Chapter 2:

There was no response after that whatsoever. I, or rather my consciousness was floating in the void. There was no voice any more so I waited for some time.

After what seemed like hours may be a day or two, I started to hear some noise. I lost track of time in the void so I had no way of knowing what today was.

I thought I heard a grinding sound of some kind. I tried to open my eyes to see where I was but to no avail. After trying to open my eyes for some time, I succeeded.

It was fuzzy. The roof of the building I was in was made up of dried grass.

“Are you awake? Grandma, he’s awake.” A little girl with her blond hair tucked to two ponytails looked at me from above.

“Don’t disturb the patient Lyna. Let him recover.” Said an older voice.

I tried to sit up from the place I was lying on which was made from exactly the same component of the roof. My whole body ached like there were a thousand needles pocking all around my body.

“ Are you awake? It’s okay, you have some minor injuries, but there is no fatal injury and no missing limbs.”

I looked at my body which was mostly covered in white bondages. And I was confused to find my legs to be taller than they used to be. Observing my confused state, the old woman spoke.

“Do you understand anything from what we are saying?”

I turned to look at the woman to see that she was too old with wrinkles looking like the epidermis of the old tree’s stems in our organization's base. I nodded my head in acknowledgement to her questions.

“Good, I thought you were not from around here seeing your pale face and athletic build”

‘Athletic build?’

I was startled, but then again I don’t seem to be in my body that I used to have so I didn’t let my confusion appear on my face.

“what country are we in right now?” I asked trying to find out anything about the situation I am in.

“Oh! Surely you jest. Ha ha ha… “ She laughed awkwardly before continuing, “ there are no countries, there are just domains and kingdoms. Countries have long been wiped out by those bastard’s greed a very long time ago.”

“What?!!”, I said deadpan. Ignoring my subconscious telling me to be reserved in front of these people that I didn’t know.

“—you… Do you remember where you were last time you were conscious.”

“I was deployed in Ethiopia with my team, and after that I remember flying in a private jet…”, I told the old woman.

“!!!???” her face told me that she didn’t believe me and she might be thinking that I was mad.

“I am sorry young man. But I think you should rest a bit. Your mental state is in no good condition for you to converse in order.” said the old woman while bringing the medicine she was brewing near my forehead and forced me to lay back. The medicine was splashed on my forehead then I was dizzy…

I drifted to sleep.

In my sleep I could make out the words spoken to me by the strange voice that spoke to me in the void inside my head. And I tried to assess the situation I am in. based on what the old lady said, it’s been so long since countries and democracy had vanished, since that’s the case, I appear to have most probably traveled through time.

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‘Is that even possible?’

'I can’t believe what I am thinking right now. Or maybe I was unconscious for a long time before that old lady found me? But if that is so then how would my body stay alive without food or any source of energy to keep my body from degenerating. And what was the voice in my head?', a torrent of thoughts invaded my mind like crazy.

'Okay, hold on!', I thought trying to calm myself down.

The most plausible explanation for the situation was that the voice did something to me in order to save me. My body was switched before I even fell unconscious from the clash so that wasn’t the voices doing.

‘Then, who switched my body?’, I thought taken aback.

"I guess I should find the voice that spoke to me and ask questions. He said I have to fulfill one request in exchange for saving my life, so he will surely make contact.", I said talking to myself.

There was no point in wrecking my brain with too many missing pieces on the picture. I decided to just sleep…

'oh, I forgot that I am sleeping, I guess I should just stop thinking.', I thought smiling inwardly at my stupidity.

Then my mind slipped to the deep darkness of sleep.

I never met my parents since I could remember. I grew up in the streets with a bunch of kids like me struggling to live. We stole groceries from the shops in the city and slept on a bunch of rags that we could find thrown by the people on trash cans. After I was 13 or so, a man named Bernard Graham took me in with a bunch of kids to try and nurture us to become weapons for the ring organization. They did some intense biological experiments on our bodies to make us go beyond the limits of humans and be killing machines. We were then sent to many illegal secret missions by the organization to assassinate government officials and others who got on the bad side of the organization.

I never had a body capable of things that some of my team mates could easily do because the enhancement operations done to strengthen my body never succeeded. The only successful enhancements I had were my vision and heart. I could see better than any of my team mates and I could increase my heart beat and slow it down to the point that it seems to other people that it stopped.

This were the things that let them keep me with them instead of throwing me out of the organization.

I was 5 feet tall, and I suspected the diminished size of my body was side effects of the failed experiments. I was colored, and my hair was pitch black. I also had a birth mark on my left wrist which was shaped like a snake fish, it was the only thing tying me to my origins so I liked it. Not so majestic so I had to hide it by wrapping it using a bondage.

'Although my body no is not what it used to be now.', I thought.

I liked my team mates to the point that we were calling ourselves family.

I drifted from my thoughts and to the real world. I could hear some muffled noises from the outside of the hut that I was sleeping in.

‘Who is the bastard you are keeping in your house old hag?’, a thick sounding voice said.

“He is no one. He is just a patient, he was injured so I tended to his injuries” said the old lady.

“Who are you to talk back to me you old b****”, said the thick voice menacingly, just before I heard the sound of slapping.

I heard sounds of slapping again and again coming from outside.

“He is… sleeping now so please…”, said the old lady while trying to speak evenly.

Three very big men with large weapons that looked like machetes broke the door of the hat and marched in. I opened my eyes slightly careful not to get noticed. I tried to see what they are all about. Then one of the men came near me and said…

“Boss are you sure this guy is a man? He looks so feminine”

‘What? Feminine?’

“Yeah, look at his face. He looks so pretty”

“I guess he’s from the land of Nirvana. They say that the men are prettier than the women there”

‘What are they talking about?’

“Should we take him to her, she would definetly make him her play thing…”

“Oh, come on, we should enjoy him ourselves first, he is just too pretty to let him slip”

Said the burlier man while approaching me lustfully. I snapped my eyes open and tried to march for the door at full speed. I could hear my bones cracking as I stood from my place. I passed by the two crudes who were near me but the third man who was by the door grabbed me by the collar and lifted me up from the ground.

“Where do you think you are going?”, his voice resounded in my ear like a hungry beast from the movies.

I was scarred shitless. They wrapped me up in some rope and loaded me on the wagon. Then it started moving.

After what seemed like half an hour, the wagon stopped and they grabbed me like some luggage and threw me to the ground. After that, they took me to what looked like a prison cell made from thick wood bars.

‘What is going on right now? What am I going—to d’, before I could even finish what I was thinking, the old lady and her granddaughter ‘Lyna’ were thrown in to the cell next to mine.

The old woman just looked tired, but the girl was crying and begging to be released and left alone. The girl then looked at me with resentment and turned her face around in a dismissive way.

“Both of you guard the prisoners!”, the leader of the group that brought us here said to two of his men.

“Yes boss!”, they said saluting in unison.

Then he left after glaring at me like he was about to devour me.