The taps on the stone grew closer, and materialized into the creep who tried to molest me.  

I couldn't help but to marvel at his appearance. The words 'Greasy' or 'Scum' seemed to personify him. This is only the second time I've seen him, but his strange appearance will probably stay with me until I'm old and senile.  

Just the sight of the creep fills me with revulsion.

He wore a velvet emerald green overcoat? suit-jacket? over a yellow stained white dress shirt.  He was wearing a matching green top hat that covered his bald head, but his long greasy grey hair hung limp on his shoulders.   He was carrying a heavy-looking wooden clipboard that he was writing in with a... calligraphy pen? And an ink bottle?  He was looking at the prisoners in the opposite cell, and writing something down on his board.

Who the hell uses a calligraphy pen to write anymore...

These people were so bizarre...  It's like they are living like it was two hundred years ago.

What, did I get kidnapped by the Amish?

The obese little creep turns over to look at our cell, and the other men immediately stand straight upright at attention.

I chose to stay sitting.

Fuck that creep.  He kidnapped me, kept me imprisoned in a cell with three other guys and no toilet, tried to feel me up, had his guards beat me, and fed me food & water that made me sick.

Fuck that creepy little dickhead, I wont give him a single bit of respect!

 

His eyes locked right on mine, neither of us said anything, but I could feel his hate from his evil black eyes.  

"Hmph"  He snorts derisively at me and writes something down with his faggy little pen.

God, I hate this little fucker more and more with every passing second.

   I never thought it was possible that I could hate someone more than I hate my father, but this creep? Yeah, I Despise this... thing.

After writing whatever he was documenting, he turned on his heel and let his leather shoes tap away on the stone.

 The other men breathe out sighs of relief as soon as he leaves. 

The blonde man laughs and says something at me, but I'm too angry to pay him any attention.

I stand with some effort - fuck, my my legs are shaky - and try to stick my head out of the bars a little to watch the little creeps back as he walks away.   He shouts something at the guards, and a few seconds later I see a bunch of the big white guards - more than I've ever seen together at one time come marching down the hall carrying their big clubs and some burlap sacks.    I counted around twelve of them.  

I'm a big man. At six foot four, I stand taller than most guys. But these huge white skinned men made me look small in comparison. Each of them were around seven feet tall, and had the musculature of a silverback gorilla.  I spend a lot of time pumping Iron at the gym - maybe less time after I started working construction - But these guys were on another level. They must do nothing but eat, sleep and train...

Every single one of them were as white as a ghost, completely bald, and I would be willing to bet my left testicle that they all had those funny, high pitched voices.  They were by far the most bizarre part of all this.   Did they actually wear those elf ears all the time or... Did they have surgery done to make their ears look like that?  

What is going on here? I feel like I was captured by a cult...

They march down the hall, their heavy boots stomping the ground, and stop in front of the cell opposite of mine. They open the iron gate and a guard throws a burlap sack down on the ground and gives an order.

The men in the cell open up the bag, and inside is some simple looking clothing that each of the men started putting on.

About damn time, it is fucking cold in these cells. Thank christ they let me keep my socks.

 As soon as the other men put on their clothing a guard orders them something, and they slowly exit their cell  and stand in a line in front of it.

A second guard pulls a thick iron chain out of his sack, it had three shackles on it.    He gave a bark at the men who just stood frozen, and bent down to attach a shackle to the left ankle of three men.  The other guards hefted their big clubs to intimidate the prisoners.  There was no escape through that wall of meat.

The chain only had three shackles on it. That left an extra man.  The prisoner in the back of the line was pushed back in his cell, and had the iron bars closed on him.  A guard marches the shackled men down the hall while the others turn towards our cell and slide open the bars.

A guard throws a bag down and orders "Mej ti no!"  I couldn't understand his words, but I could guess their meaning 'Wear these.' or 'Put these on'.  The blonde man is the first to grab the bag, he almost lazily pulls out a basic, greyish set of rough looking pants with a small hemp rope threaded through the waistband and puts them on, next is an overly large T - shirt made of the same material. 

