II
Who created the thing? It was not clear. God? NASA? Aliens? Physics?
Why was it there? What was its purpose? It did not matter, at least not now, the humans on the other side were close, too close for the liking of some soldiers, and by 1am, they were just meters from it, the inner perimeter remained concealed due to the night, and the fact that no artificial light was in the area.
The humans on the other side stared in amazement as they were just meters of the anomaly, and to the HQ horror, they started to cross. It was a small group, ten or so people, four men, four women and two children, all different ages, they were also moving a cart with two horses, and they were all dressed in rags. HQ gave orders to detain them.
"Stop right there if you value your lives!" one of the soldiers screamed, rifle high and ready to spit.
The rest of the men moved quickly surrounding the group that had just finished crossing along the cart and the horses, the group looked frightened, but two of the men unsheathed swords and raised them high.
"Don't! you two are smarted than this" another soldier almost pleaded, but not for his sake, for theirs if it came to that, it wasn't going to be a fair fight.
The soldiers used their flashlights to disorient the armed men, and proceed to hit them and take their swords, the rest of the group tried to run, but they were swiftly controlled, the women and the men were saying things, like pleading, a pair of soldiers recognized the foreign language they were speaking in, English.
"Please don't hurt us!" they begged.
HQ came with some more men, and they were handed off to them, but something was clear now, they weren't eerily human, they were humans.
The men that took the "guests" were not only wearing their olive-green uniforms, but also basic PPE, facemask and gloves, they also handed some to the inner perimeter, to HQ it was long overdue, the inner perimeter could have been exposed to a thousand diseases because of their reckless acting at the beginning, but their orders stood the same, no one should cross the anomaly, not from this side, or the other.
"Think the medics are going to have fun with them?" the youngest of the soldiers said to the others.
"What?" they threw him strange look.
"You know, like putting tubes in them and all that?" he looked at them like it was obvious.
"Well, if only to prevent them from spreading covid-29 in our world" the oldest said with a humorless smile
The "guests" said things and although some of the men understood, they were explicitly ordered to not talk with the others, so they ignored them. They were forced to drag the horses and the cart, at first glance, it was obvious it was full of things, looked like it carried the life of this group in its broken state. No one spoke a thing, even when they approached the HQ itself and the artificial lights were on their eyes. The "guests" were finally quiet when they saw the building live with people running side by side.
The medics and scientist relived the group of the "guests" and moved them to a makeshift hospital, they were ready to begin evaluating them, and treating them, they looked sick, and the oldest of the group was at the doorstep of death, by dawn, the old man was death, he fell out cold and was gone. They also brought a specific interpreter, Juan, because even though many of them knew English, everybody had their jobs.
"Please calm down, I know it's frightening, but we are here to help you" Juan threw his best smile, but the group was scared to death. "Are you sick or hungry?"
"Please dont hurt us mlord, we were moving on the Kings Road, we were tired, and my child were hungry, please mlord, we didn't mean to trespass your land." A young man answered to him.
"Well take care of you alright? We will bring some food for you and the rest" he was soon moved by some medics that forcefully connected an IV in the little girls arm, and he had the opportunity to observe the group. They were all malnourished, they were poorly dressed, smelled bad, and they were poor, their clothes and mannerisms showed him that much. "Hey, it's alright, well bring you some food, and they are medics" he signaled to the group "they will help you all."
"Even if I knew all that is wrong with them, Im not sure we can help them in this conditions, we need to move them to a hospital" he heard a doctor said to someone.
"We can't, who knows what they have, well have to do our best" a female voice answered.