… universal or world. We are stuck here in the wilderness to fend for ourselves. It’s a lot to take in, I know, but it’s information you need to have to get adjusted here. We need everyone to pitch in so we don’t starve or die,” Bianca said. “If you can follow me, I’ll begin the tour and we can assign you something to do.”

The flight attendant, Aaliyah, took my arm and I gladly followed these two ladies, but I had so many questions.

“Why is that guy carrying a sword?” I asked, staring at a fellow in leather armor who looked like he was cosplaying at some Warcraft convention.

“That’s Alex, just ignore him for now. Now, as you can see, we have these signs so people don’t get lost. Pretty neat, huh? Right now, we are working on more clay lanterns to light the way. We just need to get more fuel. Over there is our compass, sundial, and hourglass. If you follow this sign it will take you to the first shelter we built.”

“So, let’s say I believe you, how many people are here exactly?” I asked expectantly, looking at both my lovely companions.

“We currently have… well, you are our last arrival for the day, so 27. Ethan and Anika worked out that the last person always teleports here approximately six hours past dawn, barring stuff like being related or whatever. Anyway, here is our main shelter. You can sleep here, of course, but right now it’s full, so we’ll assign you to shelter number three. We built number three just yesterday; it’s been really busy.” Bianca gestured for me to keep moving while Aaliyah gently prodded me forward. I was just too busy taking it all in.

What a dump. I’m going to have to live in these… huts?

“That there is our main stockpile. You can find wood, rope, pots, plates, cups, tools, and other stuff you need there. We’re planning to build a warehouse once we solve the housing crisis,” Bianca said and pointed to another area. “That’s one of our outhouses. There are clay pots in there holding urine if you want to donate your pee, otherwise, go in the hole.”

A trail was being formed as we ventured further uphill into the forest. There were people carrying baskets of fruits and the like walking past me, making the trail even clearer in the wild path with their shoes beating the ground.

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“Past this stockpile are our kilns. We make charcoal, pots, and ash here. I’m like a level 4 potter right now, so this is more my expertise.”

“Level 4 potter? What does that mean? I’m sorry, this is all a bit too fast for me,” I said.

Bianca showed that amazing magic trick she did again and revealed a blue card that read “Pottery” with a 4 on top. She smiled proudly and said, “It’s a skill that helps everything you do a lot easier. We want people to get a class A-S-A-P so their jobs are much easier. Listen. If you get a class, you’ll meet a stranger in a dark place who will give you cards. Just don’t panic, listen to him okay, and pick a card.”

These people are wackos. I have truly joined a cult.

We climbed a hill toward a recently deforested area. A young, dour man was there, skinning what looked like beavers on a wooden plank atop a huge tree trunk with an ivory-gripped knife. Beside him, a flight attendant in her forties was scaling a fish on a plank near a bowl of leafy greens. The young man sat by a large campfire with an earthenware pot over it. Picnic tables made of rough wooden planks were lined neatly before the campfire, below a canopy of wood. The whole place looked like a primitive Japanese open-air mess hall.

“This is our eating area. We didn’t have time to build an entire mess hall, but this will do for now. All our resources are going into farming or building another shelter. This handsome young gentleman here is Orion, a cook. Say hi, Rye. This is James, he came in today.”

The young man brushed aside his dark brown hair to get a better look at me. His cold, sunken green eyes took my measure, found me lacking, and then went back to work. His precision with the knife made him look like a veteran butcher with twenty years under his belt, filleting the beaver creature right down to the bone, not leaving a single piece of meat on it.

“Great… another mouth to feed,” Orion said bitterly and brushed off some grisly-looking meat into the pot, not bothering to look up.

"Charmed," I said to the young man, who shot me a glare that clearly said, "Fuck off, wanker."

Bianca just smiled as if she had to deal with this asshole all day and this was just a back-and-forth, one of his quirky foibles. We continued to walk up the path towards a river.

“What’s his problem?” I asked.

“Oh… Orion is just… well, he has a lot on his plate, and we have some issues with some of the new folks… he’s usually a really really nice guy... no really! It’s nothing you did wrong, don’t worry,” Bianca reassured.

“Are you from England?” Aaliyah asked, curious about my accent.

“I am Welsh, milady. I moved here years ago.” I stopped and realized I wasn’t exactly in America anymore. “Umm… not here, I suppose, but America.”

Bianca led us to a recently cleared forest path beside a river. More wood structures had been erected recently, and two women were hunched over, planting cut-up potatoes in the tilled soil, with a rock golem working the field using a primitive-looking tool.

“Umm… what exactly is that thing over there?” I asked, pointing at the living statue. My jaw was practically on the ground.

“That’s Slate, our golem. Just… again, it’s weird. He won’t hurt you, let him do his work. He’s gotten really, really good at building. We couldn’t have done all this without him.” Bianca explained, smiling as if everything she said wasn’t complete insanity. “Anyways... over there is your shelter. You will have to share with some new arrivals, but this is a new shelter. We finished it this morning. Marek, our main builder, said it’s a lot better built than the older ones, so lucky you, huh?”

Bianca pointed me to a wooden log house that reminded me of the time I vacationed in rural Japan and visited some temples.

I suppose they don’t have any working plumbing in it.

“Lucky me…” I said, looking at the log cabin that looked like it belonged to a poor peasant in Imperial Asia.

“You’ll have to share with other people, of course. We think it can fit up to ten, maybe twelve people temporarily. Just sleep anywhere.”

“Anywhere?” I asked, not wanting to know what that meant.

“Well… we don’t really have beds or rooms exactly… just sleep on the floor anywhere. Again, this is a work in progress. Oh, did I show you the outhouse over there? It’s great because you have the river here, and you can wash up after.” Bianca’s voice radiated false joy and glee. She sounded like a real estate agent trying to push a lousy house onto a client.

