Easton

Dissecting a Pale-man took many days to complete, and Easton had cut the body in dozens of ways, gore covered in coagulated white blood, lying in a pile of a heap on the cart nearby.

The skeletons were buried outside the walls, on a small plot of land east of the village. The digging took a full part of the afternoon after Marcus and the others had left, hauling off the village’s remains, dumping them into the hole, and then the other half from the castle the following day. Soon, both the village and the castle were devoid of the dead, except for the closed-off section, which they still couldn’t access. The few farms on the outskirts weren’t cleaned as well.

The Pale-men’s bodies, however, were burned per Marcus’s instruction. Though, Easton managed to save one. Easton couldn’t pass the opportunity to learn more about their biology, even if some of the others were adamant not to go through with it. He wanted to know how to make them tick.

It was then Easton found himself packed in a room with his father, Brett, and Kenny, the former two insisting on seeing through the procedure, sharing the same curiosity as him. They decided to use the house next to the tavern, which his father had noted earlier must be a butcher’s shop; the utensils for cutting, slicing, and chopping were still all there displayed on the walls, and to which they took advantage of. They placed the dead Pale-man on the table where they began sawing, hacking, and slicing every inch of its body.

He had tasked Kenny to be his assistant during the dissection, volunteered himself, and saying that he was a butcher for a fresh market a long time ago before he purchased his diner, while the other two decided to be the observers. His father had his pencils and papers ready to write down while Brett would sketch everything.

“Before we begin, we have to keep in mind that we’re dissecting an intelligent alien lifeform,” Easton said. “Seeing that there’s going to be numerous ethical dilemmas that we’re going to cross and are no doubt going to bite us someday, we can at least show a little respect for the dead. Let’s treat it as humanely as possible, understood?”

“And let’s think of it as a mutual study,” Kenny said, shrugging, taking a prong from the table and placed a gentle poke at the alien’s shoulder.

“How so?” Brett asked.

“Because they’ll do the same thing to us. Think about it. We are just as much an alien to them as they are to us.”

Easton couldn’t fault everyone’s hardened and contorted expressions as they stared at the dead creature on the table. Hopefully, they wouldn’t get sick. He tried hard not to think about that already, and he was starting to regret moving through with the plan, only to remind himself that it was for a good, strategic cause.

For the good of humanity, as he liked to put it. Though with not much of humanity to go on. For the advantage of the group, then.

“That’s enough, Kenny,” Easton said, clapping his hand to bring everyone’s attention back to him. “Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s begin.”

For the next two days, they had learned that the Pale-man, like humans, had similar heart structure, situated roughly at the same quadrant of the human body, though weighing much less and was also diminished in thickness. It had thinner nerves and veins three times as large. It carried larger pancreas and a smaller liver, nestling two stomachs that each had their own set of intestines. Its forehead was more prominent and arched, ears lobular and peeled back, extra bones for support from the ribs and spinal column, and its teeth showed an omnivorous diet. Their muscular features told him of an agile creature, especially at the slight bent of their lower legs.

He quickly learned that their four eyes weren’t black at all. Under the sunlight, they were a deep shade of brown, like chocolate, with a distinguished black dot at the middle, akin to bats, perhaps with sight better adaptable in the dark.

But what was most striking was the lack of any noticeable sexual characteristics and sex organs on the body. They seemed to be sexless, but without proper observations from living specimens, he took this conclusion with a grain of salt. Easton’s mind wandered to the many species on Earth with pathogenesis like the zebra or hammerhead sharks and some species of starfishes and arthropods.

It would certainly explain their almost milky-white blood, possibly due to a plasma fluid called hemolymph. Because they had little to none blood vessels, the fluids contacted directly to the creature’s tissues like many arthropods. Their lack of “normal” lungs, which were only sacs of rhombus-shaped holes connected to their trachea, acted like an insect’s spiracles, a valve enabling them to breathe.

Easton peeled back a thin flap where a human’s Adam’s apple should be and saw a small sphincter hidden behind it. He also found two similar entryways behind its back where the trapezius muscles were, protected and covered by hollowed bone, extending from the scapula.

“They’re like insects,” Easton finalized, “but they’re not. They’re made of flesh instead of shells. Much closer to a human than an invertebrate.”

“Like a hybrid?” Brett suggested. He never looked up from his notepad as he fervently sketched on its pages.

“Close. But not quite, either.”

