Neytopia › Part 2: Noon › Chapter 3

Animal

The rattling sound of wooden wheels hitting the bumps and stones in the road woke him up. He tried to move, but the burning sensation in his shoulder stopped him. A young girl looked at him and held him so he would stop moving. Soon after he faded back to sleep.

He woke up again at night, hungry, thirsty and cold as he had never been. The girl handed him a canteen. He spit it out after one sip, then forced himself to drink.

Where am I? W-what is this place? Am I dead?

The girl shook her head and he rested again.

As the shaky cage rolled on he recognized some of the kids and women from his village. He knew they were too weak, and indeed most would not endure the journey. They rode for four days without rest until they reached a clear in the forest which was filled with thousands of tents and huts.

By now his pain was gone though the wound remained. He stepped out of the cage to wait in a line. At the end of the line, a man asked him,

What are your skills boy?

He refused to answer so two men beat him.

The man gave him a knife and a chicken, but he felt pity for it. The man gave him a sword to fight, but he was too weak. The man gave him meat to cook, but he didn’t know how to. Finally the man gave him seed to feed the chicken, which any fool could do. The man told him,

Because you’ll feed them animals, you’ll live like them animals in the stall. And like them animals you’ll not speak.

He was trying to sleep when the girl came to visit him. She offered him some food and a quilt to pass the nights. Since he couldn’t speak, he only nodded and smiled at her. She smiled back at him and he realized that she too was an animal. An old woman awoke him at night to tell him:

You were a man, now you’re an animal. But you could be more, so much more. Listen now, and obey: in the night, when people are asleep, you will stay awake. However tired you may be, you must not surrender to sleep. Reject the night and forget who you were, the life you lost and all your pain. When you feel like giving up, look up to the sky and I will speak to you. Do this, and I will give you more than you could ever want.

He listened to the old woman. Every night he looked up to the sky and she told him amazing tales. He soon recovered from his wound completely and grew stronger by the day. Sleep faded away, giving way to a simple, sleepless life. At day he looked after the animals, at night he learned from the old woman. The girl married him to avoid the drunken barbarians who could sleep with any unmarried slave they chose.

At first she just used him for her own protection, and they slept in separate haystacks. But as the months passed they became good friends. In silent slavery they found a way to be silent together. Despite what the old woman taught him about forgiveness, he remembered his village and the way the barbarians had murdered his family and friends.

Every day he put on a smile as a mask while he plotted his revenge. He didn’t know how, he didn’t know when, but he would murder the king over no land and burn everything down to the ground.