Chapter 7 - New World

Mill felt he was floating. He could not hear anything nor see but somehow he was awake.

His thoughts flowed like waves ebbing on a shore and he couldn’t gather a single thought to focus. He seemed aware of everything, but at the same time he was as empty and unknowing as a void.

He did not know how long he was in that state but suddenly sounds and colors started to flow in his senses. Before he knew it, he felt being sucked somewhere then he felt himself falling into a hard surface.

He heard some voices around him, calling, shouting, and… singing?

It took him a while for his brain to normally function and when he opened his eyes, his vision was filled by the night sky, a huge blue moon and the countless stars shining in it.

He didn’t move and continued staring at it in trance, when suddenly the view of the night sky was replaced by a grinning old man.

Mill sat up from his prone position, shocked. It only subsided when the old man started speaking.

“Hello to you. Are you alright?”

Mill shook his head without a thought and stared strangely at the bald old man who was wearing a white blanket as a clothe.

He turned his gaze away and looked at his surroundings. He was in an open space, sitting on a concrete or stone ground. He was not sure what it was as it was dark around, with only torches and lamps lighting his surroundings, but he knew it smelt like a paved ground.

All around him, for as far as he could see, were people who were also lying on the ground, some unconscious while some sitting up like him, confused. White blanketed individuals the same with the old man, but with more hair, roamed around, checking on the unconscious people.

He could not see anything from afar as it was dark. But he was in some open space, with no buildings, trees or structures around.

“Who’re you?” Mill drawled as looked back at the bald old man. “Where am I?”

Before Mill heard the bald old man’s reply, his head suddenly ached, then it escalated to a full blown pain as if someone just drilled a hole in his head. He grabbed his head and doubled over to the ground as saliva drooled from his mouth.

The pain increased then he lost consciousness.

Mill slowly gained his consciousness when he felt someone grab his body and put him on a soft surface. He heard someone heave and then he felt the thing he was on moved upwards, stopped, moved again but this time horizontally accompanied by a clatter of human steps moving.

The lull of the swinging movement made him drowsy and relaxed, prompting him to go back sleeping.

He was awakened again not a moment later when he felt the thing he was on jostled, then he heard someone talking.

“What could have happened?” he heard someone talking from above his head. “How could there be so many altas this time?”

“How would I know?” a voice from his feet replied. “Nothing is making sense lately.”

“This will complicate things. What do you think the johaman will do?”

The person at Mill’s feet took a pause before replying, “Take them all?”

“But this many? It would be dangerous.”

“Did you hear how many they are?”

“Almost a hundred.”

“Woah. That’s…”

The men continued talking for some time but Mill found it hard to keep track of what they were talking about. Afterwards their voices lulled him to sleep again.

Mill woke up again but this time to a screaming. He slowly opened his eyes but closed it again after a bright light bombarded his eyes.

He sat up and covered his eyes and looked behind him towards the open window with the sun shining directly into it. The window showed a view of a cloudless sky, which was unfamiliar to Mill as the window on his dorm room directly overlooked a huge building.

He realized immediately he was not in his dorm room, he was in a room with stones as its ceiling, walls and floor; in a rough bed too close to the floor; and a screaming person somewhere in this big room.

The room was more long than big. It had two rows of beds, or more like cots, on both the opposite sides of the room, so many that Mill could not even make an estimate.

All the beds were occupied with people, some who were sleeping and some were like him, disoriented and asking why someone was screaming this early in the morning.

He looked to his right where the commotion was and saw a group of people dressed in corporate outfits banging against the door of the room. Beside them was a screaming woman dressed in a hospital gown, banging on the wall and screaming out of fear for something.

“Let us out of here!” a man wearing a business suit shouted at the door.

A woman in a white dress shirt and a black pencil skirt, pressed both of her hands on her ears as she regarded the screaming woman a few meters from her. “Can you shut up?” She stomped her foot on the wall near the screaming woman. “What are you even saying? Are you crazy?”

The screaming woman was still banging his arms on the wall, screaming at everyone who came near her. It took Mill a few seconds to understand what the woman was screaming, “Haustas, help!” She was calling for help with someone named Ha-us-tas.

