Arc 4: Basileia Crystal Cave

  Name: Orb

  Age: 15

  Birthday: Capri 28th

  Hair: Primary White (standard), Red (anger), Greeement), Yellow (fear), Brown (nervousness), Grey (fusion), Cream (hunger), Lime (lying), e (disfort), Bck (worry), Pink (happiness), Purple (?), Gold (arrogance), Blue (embarrassed)

  Sedary: Silver

  Eyes: Blue (left) and Gold (Right)

  Height: 168 cm

  Likes: Drawing, Food, Snow Sculptures, Books, Captivant, Wolfie, Draga, Cole, Meat, Vilgers

  Dislikes: Bei alone, Physical tact, Cliffs, weakness

  Φ As I wake up, I am greeted by the familiar voice of people from my vilge. I open my eyes to see multiple people in s from our vilge.

  “Willow, are you ok,” Buloke says.

  “Except for the s, I am as good as ever.”

  He sighs in relief, saying, “That is good to hear.”

  I then feel a sudden urge and say, “I o shit and piss right now.”

  There are buckets over there. With haste, I go over to it and relieve myself.

  When I finish my business, I look around ahat all of us are in a giant cell, “Where are we?”

  “I wish I could tell you that, but I say, it seems only men are here, all of us excluding Sequoia and Orb. I screamed out, and they responded from the other cells.”

  How the hell did we eve here? The st thing I remember is Cole giving us a speech then I was unscious. “Hey everyone, what is the st thing you guys remember.”

  “We have already discussed this, but it’s the bahough some of us have some memories after that.”

  “What would they be.”

  “They said some of them felt like they were being carried off somewhere. Some say they felt a very rocky motion and caught glimpses of grassnds.”

  “What the hell could that mean”. As I say this, the st person who was unscious wakes up: it’s Oren.

  “You all right, you geezer,” Buloke says to him.

  “Who are you calling geezer, you fool.”

  “Well, at least I say your all right.”

  But like me, Oren suddenly asks, “Where I relieve myself.”

  “There are buckets over there”, and with Buloke’s words, Oren races over there and relieves himself just like I did.

  After he finishes, he asks, “What is going on, Buloke.”

  Letting out a sigh, “Well, for the tweime today, let me expin.”

  After telling Oren all the info we had, he says, “I might have an idea as to what happened.”

  “What is it,” I ask eagerly.

  “Think about it. There is no way assed out simultaneously. So, we must of all been drugged at around the same time, and there are very few ways to do that, but one would be at diime. It is the moment when all of us could have been drugged.”

  As I think about what Oren says, it clicks in my brain, “The food had something in it, and the one in charge of all the cooking was Cole.”

  “How would Cole be able to do that? We have no such drug in our vilge. It isn’t possible.” Buloke says.

  Then Oren says, “It is like how he made that ahetic. He has lots of knowledge from the outside world. It isn’t hard to believe he found some bination of things ihe vilge that could have su effect, and it is not like anyone in the vilge would notice him cooking it into the food. They would simply think it is a form of spice. The speech he also gave was a sign of this.”

  We all sit in there, meditating on Cole’s as. Someone says, “So wouldn’t that mean Orb could also have betrayed us.”

  Snapping at the man who said this, I say, “No, it doesn’t. He has already told us they only met by ce. There is no way Orb art of this.”

  “But look at the situation; he isn’t anywhere here while all of us are. I doubt that’s a ce. Isn’t this why we feared his presen the first pce.”

  “You must admit it is suspicious, Willow”, someone else says.

  “You guys ’t be thinking this,” I say as I look around at the faces of the people around me, but they have their heads down and are not looking at me. Everyone is your fate so hollow.

  “Cole could cook because of saving Maple and Orb’s stant praise of him.”

  Then someone says, “Wasn’t Orb the reason Maple even ran into the forest to get hurt.”

  “The more I think about it, the more suspicious it gets.”

