Netty didn't get any sleep at all. She was too stressed to.
Johnathan on the other hand slept like a baby with his head on her lap. The dungeon was incredibly small, she highly doubt they ever keep anyone down here, which was in retrospect a red flag, there were a couple of small windows with bars to prevent anyone from escaping and a metal bucket. Placed square in the middle of the room that Netty didn't even want to look into.
Eventually someone came down and gave them a tray of food.
"Food"
"Excuse me but what in the living fuck is this?" They were scraps from whatever meal they were eating.
"Enjoy" he laughed the closed the latch.
She watched as Johnathan picked through it and grabbed a slice of plain bread and ate it.
She couldn't even hide the disgust look on her face.
He found another slice and offered it to her which she declined. They only had two bathroom breaks a day, they had three but apparently they don't appreciate it when you ask politely for food that doesn't look like it given to street dogs.
Fortunately she was persuasive enough to talk them into giving her an old newspaper, and by "persuasive", she cried until they shoved it through the hatch.
She noted that it was dated months ago nothing too interesting. One article caught her attention it was about strange disappearances going on left and right in town. She handed it to Jay and he decided to make a paper airplane out of it.
They spent the next four days like this, living off of scraps. Sometime in between those days Netty caved in and settled for a slice of bread which she vomited up upon discovering it had mold on it.
She now her stomach contents were now in the negatives
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Eventually the door was opened there stood one of the men previously and two other people. "Come on, follow us".
"Guess they finally realized who I am. Bet my parents finally paid the bale money", she thought.
They lead them down the hall and through the house he snapped in her to look straight and not around for reasons that she didn't quite understand. They made it down another corridor and two large doors opened up to reveal a library. "Wow, these are some ancient books".
He lead us them up to a table where there were two other people standing there watching them intensely. Compared to the other guys, Netty could tell they were more important people, they almost looked like monks...almost. "Hurry! I don't have all day" she wasn't sure if he was talking to her or them, but no one dignified that with a response.
"Come girl! What does it say?" Netty leaned over the desk and tried her best to read it out loud. She was way better at translating it than reading it. "Then what good are you?".
"I'm not the best at reading it but I can translate what Johnathan says." She said snippy.
Oh how she misses Google translate.
Everyone watched him way too intensely while they waited from him to speak. He ran behind Netty to take cover. "You're scaring him..."
"Fine!" He waved. "Leave! Everyone leave except you two."
As they turned to leave Johnathan spoke up. They both turned to look at the man from before. "..what?" Netty wasn't sure what he was talking about "he asked if you're going to be ok.." she translated, he shot them one last look and left.
Honestly not even caring she didn't even ask him for any clarification.
They went sentence by sentence-translating it. It was someone's diary on how life was back in the day- nothing too interesting, the guy wasn't too impressed either. "What am I supposed to do with that useless information?"
Netty couldn't do anything but look at him like he's crazy...because he was. "Nevermind, out!" Jonathan said something the man eyed her in anticipation. "He said don't send them to the caves.."
He just stared at Jonathan with a completely blank expression on his face. Weird.
Right outside the door stood the guy again. She sighed and followed him back to the dungeon. Netty spent most of the day looking out the window. She finally decided to ask him about the men in the caves.
He looked a little finicky so she sat beside him. "Hey bud, we're going to get out of here. I promise.."
He told her his secret, it took Netty a couple of minutes for her brain the register what he just said. "Can people really see the future"?", she thought.
"Righttt.." she responded clearly not believing him.
After a couple of minutes of basically interrogating him, he told her, that he feels that this was the best option considering that she can act "impulsively".
They spent the rest of the day in pure silence.
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It was about eleven am when she woke up, she was usually an early bird, but being almost extremely malnourished and weak because of it, her days consisted of waking up late, eating whatever trash they sent their way, two bathroom breaks then back to sleep.
While she was trying to use a loose ruff rock as a nail filer, the door was unlocked and in walked a man who she only assume he was Tenzen.
His presence was off putting even though he was dressed nice. The man wore his money on his back, she could respect that. "So, I've heard that-" Netty cut him off before he could finish. She was just so desperate to leave.
"Hi! Could you just get in touched with my parents, and they'll pay you whatever you want then you let us go...please.."
He paused for a minute.
"What are their names?" After telling him their names he looked at her as if she told him to kiss her ass, although she wouldn't mind him doing right about now. "Don't play games with me girl!"
"We looked into it there is no one here or in the next three villages over with those names.." one guy interrupted. "But what we did fine is that these two freaks can translate those scrolls we stole".
He eyed us for a second, "How so? It's an ancient Language.."
Netty didn't know how to answer that -as much as she would like to tell the truth and say that her roots are Egyptian she highly doubt they would believe her, or even know what it is. She pondered for a couple of more seconds then went with the answer Jonathan told her to.
"We-we learned from an older woman out West, she's his grandmother and a family friend. She's the first person to use nature chakra, that's why she's lived so long. Unfortunately that didn't protect her from her illness that she had.."