Easton didn’t sleep better in the next few nights.

It looks so similar to human biology, right to the heart, Easton mused over and over, how is that possible?

Aside from their difference between their hemoglobin and physical attributes, the two most distinct aspect between them, he could still tell that the rest served the same functions. It was perhaps another example of convergent evolution, where the Pale-men evolved similar traits and features to humans, albeit unfolding independently, possibly stemming from an insect-like ancestral line as much as humans came from monkeys.

In this world, far away from Earth, on a distance that I couldn’t possibly comprehend, Easton thought.

Maybe I should have gone with Marcus, Easton wondered as his eyelids grew heavy. I’d probably just get killed at the very first chance of a fight.

* * *

Easton woke up early the next morning, taking a glimpse at the narrow window and saw that the sun hadn’t risen yet. Easton braced for the daily pop-up that had replaced the same annoying level of his alarm clock. He had never thought to admit missing that damn thing just so that he could stop seeing these boxes. They were a constant reminder of where he was, in an endless nightmare that he couldn’t escape.

And the damned tree…Easton groaned.

Every single time before they would wake up, the cherry blossom tree would always appear in that sea of darkness, The Void. Some of its pink flowers blossoming from the branches and Easton’s tree did look abundantly flowery since the first time he saw it three weeks ago.

Carved on the tree’s trunk were the words;

[ The Cleric ]

Above it was the embedded black and white stethoscope, which he had been using extensively throughout medical school. Most of the flowers and buds blooming were concentrated along the main branches stemming from Intelligence, Wit, and Insight; three of the six main branches Brett had dubbed as The Attributes. The pink, blooming flowers of his Intelligence attribute concentrated around the branches of Medicine, Memory, Logic, and Rationality, and they grew in concentration every time he visited The Void.

Brett called the latter their Traits, part of his ever building expanding schematic of The Void and The Tree. He tried to understand it just as much as Easton was attempting to understand flora and fauna of this alien world; only the former focused on the pseudo-science of it.

“Imagine the Cherry Blossom Tree as the food pyramid, you see,” Brett told him one day, lost in one of his many ruminations. “The skills that we picked up every day are at the bottom of the pyramid, feeding onto our traits, which blooms the buds and turns them into flowers, defining the nuance of what makes us, well, us. And it will then increase the level of our attributes!”

“And I suppose there’s an end game to all of this? A max cap, perhaps?” Easton entertained to ask, amused mostly at Brett’s dozens of theories about the world, which sometimes scared him to think he might be half right on the things that came out of his mouth.

Brett smiled at him, smugly. “We level up! We get stronger! And we do, we beat the hell out of this fucking pigsty of a land. Joke all you want, Mr. Russell, but I believe that’s how we get home. Not that science of yours, but what initially brought us here. That’s the end game.”

“You mean to use magic?”

Brett shrugged. “Seven hundred years ago, someone who possesses a scientific mind was burned at the stake for witchcraft. Don’t you think this magic is just another form of science? A science that we just didn’t understand?”

The annoying prompt box suddenly popped out in front of him, pulling him out of the memory, and Easton let out a loud, exasperated groan.

It showed the same prompts as the past few weeks, learned to ignore it as best as he could, but to his surprise, new things did show up.

[Easton Russell]

[Order: The Cleric]

[Congratulations! Lore Achieved - Level 1]

[Skill Obtained - Long Distance]

[Skill Obtained - Surgeon]

[Skill Obtained - Hack & Slash]

“Lore, huh? That’s new,” Easton whispered, thinking about him and Kenny’s disgusting work over the Pale-man the past few days. Though, without going back to sleep and visit The Void, he had no clue whether it was an attribute, a trait, or a skill. But now that he’s wide awake, he didn’t think he could go back to sleep.

“Level 1. Lots of work to grow then,” Easton whispered.

Easton paid little attention to the skills he had obtained. He had been accumulating hundreds of them just from walking alone, and also from doing mundane stuff like cooking and fishing and collecting salmon and bass from Hyun’s traps. Then, add that with different types of fishing like basket fishing, trap fishing, line fishing, and the list went on and on until Easton’s eyes merely glazed over them every time they popped up after a night’s rest. He got the skill of Governance yesterday just from organizing the clean-up of the dead bodies with Kenny, and by making the village less cluttered and dilapidated with his father’s instructions.

