Episode Three- What is Hate?
I was confused. When I first came to, the fire was all I noticed, but after a moment of recollection, I noticed he was there. I violently shuddered, and began to move away from him, but the pain of my wound both reminded and halted me of my actions. The thick mound of hair that stood atop his head was jet black and I eyed his face over and over to make sure he was human. His eyes were dark – wild but subtle. The skin that surrounded them was fair and tanned, and he bore a look of confidence and morality I had never seen before in a man.
From what I could tell, the suit he wore was black, but there was a devilish hue draped about it from the illumination of the flames between us. We sat in a small cavern which had been entered from the Catsora tunnels. The only thing defeating the deafening silence was the coals which smoldered- popping and cracking amongst the ashes.
“How are you feeling?” He asked me. His voice, which had previously been muffled by the mask he wore, was now free to echo throughout the cavern. It was low and raspy.
I recall being confused. No one had ever asked me how I felt. It was a trap- I remained silent.
He peered at me for a moment. “Not much of a talker?” He stood to his feet and dusted himself off. “Perhaps you’re unable to speak?”
Once again, I remained unresponsive.
“You bear the look of years of mistreatment. Tattered- unfit clothing for these conditions. Your scars show you’ve been whipped- by leather and metal. Poorly fed as well, your bones peer at me from beneath your tunic putting me in a most depressed state of mind.” He stepped just over top of me. “Why do you fear me?”
I dared not look him in the eye. I was weak from loss of blood, starved from days of malnutrition, and most importantly, too scared to keep from a whimper.
“I will not hurt you friend,” he whispered. “For nearly 300 years I’ve laid in wait. Frozen in time and space. I’ve seen a lot of wild things in my dreams while I’ve slept. Which would it be- my unconscious mind wondered- time and time again. Humanity destroyed to what extent? How far have they come… these… these monsters?”
“Regardless,” he looked to me again, “I heard you whisper in the dark while you slept, I know you can speak. 13931 is it? This number is very important to you. What is it?”
My eyes were wide and alert, and I could tell from his expression, he was reading me. He knew I had understood him.
“13931- It’s my identification number.” I shyly said.
He looked very uneasy, but not surprised. “Slavery- That’s what it has come down to.”
I was finally beginning to relax. I knew he wasn’t going to hurt me. I had watched him slay Master Kilja effortlessly. I had only seen slaves attack the Rotundra once in my life. Needless to say he was eaten. In the end it was a good day for me, they were full, and I could work in peace.
“What’s your number?” I asked him.
“I don’t have one.”
“Everyone has a-“
“Not me,” he interrupted walking to the other side of the fire once again.
“There’s a colony that doesn’t give numbers?”
This time, he was the one who was confused, “Colony?”
“Yes, where your masters live.”
He simply shook his head. A few tears rested in his eyes. “Does humanity have no memory of what it once was? What it stood for?” He looked at me wildly hoping I would answer his question correctly, “tell me- 13931- what do you know about the human race?” He looked scared.
“We were manifested to aid the Rotundra by the five kings.” I answered the question as if it were something he should have known.
A tear finally escaped its boundaries. He remained calm. “The war was apocalyptic for our race. My friends- my family- they were killed. They were killed for nothing. Those monsters have erased all marks of our existence from the world. At least-“he put on a sarcastic smirk and reached up wiping the tear from his cheek, “that’s what they think.”
I had no idea what he was talking about. Everything he had said was blasphemy to my ears. We had been taught since the day we were created, that the Rotundra had granted us life. It wasn’t something that was thought on, or questioned- it was simply reality. But something seemed odd. He had committed the greatest sin by killing a member of the tribe, and yet, the five kings had not struck him down with their magic. It went against a law that was as old as the human race its self- or so I thought.
He reached back and rubbed his fingers through his hair. His hair- that was also strange. As a matter of fact, it was downright impossible. We were shaved, branded and given our tonic every several days. How did this man wield hair, have no number, and strike down a member of the Rotundra- a demigod- so easily?
Just as I was beginning to question him, I felt uneasy and rather unsettled. My vision of the fire began dramatically shifting, blurring and obscuring it’s self as a massive blotch of red and gold. I was light headed, panicked, but too weak to say or do anything. My stomach was in knots- sick and painful. I slumped to my side into the water, grime and dirt about the cavern flooring. I could faintly hear his voice asking me what was wrong, but I couldn’t answer.
As fast as it had came- it eased away- and for a brief moment, as I returned to my old sense of being, I felt something new to me- hope.
He was kneeling beside me when I raised myself back up.
“Are you ok? What happened?”
I felt as though nothing had happened- in my same old gloomy state of life. “I don’t know,” I said unconcerned, “I’m fine.”
“Well, you seem fine now, but whatever it was, it wasn’t normal. You were down for several minutes, shaking and going into violent convulsions.” He looked to where I had been lying, “Perhaps they fed you something foul.” He pointed to a pile of greenish-yellow vomit lying on the floor.
“I haven’t eaten anything today.” I answered.
“How long has it been….?” He asked curiously.
“Just a while,” I wasn’t sure how to answer him.
“That doesn’t tell me anything. Was it one day? Two days?”
