Slowly everything came into focus, his thoughts were unfrozen. He was in a new room, it looked like it was in the same building, the same style dark stone walls, the same style dark wood door, he was laying on a small bed, his feet dangled off the end, the “pillow” under his head felt like a bundle of rags, the atrocious smell of pitch torches was still lingering in the air, the room was small, perhaps 10’ by 14’ there was a wooden cabinet which took up most of the rest of the room. The bed spread was itchy, and he felt bugs crawling on his skin. Flees? Bedbugs? He wasn’t sure, but he knew it was disgusting.

Jumping out of the bed he found he was dressed now in a long course “hemp?” like robe. The feeling of bugs on his skin did not depart after leaving the bed, causing him to strip off the robe and cast it aside.

A small “eep” made his head snap around and his cheeks heat. He had thrown the robe on a kneeling girl, near the door. The girl was rather plain, small and of undetermined age, though he suspected she was younger then him. She was nude with a metal and chain collar and bracelets, his embarrassment leaked away as he studied the girl (slave?) in front of him. There really was nothing attractive about a girl with matted dirty hair whose original color was impossible to determine though he suspected it to be blonde, filthy slug pale skin, hands and feet almost black with dirt and a moon tattoo on her forehead above pale blue almost grey eyes, the nakedness only made her look savage, not alluring, the chains made her look pitiful taking the edge from the animalistic appearance of the girl. He was a healthy young man, who liked looking at girls, and yet his manhood didn’t even twitch. There was absolutely nothing attractive about the girl stinking up the room.

His embarrassment forgotten he tried to speak to her but she clearly didn’t understand him, as she laid on her back spread eagle, obviously expecting him to fuck her as she pulled her heels up to her bottom. His mouth twisted in distaste, setting aside the strange location, the questionable reasons he was here, the potentially devastating (for him) consequences of this journey, the unknown motives of those who took him from his life, even setting aside his lovely girlfriend, he wouldn’t touch this girl except perhaps with a stick attached to a sponge to bath her. She was filthy, pathetic and likely a slave judging by her outfit; everything felt off about her and her dead lifeless eyes. If anything he wish she wasn’t in this room, and were well out of his sight. He wanted to run away, and quickly. Those dead eyes, combined with that lewd behavior twisted up his conscience with his desire to flee until he realized he had been staring in disbelief at the spectacle, frozen like a deer in the headlights of a car. Seizing the blanket on the bed he gave it a mighty shake as yet more of those roach/beetle bug-things fell out. He couldn't do anything about the girl, or the flees, from her look she probably had them in her hair too. But he could do this much. He tossed the blanket out over her, covering her nakedness, and hiding the lewd position from his eyes at the same time.

His conscience was still flagellating him, but his disgust at the filth of this cell (?) and the people who'd reduce a girl to that state was warring with his fear at the moment. Ignoring the girl as one more concern he couldn't afford to have right now he picked up the robe that he discarded and shook it out. Some small mini cockroach like creatures fell out of the robe, their shinny brown/black shells sporting red markings that looked suspiciously like they were painted on them, the idea these weird bugs with their weird appearance were crawling all over him made his skin crawl, as he tossed the robe back on and strode to the door of the room.

Lifting the latch, he found it was unlocked. However, his excitement at it not being locked in a cell vanished when he spotted the armored guards outside of the room. The guards were as short as the men with the moons on their foreheads. Both guards wore metal armor of some sort, chain and leather, the metal was rusty the leather smelled worse than wet hockey equipment. The men wore metal helmets with a bar designed face guard, allowing him to see their unwashed filth under the helmets. He wasn’t surprised when they started to yammer in a that language again, nor was he surprised to note that neither of them had all their teeth. One guardsman pulled a rusty sword, and stopped his advance, the other ran off in a cascade of metal noise to deliver a message (he presumed).

He didn’t see a moon on these men’s foreheads like he did on the robed men or the filthy slave in ‘his?’ room and started to wonder about that marking. Was it a clan mark? He looked around at his surroundings and wasn’t stupid. It was clear this wasn’t Earth. It probably wasn’t Earth. Not unless Earth devolved into this pigsty and magic became a reality. It wouldn’t be Earth in the past either, unless stories of magic were real. Something he wasn’t willing to believe. Furthermore, he was pretty sure those quasi cockroach beetle things weren’t native to Earth, though to be honest he wasn’t particularly strong at biology. That left another planet? Maybe another reality? Parallel world? Were these filthy small people really humans? Or were they just human appearing when they were around him?

He examined the rusty blade in the man’s hand. It was an ugly thing, so dented and abused it looked almost like a thin metal club. Either these people didn’t take care of their weapons or he was too slovenly to. He scratched a random itch under his arm as he waited, trying to stamp down the feelings of hunger and a bladder that needed release. He was pondering deep questions about how to pantomime needing to use the john, or bush or pit or whatever these people used. Right now questions about where he was or why he was here where becoming quite secondary to the need to release his bladder. He suspected those other answers would come in time if he was lucky. Where the bathroom was, was much more pressing.

He noticed the filthy man glancing at the nude slave behind him with lust clear in his eyes. Glancing behind him he saw the slave (?) kneeling with the blanket from the bed folded up next to her; and for a moment toyed with the idea of taking the sword away from the man. It didn't look like it would be hard to do. The man was barely up to the bottom of his ribcage. He looked like he was all skin and bones, the sword looked so damaged he wasn't even sure how badly cut he'd be if he seized the blade. Though tetanus would be a concern judging from all that rust. Of course he didn't want to take the blade away from the man because he was looking at a nude girl (slave? prisoner?) in a way that would get him punched anywhere on Earth by anyone with a heart and a sense of shame. Not at all. Of course not. Nor because he felt the need to take away a weapon pointed at him, but because he felt ignored, and even more then ignored, he was being ignored for one of the most unattractive women he’d ever seen; somehow his sense of pride felt just about as squeezed as his bladder did. At least those were lies he told himself as he pondered if he'd get stabbed if he peed on the shoes of the man holding the sword.

While he was considering the different ways to take the weapon away from the lusty man in front of him several pairs of footsteps echoed down the hall toward him. He turned his head and saw a grey haired old man in a hemp robe similar to what he was wearing followed by the other filthy guard who went to summon him.

The old man was cleaner than the guards, though he still was short, thin and old and ill looking. His eyes like everyone else was pale grey to pale blue. His skin so pale as to almost be see through. His teeth looked like ill-fitting fakes, made out of ivory or wood (it was brown). The old man stopped his fast walk and clearly frowned as he examined the younger man and the guard in the hall. If his bladder was more patient he probably would feel more unease at the situation.