But what got his attention was when the prompt faded away to the Main Box, which they had dubbed The Menu, a nod to Brett’s world-video-game concept, far from Easton’s R-rated and poorly-termed Shitter Box— there was a peculiar addition under the tab list.

The shitter box, or the menu, was usually what he and the others would see when they were awake, which they could bring up by closing their eyes and focusing on their right. It would show their name, then their Order, and sometimes their Class, which the latter Easton hadn’t received yet. And if he flicked his eyes to the left, it would wipe away the menu and bring in The Chronicle, which was a series of boxes containing recorded, though summarized history of all the events and his actions since their arrival into the world, like memories he could scroll over.

But on the menu, new additional tabs emerged.

Easton rose from his sleeping bag, eyes darting to the lower tabs.

[Easton Russell]

[Order: The Cleric]

[Caste Updated: Vagabond]

[Location Updated - Ruined Village]

Caste? That wasn’t there before, Easton thought curiously. And I’m a…vagabond? He guessed there was some truth into it. They were, after all, refugees from another world.

To his surprise, he realized that he could swipe through on the last tab, which he couldn’t do with the other ones. The list disappeared, which was swiftly replaced by another box.

[Settlement]

[Ruined Village, name unknown]

[Severe repairs needed to improve conditions, costs pending]

[Population: - ]

[Autonomy: - ]

[Prestige: 0]

.

[Claimant]

[None]

What the hell? Easton choked on his breath.

He looked around and studied the sleeping forms of the others. He peered through the room, the slowly dying embers of the fire pit, creating some dim light. Kenny’s sleeping bag was empty, remembering that he was on watch duty upon the battlements above them. However, Arjun was gone.

Easton crept toward the empty sleeping bag and found that his cloak and shoes were also gone, which meant the old man went somewhere. He crouched over Malik and gently shook the man’s shoulders. Malik didn’t wake up on the first few taps, and Easton hardened his strike. The man shot his eyes open, scrambling to the intruder, but Easton caught him by the chest, calming him down.

“Why’d you wake me up, man? I just got done with watch duty. It’s Kenny’s turn now,” Malik said groggily, turning around away from him.

“No, it’s not that. Your grandfather. He’s gone.”

“What? What do you mean, gone?” Malik rubbed his eyes and looked over his shoulder, clambering out of his sleeping bag. “Where did he go?”

“I don’t know. But something’s happened.”

“Whoa! That wasn’t there before,” Malik whistled. Easton realized he was looking at his own menu. He turned to look at Easton. “You think he has something to do with this?”

“I wouldn’t put it past anyone.”

“He couldn’t have gone far.”

“Well, he must’ve triggered something unless Kenny did. Everyone else is asleep. Kind of suspicious he’s not here.”

“Or Marcus. Do you think something’s happened to them?”

“Man, I hope not. Come on. Let’s go find him.”

They quietly put on their shoes, jackets, and cloaks and snuck out of the room, bringing with them their flashlights. Easton didn’t want to wake up the others and caused an alarm. The wheel and the ropes at the far end were still strapped since the last time they secured it, meaning that the drawbridge remained up. Arjun was still in the castle, and if he lowered it, they would wake up from the rumbling noise in an instant. There were only a handful of places he could go.

They climbed up the winding steps toward the battlements to get Kenny, seeing as he was the only one awake when Arjun disappeared. But as they reached the top of the barbican, Kenny wasn’t there. At first, Easton thought he went on to take a piss, but there were no signs of the man anywhere.

“He’s gone, too.”

Suddenly, Malik let out a small gasp behind him. “Uh, maybe it’s because of that.” He looked over the battlements and pointed down onto the courtyard.

Easton walked over to the edge and looked down as well, and his breath quickened. The doors and shutters along the buildings were all wide open. Before he slept, they were all closed shut just like the first time they arrived in the castle a few days ago. Now, the second drawbridge had been lowered, and the portcullis raised open. Past the dry moat and the walls, toward where the second section of the castle loomed, Easton and Malik could see a beam of light shining over the building walls, coming from a flashlight. There was no doubt that it was Kenny, possibly investigating what they had just seen.

“Hand me the CB,” Easton said. Malik pulled out the small radio from his cloak pocket and handed it to him. “Kenny. Can you hear me? This is Easton, over.”

Static rung from the other line.

“Kenny, Answer me. What are you doing?” Easton never left his gaze at Kenny’s flashlight, moving from across the castle. “Don’t go in. Wait for us.”

