A hard slap to the cheek shook Hill out of his sleep.
"Wake up!"
He opened his eyes slowly, squinting as the world spun into shape before him. A painful throb made its presence known at his temple. His throat felt parched, his lips dry.
The figures before him were many in number, and it took him a while to recognize who they were. Indeed, it was the same group that had been fighting with the alien-looking group earlier.
They were all staring at him with inquisitive looks in their eyes. The raven-haired girl, Ashen, knelt in front of him with an arm outstretched near his face. His cheek throbbed as he stared at the soft skin of her palm. Her eyes narrowed.
"The worker ant is finally awake." She muttered callously as she turned to face a young, skinny-faced blonde man with soft hazel eyes. "Go on, interrogate him then."
The blondie stepped forward, an awkward smile plastered on his face. He stretched his hand out as if expecting a handshake. Hill groaned as he tried to move his arm to shake the man's hand, but he faced resistance. Looking down, he saw that his arms were bound to his torso with vines. It was tight. He could barely move a muscle. His legs and hands were also bound tightly, and he was positioned against the rough bark of a purple-bark tree.
Why am I tied up? he asked himself anxiously. Then he remembered how he had been stalking the group. They had noticed him, of course, which was why he was now bound like this before them. Surely they realize I'm harmless, right? I mean, I don't look like those guys. They looked so different.
"Wait," he began.
"You have pretty red eyes," the blondie observed, cutting him off. "You know, we have all sorts of different eye colors. Blue, green, brown, and much more."
He ended the sentence there, proceeding to simply stare at Hill with pursed lips.
Is he prompting me to speak? Hill thought to himself. But why? And why's he talking about eye color?
And why do his words feel loaded?
"Uh, yeah? I know that." He replied, a question appearing on his face. "What's your point?" He shook his head side to side and shuffled in place in an attempt to sit up straighter. "Wait, why am I being interrogated? What did I do?"
The blondie's smile turned venomous. "You were following us, of course. Not to mention, your kind have been quite forward in your intentions of infiltrating our noble society. We were fooled once, but it won't happen again." He placed his hand on Hill's shoulder and pulled him off the tree, forcing Hill to bend down as he leaned in to whisper in his ear. "So, has your slow, worm-riddled brain finally realized what's happening?"
Hill shook his head. "No."
He was being honest. He didn't understand what the blonde man was talking about at all.
What does he mean by 'infiltrating our noble society?'
If anything, all I was doing was following them! I'm lost out here, damnit!
The blondie turned around to one of his comrades, the bushy man with the great brown beard from earlier, and let out a wheezy laugh before turning back and slamming his fist into Hill's nose.
Pain shot through his face like a furious flame, causing tears to immediately start dropping from his eyes. He could do nothing about it though. His arms were bound. Blood began to trickle from his nostrils and onto his lips and chin.
"You igashians are something else! Now go on, spit it out!" The blondie laughed. "And don't forget to tell us everything you know about your society. We care about that too."
Another sequence of blows followed. The first hit his stomach, the second hit his face. Hill's head snapped back against the rough bark as a wheezed groan left his body. The blondie grabbed him by the hair and yanked him forward once more. "Go on, speak then!"
"I don't know," Hill began, a mixture of blood and saliva dripping from his lips like syrup.
"Don't know what!?"
Hill looked up at the blondie, and his facial expression shifted from dazed horror to a confused anger.
"I don't know what an igashian is," he breathed. "I'm from Agshaka." He narrowed his eyes. "Do you know where that is, asshole?"
A swift punch to the jaw served as an answer, causing his vision to flash white.
"Don't be smart with me, rat." The blondie spat, his smile widening. "Agshaka, huh? That's a good one. The last spy we caught also claimed he was from some other earth city. The bastard knew all sorts of things too. It's amazing what you can learn when you torture people for a few weeks." He leaned in again, his smile gone. "But I hope you continue to try and fool me."
"I'm not lying!" Hill insisted. "Also, 'earth city?' Why are you saying it like that? What's going on?"
He was rightfully confused. The way the blondie was speaking was strange. Firstly, he referred to Hill as an 'igashian,' whatever that meant. Secondly, he was alluding to torture as well as speaking of Earth as if it was somehow separated from the present context.
Shouldn't he be saying 'some other city' instead of 'some other earth city,' right? But if that was purposeful, what does that mean? What am I missing?
There wasn't enough information for him to draw a conclusion from. More answers were needed, which meant that more questions must be asked, which would risk him receiving more blows in return.