  “Stop being fools,” Buloke says. “Orb ate more food than anyone else at the ba. He also stole lots of food from our ptes, and whearted to fall unscious, I looked in Sequoia’s dire and saw him ft on his face.”

  “But that doesn’t expin how he isn’t here.”

  The Oren chimes in, “Orb’s body isn’t normal anymore due to his legacy. He might have better drug resistand could have woken up earlier. Another point in this favour is the fact Sequoia isn’t here. He used to stuff a bunch of pnts in his mouth when he was younger, giving him higher resistahan us. They both probably woke up earlier.”

  “That still isn’t clusive.”

  “SHUT UP, YOU IDIOTS. Have a little faith. I know what happened with ust have shaken your trust, but that doesn’t mean you should doubt everyone and everything. Don’t let this one bad experience sour your mind. YOU GOT THAT.”

  “Yes, sir”, they all scream in unison.

  “Now, the bigger issue is how far away from our vilge.”

  “We couldn’t have gotten that far.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Everyone keeps getting a glimpse of things and feeling different motions. I believe that what everyone was feeling and seeing where during the momewee drug wearing off and them administering a different ohe fact that we all needed desperately to void our bowels proves this. We have no idea how long we have been out.”

  “I will go inform everyone else of this,” I say. As I am about to scream out so everyone else hear, men I have never seen before walk into the room and say.

  “You guys are finally all awake. Rejoice; it is time for you guys to start your wonderful new lives.” After the man says that a group of people wearing the same uniform as him.

  “Everyo cautiously, don’t do anything stupid, and tell everyone else what we discussed today,” Oren says with a severe expression on his face.

  “Yes”, we all respond as the men who ehe room open our cells and drag us all out. While still in s, they take us out of the chamber we were in, but as we left, I saw that rock walls surrounded us. Seeing this, I clude that in a cave.

  They take all of us until we’re in a rge area with lots of spad say to us all, “From today until you die, you are our property. It was quite expeo buy all of you so we will put you all to good work. That is all.”

  Property? Bought us? While I think over his words, I only clude that we were sold as sves. I am stu this revetion, but not all the warriors are as passive as me.

  Buloke and some others still in s grab arain some of the men and women guarding us and say, “Do you think we are just going to let ourselves be ensved like this”. I see Buloke tighten the chokehold he has on the guard.

  “Well, first, I said property, not svery, so don’t fuse terms you idiotic sve. Sed, what your doing is pointless, look at your hostages.”

  Looking at the people being held; they aren’t even struggling, it is as if they're perfectly okay with the situation they’re in. Though one of them is g and says, “I wish I could have been more use to mother Man.”

  Buloke knocks out the one he is holding and says, “Then I will have to take all of you down.” He rushes at the man giving the speech, but as Buloke gets close, the man drops something.

  Looking down, Buloke says, “Fingers”, and starts to take out the man who dropped them. “Was that supposed to stop me.”

  “No, it is a warning. Do those fingers look like they belong to an adult? One look, and you tell they aren’t. Haven’t you wondered where all the kids with you had gone?”

  Realising the meaning behind those words, I say, “Buloke, stop.”

  But instead, he starts to choke him, “What the hell did you do.”

  “For every one of us you kill, one of the kids with you will be punished, and if we don’t return in a certain amount of time, they will be punished, so please, tio e.”

  Hearing his words, Buloke loosens his grip a’s go.

  As the mas up, he kicks Bulht in the fad says since you guys didn’t feel like behaving yourself, I had to resort to these methods. If you behave, all those kids will be happy ahy. If you rebel, they will experience punishment worse than the denizens of hell. Now that would be all.”

  As the man walks away, I ask him, “If you only hurt the kids to punish us, why did you already have fingers.”

  “Oh, that’s simply, because I don’t like you guys, you reek of trouble, so I prepunished some of the kids,” he says as he walks away with a smile.