The static remained the same. Then, Kenny’s light winked out as he entered a door.

“Shit. I can’t get through to him.”

“What should we do?”

“Let’s wake up the others and grab the guns.”

“The guns?”

“Yeah. We have no idea what’s in here with us. I don’t like this.”

“Should we evacuate down to the village?”

Easton walked over to the other side, looked down onto the village, smothered in darkness. He couldn’t make out a single shape of the houses, especially when the skies were cloudy, the two moons hidden from sight. He didn’t trust the look of it, especially with the woods right there. The group would be safe on the barbican, inside the walls.

“They should stay where they are,” Easton told Malik.

“But if something is in here with us, how did it get inside?”

Easton couldn’t find an answer. He shook his head. “It could be someone, or we triggered something. But right now, we must wake and gather everyone, make sure they’re safe. Then we get Kenny and Arjun, okay? We’ll have to stay awake until sunrise.”

Malik nodded worriedly, and the two of them went back down the winding steps, now cautious at every corner they turned.

* * *

“There are more dead people here than the village and the first yard combined,” Blake furrowed his brows, shining the light over the skeletons huddled around them. On the one hand, he carried a police-issued shotgun.

Easton looked over and realized what Blake said was true. A massive battle had occurred on the courtyard, which was twice as large as the one they came from, with most of the remains wearing steel armor, brandishing swords and axes, which were scattered around their bones.

The last stand, Easton thought. He shuddered as he studied the skeletons. Everything looked so biblical, reminding him of the many painted interpretations of death and war he had seen over the years in textbooks and museums. Looking at it made his hairs stood straight all over his body, made him gripped harder on the flashlight and the pistol he had with the other. He trembled a little. He had rarely shot a gun before, let alone tried to shoot someone—monster or not.

Blake looked back to the drawbridge they walked over. “Are you sure they’ll be fine?” Blake asked him.

Easton gave a small smile. “They will. The walls will protect them, and the stairs are so narrow, it is easily defendable if someone tries to barge in. There is only one entrance from below, but it has many exits where they are.”

“I’m just not comfortable leaving Willie alone. Hyun would kill me if something bad happened to him.”

“Paul’s sons know how to use a gun, and so does my nephew. Plus, with Brett there and my father, he’ll be more than okay.”

Blake nodded, though his face showed he was still unsure. “I—I guess you’re right.”

“Kenny went over there,” Malik called out, pointing at the two large doors connected to a grand set of stairs, the same stairs that were also littered with the dead.

They approached The Keep. Thick cobblestone walls rose three stories high, majestic in its loneliness in the darkness, imposing in its exalted silence. Yet cracks had defined the passing of time, desperately clinging to its ancient ways, covered by ivies growing along the façade, wild and free.

“There are two sets of footprints here. One belongs to my baba. His shoe-size,” Malik said. “He’s here.”

“No offense, Malik, but your grandpa freaks me out,” Blake said, “and not just me. Everyone feels the same way, right, Easton?”

Easton went rigid, unsure of what to say. He opted not to answer, ignoring the question by sauntering over to a well situated in the middle of the courtyard and looked down on its depths. He wondered what waited down there.

Malik huffed. “Come on, Blake! He’s just…confused, is all. He’s very old.”

“Kid, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, or you refused to see it, but your old man’s starting to lose it up there.” Blake gestured at his temple.

“No, he’s not! And don’t call me, kid. I’m only a decade younger than you.”

Easton rolled his eyes and aimed the flashlight toward them both. The two men shielded their eyes from the light, halting their annoying bickering. “Guys! Fucking quit it! Let’s get inside before we freeze our asses out here,” Easton said, turned around, and started climbing up the stairs. He heard the two men grumbled behind him, but they still fell in line.

The wooden door was slightly ajar when Easton reached the top. Malik and Blake waited for him to enter first, and he couldn’t help but groan as he passed through the entryway. He realized that it was another barbican, albeit smaller than the ones they were staying at. There was the same hole on the ceiling where the soldiers could throw rocks and pour scalding hot tar and oil down on the attackers in a very cramped square room. Surprisingly, this one was devoid of skeletons and made Easton wonder if the former occupants ever get to use it against the people that attacked them.

Easton walked toward a heavily iron-studded oak door. This one had also left ajar. It was too heavy to be pushed aside, its hinges having been worn down and rusted, and Easton had to slip through the narrow gaps to get to the other side.