I then knew what he wanted, but I was unable to do so. “Humans… we can’t count.” More questions began to race through my head.
“I’ve forgotten,” he said standing to his feet, “they won’t teach you anything.”
I didn’t answer. I simply looked into the flames and thought.
“Let me ask you something,” his face was determined- unquestionable, “when you see your friends eaten before your eyes. When they command you to work until you’re wrinkled, parched, and nearly dead. When you’re denied the simplest of pleasures in life like happiness, a future, or love. Does it not make you steam? Does it not make you angry? Do you not hate?”
I was slightly fearful of his determination. He wanted an answer, and I had no idea how to give it to him. “I don’t understand. What is happiness? Love? What is hate?”
His fists were clinched tight and he looked slightly past my shoulder, fully absorbing everything I had just said to him.
Something rustling in the gravel outside the cavern caught our ear. We both violently turned to watch the cave entrance. He immediately lifted his weapon that lay rested against the cavern wall. Whoever was walking our way, was talking.
“I can smell them! It’s fresh, heavens, the blood is fresh!”
“I know your eagerness brother! It’s been nearly three hours since I’ve eaten.”
There shadow casted across the wall to my left. They were small Rotundra hunters from the look of their silhouette. They were growing closer and closer. I could hear their breath, and just a moment later, I could smell it. I sat quiet with my eyes shut tight. He stood beside the fire. Slowly, he kneeled down, lifting his mask from the ground and pulling it over his face. Only his eyes remained visible. They were squinted towards the door way.
I slightly opened my eyes to see their silhouette stop moving. I knew they had entered the cavern, I knew they were looking upon us.
“Ah! The one in the floor- he is bleeding brother- he is bleeding! It’s so fresh- let’s eat them now!” The smaller one rambled in a high pitch screech, hopping up and down.
“Wait my brother. There is another. He pointed to the stranger standing next to me, “what is it?” He was larger than the other with a deeper voice.
“Food! Food! He is food,” the smaller one screeched again, “Can you not smell him through his suit?”
“I know he’s human, Chowl!” the larger one took one step closer, “but he is different. What is that in his hand?”
The sword in the strangers hand erupted in a bright glaze of blue. The hunters jumped back several feet. A small electrical current flowed throughout the hue. “Do you recognize this?” the stranger whispered. “Your ancestors did…. They feared it.”
I slyly turned my head to get a look at the hunters. One was small, three to four feet in height with large talons about his toes and fingers. The other was much larger at nearly seven feet, broad shoulders and rippling muscles about him. Both of them had a dark blue tent to their body.
“What’s the human talking about?” the larger one said.
“It doesn’t matter! The bleeding one! I can’t stand it! It’s so fresh!” he leaped through the air towards me. I shuddered and closed my eyes. A cold spray of fluids smacked me about my face and neck. Its stench was foul, its taste was bitter and its texture was like that of snot. I quickly opened my eyes to see what had hit me.
The fluid was greenish with a tainted portion of blue mingling about it. The stranger stood in front of me. The light around the blade retreated and the same colored liquid dripped from its tip to the cavern floor. The larger hunter stood in the doorway, his lower lip was slightly quivering.
“How- you’re just a human,” he said beneath his breath.
“And you’re just a monster.” The stranger replied.
The hunter violently ripped his shirt from his back with a roar. He then kneeled down preparing to fight. The muscles lining his back quickly shuttered to and fro in the air as he breathed deeply and quickly.
The stranger stood silently.
Without warning the hunter leaped through the air and the fight ensued. He quickly used his sword to block the oncoming force of the hunter’s talons, and as they stood locked with one another in the middle of the room, the blade illuminated once again.
With a heavy push the stranger separated himself from the hunter leaping back several paces, but the hunter advanced. He roared deeply and violently with every swing directed at the stranger, but to no avail. As the two dueled throughout the room, the ground quietly trembled beneath the force of the blows. I was astonished.
After several minutes the Hunter lost his footing clumsily tripping onto his back. The stranger lifted the sword above his head, coming down with a scream; he sadistically severed the hunter’s leg. The monster screamed in pain and retreated to the wall, scooting briskly away. He trembled and shook, looking towards his lonesome leg that lay about the cavern floor.
“Please,” he whispered. The stranger stepped toward him. “I meant no harm to you! Please!” He paused just in front of him and slowly lifted the sword placing the tip to the monsters chest. The light from the electrical blade lit up the hunter’s face. His eyes were wide and filled with tears. His lips quivered and he slightly shook from the pain and fear. “Please….” He whispered one more time.
The monster began to scream as the stranger began slowly pushing the blade through his chest. I could hear the metal as it screeched between the ribs of his rib cage. “Please!” the monster screamed again. Blood poured profusely from his leg and chest, “please stop- please-“ he muttered with the pain. The stranger didn’t stop. After a few minutes, his screaming halted. The hunter took one more breath and slumped over to the ground. He removed his sword from the hunter’s torso and turned to face me. He removed his mask and looked to the blood and guts spread about the floor, then back to the large Hunter lying against the wall, then back to me.
The blade returned to its dull state, “that’s hate,” he whispered in the darkness.