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CAPTIVE
“Who are you, and where did you come from, stranger? No one travels the deserts.” This came from the guard on his left.
The stranger sat, remaining silent and blinking at the guards. It looked like he was oblivious to everything, but his mind was racing.
After a long stretch of silence, the guards were visibly angry. The guard who spoke lifted his spear, and readied it to impale the stranger.
Finally, the stranger said the only thing he could say after racking his brain, failing to figure out an answer to the question. Tears fell from his eyes.
“I… I don’t know.”
“Wrong answer.” Growled the guard, as the back of the spear collided with the back of the stranger’s head.
~~~
A small boy is in the woods with his father. The surroundings appear to be a lot like a forest from Earth. “Daddy, why we hunting with spears and traps and stuff? Can’t we just use guns?” The boy tugs on his father’s sleeve, looking up to his father with wide eyes.
“Well, kiddo, one day you may need to know this stuff. Besides, this way is more fun. You’ll see. Once we get dinner, you’ll feel a sense of pride.” A father ruffles his boy’s hair, then continues his explanation to his son about how to track animals.
A baby deer jumps out in front of the boy and the father. Surprised, the boy throws his spear as hard as he can at the animal. He manages to impale the small creature.
“Daddy, look, I got it!” The boy jumped up and down.
“Yes, yes you did, kiddo. Looks like I’ll have to…”
The world fades into sepia, the color of an old photograph, as words become a murmur.
~~~
The stranger opens his eyes, hunger gnawing at him. His eyes water from pain radiating at the back of his skull. He feels sick. He rolls over, his hand hitting a bowl of some sort of soup. Luckily, it doesn’t get knocked over.
Slowly the stranger sits up, focusing on nothing but the food before him. He eats slowly, hunger spicing the dish so much that it seems as if it were a gift from the gods. Forcing himself to chew it slowly, he relishes the texture of the soup, the flavor of each vegetable, each chunk of meat. He realizes a sweetness in it, and it seems there is some kind of fruit in the soup.
A chunk of something that he assumes is bread is eaten with the soup, and it is the fluffiest, most delicious bread he has ever eaten. The only problem with the meal... There is not enough to fill him.
After licking the bowl clean, he sets the bowl back on the floor. He finally looks around to gather his surroundings. His walls are smooth and cool to the touch. They look as if they are made from stone. The floor looks to be made of the same material. The ceiling is something else entirely, the entire thing glowing blue; But the room is lit with a clear light.
And near the door… two wolf head guards watching him. He jumps, noticing them for the first time, and realizes with shame that they watched him lick crumbs off the floor.
“Stand.” Growls one of the two guards.
The stranger follows the order, not wanting to be hit with the back of the spear again. That hurt!
“Where are you from stranger?” Growls the guard.
The stranger didn’t know the answer to this question, and could only respond that way. He wipes his sweaty palms on what was left of his uniform. When one of the guards take a step forward, he drops to his knees, holding out his hands, screaming. “Please don’t hit me! Please don’t! I’ll come, I’ll follow, I’ll do whatever!”
His face is hot, and he cringes inside, the feeling of having to beg this inhumane creature to not hit him is not sitting right with him.
The original guard who ordered him to stand pokes his stomach with the back of his spear. “I said, stand, stranger. If you don’t comply, it won’t be the back of this stick I hit you with.”
The stranger slowly gets to his feet again, as the second guard stands behind him. The stranger observes the uniforms of these two… He isn’t sure if they are human, because of the helmets and the tails. Their uniforms are black, neat, and clean. Along with the spears, each of these two guards have swords at their waists. Rather than claws or hooves or anything, these two guards wear a thick black pair of boots and have gloves covering what seem to be humanlike hands. He snaps out of his observations when he is pushed from behind.
“Walk.”
The stranger walks out of his cell, in between two guards. As he walks down the hallway, he attempts to take everything in that he can. Every cell door lays open, and it every cell is empty. They all look the same. Glancing at the ceiling, he realizes the stone has two blue strips running down its length - the same stuff that made up the ceiling of the cells. “These must be some kind of lights…” the stranger thinks to himself.
He observes how the guard in front of him walks. The guard walks with confidence, with authority. The stranger innately knows that he is no match for his captors, should he ever have to fight.