They were in a hallway, which split into two directions; to their left and the right. Without any windows, the hall was pitch black, except for their flashlights. Blake took out his lighter and walked over to three clustered candles inside a glass lamp, fixed onto the wall by the door. Standing on his tiptoes, he lit the candles, bringing more light into a slightly damp, smelly hall.

Blake turned around with a smirk. “Let there be light.” He did the same for the lamp on the other side, illuminating more of the space.

“Should we split up?” Blake asked.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Malik said.

“We’ll cover more ground, higher chances we find Kenny and your old man.”

“Dude, have you ever seen a horror movie?”

Blake chuckled softly, shaking his head.

Malik narrowed his eyes at him for a second, and then a mischievous little curve appeared at the corner of his lips. “Okay, fine. Let’s split up. But I’m going with Easton, and you can search on your own.”

Blake suddenly went rigid. “Bah, alright. I see your point,” he grumbled.

“Well, maybe we can start by that door,” Easton said uncertainly, aiming his flashlight on the door across the entrance.

Blake shrugged. “After you.”

They walked toward another set of an iron-studded door, and this one was easier to open than the other. Again, Easton went in first, followed by Blake, and then Malik. The room was more extensive than they expected, the vaulted ceiling rising at least two stories high, giving Easton the feeling as if he just entered a cathedral. He half-expected to hear choir music from a distance.

It was the castle’s Great Hall, and Easton marveled at its detail: Whitewashed walls lined by wooden panels; worn down carpets and mats the color of teal and parchment filled with various motifs; colorful tapestries and banners of velvet and gold hung between towering pillars and archways; and a large stained glass windows depicting The Cherry Blossom Tree in all its sublimity, which was then accentuated when the moonlight broke through the dark clouds outside and hit the glass. Below the windows was a large raised platform, a dais, where two wooden chairs stood.

The fireplace on their right was already blazing, illuminating half of the room in light and shadows. Crouched by the hearth was Kenny, poking a stick on the fresh burning logs. He turned around upon hearing their entrance.

“What the hell are you three doing here?” Kenny asked grinning.

“Looking for your dumb ass,” Blake heaved, rolling his eyes. “We thought something ate you. Instead, you’re in here lounging by the fire like Burt fucking Reynolds.”

“Lay off my back. I just got here. Arjun’s cold, so I warmed up the hearth for him.” Kenny pointed at Arjun sitting by the table.

“Baba!” Malik cried out and ran over toward him. “What are you thinking? You could get hurt!”

“Calm down, boy. You will really kill me with you fussing like that.”

Two long tables ran along the length of the chamber, one on each side, filled with plates, cups, and wares laced in silver and rubies. It was apparent the previous occupants left in a mad hurry.

Easton focused on the Tree drawn on the window, carved on its six main branches were alien writings he couldn’t decipher and let alone pronounce. Though, he guessed what they said even when they weren’t written in English. He had seen them in his dreams. Fortitude. Finesse. Constitution. Intelligence. Wit. Insight.

He had seen them repeatedly, and the lingering voice whispering at the periphery. That haunting voice…

“That looks familiar,” Blake scoffed.

Easton studied the windows up close, wondering perhaps that the inhabitants of this world may have worshipped the Tree as part of their religion, or maybe as part of folklore and legends, obviously well represented in their culture. The fact that they were currently going through their Medieval era, the cost of sponsoring such a piece would reflect the person’s wealth and power as making stained glass windows would be very expensive. Although, Easton was basing its economy on Earth’s medieval era.

“You scared us half to death, Arjun. We thought something bad happened,” Easton chided. He wanted to scold Arjun some more, but he was glad he held his tongue, having no idea what would come out of his mouth. It irritated him how calm Arjun was, sitting on the foot of the platform as Malik handed him a small bottle of water to drink. The old man refused it.

Easton turned to Kenny and asked, “Did you two open the gates?”

“Uh…not exactly.” Kenny stammered to answer. “I heard Arjun walking down the courtyard, so I followed after him. I told him to go back to the gatehouse, but he insisted, you see. He wanted to go here. So, he went up the gates and then…did something.”

“Something?"

“I simply opened them, Mr. Russell,” Arjun answered nonchalantly. “Kenny just helped me with the bridge. Those things are, after all, cumbersome. I’m sure your father would find it fascinating to have access to this place finally.”

