"Zeal."
It was the first word the boy had spoken in weeks.
But then, that's an easy, silly phrase to offer. Most don't understand the meaning, nor the length nor breadth of that term-- weeks. It has become a neat, parceled expression.
Weeks meant impossible silence through those first hours when he awoke and we, full of skepticism, began our attack. Weeks meant no response when Ozzie cornered the child and bore down on him with his spit-slick, slat of a mouth. It meant terrified, wide red eyes, but no sound. It meant no conclusion for our curiosity, when the boy was still a new discovery.
It meant the scorn of being ignored by our own captive.
Weeks meant two meals a day, received with no intelligent sign of recognition, but a tight, sullen mouth and an empty plate upon turning your back.
Weeks meant strained nerves as Ozzie howled like a beast and turned Slash upon the child after two days, who beat him just enough to satisfy. It meant dragging hours of not knowing the slightest thing, but suspecting everything.
It meant starvation. It meant anything and everything to rend this creature apart, to expose the fleshy innards of knowledge.
It meant finding the disturbing strength of our new little beast piece by piece, who was able to go silently for twenty-three days in a new, terrifying atmosphere which threatened his every breath. We expected that austere tolerance to break every other moment but found it colder and dryer than ever. He was as unyielding as someone five times his age, and the wrongness he radiated was unmistakable.
We began to-- graciously, never seriously-- doubt its humanity. We were certain it never talked, even to itself, and were disturbed despite ourselves. But then it spoke that one word.
"Zeal." It finally croaked. Its face had lost its childish pudge, and its ribs were bare. "What has happened to Zeal?"
"Zeal?"
The word, held in such importance-- twenty-three days of importance, five hundred and fifty-two hours of weight-- putrefied in Ozzie's mouth. He sneered.
"What are you mumbling about?"
Perhaps he was irritated that the creature's first word hadn't paid homage to all the pain it had experienced in his care. He found nothing in the thing's eyes but defiance.
"Zeal. The Magical Kingdom." He paled even as he spoke, clambering to his small white feet. He was filthy, naked and disgusting, but still shone as white as any sandstone block. "Does it live on?"
An odd, sour silence drifted between us all, promptly shattered by Ozzie's gut-deep guffaw.
"If it even existed!" Ozzie roared, and I recoiled the slightest bit from his excessive brutishness. Always the one to shout. Both Slash and I were most interested in the boy, and made no move to conceal it. Ozzie, I'm sure, wept from his lack of audience… or simply became more obsessed with proving himself.
"What?" The boys said urgently—or rather, exhaled it, eyes widening.
"I said, if it even existed, runt." Ozzie sneered, not yet angered.
"How do you speak?" The boy stepped up to him, scandalously close to his wide bulk. He stood ridiculously small next to the Mystic, all starved limbs and caving buttocks. I raised an eyebrow as Ozzie took one stomp forward, fat lips drawing back.
"However Ozzie wants, you worm." He growled. His hackles—or perhaps his spongy green boils—rose in a lather.
"What right have you to keep me here, starve me-- then tell me the magnificent Zeal is gone? Where am I! You're lying!" The boy nearly shrieked, suddenly writhing in a rage. "Liar!"
Ozzie was and is a liar. I admit to this. He would not admit to it, but would not deny it. However, he was in just the right state—coming down from two weeks of agony—to vastly overexploit any possible sensitivity.
"Ozzie isn't any liar, you filth!"
Small, piggy eyes lighting, he swung back and slapped the boy across the face so hard I felt the tremble in my feet as the thing hit the floor.
Then our beloved leader waddled out in a rage, muttering and growling and generally feeling much better, I'm sure. But the boy was still as death, white face cocked to the side. While he usually stayed still until all of us left, seeking safety in 'death', this silence and this stillness was different. A force other than self-preservation held him down. His lashes were heavy and silken across his red, lidded eyes. After a moment his lips parted, and his naked little chest moved in breath.
"It is gone?" He spoke to the shadows, as though he knew we were there.
"Thousands and thousands of years ago." Slash spoke softly, having none of Ozzie's pride. I watched as the boy processed this. "Many believed it a myth."
"Then there is nothing left." He whispered.
Perfunctory and quiet, we waited for an explanation. We waited for a reason why this strange, cold little human would ask so reverently about a kingdom 11,400 years gone. But he found no weakness which permitted him to share. There was only silence.
We left him there, flat on his back.