LOCATION: NORTHERN KRATIAN MOUNTAINS

YEAR: 1464 P.D. (Post disappearance—of the Vermillion Bird)

Five years had passed. Memories of that day remained vivid and ached like a scar. The person he saw at the end of his dreams seemed too great, and he’d began to think they weren’t real. Who could it have been, anyway?

The early summer heat made Yushia;s shirtless body sticky. He rubbed his eyes, removing the built-up crust around his eyes before stretching his arms in the air. He had become a slave, enchanted with an enslavement curse. He had grown accustomed to slave life: waking up, working in the mines, sleeping, and repeating. Beside his makeshift bed—composed of three layers of tattered cloth—he took his pouch of water and sipped.

The sun’s rays beamed through the slit of the half-open tent he resided in. He fixed his long, bushy black hair and looked around: two sets of folded overalls rested to his right, and a small, unlit lamp sat to his left.

He crawled to the front of the tent and zipped it down. This place brings the worst in me.

Camp CM-22 was made in a large clearing surrounded by the Kratian Mountain’s thick forests. Yushia’s head peeked out of his tent, straining his neck as he gazed at the sea of tents, each with slaves sleeping inside them, each with different crimes to their names.

“How’s my favorite little Cerulean~?” a voice called out.

Yushia’s face irked as he turned to his left: a short and stout man grinning from ear to ear stared straight at him. He was full of energy despite it being early in the day.

His name was Arnie, a pale, likely malnourished man. Last week he’d been caught trying to get seconds during lunch and was given a dozen lashings. His stomach was round, and the remaining hair on his balding head had turned gray. He’d been here longer than Yushia; his wrinkles sunk deep inside his forehead and under his brown eyes.

Arnie rubbed his hands together. “You know how I am,” he said. “I’m so good to you, aren’t I? I was wondering if you could let me have some of your beef sti—”

“Sorry,” Yushia apologized. He fell back into the tent and quickly zipped it up. He’d been saving those beef sticks for when he really needed them, and he wasn’t going to let a man like Arnie take them away.

Often, the camp’s mess hall would miss restocking days and wouldn’t have food for weeks. Arnie enjoyed eating; his build made that obvious. Like now, he used pretty words to get his way and he often used them to extort Yushia for food, but that failed frequently. Being a once well-known con artist, Arnie carried his talents to over to CM-22.

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To be safe, Yushia checked under his pillow and peeked inside a decrepit box filled nearly to the brim with salt-heavy beef. It didn’t look like it’d been tampered with while he slept, and he grabbed one to snack on.

Arnie slowly unzipped Yushia’s tent and squatted politely before clearing his throat. “I have some news I can exchange for a beef stick.”

“As if,” Yushia said, closing his box. He turned back to the con man and finished his beef stick. “I’ve given you enough already. I won’t fall for your words.”

“Well, listen to this. Last night when I was using the bathroom, I heard Master Cliff speaking to Kran about your location transfer.”

Master Cliff was the overseer of the slave camp, and Kran was just another slave—albeit, a new one. For whatever reason, Kran had a strong friend-like relationship with master Cliff. He had no silver tongue like Arnie, but the things he got away with made him disliked by the other slaves.

Yushia grabbed his pouch of water again and took another sip. “I don’t care if I get transferred.”

“Oh, but you should,” Arnie said. “You'll be mining in the fifth layer.”

Yushia paused and wiped his mouth. A slave’s chance of dying while mining skyrocketed if they were placed in the fifth layer, deep inside the mountains. The dangers inside were many times more terrifying than the forests.

“You might die,” Arnie added.

Yushia thought about it but shrugged. If he died, wouldn’t that mean he’d be reunited with his people again? “I don’t care.”

“You young kids nowadays are too careless! The fifth level is infamous for cave ins and heavy dust that gets trapped in your lungs. You have a great chance of dying down there, but I have something to reduce that!”

From behind his back, Arnie pulled out a grimy gas mask. It’d been used like a whore by its previous owners.

Suspicion rose in Yushia, and rightfully so. After weighing his options, he thought it’d be better to have one than to not have one. “Give me the mask first.”

Arnie chuckled and threw the mask inside the tent. “Now, the beef sticks.”

Yushia quickly nodded and crawled back to the box underneath his pillow. He took out two and scurried back to the entrance, dropping them in Arnie’s hand. “Please leave now.”

“I forgot one thing—”

“Please leave now,” Yushia repeated. He was more than aware of Arnie’s other extortion methods.

Arnie put his hands up in the air and forced out a smile. “You Ceruleans live up to your names. You’re quite the fearful ones.”

That was an obvious lie. Yushia zipped his tent back up and clenched his fist, nails burrowing into his palms. “I’m not fearful,” he murmured.

Last night’s dream came back, a reminder that him becoming a slave and his wife’s death was a result of them being who they were. Still, he couldn’t understand why his people were hated, and he was too afraid to ask.