Easton was more confused. “This part of the castle has been inaccessible from the beginning.”

“Ah, yes, but only physically.”

Easton heard Kenny groaned and mumbled, “Here we go…”

“This world operates differently than ours, obeying laws beyond the bounds of physics given what we’ve seen over the past few weeks. This castle is no different. A veil surrounds it, and I merely reached out and tapped into it, and found the right frequency.”

“Frequency?”

“Think of it as a lock, a costly and powerful one. I merely found the right combinations to crack it. It took many days to find it, started right away ever since we got here. Now, I—I don’t understand it myself—not yet anyway—but I know it’s what I must do to get inside. The Tree told me so.”

Easton froze. “The Tree?” At the corner of his eye, the moonlight began to dim as clouds overhead began to block it. The Tree grew shrouded in shadows.

“Oh, yes. They’ve been very accommodating.”

There was dead silence. The others stood still as statues, watching Arjun cautiously. Easton spared a glance at Kenny, and it seemed it was the first time the man had heard of this. Easton swallowed. “Did it order you to come here, Mr. Kapoor?”

He braced at what Arjun was going to say. To find that Mr. Kapoor could communicate with the voices in the void would certainly scare everyone in the camp. The only one he knew who had the same ability was Marcus. Easton insisted on hiding that truth away from the others, especially when he claimed to see a sea of the trees in the void connected to more people—to more humans. He didn’t know why, but it was apparent that the Tree had singled Marcus out, and it scared Easton what else it had planned for him and the rest.

“Ordered me? God, no,” Arjun said mildly, shaking his head. “I asked them myself.”

“But…why?” Malik asked.

Arjun lifted his head and glanced behind him. “I want to admire it. I want to see it with my own eyes instead of in my dreams.”

Arjun stared at the two chairs up on the dais, and after a second look, Easton realized what they signified. The chairs were thrones.

“Do you want me to write that down, baba? You never mention that before in your…dreams,” Malik asked. Easton could tell Malik was straining to say the word vision, eyeing Blake as if daring him to make a retort. However, the man merely averted his gaze. Malik pulled out a notepad from his pack.

“No. That won’t be necessary.”

“Whatever you did, it triggered something in the menu,” said Blake.

Arjun furrowed his brows for a moment, and closed his eyes, pulling his menu to see it for himself. Then, his expression softened. “Ah, yes. I see.”

“Do you know what that is?” Easton asked.

Arjun nodded, but he didn’t elaborate.

“Well? What is it?” Easton pressed on.

“Strategy,” Arjun said cryptically.

“That doesn’t tell me much.”

“Oh, you will. Soon.”

“Why don’t we go back to the gatehouse? It’s not safe in here,” Malik said softly, trying to get Arjun up.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Malik. We’re safer here than that freezer box. Let the others come here where the fire is warm, and maybe we can cook some breakfast. It’ll be light soon.”

“Kenny, did you check this place out yet?” Easton asked.

“No, not yet,” he replied.

“It’s safe here, Mr. Russell,” Arjun said, “I wouldn’t come here if it weren’t. Don’t you trust someone who can see ahead? After all, I am a Seer as Brett and Marcus can attest.”

* * *

Breakfast was served with another plate of canned asparagus and fish, two this time after Kenny pulled out a pair of bass out of the basket from the river. Although they didn’t have to eat down by the village and instead dined inside the Great Hall. One of the main advantages of having a cook was that Kenny could make anything edible out of meager ingredients.

True to his expectations, Easton’s father was most excited about the newly opened spaces of the castle and had begun to spew off all the things he had learned from his history books with an eye of a four-year-old seeing a tub of chocolate during Christmas. Easton heard so many things about larders and butteries, knight-of-arms and dovecotes, and of watchtowers and garderobes, and the functions that came with them.

The Keep was a lot larger than Easton had anticipated. There were three bedchambers up on the third floor and one on the second. The second floor had four—albeit smaller—other chambers, but they were empty, probably used as a meeting room, solar, guardrooms, or even bathrooms. The ground floor had the Great Hall, which was connected to a kitchen and a pantry, but the food in there had long rotten away until there’s practically nothing left but dust. One set of stairs led below the castle where many storerooms and cellars were located, and where Kenny giddily found more barrels of wine and ale.