“I think she’s mentally ill,” a voice sounded behind Mill.

Mill looked at the woman who was beside his bed wearing a nurse outfit.

Mill nodded. “She seemed to be asking for someone named Hayustas?”

“You can understand what she was saying?”

Mill frowned, “You can’t? She’s speaking…” then before Mill replied that the woman was speaking the same language as them, the door of the room opened outwards and a group of people came inside the room. They wore the same white blanketed outfits Mill met when he first woke up

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It was dark when Mill saw them so he did not notice that what they were wearing was more like a hoodless white cloak that opened with a slit in front of them with inner clothes inside.

What Mill was interested in was that of all the five people entering the room, all of them had some kind of weapon by their side. Two had a sword poking from the slats of their white cloak, another two held lances while the one on the front, a woman with thick black hair, had a staff of white wood fastened on her back.

Their outfits looked bizarre, as if they were wearing some type of uniformed costumes. The difference though was that they wore it with confidence, coupled with their menacing and serious faces, Mill could not make fun of their looks.

“Welcome, altaworlders,” the woman with the staff said, roaming her gazes at everyone in the room. She stopped her gaze towards the group of people still standing up in front of the door and pointedly looked at them.

The screaming woman who had stopped screaming when the door opened had started screaming again upon the stares of the newcomers.

The woman with the staff calmly went towards the screaming woman and touched her shoulder. The screaming woman squirmed from the touch but the woman with the staff held on to her shoulder and did not let go. “It’s okay dear. You are in a safe place,” said the woman with the staff in a peculiar voice different from when she was talking before. For some reason, her voice sounded reassuring, bringing calm not just to the screaming woman but to everyone who heard it.

Mill, as well as the others around, nodded as if replying to the woman, believing that they were safe.

The screaming woman stopped screaming and stared at the staff woman with shock and wonder.

A second later, Mill shook off his head as the feeling of security dribbled out of his mind and the confusion of his situation came back to him.

The screaming woman was now calm while the woman with the staff brought her to an open bed beside the door and then regarded the rest of them, “Sorry for that. You may have unintentionally been affected by my Persuasive Voice ability. It helps people calm sometimes. Rest assured, I will not use it in our coming conversation. But first, I hope you all behave.” She pointedly looked at the still standing group of corporate people. “As I will explain everything to you. Now,” she gestured to the empty bed, “go back to your beds in the meantime.”

The group of people in corporate outfits did not listen at first and instead continued standing warrily at her. Some of the people near them persuaded them to sit back and they only agreed when a man dressed in what looked like an officer uniform asked them politely.

Now that everyone was at their beds the woman spoke again. “I will explain everything at once. Once I’m done, you can then ask any of your questions. Are we having an understanding here?”

Some people including Mill voiced their agreements.

“To start, I am Senhora, the delra of the 3rd dacotan in this mainland, the Dabo Mainland. This may be hard to accept but to make things short, this is not your world anymore. We don't have a name for our world, as you all have with yours, but what I'm sure of is that you are not in your world anymore. You just got transported from your own world to this world.”

Her announcement was met with silence.

Mill stared at her and blinked his eyes. He cocked his head to the side thinking if he heard her right. He stared at the faces near him and they were also gaping at the woman.

They were clearly speechless.

The silence was then shattered when someone burst into laughter, then other people joined him.

“Are you high, miss?” someone asked. “Is this a prank? Because if it is then I have no time for this.”

“Oh my god!” A woman voiced out on the far side of the room. “Am I kidnapped? And by crazy people at that?”

The room had now turned into a frenzy of confused and panicked people.

Mill was similarly confused. He thought if he was still dreaming. He put his thumb and index finger on his left arm to pinch it but halfway to his pinching, a searing pain attacked his senses instead. He looked at his left arm and saw a healing wound in it covered with scab.

He was clearly not dreaming.

He looked at his wound again and wondered how he got it. He felt he was forgetting something.

“Hey!” Mill’s attention turned to the nurse woman on his right. “Did she just claim we're in another world?”

Mill did not reply as an angry man dressed casually in home clothes slammed his arm on the bed making a loud noise in the room. He was only a few beds from Mill, and as their beds were located in the center of the room, everyone's attention was caught by his outburst.

