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The Beginning of a New Race

Chapter Ten

"Soo... now what? Am I going to start feeling things again?" I asked, moving the conversation along after a very awkward moment of silence.

After a few seconds of shuffling and creaking of some very old sounding bones, the gravelly voice answered, "I believe I can arrange that."

Footsteps seemed to echo very faintly towards me, and then a small prick of pain came from where I believed my right wrist to be. Warmth started to blossom from the small prick, filling my body as if a faucet had been turned on. The sensation spilled into my wrist, flowing through my palm to the tips of my fingertips first, then rising up and flooding the rest of my body with the beautiful feeling of, well, feeling. Not only that, but whatever had been put into me made me feel overly happy for someone who had been unconscious after getting beaten. It felt as if my entire life would be nothing but perfect from here on out, no matter what.

Within seconds, my entire body was bursting with energy and warmth.

A chuckle came from Zircon, who had most likely picked up on the excessive amount of wiggling and smiling I was doing.

"You can open your eyes when you've calmed a bit, yes?"

I had been so overjoyed, I had forgotten to actually care about my surroundings. Suppressing the urge to giggle with joy, I opened my eyes to find out where I was.

Time for a little tip. If you ever happen to have your eyes closed for an extended period of time, do not open them as wide as possible in a brightly lit area. Very bad idea.

Biting back a yelp of pain, I opened my tightly scrunched up eyes again, but much slower. My pupils quickly adjusted to the brightness and revealed a cave and a very old Homini

I will describe the cave first, being that it can't be too hard to describe a hole in the ground, right?

Wrong.

The cave was quite small, seeming to be about the size as a large-ish room in one of those children's books. In the middle of the cave a fire blazed, lighting up the entire interior so that it looked as if the sun had come to rest in that very spot. Mats lay strewn about on the floor, each with something unique resting on it, from roughly made book looking objects, to scrolls, to large pieces of wood in the middle of being carved into something new. The back of the cave was taken up by shelves that stretched across its entire width of maybe fifteen feet, all packed with scrolls and the book things. On the left side of the cave there was divot in the ground that was filled with leaves and a soft fur looking substance, which must have been Zircon's sleeping area.

Apparently the leader of the pack did not prefer the comforts of two very thing sheet thingies and occasional soaked dirt for a bed, like I did.

I prefer the rugged style in life, to be honest with you.

Or was it that I was forced to prefer it?

I sat up from my resting place, which had been another one of the mats, and stared awhile at everything around me. It was nice to see new things that weren't trying to kill me.

The entrance to the cave was a perfect circle, with an overhang to keep most of the elements slightly at bay. However, from my resting point, the entrance seemed to open into thin air and puffy white clouds.

"Um, Mr. Lead... I mean... Zircon, why is the cave floating?" I turned to look at him, and discovered what the head honcho of this tiny village looked like.

The dude was ripped. Anyone could take one glance at his body and immediately understand that fat had never had the privilege of living on that temple. He did not, in any way other than the slightly graying whiskers and the deep understanding in his eyes, look old. He sat in the crisscross-apple-sauce position on the mat beside me, his forearms resting on his knees. His pelt, which glistened in the light of the fire and the light from the sky outside making him glow, was solid tan with a small but dazzling white stripe that started at the tip of his nose and lead down all the way to his tail, or what was left of it. He had only about six inches of tail. Marking that away for further investigation, I tuned into what Zircon had to say.

He started huffing once again, bouncing his shoulders and smiling deeply, revealing his pearly whites. Sharp, pearly whites.

That would not look good with blood on them.

"Those Homini must have struck you quite hard upon your head for you to say that." His eyes sparkled, the blue seeming to intensify with his current levels of humor. "Unless, of course, this is just how your spirit is. Rather dumb, no?"

Okay, so I guess this wasn't very shocking to hear. So what, my spirit is stupid. Not like I didn't see that one coming from a mile away.

Yet I still let my jaw drop and eyes stare at him as if this was a surprise.

"Well, I don't know about what other people have said, but I like to think of myself as simply 'Bad Under Pressure'."

More huffing and bouncing came from Zircon.

"Oh, I see... Could you please explain to me what was pressuring you?"

"Well... I was sorta knocked out. That counts, right?"

"If you say so Ozzy." He said, smiling at me in a way that said 'wow, you are really dumb'.

I did say so.

"There should be no pressure here however, boy. This is the safest place for you on this planet as of now." He said in serious tone, his eyes glowing with kindness as he looked at me.

Uh, no its not.

"Umm... You did hear the part about me being knocked out, right? This village hasn't exactly been the most comfortable living situation I've ever been in, to be honest with you. Not to insult your leading or anything, though..."

"We will get to that matter in time, Ozzy, trust me on that." He reached over and patted my shoulder, which made me quite happy for some reason. Maybe it was because the few times I had any kind of physical interaction with the locals it usually ended with me passing out.

It was a very nice change.

"But as for now, I believe I will sleep for a small while, and see what my dreams have to tell me." He mumbled, slowly leaning back until he faced the stalactites on the roof of the cave.

"And to answer your question from earlier, we are not, in fact, floating. This cave rests in Karkair, the tallest mountain in the range that sits at the west edge of the village. The cave is only about a quarter of the way up the mountain... though it is high enough for me to see everything that transpires down in the village." He went silent, suddenly twiddling his thumbs and looking off into the distance, but his eyes didn't focus on anything in particular.

"Though I trust every single one of them, the villagers have a knack for starting wars they cannot finish."

And with that he closed his eyes, leaving me to ponder what I had heard.