Lifting my body wasn't difficult at all because the claws phased into fluidity at the required places: like when it almost clawed on the ground or my skin.
Moving it between the crystals cart and the stones cart I continued to look around for Sky and Hassan. I tried to avoid the half-horse because it still freaked me out.
Other carts contained insane things like weird-looking leaves and bubbles that didn't pop even when I poked at them...
Three carts after the wooden cart with the half-horse was where I found Sky and Hassan. The piece of clothing covering them felt exactly like the one that covered me.
But they looked different; Sky's pale skin was even paler and Hassan's skin looked as if his blood had been sucked out of it.
"Sky! Hassan!" I screamed but it only came out as growls.
Were they dead?
Even inside the mind of a strange and terrifying monster, I could still feel fear; the fear of losing the two strangers that risked their lives to save mine.
What was the next step? What was I supposed to do? When I placed my scaly hands on their chest I could not feel anything so I had to lean closer to watch their chest movements.
"That's good" it was moving. They were both alive but unconscious...
'How do you wake up unconscious people? '
I wondered as I hovered around them with no idea what to do. Maybe if I had taken first aid classes I would have known. The one that Amanda talked about endlessly for weeks in the canteen.
The thought of hitting them on the chest crossed my mind a couple of times but I wasn't sure I could control this creature's strength. It might end up breaking their ribcages or damaging their organs...
The only logical choice left was to find out where the door led to and hopefully find our captives and what they planned to do with us ...
Somehow I knew that violence was inevitable; I'd either learn how to use the creature's strength to fight or get caught by other creatures.
As I phased through the door I was met with something I had never expected. I half expected the next room to be as foul-smelling and damp as the first room but it was different, it wasn't even a room.
The place was large, almost triple the size of the first room. It was filled to the brim with these hovering creatures: with each of them so fixated on their next action that they barely had any time to look at each other or even notice that I was there.
'Wow'
Except for the crowded nature of the place it was still neat and beautiful. The ceiling of the place was also like the ceiling of the first room; littered by crystals that emitted light that filled the room with its serene brightness.
Then I started to notice a pattern in the way they moved. It wasn't just haphazard, it was timely and coordinated.
With a closer look, I noticed that there were subtle differences between them. Some of them had yellow horns as opposed to the usual brown horns while some didn't have any fur and were just made up of bones and muscles.
Before I could observe the differences between them I got distracted by one of the creatures. This creature was different from the rest of the creatures. It was larger and completely covered in fur...
Its face was so furry that it trailed downwards from its jaw towards its chest, resembling a long human beard. The muscle was bulkier and its presence commanded fear and terror, much more than the rest of the creatures.
It had three brown horns that were longer and more pointy than the rest of the creatures.
When it got to where I was, it growled so loudly with a tyrannical authority embedded in every sound wave that rushed out from its mouth, almost sending me to my knees.
Looking away was an instant reaction to its four-eyed disgusting face. Somehow the half-horse's disgusting look paled in comparison with the monstrosity that towered inches above me.
Then another creature came and whisked me away to a room at the far end of the large room.
It was another room just like the first room but it had no carts.
In it were large pots being heated by the fire underneath them and being attended by such creatures. The one that whisked me away wasn't different from the creature whose mind I stole but it had orange paint on its forehead.
'What is it saying? ' I wondered as it growled at me like it was trying to communicate.
But it wasn't terrifying, unlike the other creature. It almost looked like they were all afraid of me from the way they clutched their crystals as they turned whatever they were cooking.
'What are these creatures? ' I wondered as I walked towards one of the huge pots ignoring the creature with orange paint.
In one of the pots was an orange thick soup that had crystals in it and different leaves.
They seemed like unintelligible creatures who had violence as their first and second nature. But for some reason, they had to cook instead of eating the meals raw. At that point, I was so sure that there were no functional differences between these creatures and humans.
In another pot what I saw made me lose interest in wanting to find out what was in other pots. It looked like the lower parts of a half-horse.
It was also a pot of soup not as thick as the first one but filled with large chunks of furry legs:probably furry legs of various half horses.
Everything was slowly beginning to make sense ... The other room I found myself in was some storage room for cooking stuff. We were not saved at all but landed in a situation worse than freezing to death in the snow.
If I didn't do anything, Sky, Hassan, and I would be used as dinner for these creatures.
The creature with orange paint on its forehead was still pissed off ...
It still growled at me but then it stood next to a pot that had no creature attending to it. I didn't need a translator to know that I had to go and turn the contents of the pot like every one of the creatures.
The pot I got seemed normal; there were no floating half-horses or any other strange creatures. There were just leaves and crystals and stones.
Turning the contents of the pot was strength-draining and felt like a big workout routine. Maybe that was why the creatures that worked there looked smaller than usual.
But 'Andy' looked different, like it wasn't supposed to be here. It looked like a warrior and not a cook. Maybe that was why the other creatures looked terrified of it.
I had so many questions to ask but surviving topped the list of priorities.