Although much of the space they’ve explored seemed to be safe, they still chose to sleep in the Great Hall together. There was safety in numbers after all, and being separated by thick walls would only make them vulnerable. It was better than the barbican where cold air could seep in from the open hole in the middle of the room. The Great Hall trapped the heat from the hearth, and it was as if winter never came. Aside from that, the children certainly enjoyed “living” in the castle. The others, however, were still wary of being inside another new space.

When night came, the others huddled their sleeping bags around the hearth. Easton had volunteered to take the second watch while Blake would take the first, giving Easton only four hours of sleep. He only got to use a couple of it before Blake woke him up. No matter how big the Great Hall might be, it felt cramped as if the dark corners were sucking the life out of him. Easton opted to stay by the hearth for his watch, irritated that his body wanted to go back to sleep—a little too late.

“Why don’t you sit with me here, Mr. Russell,” Arjun whispered, “and keep an old man company?”

Easton choked on his breath, and his brain stuttered for a moment, his stomach churned, stunned to hear his voice. Easton swallowed. “I thought you were asleep.”

“I’m not. You were.”

Easton bit his lip. He realized that he had dozed off for a few minutes and didn’t notice Arjun had climbed out of his sleeping bag and sat on one of the long tables, pulling out a deck of cards out of his pocket. Curious, Easton went over toward him.

“Where did you get that?” Easton asked. “I’ve never seen you with it before.”

“For good reason. It’s mine and a very high-quality deck and very expensive. I took it from my house before we left.”

“Looks new.”

“Of course, it is. If I am going to spend two hundred bucks on a deck of cards, it must stay in fine condition, but I haven’t taken care of it properly given the circumstances the past few weeks.”

Taking a closer look, the playing cards on Arjun’s hands were all in a beautiful matte black. The hearts, diamonds, spades, clubs, kings, queens, and jacks were drawn in gold and silver, which shimmered under the hearth’s light.

“Want to join me in a game?” Arjun asked him.

Easton didn’t have to be asked twice. Games on his phone had been inaccessible since the device died out a long time ago, and reading his father’s history books could only do so much to pry him away from boredom. He had two more hours to go on his watch. He might as well entertain himself while he waited for the morning. Easton sat on the bench across from him.

“What are we playing?”

“Kings in the Corner,” Arjun said. “Have you played it?”

“Once or twice. In college.”

“It's easy enough to learn. Like Uno.”

“The prize?”

Arjun gave a crooked smile. “A favor.”

“Favor?”

“Well, do you have five hundred bucks with you?”

“No…”

“A favor it is then,” Arjun said, smiling. “Shall we?”

Easton nodded. “Best of three?”

Arjun paused for a moment, thinking. “Best of three.”

Arjun shuffled the cards three times before dealing seven cards to Easton and seven of his own. He then placed the remaining deck in the middle of the table, drew four cards from the pile, which he then put face-up on the north, east, west, and south of the main deck. The goal was to get rid of all the cards on the player’s hands; any kings the players might have were placed on the empty corners of the deck.

“Alright. Let’s start. You first,” Easton said.

Arjun drew a single card from the deck to start his turn and quickly laid down five of his cards in descending numerical order on the face-up cards, the foundations, stacking them solitaire-style. He placed a king on the corner by the southwest, leaving him with only two cards. Seeing that there was a queen on the east with a jack, Arjun then grabbed that foundation and transferred it to the king’s corner, leaving an empty space for his other card on his hand to replace it, which left him with only one.

“Done,” Arjun smiled cheekily, waving the single card on his hand.

“You know that was going to happen, didn’t you?” Easton grumbled.

“I’m not saying.”

Easton played his turn, drawing one card from the deck, but in the end, he only got rid of four of his cards, including a king, which he placed on the Northeast corner. By the time it was Arjun’s turn, he quickly dispatched his cards and won the round.

“I won.”

“Best of three, remember?” Easton said, stretching out his arms.

“Right. Best of three.”

Arjun beat him again on the second round within four turns, with only two cards on Easton’s hands. By the third round, Arjun won the game with only one card on Easton’s deck. Easton slammed his cards on the table, miffed that he didn’t even get to win a single round.

“Don’t pout, Mr. Russell. It is just a game.”

“Yeah, yeah. But you already know the outcome, don’t you?”

“The truth?”

Easton shrugged.

“I have.”

“Wouldn’t that be cheating?” Easton asked, rolling his eyes.