After the other men dress, It's my turn. I turn my hip to the side, I don't want the guards to see my lockpick hidden in my briefs, and pull the pants out of the bag. The material is incredibly rough, it feels like Carhartt, and doesn't look breathable... With shaky legs, I put them on. They are a little too short for my ankles, and the waist too wide, I have to tie the rope around twice to get them to stay up. 

A guard barks his high pitched voice at me. "Ryurh pu!"  I don't even need to guess this order, It's definitely 'Hurry up'.   Quickly, I throw on the rough baggy shirt over my bare chest.  This material is meaner than fucking sandpaper! 

I then proceed to stand in the back of the line.  Part of me was terrified that I was making a mistake, that I needed to be at the front of the line so I could get marched out to god knows where, BUT ANYWHERE has to be better than here. The other part of me was terrified that if I left with the other shackled men, they would kill me or at least do something sinister, and if I stayed in the cell then I would still have a chance to escape...

The guard that ordered me to hurry - it's Marshmallow this time - begins shackling the blonde man at the front, then the skinny albino man, and when he gets to the third skinny man, right when he bends down to place the shackle on his leg, another guard stops him "Eia Isth Un'e, asth Un'e" He said and pointed at me.

"What?!"   Shit.  It seems like the decision was made for me. This is bad...

They grab the skinny man, and shove me forward while they throw him back in his cell.  Marshmallow then clamps the Iron shackle onto my left ankle. It clicks shut with an uncomfortable tightness.  I'm tempted to give the fat bastard a knee to the face, but the other guards are watching and waiting for anyone to do something stupid like that.

They lead us out down the hall, I see other men shackled and standing in line. Down the other hall, there were women being shackled and dressed.  It seemed that the cell block opposite of mine was where they held women.   Why?   What are they doing with all these people?

They march us out of the prison, through the heavy iron barred wooden door, and down a hallway richly decorated with a paisley red wall paper and stone floors with designs carved in them.  The disconnect from the nasty prison cells to the hallway was staggering.  I stop to look into an open doorway, and I mange to see a richly decorated room with an antique leather couch an shelves of books, before a guard pokes his club into my back and shoves me forward.

They lead us to a pair of antique double doors, and open them to reveal a snowy street.

 

My mind goes blank for a moment as I take it all in...

 

Snow.

Right now, it is the middle of august. It should not be snowing at all...

 

The only places with snow like this all year round is Antarctica and some of the taller mountains.

"This doesn't make any sense..."

"Was I out for longer than I thought after I woke up in that room?   No, there's no way I could miss that much time..."

*Grunt*

I get pulled from the questions barraging my brain by a strange noise coming from the street that I was too distracted by the snow to look at properly.

It came from some kind of... animal.

On the cobblestone street in front of me is possibly the strangest creature I have ever seen.

  It looked like a cross between a boar and a bull. And It's as long as a horse, but only half as tall.  It was thick like the largest of boars, and it had large tusks that jutted out of its long snout and curved forward.  It was covered in long thick brown matted fur like a yak, and had large wide hooves three times the size of a bulls. It had a long swishy tail, like a cross between a lions and a bulls. 

  It looked incredibly sturdy.   

...

Only after a guard shoves me did I realize I was holding up the line.

There was more than one of the... animals.  There were six of them, and they were all attached to six large carts with iron cages on top.

They were leading the prisoners into the cages...

A guard roughly yanks on the chain, causing our group to either move forward or be dragged.  They march us up the back of those carts, and force me to sit down on one of the two wooden benches on the inside of the cart opposite of the blonde man.  The guard attaches the chain on our legs to shackles on the cart floor.

I try to move my leg experimentally - No good, I can barely move it more than a few inches.

They pile three more men into the cart, then throw a large fur pelt at each man. 

It smells like mildew and old sweat, but it will at least keep us warm.

  The iron cage door is slammed closed.   The three men they sat next too us were all three ghostly white like albinos, and had those weird pointy ears and white hair. 