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Thinking about it… the stranger wonders if he even knows how to fight.
Even though the stranger notes numerous cells, the hallway itself somehow seems short. It is almost as if… space warps itself to create all of the rooms. The stranger’s head begins to hurt thinking about it.
An ominous looking door stands at the hallway's end, a scene depicting the sunlit sky and the moonlit night adorning the door. The stranger sweats more as the first guard walks up to the door, and raps three times with his fuzzy glove.
The doors open slowly, smoothly, to reveal… a stairway. The stranger sighs with relief, his heart calming down slightly. As he passes through the door, he watches two more wolf headed guards join his procession, one in front, and one behind. One of these look female, but despite the shorter stature and obvious physical differences of a female, she still has the same wolf head and tail.
With nothing to look at walking up the lengthy spiral staircase, the stranger observes the tail of the guard in front of him. While it did sway as the guard walks, the stranger notices it seems to be more decoration than actual tail. Not wanting to find out what would happen if he pulls on it, the stranger keeps his hands to himself.
They arrive at the top of the stairway, which bisects another long hallway. The stranger notes the door's position is in the exact middle of the hallway, and they turn left immediately after entering the hall.
This hall looks to be made of the same stone, the same blue strips running down the ceiling, as in the dungeon below, the difference being a black carpet that feels extremely soft against the stranger’s feet. They arrive at an open door near the end of the hall, which displays a large, circular room.
Inside sits a woman. As the procession fans out in front of the woman, the stranger takes note of every detail about her that he can.
Unlike the guards, she does not wear a wolf helmet, but instead has a mask displaying no features. Her hair is a mix of colorful feathers and a million, messy woven braids, falling to the floor. He can’t tell if the hair is hers, or part of the mask, because there are a multitude of colors, just like the night time in the desert.
She, too, wears the standard black uniform of her guard compatriots, but, she does not have a tail, as far as the stranger can see. In front of her lay a giant staff, and stuck into the ground stands a giant sword, one the stranger thinks he would not be able to lift much less move.
“Sit.” The guard behind the stranger pushes him, and he falls down face first in front of the woman. Blushing, the stranger gets into a sitting position in front of the woman.
“Where did you come from?”
The voice is gruff and melodious at the same time, and the stranger realizes it is from this woman.
“I don’t know.” The reply comes out like a squeak.
The woman’s focal point shifts to one of the guards.
“He came from the sands, grand chief.” The guard growls back.
Her gaze slowly observes the stranger, at least, that's what it seems like to him.
“The only thing in the deserts are the factories of the off worlders. You are dressed like an off worlder. Are you an off worlder?”
The stranger wants to crawl and hide. But every attempt to scuttle himself backwards, even an inch, is met with a prod from a spear. “M...maybe?”
The woman stands up, and only then did the stranger realize she was tall. With an ease and fluidity that the stranger’s unshapely body would never match, she draws the greatsword out of the ground and has it floating millimeters from the stranger’s neck in a heartbeat. He is mesmerized by her braids as they brush the ground in their dance.
“You… You are quite the cowardly one, aren’t you? Off worlder, speak. How do you know our language?”
He desperately wants to answer these questions. He wants to live. But how could he live if he doesn’t know anything? “I… I don’t know anything! I want to live! Don’t kill me!” He does the only thing he thinks he can do. He begs.
“Tell me, off worlder, why should I spare your miserable life? Your kind is not welcome here.”
Even though the sword is held rock steady by this chief, he feels it getting closer to his neck. “IwokeupinthedesertandwalkedhereandIdontknowwhoIamandIdontknow..” In the middle of his hysterical story, he feels pressure leave his neck. A smack in the back of his head makes him stop squeaking.
Walking back to her original spot, the chief calls over her shoulder to the guards. “Take this… off worlder, and get him cleaned up and some clothes. Even though he looks to be a glutton, make sure he has food. We’ll let the town decide tomorrow whether he lives or dies, since I don’t think he can pose a threat to us. I'm sure they would love a good festival.”
A guard steps in front of him. “Stand.”
He stands slowly, carefully watching the guards around him. After standing, he is forced to turn around.
“Walk.”
With those two commands, his procession makes its way back to the dungeons.