Just one look at the surrounding thugs confirmed his fears. They were itching to pounce on him and tear him apart like craven beasts deprived of sustenance. But he knew that if he didn't do anything, punishment would inevitably come.
"You guys are thugs," he spat, blood speckling from his lips. He wiggled his bony fingers from beneath the binding, hoping they would see. "Look at me! I'm skin and bones, for fuck's sake. What threat am I to you? Huh? I was just following you guys because you seemed more like me, unlike that other group that looked like aliens."
Just as he said those words, his eyes widened in shock. Everything finally began to click.
Hold on a second…alien-looking people?
They called me an igashian, and they said I was infiltrating their noble society.
Their society?
Then who do they think I am?
Also, torturing people???
And that strange 'earth city' comment…
Could it be that the alien-looking people are actually… aliens? How did this come to be?
He gasped.
"Wait, do you guys really think I'm an alien?" He began, the words flying off his lips. "I don't even look like them! I'm from Earth! I lived in Agshaka all my life! I died there! I know all about earthling stuff! Just ask away. I can answer any question you have."
For a moment, nobody said anything. The earthling group simply stared at him with blank expressions on their faces. Finally, the blondie moved. Turning to Ashen, he chuckled awkwardly as he scratched at the hairs beneath his beret. "Strange," he began. "Why do I believe him?"
Ashen shrugged, her face unreadable.
The blondie turned back to Hill with a curious look in his eyes. "Could he be genuine? If not, his acting skills are really convincing."
"But the last earthling to appear in this place arrived two months ago." A scrawny, facially scarred brown-haired man replied. "From what we know about the plague and how quickly it devoured Earth, there's no way for any more humans to arrive. He has to be lying."
"Beto, that's enough. Leo, continue with the interrogation." The bearded man barked. "We don't have time to waste."
The blondie, Leo, sighed before clasping his hands together. "Alright. I guess I'll speed things up."
He reached into the rugged satchel at his side and withdrew a crude book. Its pages were a bluish white in color, but were thick and seemed to curl against each other despite the bindings which were made of some kind of leather.
"We used to only ask questions in a standard one on one type interrogation. However, we didn't anticipate the enemy capturing newly arrived earthlings and torturing them for information on earth." He dragged his thumb over his neck. "That didn't end well for us."
He withdrew a piece of charcoal out of the satchel and opened the book, flipping to a blank page before beginning to draw. "So now we'll try to identify knowledge that can't be extracted through spoken word."
Hill blinked, still bleeding a bit from his nose. "So…you're going to draw me pictures?"
"Precisely." Leo muttered, his brow furrowing as he concentrated. He began sketching quickly, dragging the piece of charcoal against the page with a noticeable degree of confidence. He turned the first drawing towards Hill.
A four legged creature. Long legs. Long neck. Covered in spots.
Hill squinted. "That's…a giraffe."
Leo raised a brow but didn't respond. He flipped the page and started again.
A turning rectangular prism fitted with ellipses at the sides and parallel lines that ran underneath the prism. A wispy trail of strokes trailed off the top of the rectangular prism.
Hill stared at the drawing for a moment before turning to Leo. "Is that supposed to be a train?"
Perhaps it was the way he questioned the drawing, because the group behind Leo began giggling softly. Leo scowled and flipped the page once more. "Alright one more…"
This time, the drawing was strange. It was a simple circle, except the inner, more extravagant details were reminiscent of a coin. Hill's eyes narrowed as he tried to zero in on the scratchy details, but he struggled.
The inner details of the coin were arranged in a spiral that moved towards the center of the coin where a hand was gestured into a finger pistol aimed upward. Around this hand, several vectors could be seen spiraling around it.
The hell? I haven't seen that ever! He spat internally. Damnnit this is bad. If I don't get this right, I'm screwed!
He tried to think of the various currencies that he'd seen over the sixteen years he had lived on earth. But after drawing blank after blank, he simply couldn't identify the coin. In fact, the more he stared at it, the more he began to believe that it wasn't an earthling coin at all.
Letting out a sigh of resignation, he looked into Leo's eyes and shook his head side to side. "I don't know what that is. I haven't seen it before."
Leo's expression widened into a smile. "Oh really? You don't know…" He trailed off, stabbing his free hand's index finger into the center of the coin drawing. "...what that is?"
Hill grimaced. "Yeah. I don't."
Leo frowned. "This coin…is the most widely used coin on earth!" His smile widened even further as he leaned in. "Are you telling me…that you…a supposed earthling…can't recognize it?"
A scowl crossed Hill's lips. "Is this supposed to be a joke? The most widely used coin isn't whatever this shit is. It would be the peridian penny!"