Tenzen stared at her for a few more moments while the guy in the back was smirking at us. Well she clearly tell that he isn't in her side. Then he did something to her surprise. "Follow me.." he said then walked out.
"Wow, those acting classes really did pay off!" More importantly she put two and two together. Johnathan did instruct her to say those things, yet that doesn't mean he can see the future...
Does it?
He lead them to the library where the guy from before wasn't there...
"Ok" Netty began while holding her hand together "if we are to translate for you..you're going to need to meet our requirements."
"Requirements?..?"
"First! We need a room. Second, we need to be fed. And third! Our safely..I don't want anyone threatening..."
"I think we could work something out.."
They smiled at each other in agreement.
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This was NOT the "work out" she had in mind.
They were taken to an underground society...a LITRAL underground society!
She wasn't even one-hundred percent sure how they had got there considering they threw a bag over her head and threw her over their shoulder. Even though she didn't like long walks being carried on long walk while thrown over someone's shoulder wasn't any better.
There was no exit...
"Hellooo..you must be the new guys.." a tall lengthy man greeted followed by a few other people. "We all serve gratefully under Master Tenzen's rule-" he stopped and started to cough hysterically.
Gross
"I am the head and chief of this quaint society." He stopped for another minute to hack out a lung. "Wow." She thought "he should really see a doctor.."
"Follow me.." the people looked near death to Netty.
Zombie like.
The buildings were made of old worn out and water damaged wood. "No wonder he's so sick.."
He lead them to this opening and there sat the blank face of a large stone, "This is what all of us look forward to.." he paused expecting Netty to ask him why-she opened her mouth then shut it thinking "These people are crazy...".
He continued, "This is where he comes and actually chooses one of us!" He said with a huge smile on this face.
"...who.." she almost not even bothered to ask.
"Our LORD!" He shouted with excitement which triggered another coughing fit.
After finishing the "tour" which was really nothing to show for he took them to where they were staying. It was a two level house with 2 bedroom and one bath, with little to no furniture.
She did find 4 sets of clothes set on the dining room table. They were clearly meant to be a 'one size fits all' type of thing.
Antoinette ended up taking the master bedroom which consisted of a queen sized bed two empty night stands...
"No television", she thought. This place is literally nothing! She pushed that thought aside and focused on the more important matter. A shower. It's been days and couldn't wait to hop in it. After the shower she tried on the clothes that were given to her, and it fit her ok, but it was kinda awkward around some parts of the body.
With nothing to do she decided to head into town.
Netty couldn't help by notice the odd behavior of the people. As she walked through the town, absolutely no way out the city and it was lit by street lamps.
NOW, she was certain that this was definitely a cult of some kind.
With absolutely nothing to do, she decided to go to the library. She can't even remember the last time she willingly had gone to the library.
While on the history store of the store, she didn't quite understand one thing. "Chakra".
What was it?
"Hello, ma'am. I couldn't help but notice something...in your history section. What is chakra..?"
The lady just looked at her like her head just sprouted wings. "Are you...serious?"
"Yes.."
Instead of getting a real response she lead Netty back to the history side and picked out a book for her, she flashed her a quick sarcastic smile then left to return to her post.
"What crawled up her ass?"
Netty ended up staying at the library for...God know how long studying it since this place had no clocks. She ended up checking out a couple of books and heading back home. If she should even call it that.
Upon returning home she realized that she needed to eat. She opened the fridge and found...nothing.
Absolutely nothing..
She wasn't even quite sure what she expected to see. After closing the fridge she nearly jumped out of her skin when she saw Jonathan was standing there.
"Guess, we're going out. Follow me."
Jonathan followed Netty quietly to the food distribution section, luckily there were only a couple of people in line.
She was given two boxed and sent on her way. At least they tried to. "Umm.. excuse me? But what all is in this?" The man was writing down something, supposedly jotting down inventory "Open it and find out." He half answered.
"Well...thank you, but I'm allergic to some foods and I'm trying to stay on this new diet, and I don't eat processed foods" she rambled while the man stared blankly.
She took a deep breath and continued her long and elaborate explanation about her foods actually thinking he gave a damn. When she was done he put a smaller box on top of her other two. "Next.."
A guy pushed past her nearly knocking down her boxes, she was stunned for a minute. I am THE Antoinette! Why am I getting treated like this?!"
Jonathan lead her home while she was too busy in disbelief to lead. "THE Antoinette!"
Fortunately, they had knifes in the kitchen upon opening the box the smell of preserves hit her hard. Nearly bringing her to tears.
"Ok, Jay.. where are we? I'm just soo confused.." she nearly begged for an answer, on the brink of tears.
Johnathan explained the best he could about his future sights, and also told her he only shares when he feels like a life is at steak. As best a six year old can explain things while she unpacked the box.
After stocking up the house, she headed to bed although it was very springy and she could absolutely tell it had been used before, she just wanted to rest.
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