“Everything in life is cheating. How do we go by if not to find the easier path, to make it more bearable? Take this game, for example. Most of it is left for chance, and the rest is on our actions and how we use the cards we were dealt with, the same thing in life. Let’s picture it for a moment. The rest of the cards are the resources a king needs, numbers in the grand scheme of things. The queen for family. The jack for an army. The ace for the land. You must gather them all into one stack from other places, take the ones missing, and make it yours.”

“Mr. Russell. This place…we are dealt with a good hand.”

“You asked for a favor?”

Arjun leaned forward, said, “I want you to convince Marcus to claim this castle. I want you to convince him to stay.”

"Why not do it yourself?"

"I've tried."

“But why? What if he wants to leave?”

“Then, do everything you must to keep him here. You’re a smart man. Call a vote. Make up a reason. Hell, pretend you’re sick or something.”

“ If he decided that staying here is dangerous, then maybe we should consider it. He’s a soldier after all. He knows more about assessing a threat than we do. I mean, whoever attacked the original inhabitants might come after us if we stay longer.”

“If Marcus continues south, we might as well write our obituaries. Death waits for us down there. Death and misery. He must first claim this land before he journeys south, boy. And he must do that with an army behind his back. It is the only way he will win.”

“An…army?”

“Marcus will return soon. And when he does, we must convince him to claim this land as his and name his children his heirs. Haven’t you seen the prompt? This land demands a claimant—a ruler. Marcus must be that man.”

“Are—are you serious? A ruler?”

“A king,” Arjun said with a serious tone.

Easton couldn’t help but chuckle. “Hell, why not become the new president? At least that’s democratic and fair for everyone. The New United States.”

“I don’t care what he calls it. The goal is to pass the leadership to his children. The bloodline must not be severed. No one else must inherit the throne except for the Wards.”

“I was joking. This is a joke, right?”

Arjun ignored him. “Bad things are going to happen if the Wards are not in charge. This is the reason why I opened the castle. For him. For Connor, Jacob, and Eli.”

“Ah, and now you involve my nephews in this crazy fantasy of yours. Great,” Easton muttered. "Problem is, I don't buy 12 men as an army."

“More are coming.”

“More?”

“In the woods. Survivors. Humans. They number in the thousands, and they will soon seek and find this place. And when they do, they must fall in line. They must see that Marcus is on the throne—that he is our leader and his rule must be absolute. If not him, others will try to wrestle the claim away, and humanity will die out.”

“Arjun…if you haven’t noticed, we are dying out. Without women, we’re fucked. The best play we have is to find the assholes who put us here and go back to our real home, to Earth, where the rest of our family is waiting for us. We shouldn’t play dress-up like fucking idiots.”

"There are bigger problems..."

"What? Bigger than that?" Easton asked incredulously.

“Believe it or not, Mr. Russell, this world needs us. We are summoned here for a reason.”

“And can you share that information?”

Arjun pursed his lips. “I—I wish I could. But it is not up to me to answer it.”

"Of course not. How convenient." Easton barked another laugh. “See? There it is. Now, I know that’s a bunch of bullshit. You do know. So, spare us from beating our fucking balls.”

“Paths have to be taken first. It is not freely given.”

“Bull.”

“I’ve already told Marcus this.”

“Told him what?”

“We are not going back home. Ever. We will live out the remainder of our days here. I have seen it. The Wards must claim this land, or we die.”

“You’re lying.”

“I wish I was. The problem with having these visions is that they rarely tell a lie. You and I are the only Clerics in this group, and you will soon realize the bigger picture. You must convince him to stay. Many enemies are watching us now, Mr. Russell. Many still don’t know yet we exist, but they soon will. Our arrival will ripple across many lands, and when they gather, they will strike until nothing is left.”

“W—Why me? He listens to Roylan. He listens to my father. Hell, he also listens to Brett. Pick them instead.”

“You promised me a favor.”

“Then, make another one. I’m not taking this.”

Arjun gave a little smile. He then gathered the cards on the table and began to shuffle it three times. From the top of the newly organized deck, he drew a card and placed it face-up on the table, closer to Easton's side. It was the king of hearts.

“Every king needs someone by his side, someone he can call family, someone he can trust completely with his heart.”

Then, Arjun drew two more from the top of the deck, and he, too, placed them face-up. Next to the king was the queen of hearts, and the other the ace of spades, which he gently put on top of the two cards.

“So, it should be you, your grace. You alone can convince him to do what must be done.”