“What are you playing at lady?” the man said, giving off a short laugh. He stood up from his bed, walked towards the woman with staff while pointing his fingers at her. “Is this a prank? What do you think you’re doing holding up people like this? This should be illegal. This is kidnapping! I—” he poke her head with his finger “ —have a kid at home. I—” he poked it again “ —don’t have time to play with you.”

The woman only stood there, not even budged by the man's belittling poke. The man then tried to go past the woman but as he passed by, the woman raised her right hand and laid it on the man's shoulder.

The man let out a surprise sound. He tried to move his body forward but he couldn't move past the woman's hold. He pushed back again but no matter how bigger he was than the woman, he was still held off in place. He tried to pry the woman’s hand from his shoulder but the woman's hand held on to it tightly. Mill saw him struggling to take the woman’s hold but the woman was clearly stronger than him, and to a huge degree at that.

“Now, let me finish first,” Senhora said to the man as she gently pushed the man towards his bed and pushed him flat on it like a kid.

As it was only two beds away, Mill saw the man sagged on the bed with his face all red.

Senhora did not go back to the front and continued talking in the middle of the room instead. “This might be impossible to believe,” she let out a patient smile, “but this is not your own world anymore. This might not be a welcome but nonetheless, Welcome to this world. I hope you enjoy your stay here. Well I really hope so.”

Her statement this time was only met with confused stares.

“What did she say?” a young man to Mill’s left asked aloud. Similar words echoed throughout the room.

Mill was confused about what they meant.

Senhora gave an apologetic smile while laughing a little. “I’m sorry for that. I forgot to turn on my Language Translation Bar.”

Then in front of her, a transparent box suddenly materialized out of thin air.

Everyone was frozen in stunned silence.

Mill, like everyone else, stared at the transparent box, around half a foot in width and only a few inches in height, and thought if his eyes were tripping him. The box just appeared in front of all out of thin air, and if his sight was not failing him, there were also words and symbols floating inside the box.

“This is a Language Translation Bar,” Senhora introduced. “This helps me communicate with all of you and your different languages. This helps the user to talk with someone with a different language as if he was speaking to them on their own. This is what we call Bars and I bet your world doesn't have this. If this won’t convince you. Letar,” she gestured to her comrades on the door and a young woman dressed in a brown leather dress entered the room.

As the woman walked in the middle of the room, Mill was even more confused about what Senhora just said.

Even if he believed that that bar had the ability to give someone a translation ability. But why does she need it when she was speaking in his language all this time. When everyone was asking what she just said, she was speaking legibly in Mill's ear. Didn’t they have the same language as everyone?

Before he could think more, the leather dressed woman was now in the middle of the room beside Senhora.

The leather woman closed her eyes and stretched her hands upwards. Immediately, a circle of water materialized between her stretched hand and went above her head. It levitated there for a second then without warning burst into little droplets all over the room, pelting and wetting everyone including Mill.

And with it, the memory of the events in the Oxygen High, as well as the rock massacre and the giant octopus came back to Mill.

He remembered the struggle he experienced in that school. The weird things that happened and the countless times he thought he was going to die.

He forgot that the world that he knew had already changed.

“Letar here is a Waterwoman,” Sechora announced, “and I am a Staff Priestess. This is what I do.”

Senhora then expertly brandished her staff from her back towards her front, and twirled it into a few spins. She suddenly let go of her hands, but the staff continued to turn mid air then it stopped, it still floated in front of her as if someone was holding it. It gradually glowed in white and then it rose by itself a few feet in the air then slammed on the floor.

A white light pulsed out of it and Mill felt his body immobilized. The other people who were hit by the light also experienced it. It only lasted for a second then Mill felt he could move his body again. “Now,” Senhora said towards the shocked faces in the room. “I bet you also don't have anyone like this in your previous worlds. So here’s the gist. You can’t come back to your own world, and you’re basically stuck here forever, well at least till you die. So either you shut your ass out, accept things as they go— hell, this world doesn't wait for anyone to adjust— and answer my question. Who wants to be like us?”

The room turned into commotion.