I've never seen people like these, even on T.V. - they barely look human! 

 The one that sat next to me had a ponytail with the sides of his head shaved, and a nasty looking scar on his cheek...

'!!!'  I jerk in surprise as he turns to look at me with pure yellow irises.  

Are those contact lenses, or is that his actual eye color?   Whatever the case, I didn't like the way he was staring at me.

"Sorry, but I don't swing that way Bro." I tell him while putting a little bite in my voice.

He widens his eyes in surprise at the sound of my voice, then scowls his scarred face at me.

Across from me, the blonde man - I'll nickname him 'blondie' - laughs and slaps his knee, and says something at the yellow-eyed punk in front of me, but I'm busy staring him down, wondering if we were gonna have a problem. 

Finally, the strange-eyed man looked away from me.

Good, I had enough to worry about with the guards.  I didn't need any trouble from other prisoners...

I stare out of the iron bars at the strange animal pulling the cart.  I couldn't get a good look at it from this angle, but I stare anyway.  What was it?  Some type of warthog I never learned about?  

I always liked learning about animals, and I thought I at least knew about all the big kinds of animals in the world...  Is this some sort of himalayan yak - boar?   

And the snow. It was the middle of summer, where the hell did they take me for it to have snow on the ground?

These thoughts circle round & round in my head. 

Eventually, the carts start moving, Being pulled by the... things down a snowy cobblestone street.

I get a good view of  the street as our prison cart is pulled down the bumpy stones.

The buildings are old looking, victorian-styled wood and dark grey stone, with black slatestone roofs.  There were children running around in the snow in thick fur coats. Some of them started throwing snowballs at the carts in front of us and chattering and laughing in their strange language.  

"Little shits" I mutter to myself.

There were odd street-lamps with big round blue bulbs dotting the edges of the street.

  So they DO have electricity.  At least they did.  The lights were currently turned off, probably cuz' it's daytime currently.

The carts slowly trundle along the cobblestone pavements.  Its bumpy, and feels unpleasant but it barely even registers.

Instead, I can't help but stare at the numerous shops and people the carts slowly passed by.   All the people in the streets were wearing these historical looking clothes, and none of them except the children seemed to even bother Looking at us!  

Are kidnappings like these an everyday occurrence in this region?

 And the shops...  There was an open market with men and women selling fish, carpets, pottery, and many other things - it looked like a market that one might see in a historical or fantasy movie...

The cart passes along, and my ears start to pick up a clanging sound - metal on metal.   

What comes into view, is a street full of metalworkers.   

 They were mostly hammering on pots and everyday items, but some were making swords & armor!   

"What the hell..."

This is so surreal.  My mind is having flashbacks of an old school field-trip I went on as a child. We went to a village that was a historically accurate representation of how the European colonists lived.   It looked very much like this...

 How many of these strange people are there?  A whole towns worth?   This HAS to be some kind of fucked up mountain cult.  Why did they kidnap me and bring me here?  Why do they live like this?  Do they hate technology?  

My mind swirls with questions.

I try to look further down the street, to get a good view of just how big this place is.  I see rows of buildings stretching back for a good half-mile.  This place is a decent size town, but its still too hard to determine the size.

As the carts move along, I wrap myself tighter in my gross-smelling fur blanket. I like the cold weather, and I'm glad to be out of those foul cells - but I don't wanna freeze to death either.

Eventually the carts all turn right, and a grey stone wall comes into view, about thirty feet tall.  In front is a huge iron gate, and there are men - Men in Armor! They are carrying swords and have fur cloaks like in a fantasy movie.

"This whole place is fucking insane..."  I mumble.

The carts pass these Renaissance-Fair-Rejects.   They look... mean.   One of them spits right through the bars on the albino punk next to me, and curses in their strange language.    The punk just scowls at them silently.

Not much a man can do in this situation...

Outside the walls, there is a muddy dirt road.  Around the walls, there is nothing but snowy farmland and small clusters of houses.   Beyond that is forest, as far as my eyes can see.

