I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and tried to process what I just learned. I was supposed to be preparing for a piano audition before I got kidnapped. And whoever the kidnappers were, they must be filthy rich to be able to kidnap a poor student like me. Literally. I didn't have anything of value on me, but they still robbed me blind. I made a mental note that my kidnappers were more of a sicko than I originally thought.

I originally thought that I was in a museum, but after talking to Ahote, I was convinced that I was at least in a different country, probably on a prehistoric island that never really developed a civilization. Either that or I was really on some different planet. And if that were the case, I would be in an even worse position. Space travel was something only a handful of people could actually afford and I could only ever remember around 4 instances where someone actually successfully traveled to an inhabitable planet before.

I'd never heard of a country named Domum, even in my history classes. I memorized all of the countries on [?] for my last history test, so hopefully Ahote's country just had multiple names. Like how I learned that the United States was also called America. Anyway, I remembered that humans had already explored and colonized all the continents and islands of [?], so it was more likely that Ahote just called his country a different name than the one in textbooks.

Realistically, who could even afford to transport me to a different planet? The more I thought about my situation, the more ridiculous it felt. I was first kidnapped, transported to a pre-civilization island, and just randomly left to fend for myself. Must have been an expensive prank.

And as for the magic Ahote was talking about, I learned enough in Cultural studies to know that pre-civilization tribes had religions where they believed that magic existed. Sure, Ahote's explanation of why I was fixated on his muscles made sense, but that wasn't enough proof for me. If magic really existed, then why wasn't I taught it in school? Did some random muscular scholar discover something [?]'s greatest researchers couldn't discover? I doubted it.

Now that I thought about it, the ridiculous idea of emotions manifesting as reality made no sense. If this were true, then why would anyone study science? They'd just have the emotion to learn everything in the world and boom. Education fixed.

The more I thought, the more that I felt like I was just on an island. Being transported to a different planet where magic existed was just too unrealistic.

I took a long look at Ahote and prayed that he was just someone crazy. If he wasn't crazy, I felt like I might go crazy thinking and speculating on my situation. I needed some answers.

Please, if any god exists out there, please, make him tell me that this is just an island. I need someone to tell me the truth.

[Faust]: "Wait Ahote! Don't go just yet. I have a few more questions."

Ahote looked at me with a tired look.

[Ahote]: "Again? I already told you to stop doing that."

I was taken back a bit. Doing what? Asking questions about my situation? I felt like this is what any reasonable person would do. But... I couldn't afford to antagonize the only human I could talk to.

[Faust]: "Errr... What do you mean by that?"

Ahote rolled his eyes.

[Ahote]: "You're trying to use magic to influence me to make me say that this planet is [?], but I'm not going to do that. Why would I lie to you?"

Now that statement shocked me. How'd he know what I wanted? Maybe a lucky guess, or maybe magic actually existed here. I shook my head. If I was kidnapped and sent to an unknown island by some rich assholes, the least they could do is hire believable actors or choose someplace with well-spoken natives. This wasn't enough to prove that magic existed. There was still hope that this was [?], because if I was really stuck on some planet named Mortus... Well, that would really suck, to say the least. I needed to probe him for some answers.

[Faust]: "If magic really exists, then try and guess what I'm thinking. Right now I want you to guess what color I'm thinking about, so according to your magic, you should be able to guess it correctly right?"

Ahote rolled his eyes again. I was beginning to see a pattern here.

[Ahote]: "Do you really want me to read your mind?"

[Faust]: "Yeah."

[Ahote]: "I'll do you one better. You want me to guess wrongly and end up telling you that I'm a paid actor, not sure what that even is, and then tell you that everything is a prank? That's a pretty weird thing to try and manifest with magic. Although that would be really hard to guess if magic didn't exist. That was actually a more well-thought-out plan I expected from you. Well done Faust."

I nearly dislocated my jaw from how fast it fell.