Flavian kept looking out of the window for a while. He watched the procession of captors and captives slowly moving towards the castle. After some time, he returned to his bed and looked at the glass tube in his hand. He set aside the tube and removed his shirt, looking at the shallow gashes on his chest.
' The wounds will heal overnight? Isn't it too magical?', thought Flavian, as he took the tube in his right hand, opened the cork with his left, and poured the reddish brown liquid on his wounds.
*Ssss*
The liquid produced sizzling sound as smoke was produced around the wounded area. Flavian winced as he felt extremely terrible sensation around the wounded area, as if someone had taken an ironing machine at full heat and pressed on his chest.
' What the hell?! How can normal people bear such terrible pain? It seems like the researchers in this world don't have any sense. Someone should educate them about a thing called 'customer satisfaction'', Flavian muttered in his head as he kept staring at his wounds.
In fact, Flavian was wrongly blaming the pharmacists that made the healing potion that Flavian used. The potion was so widespread that even commoners knew about it and its utilisation.
The potion was meant to be applied on the wounds in small quantities every five to ten minutes rather than applying all of it directly. It would bring the same result in both the cases, but applying it over a period of time would greatly lessen the pain. The red robed figure had forgotten to remind Flavian in his haste to 'capture' the absconders.
Flavian could clearly feel some improvement on the edges of his wounds as he observed for about five minutes with utmost case.
' Wow! This thing is the real deal! This world is really filled with magical things.', Flavian exclaimed as he was surprised by the liquid's efficiency in healing wounds. He chucked his blood stained shirt on the ground and began sleeping.
He slept till the early morning and woke up a bit later than usual. As soon as he woke up, he noticed that Edward's corpse was nowhere to be seen. Clearly, someone must have cleaned up the mess he made during his sleep.
He took a look at his wounds and realised that the wound was completely healed, except for the scars that marred his chest. He got down from his bed, took new clothes and a towel, and went out of his room to the shared bathroom and toilet present on his floor. Bathroom and toilet were in separate chambers, having ten cubicles each.
Flavian finished his morning routine and went back to his room. He noticed that someone had already brought him breakfast, which was kept on his desk. It consisted of scrambled eggs spread on toasted wheat bread and a bowl of cereals with milk.
' It seems that food products of this world and my previous world are similar.', Flavian muttered as he started eating.
After finishing his breakfast, he went towards the wardrobe situated adjacent to the giant mirror. He opened the wardrobe and took out a set of white coloured knight clothes that were usually worn during the training sessions. He quickly changed and took a quick look at his mirror image in the giant mirror to check for any discrepancy.
Suddenly, he heard a large bell tone. The ringing of bell represented that captives needed to gather together at the bailey within ten minutes of hearing the bell tone. Flavian quickly rushed out of his room to go out of the keep and arrived at bailey. He noticed that there were thirteen captives already present at the gathering spot.
All of them had manacled hands and feet, and deathly pale face filled with despair. As soon as they noticed Flavian's arrival, they glared at him with extreme hatred. Flavian was bewildered at their behaviour, for he didn't remember anything he had done to be an object of their scorn.
Kapten, one of the captives, shouted at him with a loud voice, " Flavian, I didn't expect that you would betray your comrades."
Flavian suddenly realised something, as he thought, ' Don't tell me that the leader distorted my confession as betrayal? Fudge, he clearly planned it right from the beginning and now wants to pour dirty water on me just to escape everyone's suspicion. He's such a shameless person!'
However, he couldn't complaint to anyome about his misery, and decided to ignore Kapten's 'accusatory' glare.
' At least act properly, you fool. With your calm gaze and composed face, it's a miracle that you haven't been caught acting.', thought Flavian as he confirmed that Kapten was just putting on a show.
The red robed leader along with many other black robed figures were standing a little distance away, overlooking the captives.
As the appointed time came close, Flavian noticed that the last member, a girl wearing the standard white knight clothes, was approaching the gathering spot.
The girl had a slim figure, a cute face and a pair of sparkling eyes. Her dark blue hair were tied up in a braid that reached her small waist. Flavian shivered instinctively as he saw the girl, and looked away as if unaware of her presence. The rest of the captives, excluding Kapten, had horrified expressions on their faces, as if facing a monster.