Wherever they were taking us, it was out there in the wilderness somewhere.

...

Hours pass by, and sometime around noonish -it was hard to tell without a watch- the carts stop and pull off the road by a good fifty yards into the treeline.   Afterwards,  they hauled us out of the cages and let us piss and shit -under direct supervision- Thankfully I didn't have to go 'number 2', because I had a hard enough time pissing with those huge guards staring directly at us.  

After that, they put us back in the cage and got a fire going.  They boiled snow in a big pot and served it to us, steaming and hot. 

I was soo thirsty...  The past few days have been brutal, and I haven't been able to keep down much water.

My lips were dry and cracked, partly from the cold - but mostly from dehydration.  My mouth felt like it was dryer than ashes.

It should be fine if I drink this right?   They are boiling it, so it should be fine...

As the steaming mug gets placed in my hands, I cant help myself.  I take big mouthfuls of hot water, not caring that it was scalding my tongue and throat. 

 Fuck, I'm so thirsty! 

 I stare at the empty mug regretfully - until the guard smacks his huge fist on the cage.  I turn to see him holding his hand out for the mug.  Wishing I could chuck it at his fat bald head, I hand it over.

 A delicious smell hits my nostrils.  Looking over, I see the guards grilling slabs of meat on an Iron plate over the fire.  The stomachs of the prisoners grumble, mine included - as we all stared at the steaks grilling.  It smelled divine~

What is that?   Pork? Beef?   Whatever it was looked amazing to someone who has only been eating small handfuls of mushy grain for a week.   

 Which, is exactly what they serve us.   They ladle out more of the grain - it tasted like mushed old barley with no seasoning whatsoever. 

  Marshmallow hands out bowls of the stuff to all the prisoners in the cages. 

I haven't been able to keep much food down, but hopefully since they cooked it with boiled snowwater it'll be okay...

God I'm so damn hungry that I dont even care if I puke it up. 

I start shoveling the grain down my throat with my hands - the same as the other prisoners.

After it was all eaten, Marshmallow returned for the bowls, with a steak in his hands.

Slowly, he looked at all of us and grinned.  He ate the fattiest juiciest steak right in front of us.  He savored every bite, grease dripping down his arm, steam rising from his steak.  He kept on making 'mmm' noises of pleasure after each bite. 

 "Sadistic fucking bastard." 

He eyes me for a moment then licks his hand clean.  There was only a bone left, which he threw into the cage.  As if he were giving a dog a bone.   Some of the other men in the cage scrambled and fought over it. 

I didn't pay attention.   

"If I ever get out of this place, I'm going to tear your guts out."

The fat bastard just chuckled with his high pitched little voice.

Giving my most hate-filled glare was all I could do here.

After the meal, The guards packed up their cooking utensils and got us back on the road.  It felt like an eternity before the carts finally stopped again, at dusk.  There was nothing but miles of dirt road and forest for as far as the eye could see, aside from the other carts and the prisoners & guards, but neither of them were very good conversationalists.

They pick a spot in the forest, off the dirt road by twice the distance as earlier.  Afterwards they moved the carts into a big circle and built a large fire in the middle.   It wasn't quite hot enough from where I am to completely ward off the chill.  But at least it was something.  They feed us more hot water and mushy grain. 

*Sigh*  At least they gave us the water AFTER they gave us the grain this time...   As I gulp down the last of my water I let out a long sigh, and stare into the fire.   

...

The last time I had been in front of a campfire was with my grandad...  Fuck, I missed him so damn much.   Ah, hell - my eyes are tearing up.  This is not the time- This is not the damn time to be weak!   

Throwing my head back, I blink rapidly and try force myself to hold it all in.   Concentrate on something else dammit!    I open my eyes and stare into the stars, at least it was a clear night...

However, my eyes immediately locked on  something else.   Something that shouldn't exist.   Something that can't exist...

 

"There are Two Moons in the Sky"