I was still walking around this strange world called Earth among these beings called humans when I heard someone yell at me.
It was pretty loud, and when I turned my head to stare at the person, I saw a wide-eyed red-haired woman staring at me.
I kept on walking, determined to ignore her.
It seemed humans had a hard time leaving each other alone. First, the guys in the alleyway. Now, her?
"Jake!" she yelled again. "What the hell are you doing!?"
I just kept on walking. At some point, she would stop. I'd honestly had enough of humans at this point but the part that was killing me was the fact that I had nowhere to go. I couldn't find my way back to Etros; I didn't know where to even begin. Earth was silent and without any chaos, and it made me wonder if what had happened to my family was all in my head.
I genuinely felt like I was going insane.
"Jake!" the woman yelled again. "What's the matter with you!?"
I went on walking, determined to ignore her. My legs were starting to ache a little. Was it the walking or the beating those guys had given this human guy? It was impossible to tell.
I was about to cross the street when I heard rapid footsteps coming my way, and before I could even turn my head to look, I was hitting the ground. I opened my eyes and saw the woman on top of me. She looked incredibly furious.
"Don't you hear me talking to you!?" she yelled hysterically. We were starting to attract looks, but she didn't seem to care. She dug her nails into my arm, forcing me to stand up. "Is this what you're resorting to now? Ignoring your own mother!?"
My mother? I gave her a long look before saying, "You're not my mother."
Her eyes were blazing, and she clenched her jaw. "I'll call the police on you, Jake. I swear to God that I will!"
Jake. She was calling me Jake. I lowered my eyes, my mind racing. I didn't recognize her face. Her name didn't pop into my mind the way the names of objects did.
I gathered this: the guy I was in was called Jake, and this woman was his mother.
"Why'd you skip school?" she demanded. "I'm at work and I have to leave it because your principal has called about you again! What's with you? Why can't you behave for once? This is your senior year and you're messing it up!"
School. Principal. All these words were making my head spin. I said nothing, and she clicked her tongue at me and grabbed my arm. She started pulling me as she walked, and her nails were really starting to hurt me.
"We're going to have a long talk with your father today!" she exclaimed. "I can't keep doing this with you!"
I didn't ask her where she was taking me. It made no sense for me to do it. For some reason, I had a built-in fear of this woman that I couldn't understand. She never released my hand, even when we crossed the street. We then stopped in front of one of the moving machines—a car—and she unlocked it with a small remote.
"In," she commanded.
I opened the door and slid into the seat next to hers. She slammed her door shut angrily and then threw her handbag into the backseat. The car started and I flinched. I wasn't used to the feeling of being carried from one place to another in one of these.
In Etros, I would fly to my destinations.
"I'm sick of your shit," she told me as she drove. I could only watch her hands move the steering wheel. "I don't know what's gotten into you all of a sudden. You skip school. You come home all bruised. What's happening? Is someone beating you up?"
I rubbed my arm and said nothing.
A scoff left her lips. "How typical."
She went on driving and hooting at other drivers and people. It was a never-ending noisy situation and my head was hurting. At least she wasn't scolding me—or Jake.
I didn't even know where her son was.
In exactly twelve minutes, she parked the car in front of a small house with cream-colored walls and a pretty garden in front. She got out of the car without saying a word to me and went into the house. I watched her from the car, unsure of what to do.
What choice did I have but to follow her? Wandering the streets wasn't going get me closer to my goal and if this woman was Jake's mother, then I was more or less safe here. I needed a place to rest. How long would I keep walking for? Besides, I was hungry. I didn't know how long ago my last meal was.
I got out of the car and slowly made my way to the front door. She'd left it open. This house had an unfamiliar smell to it, and it was a sharp contrast to my home in Etros. There, everything was dark and almost entirely made of firestone. Here, the walls were cool when I touched them, and a shiver raced through me at the memory of being cold.
Tenea's words echoed in my mind. Your body will be different. The cold will not kill you as easily as it does here.
"Jake!" the woman yelled.
I followed her voice. She was standing in the kitchen with a spatula in her hand. Her eyes were wide as she looked at me. It was like she was trying to figure out what I was. I could tell she wanted to ask me what was wrong with me, but I was distracted by the sight in front of me.