Leo froze. The smirk on his face wavered just enough for Hill to notice. The others, who had been watching the exchange with humorous expressions, exchanged quick glances.
"The… Peridian penny?" Leo repeated.
Hill snorted through his half-blocked nose, causing blood to splatter his lips. "Yeah. Small copper coin, crown insignia on one side, the Deulegarde crest on the other. Pretty hard to mistake that for—" he gestured toward the drawing with a tilt of his chin "—whatever that is supposed to be."
For a second, nobody spoke. They simply stared at him, their gazes piercing through his skin. Then, Leo spoke.
"Alright. I didn't think you'd notice the coin was fake. Whatever, though." Leo turned to the bearded man. "Well, boss?"
The bearded man pushed himself off the tree and walked toward Hill, stopping just a few feet away. He looked Hill up and down, as if examining him. Then he knelt down, bringing himself to eye level with the boy.
"Kid," he began, his voice low. "Are you truly…one of us?"
Hill nodded. "Yes I am."
The bearded man sighed. "Leo, untie him."
Leo looked surprised. "Boss, are you sure? He looks just like their workers. Surely we can keep him tied up until we reach the camp?"
"I'm sure." The bearded man stood up and turned to the rest of the group. "Alright, everyone, listen up. This kid says he's from Earth, not from Igashia." He itched at his beard. "And I believe him."
He turned back to Hill, who was now being untied by a hesitant Leo.
"What's your name, kid?" The bearded man asked.
"Hill. My name is Hill."
"Alright, Hill. I'm Relto, leader of this scout group. Welcome to, well, wherever the hell we are. We call it the underground forest, for lack of a better name." Relto offered Hill a hand. "We're part of a larger group called the Krugenhold. Human survivors, all from Earth."
The second he said those words, Hill felt a mental jolt slam into him, causing him to grimace and groan as he caught his head in his hands.
Wait…those words…that was a different language!
What language was that?
Why do I understand it?
He rubbed his eyes, struggling to figure out what just happened. Scrambling through his memories, he searched hard for those syllables. But as he searched, all he kept stumbling upon was the imperial language of the Peridian Empire: Peridi.
In fact, that was the same language that Hill had spoken all his life. It was the only language he had ever learned.
Hold on a second…if that's the case… what language am I—
He looked up at Relto, who looked down upon him with a curious expression. "That's…Peridi." Hill mumbled, his voice shaking as he reciprocated Relto's words, speaking in peridi as he responded. "But if…wait…what? What fucking language was I using before? What the hell is going on?"
Relto let out a loud, bellowing laugh as he switched back to the strange, foreign language. "Ha! That confirms it! You're one of us!" He extended his hand towards Hill. "It's best if you don't get your head wrapped up about that stuff too much. We all passed the soul trial, and as a result, have had some new language imprinted upon ourselves."
Hill accepted the hand, letting Relto help him to his feet. He rubbed his wrists, now free from the tight vine bindings. His body ached all over, his mind was scrambling, but at least he could move again.
So I've been speaking…and thinking…some random language I've never spoken before? He couldn't help but laugh in shock. I think my brain's going to explode. This is just…too much.
"The workers don't know peridi at all, and the ones who managed to learn it hide their words due to their terrible pronunciation." Relto continued, a gleeful smile on his face. "I'm glad you're one of us, Hill. It's truly been a long time since I've seen a new earthling like yourself."
Ashen clapped her hands. "All of you, stop standing around like stunned cattle. We've wasted enough time. We need to get out of the borderlands before a husk patrol finds us." She stepped forward and called loudly toward the bearded man. "Relto! Let's move!"
Relto grunted in agreement, patting Hill on the shoulder as he turned away, heading towards the front of the group. "You heard her. Let's move. Back to Krugenhold. Now."
The squad snapped out of their stupor. Leo patted Hill on the back. "Sorry about the face. Just doing my job. And welcome to the family, I guess."
Hill spat out a bit more blood. "Thanks for the welcome." He tried to keep the sarcasm out of his voice, but failed miserably.
Leo laughed. "You'll fit right in."
"You," Ashen said, prodding Hill in the small of his back. "Walk. Keep up."
Hill staggered forward on shaky legs, but he tried his best to follow the group as they moved deeper into the alien forest. Behind him, a sharp edge made its presence known against the hairs on the back of his neck.
"Don't get any ideas," Ashen whispered from directly behind him, her voice loud in his ear. "You're one of us for now. But one wrong move, and I'll open your throat. Understood?"
Hill could only nod.