How can she still smile like that? We're in the middle of nowhere, living in huts, sleeping on the floor, eating giant rodents served by miscreants, and using outhouses with pee collectors, for chrissakes.

“Here we are. Right now, we are setting up some farms. Nothing too big, but it’d be great if we could get some Farmer classes. This is Samar; she’ll be in charge of you. Just do what she asks. That over there is Sasha. She’s like you, new to farming.”

A Middle Eastern woman in her thirties was planting oddly shaped potatoes cut into quarters in foul-smelling dirt, while another woman—her assistant, presumably—enriched the soil with what looked and smelled like fish guts.

“Samar, where is Joseph? I thought he was supposed to help out?” Bianca asked with concern.

“He says he has heatstroke. Went to lie down,” Samar said apologetically.

“Oh…” Bianca let out a frustrated sigh and then forced herself to smile when she focused on me. “If you have any questions, I’ll be back at the stockpile. Dinner is around sunset, so be there for a wonderful meal.”

“Bianca… I don’t know the first thing about farming. Do you have any other jobs?” I asked.

“Can you help build?”

“You know… I’m not too good with heavy lifting. My back, you see…” I said.

“Can you fish or hunt?” Bianca asked.

“Animals scare me… I prefer my meat sealed in plastic, if you catch my drift.” I chuckled at the double entendre. "That's what she said" going off in my mind.

“What can you do then?”

“I can write. Give me a pen… or should I say a quill and ink, and I will do an inventory for this colony, my fair lady. I will write you the finest code of conduct for this community. Any administrative work you have, I will gladly volunteer myself to. Knowledge is power, after all.”

Bianca thought about it and said, “You know what? That’s not a bad idea. I’ll run it by the group and see how they feel. But first, we really need these farms up. If you can just help out Samar for a while until we find a place for you, please.”

“I will give it the ol’ college try, I suppose.” That damn smile of hers and her low expectations of me left me wanting to prove her wrong. Like a puppy an owner wanted to abandon, Bianca left me to my devices. She guided Aaliyah away as if the young stewardess was shadowing her at work.

Just half an hour ago, I thought I went to heaven, but now I believe I’m in hell. I stared at the dirt, wondering what to do.

Where could I even run to? It’s not like I can call someone to pick me up from wherever we are. Everyone here looked like they lost their phones and laptops too.

“You should feel lucky; the robot did most of the plowing,” Samar said.

“Robot. My heavens, I won’t even bother asking.” I sighed. “Yes. Lucky indeed… I thank my lucky stars every minute I’m stuck here. You don’t believe all that hogwash about us being stuck in another world, do you?”

“I didn’t at first until I saw the stars at night. The moon is different,” Samar said.

“This is fucking bullshit,” Sasha cried, slamming the pot of fish guts to the ground, breaking it into several pieces. “What? I tell them once I picked some berries with my grandmother one time, and I get stuck doing this shit?”

“We have to work. If we don’t work, we don’t eat,” Samar said, though it didn’t sound like she cared whether or not Sasha went back to work.

“Are you serious?” I asked.

Samar nodded grimly, planting more potato quarters. She glanced over at the broken pot. “Orion’s gonna be pissed you did that.”

“Fuck Orion and fuck Queen B. Fuck that council too,” Sasha said, dusting her hands. “I don’t get why we are working this hard when we can just let Herman do all the fishing. Hell, get everyone fishing.”

“Council?” I could vaguely guess it had Bianca and Orion on it, that serious-looking youth.

“Bianca, that girl you were just with, and Orion, the cook. Also the two doctors or whatever. Herman, too,” Sasha said. “They decide everything. They give themselves cushy jobs and leave us newbies with this crap. I’m sick of working like this.”

Sasha got up to use the outhouse. Afterward, she went to the river to wash up. We never saw her again. She stayed in the shelter for the entire day.

Smarter than the rest of us.

“I say she’s doing the smart thing. Why should we plant all this for them? What’s in it for us?” I sighed and looked around at the mess I was in. This wasn’t a farm; this was just dirt.

“You guys do what you want, but I have my daughter here with me to take care of,” Samar said.

“You do realize that by the time those things sprout, we’ll all have starved long ago or died of dysentery, right? That, or rip each other apart like Lord of the Flies,” I muttered.

Samar then revealed to me her class card, Farmer. “I can make it go a bit faster, yes. Thanks to this.”

“How do you all do that? Be honest.” I stared incredulously at her card, the second time I had witnessed the trick.

“It’s like they say when you get here. You meet the dealer, he gives you the power and the class,” Samar said.

Feeling guilty about watching the poor woman work the fields by herself, I took off my jacket, rolled up my sleeves, and loosened my tie. “What can I do to help?”

“There is a clay watering pot over there. Help me water these,” Samar pointed to the thing, which was just an open clay pot with a spout on its lip.

“What are we planting?” I asked.

“Potatoes. They can grow in tough conditions. We also have to plant wheat and flax as well.”

“You seem to know what you are on about… were you a farmer?” I asked, watering where she pointed.

“Some. I lived on a farm in Syria before I had to move to America. Don’t tell the others about my ability and class, if you please,” Samar said nonchalantly.

“Why? Why keep it a secret? It would make you a more important person. Bianca has that magic thing, and she’s a leader.” Samar kept planting seeds diligently and then rubbed sweat off the back of her forehead with her arm.

“I don’t want to be a farmer all my life. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind it now, and there are worse jobs around here, but… maybe I want to do something else later. I want that freedom to choose,” Samar answered. “These cards… they confine you to a role. They make you a prisoner.”

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