Their dinner table was short—merely a rectangle—and there were two people sitting on the chairs. One was a girl who seemed to be young—in Dragon years, I would have given her approximately 160 years. The other was a baby. I had no idea how young. They both looked at me, one with cluelessness and the other with disgust.
The girl asked me, "Is that barf on your shirt?"
"Go change, Jake," the woman—or mother—said.
I stared at them uncertainly for a while before turning away. I'd find clothes to change in Jake's room, but where was it? I reached a corridor and stared at it. Only four doors? This house was smaller than I thought it would be.
I opened the first door and it ended up being a bathroom. A very small one at that. There was no giant bathtub with steaming hot water. It was pretty narrow. The next door had pink furniture and walls. This wasn't it. The next room had a bed too small to be mine, so I assumed it was the baby's.
The next one to my left ended up being mine.
There were posters of people wearing black with spiky hair on the wall, which was painted a dull blue. The bed was unmade, and the room stank. The cupboard doors were open, and the clothes were all spilling out. Some were on the floor.
I removed the bright red shirt I was wearing and dropped it next to the pile of clothes in the corner. I then put on a darker colored shirt that made me feel more at ease. There was a dirty full-length mirror on the wall, and when I stared at my reflection, I was in shock.
This person definitely wasn't me.
His hair was long—almost shoulder-length—and his face was covered in red dots that kind of hurt when I touched them. His teeth were lined with metal, and his eyes were a dull shade of brown.
The only similarity I shared with this face was the cleft chin.
I removed the shirt I'd just put on and felt disappointment coursing through me. I flexed my arm and saw only a small bulge. Years of hard training made my body strong and chiseled. This guy…what did he do all day? His stomach was flabby and he barely had any muscle.
How was I supposed to fight Herdeos with this body?
I put the shirt back on and returned to the dining area. The woman was seated at the head of the table and she was feeding the baby. I sat down on the other end.
"Why are you sitting in Daddy's seat?" the girl asked me.
"Which one is mine?"
All eyes were on me, and the baby cooed. I rose from the seat and sat next to the girl. There was a small round plate in front of me—it wasn't made of silver—and it was empty.
I assumed there were no servants to feed me here. So, I looked into the bowls at the center of the table for food. What I saw shocked me.
"Where's the meat?" I asked.
The mother's voice was annoyed when she answered me. "It's fish today."
Fish? I stared at the white cutlets of strange meat, unsure of what it was. I put a few on my plate, and the girl yelled at me. "Leave some for Dad!"
I put two cutlets back and stared at them before picking up a fork. I stabbed into it and shoved the whole cutlet into my mouth. It wasn't bad. It was an unusual taste, but it was edible. I had the other one and felt hungry for more food.
I checked the other bowls. Green vegetables stared back at me, and I physically recoiled at the sight of them. I couldn't eat this. All my life I'd had a carnivore's diet.
I sat back, wondering how I'd build muscle on this measly diet.
The mother didn't even look at me. The girl was, though. I glanced at her and saw that she was searching my eyes. I looked away, breaking eye contact.
"What's with you?" she asked.
I shrugged. "Nothing."
"Hannah, Jake. I don't want to hear your bullshit today, okay? I have to go back to work still, and I have a lot on my mind. So, please."
I stayed silent. If this woman was the mother, then the girl had to be Jake's sister. So was the baby. The mother finished feeding it and then stood up. She grabbed her bag, which she left on the counter, and then stormed out, leaving us alone.
"It's your day, today," Hannah said once she was gone.
"To do what?"
"Wash dishes."
Wash dishes? I'd never washed a dish in my whole life. The Etrians were around to do that. I looked around the table.
"Did you hear what I said?"
"Yes."
"And?"
I only looked at her.
Hannah scoffed. "Are you kidding me? It's not your turn today, it's mine."
I shrugged.
Hannah stared at me, wide-eyed, and then stood up. Before I knew it, she grabbed me by the hair and tilted my head back. She was surprisingly strong. "Who are you and what have you done to my brother!?"