Gah, I have no idea why it took me so long to write this chapter... however, I guess it's pretty good, for what it's worth. So, here's Chapter Four!
A clanging bell in my ear jolted me from my dead sleep, and I sat up in my bed with a sharp gasp. "Rise and shine, little lady," a gravelly voice said. I looked up to see a dark blue albatross guard, staring at me with tiny beady eyes. "Today we're walkin' round the house."
He dropped a pile of fabric on the ground at the foot of my bed. "Here's some clothes to change into." With that, he left my prison.
"That's Mason," Tails piped up in his room; he had already changed into a fresh pair of jeans and a button up red and white plaid short sleeved shirt. "He's one of the nice guards."
"Nice?" I said incredulously.
"Well, nicer than some of the others. A few are nearly as evil as Mephiles when he gets mad."
This made me speechless. I looked in the prison to my other side; it was empty. Since I figured Tails was not "that kind of guy" and because he only looked about 8 years old, I went ahead and changed into my other clothes. I saw his head turn away from me as I changed shirts and I smiled to myself.
I actually liked the clothes they picked out for me. They fit me well, and the lavender tank top I received felt smooth and soft against my skin. It must have been made of satin. A few minutes later, Mason came back and opened the door to my cell, waving me out. He closed the door after I exited.
The outside of my room wasn't very surprising: a gray hallway with doors lining it. It seemed like everything was gray around here. I heard sizzling coming from a larger door, and the smell of melted cheddar cheese over lightly scrambled eggs hit me smack in the nose, making me lick my lips. I didn't realize how hungry I was until then; the cookie that I had eaten at Amy's house had not lasted long. My stomach twisted on itself inside me.
As if he could hear my thoughts, Mason told me, "We eat in an hour. But first, we walk."
When we reached the end of the long hallway a few minutes later, two iron doors met us, and they swung open at our approach. Mephiles stood at the other side of them, his face blank. "She will be fine from here on out, Mason," he said in a dismissive voice. As the bulky albatross hobbled away, Mephiles looked at me with a frown. "What to do with you..." I heard him murmur under his breath. Then, as if he had made up his mind on something, he snapped his fingers and, grabbing my hand, sprinted down another gray hallway.
"I thought we were WALKING," I retorted, slightly short of breath after a few moments.
His glare turned to me, hard as stone. "You're definitely not going to be walking today, not with that build. You're working for me now. You do as I say, when I say it, no questions asked. If I ask you to run an errand, you do it. If I ask you to get me coffee, you do it. Understand?"
I ripped my hand from his and halted in my tracks. He skidded to a stop and turned to me. "I am NOT going to be pushed around like some kind of slave," I spat. "You're obviously not the kindest guy around here, and I'm not going to work under your influence. I don't want anything to do with you. You're just a sick bastard."
He stroked his chin, reminding me of the detectives in cartoons from way back then. "You're feisty and stubborn, like a mule. Yet young, and unknowing." He grasped my wrist again and, squeezing it tightly, twisted it almost 360 degrees. "Listen to me, little girl. You are under my influence. Nobody can help you. Not even your friends will come looking for you. They know that I'm the most powerful thing out there."
I yelled in pain, clawing at his hand to release me and leaving little cuts which oozed thin blood. "Let me GO!" I screamed. His grip did not loosen, and I stood there like a temper tantrum throwing child, trying to jerk my hand from his.
When he finally let go, my wrist was bruised purple and his hand was bleeding all over. He pulled the green Chaos Emerald from nowhere and held it over the wounds; they healed on contact, glowing an eerie fluorescent lime. He picked me up like a baby with ease and Chaos Controlled out of the hallway.
We appeared outside, under a blistering sun. The field beyond me was bare; nothing grew in the hot air that wavered before my eyes. I felt sweat drops already ooze from my forehead and nose and wiped them away.
Around us, I saw animals of all shapes and sizes cutting at the ground. Most of them had hoes, and a few were tagging along behind them, dropping seeds of a strange shade of violet into the ground. One person stood by with a water hose, spraying a fine mist on the ground. Everyone looked tired and hungry, as if they hadn't slept for days. Mephiles waved his arms around as if gesturing to a great accomplishment. "Welcome to my garden. This is where you will be working."
My eyebrows shot up. "This is a GARDEN?"
"Well of course!" Mephiles responded, his eyes wide and surprised. "Don't you see these people hard at work, planting the seeds of the achomedla?"
"The whattywhatwhat?"
"The achomedla. It's the healthiest food in Mobius; the tiny red buds, when ripe, can be picked off the plant and eaten raw. They taste like mango. You can cook the stalk of the plant with the leaves, too. They supply fiber, all kinds of vitamins, potassium, TONS of protein... the list goes on for miles!"
I looked around again. "Doesn't look easy."
"It isn't, trust me. This is one reason why I need you here with me," he said, turning my shoulders to face him. "You look like you've done some labor before, with the lean muscle in your back, arms and legs. I need you to work however you can in this area."
