The Cinders of Dezu

3rd: The Savior King (1)

"So you're from where?"

"Salt Lake City," said Cairo.

"I was born in Arizona but I was raised around him most of my life," said Julian.

"I'm from Hollywood, California," said Raina with some confidence.

"No, you're not, Fluff." said Cairo.

Raina sighed.

"Whatever, it's just easier to tell people that."

He smiled at the two guards.

"She moves all the time. Her dad is a movie star so, ya know, he moves around a lot. He's got a lot of houses in a lot of places."

The two men before him stared blankly.
Cairo cleared his throat in the short awkward silence.

"You may have heard of him. Devin Crew? He's pretty famous. You've probably seen some of his movies."

"His movies?" asked the guard next to Boke.

"Yeah, movies. He's a movie star," Cairo said.

"He's a star?" the guard asked.

Julian laughed.

"Okay, you both seem real committed to this whole 'live action role play' bit," he said, "But can we talk about the wolves outside? I'm pretty sure those were actual wolves. For the first time ever, I just experienced running for my life from a wild animal sooo... ya know... what is this?"

Boke spoke with a face full of skepticism, "Do you mean the shadow dogs?"

Cairo and Julian looked at each other. Boke brought his fist to his lips and loudly cleared his throat.

"I'm very sorry but the rest of these questions are going to need to be answered for us. Perhaps then we can answer some of yours."

Julian leaned back in his seat and sighed.

"Go ahead, man."

The three of them sat in a room in a building the men had called the processing center. It matched the strange mixture of modern and old fashioned medieval architecture. As he had lead them through the cobblestone streets they had noted that despite the lit torches that lined every corner, the town was quiet. The processing center was a bit larger than some of the odd looking homes, but it still wasn't particularly big. They had been lead to a room to sit facing the guards on a wooden bench.

"Okay," Boke said, looking at his clip board, "Second question: How did you get here?"

"Chased here by wolves. As was previously mentioned," said Julian

"Uh, Before that, we don't know," Cairo interjected, "We followed my cousin here. We're a little unclear on the details. Where are we?"

Boke scribbled on his board.

"Again, let me finish. Just one more. What is your business in this town?"

Julian leaned forward.

"To escape the WOLVES, man! And there was another thing out there! Something bigger and more-"

"My friend and I were looking after my cousin. Something really strange happened once we found her and we ended up here. We'd really like to know what's going on."

Boke kept writing, focused intently. All anyone could hear was his scribbling for a moment. Then he stopped and looked over the page. The second guard looked at the clipboard over his shoulder until Boke abruptly stood with his eyes not leaving the paper.

"I'll be a moment," he said.

He turned and left the room, and the second guard quickly followed, closing the door behind them. Julian leaned forward on the bench and laced his fingers together.

"Dude. What is this?"

Cairo looked at him just as Raina gently grabbed his forearm. He turned to her briefly and saw her concerned face. He held her hand tight before he answered him.

"I don't think we're on the island anymore."

Julian nodded exaggeratedly.

"I'm not Toto, but I think we can agree on that, Dorothy."

Cairo shrugged.

"It sounds crazy, but I'm not ruling out dimensional displacement."

"Here we go," Julian said, rubbing his forehead, "I knew you were gonna say we fell into a comic book or something."

"I'm serious man! What happened to us was way too extravagant to be a prank or whatever. Uncle Dev has money but this... this is extra."

"And he probably would've told me," Raina said quietly.