" Hahahaha! It seems that you all got caught in the end. The instructors are not as trashy as I thought they were.", said the girl with a gloating expression on her face.
An ugly expression appeared on every absconder's face as soon as they heard her, while the 'instructors', that is, the robed figures ignored the seemingly rude remark of the girl. They were helpless as there was nothing they could do about her, for the girl was favoured by the red robed leader.
" Tasha, stop being rude to your instructors.", the leader said in a gentle voice, with no intention of blame in his voice.
Tasha Preston, nicknamed by everyone as 'Battle Maniac', was perhaps the only teenager present that didn't have any self-awareness of being a captive. While everyone would groan at the harsh combat training they were made to go through, she would enjoy the feeling of adrenaline rushing through her veins during the combats.
In fact, if the red robed leader had not noticed her talent and become her personal instructor, thus seperating her from other boys and girls, there was no way that Kapten would be able to sit on the throne of number one combat expert amongst the captives.
When the captives had formulated the plan to escape from the castle, they had invited Tasha, who had rejected their offer. Flavian still remembered the weird expressions on every captive's face when Tasha had asked, " Why do you want to escape? Isn't it fun here?"
' Of course it's fun for you, as you don't have to worry about disappearing silently.', was the reply everyone had on their mind, yet not one of them dared to say that on her face. Not even Edward had the guts to face her wrath.
The reason that everyone feared her so strongly was her penchant for destruction and impairment! Anyone that crossed her for any particular reason would be thrashed and trampled ruthlessly.
Once, Edward had teased her by saying that she was a brute. Tasha had acted so violently that she had shocked everyone, be it the trainees or the instructors. One by one, at a very slow rate, she had broken Edward's bones.
By the time one of the instructor went and brought the leader at the scene, Edward had all his limbs and ribs broken. The leader was just in time to stop Tasha from breaking Edward's spine, thereby permanently crippling him. Edward had nearly failed the test at that time due to long time taken for recuperating from his injuries.
It was also due to that incident that the leader thought of seperating Tasha from the rest of the captives.
After seeing that everyone had gathered, the leader addressed the absconding group in a loud voice,
" Everyone present here has lost their memories, and I believe you all have already guessed that it was done by us. You are right! Your memories were erased by us!"
Other than Flavian, Tasha and Kapten, everyone gasped collectively as grief and indignation filled their eyes as they stared at the leader, who carried on with his speech,
" I know what you all are thinking! You all think that we brought you down from the heavens into the depths of hell. That we are responsible for all the pain you have gone through. However, is it really as harsh as you have imagined? Then let me tell you that you all are wrong! Mr. Ken Marsh, I seem to recall that you had once asked me to tell you about your life before your loss of memory! Would you like to see it for yourself?"
Every captive, including Flavian, stared at a burly looking teenager who had a light brown skin tone. Flavian remembered that the teenager had gone delirious the first time every captive met each other, and had loudly questioned the red robed figure about his identity.
Flavian clearly remembered that the leader had stopped a black robed person from whipping the burly teen, and had replied, " You won't like the truth kid, forget about your past!"
The red robed leader brought out a small and transparent crystal orb, which started glowing with a white light as a hologram appeared in front of their eyes. The scene in the hologram described a male and a female selling their child to a black robed and black masked person. The child resembled Ken, who was dumbfounded on seeing the truth appear in front of his eye.
"No! It can't be! IT CAN'T BE!!", Ken murmured and raved, clearly unable to accept the bitter reality.
" I hadn't lied to you, Mr. Ken, for the truth is never sweet! That goes for the rest of you as well! Either you were orphans with no one to care about, or you were that unwanted child that brought nothing but burden to your family. You weren't some proud children of heavens. You were the discarded children that rotted in hell!"
The captives started murmuring in disbelief, as some of the weak hearted teens even started crying. Even Flavian was affected as a seed of doubt and fear was planted in his heart. Flavian noticed that Tasha had no big reaction about the unveiling of such a bitter fact. As for Kapten, Flavian had decided to ignore this brat that was shrouded in mysteries. He pressed down the unnecessary feelings in his heart and thought,
' What a ruthless way to trample on the hope of everyone! However, it seems that things are finally about to come to a conclusion.'