As I watched them work, I was convincing myself that this would be sort of fun. I was a big fan of gardening back on Earth, and while this would be thousands of times harder judging by my surroundings, I was up for the challenge. "When do I start?"
"In a few minutes. However, that top is too nice for the dirt to get all over. I need you to change into something else." He ran over to a plastic bin and began rummaging through it. After a moment he pulled out a plain white T-shirt that was probably made of cotton. It had a couple of dirt smudges on it, but must have been better than whatever else was in that bucket. "Change into this," he said as he threw it to me. "There's a tree over there you can change behind."
As I changed into my new attire, I wondered how long he would want me to work out here, and if the sun above would ever subside. When I asked him about both a few seconds later, he said, "Until the harvest is over. That means for several weeks. And the heat is something that comes and goes. Some days you'll be working in this sun, and in others it might as well be snowing it's so cold out here. The achomedla is a very tricky thing to plant. It needs several types of weather to grow correctly."
I wasn't happy about having to work for weeks, but I was glad I wasn't going to have to work in this heat every single day of it. But I didn't exactly thrive in the cold either. "I don't want to sound like a whiny brat, but will I ever have days off?"
He thought for a second. "I'm going to need you for other things as well, besides working here, so I'll pull you out of the job on a few days to do other stuff indoors." I sighed with relief before he continued.
"You heard me say when I found you that I needed a specimen, correct? I'm going to have to run a few experiments and tests on you while you're here. A lot of them might be very painful, and a couple, possibly, could make you very sick for a little while. This is not an easy life, Renata."
"Of course it isn't," I said. "No life is easy, not with you around." With that, I held up my middle finger for a second.
He frowned, then handed me a hoe, pointing to an area of the ground that hadn't been hacked at yet. "Start there." He Chaos Controlled away after glaring at me one last time. "Bitch," he murmured.
I growled under my breath, infuriated with him, but began digging. The ground was hard like dry clay, and a pale chartreuse color. I noticed the gardeners didn't speak when Mephiles was around. It was probably for good reason. I saw a little forest green hedgehog run behind me and start dropping seeds into my holes, and ignored him at first until he spoke to me after a buzz of conversation spread throughout the garden. "How did you get here?"
"I was basically sold to this place," I replied, digging at the ground harder at the word sold; my back was already aching, and I felt my temples throbbing. My shirt was soaked with sweat. "I thought I was surrounded by friends who would stand up for me. But instead of risking their lives, they basically said, 'Hey Mephiles, we don't care about this girl, so take her away!'"
"Ouch," the hedgehog said. "Sounds rough. When I came here, I didn't know a single thing about his little take-over-the-world fiasco, and thought it wouldn't be like this, so I actually OFFERED to come. I wish I hadn't now. This is practically hell." After a second of silence, he said, "So why did he bring you out here instead of having you stay in the little gray rooms 24/7?"
"He just said I had the right build to do labor, and that he wanted to keep me out here until the achomedlas are harvested. It's a legitimate reason, but one I wish wasn't actually legitimate. And... I guess I sort of bad-mouthed at him."
He whistled. "You got some serious guts to talk back to him. Most people would rather walk on hot coals than bad-mouth Mephiles the Dark."
This remark made me think of Sonic the Hedgehog and what he had said to Mephiles the day before, and I suppressed a smile as I continued chopping at the ground. The little green hedgehog was pretty quiet afterwards as he scattered the little violet seeds behind me.
This continued until dark, and I still hadn't eaten yet. My stomach was no longer twisting - it was doing the Casper Slide inside me, and the dance was definitely not that coordinated. I was so close to nausea that I could feel it in the back of my throat.
If things continued this way, I was pretty sure I would personally strangle and murder someone if they were 10 feet of me without giving me any food. Finally, Mephiles came back out and said, "That's enough for today. Go back inside." He turned to go back inside then paused and added, "By the way, if you find anyone dead out here, drag them over there so that the smell doesn't slow the growth of the achomedla." He pointed to a small shaded area away from the building underneath another tree.
There were a few sighs of relief as they straightened up, popping their backs. Already I saw five bodies being dragged to the tree, and I shuddered. I ran to catch up with Mephiles, since I still knew nothing about this place and didn't know my way back to my prison. I tapped him on the shoulder.
To my surprise, when he looked at me, he smiled slightly. "Hello, Renata. Glad to see you again. I'll lead you back to your room and bring you some food. You've done well today."
I couldn't speak, purely because I didn't understand. He was calling me names one second (then again, I deserved that one for flipping him off), and now he was treating me like a friend. I just nodded at him and followed him down the hall, wondering how he was going to behave next. He seemed so unpredictable at times. I really wanted to know more, so that I could know what to expect of this strange creature, Mephiles the Dark.
Read and Review, please! :D
~ GABL