  One by ohey started to load all of us into a meical traption that could go down with the pull of a lever. They took everyohough I did notice they took the more robust people and those who picked a fight down first, it also seemed that subsequent groups came up faster than the previous ones. My group was one of the st to go down.

  After we desded a bit, they pushed me into a tunnel, and as I walked in, I saw tless shining bluish-red crystals being mined by people. They bring me ihen hand me something called a pickaxe and say, “Your quota of crystals is twenty full carts. You only get to eat and sleep once you have pleted this, so you better get to work.” With that, they leave, and as I start mining, I hear one of the guards scream, “GET YOUR LAZY ASSES MOVING.”

  This whole situation makes me feel sick, but all I dht now is fill my quota as fast as possible, then I sit down and think.

  -Break-

  The air here is hot. I feel like my lungs and skin are about to fire. The only thing that distracts me from this is the colour of the crystals. I swing the pickaxe against the stone again and again. stantly bashing against these incredible hard crystals has very quickly destroyed my stamina.

  This endless repetitive a has me w how much longer is left. Looking back at the carts, I have only filled twelve. In all this time, I still have eight left. My body feels like it is about to fall apart, but the worst part is that when I look around, I see the eed faces of the rest of the sves beside me. My parent’s corpses had more life than some of them. They are just mindlessly swinging their arms at the crystals. Though some of them are smiling and happily turning away while mumbling, “All for mom, all for mom.”

  While refog oask, I see an old man near me fall as he coughs relentlessly. As I walk over to him, my legs don’t move, so I think to myself. Should I get involved? I still have lots of work to do. Who knows when I will be finished? I ’t get in trouble by helping a dying old man, but as I see him cough up blood, I run to his side.”

  “Food.” The man says.

  As I i his body, I see that this man, who is older than Oren, has skin that has been burned and rotted a colour blue. Whatever is going on with his body is clearly the cause.

  I then see a guard walk up to us, and she says, “Hurry up a back to work. You aren’t even halfway through your quota today, not to mention that you still haven’t fully gohrough your quota for the st two days, if you don’t finish no food or sleep, only water.”

  “This man is clearly in no shape to work.”

  “Now,” she says as she crouches. She then tells the old man, “This year, your daughter turns ten. You should see hoy she is now. She has many friends and always eats well. All of that is due to your work for us in these caves over the st five years. If you die, I guess we no longer have much of a reason to keep her. It is a pity.”

  Hearing her words, the man on the border between life ah gets baining with blood spuing from his mouth.

  At this rate, the man in front of me will die. Suddenly a frightening came to me. I started immediately doubting this idea. I do this? Yes, I , with a little extra effort; I save someone’s life. I say to the woman, “Let me do his work on top of my ow him get some rest and food.”

  Looking at me, the woman cries and says, “WHAT A GOOD BOY YOU ARE. I WILL ALLOW THIS!” After this, she takes the old man away.

  So, with more motivation than before, I start mining away at all the crystals.

  -Break-

  As I mihe st crystal, I throw it into the previous cart, exasperated. I don’t have any strength left. Everyone else left ho I believe my sense of time has faded almost plete. While lying on the ground, my skin and eyes feel like they were on fire, and it was so difficult to breathe that I would swear someone was choking me.

  While on the floor, I think, is this where I die? I did something foolish, and my life is about to end here. Orb, Maple, Sequoia, everyone, if I die here I will only have regrets. Why do I have to go out like this? I feel like g, but any tears that start to form evaporate.

  As I y eyes, I feel someone pick me up and put me on their back, walking away from the tre.

  In my semi-scious state, I look at this person with rown, ruff bck hair, two horns and a big tail. I must be having some near-death dream. But to my surprise, the person carrying me said, “D-D-Don’t worry, you will be okay. I will take care of the r-r-rest; just sleep, Boy”, and with those words from a hushed voice, I fell asleep.