Of Thousand Lives

Chapter 3: Homage

"I'm sorry if I'm getting too personal too quickly, but would you be bothered if you told me why people don't usually act nice towards you?", I ask, before I take a bite out of the food. This tastes like potatoes, mashed variation. Not bad, it's nicely seasoned. I look up at her, she's cleaning her glasses, still silent. Natalia puts them back on, readjusting it to her liking, then sighs deeply. "No worries, not at all. But I'm afraid you might be bored by how long the story will be.", she turns to me, now holding the food tray in her hands, taking a bite out of the food. "I'm into stories.", I reassure her promptly. She nods, then takes another bite. "Okay.. Well, you can probably tell by now, that I am a demihuman, the feline version, also the one of the only variations of demihuman that survived the Great Silence of the old world. In short, the Great Silence is like some sort of extinction event that shaped the whole world and its future. Only 3 bloodlines of our kind lived. The Meluvens, the Rhodes, and the Gorvans.", she pauses, as if reluctant to say something then lets out a sharp exhale. "My family goes by the name of Meluven. It is the most hated out of the three lineages. For what? Well.. We made a grave mistake. That is to have the idea of conquering the world and actually doing it, regardless of things we did to make it a reality. They started off by tricking the demons into working for us. They were and still are a good source of manpower. Their physique was what we needed to start the first phase of the plan. Frankly, according to the books, they were easily tricked and manipulated, but the first and second generations of the demons were fully aware of everything. They just didn't have the chance to repel at that moment. It was a huge gamble for us to even attempt it, I guess we just got lucky from the beginning. Next, we started drugging the people by creating illegal substances and mixing them in everyday consumables. The recipes of the drugs we used were written in paper, but only a few of the most elite and trusted people have access to it. What I was shocked by the most is the fact that we even drugged and brainwashed our own kind. The Rhodes were the first to suffer that fate due to how much trust they had put on us, and how innocent they were, then the Gorvans were next, and they started turning them into slaves and sell them to the public. And that started their second phase of the plan, ruling the economy. The huge sales of slaves and their implementation of demihuman prostitution got them an unbelievable amount of riches. We bought buildings and even whole islands for torturing slaves and making them work for more money, we then used the money to corrupt the governments of the cities of this world and even got some of them drugged too. This sparked the final phase of this plan. We waited for the right time to start our reign. Some of us became government officials and immediately climbed the ranks at an alarming rate through bribery. Since then, we started appearing in important meetings of the governments, saying whatever we wish to say to aid our world dominance. When someone disapproved of us and started pointing us out, they would be assassinated the next day. This was our way of gaining authority, through politics, big talks, bribing money and riches, killing whatever stands up against us. And ultimately having no remorse for our actions, it was the deciding factor for everything we did. Once everything was under their control, they forced the demons to be the enforcers of their laws to make sure everyone obeyed them. For centuries, they lived like kings and queens of the post-medieval world, everything was at their fingertips, power, money and fame. They had it all. The world slowly crumbled away under their reign, yet the fire of vengeance of the people still crackled in the midst of the storm. The beginning of their downfall was marked by the appearance of a young mastermind. Hurlem Perulem, at the age of 4, knew very well about the crimes that the Meluvens committed in the past. In short, Hurlem, with extreme accuracy and clarity, pointed out every single thing that they had done to the public through the newspapers, shining some light on their crimes with the hope of sparking a revolution for the ones who yearned for freedom. And the first people who picked up on the messages were the people. Countless revolutions broke out all across Iazhioria, and the people fought against the demons, though they knew they had no chance of winning. The death of many innocent people moved the hearts of the first and second generation of demons. This caused a chain reaction which made the rest of the demons follow their seniors. Together, the people and the demons were triumphant in the fight against the ruthless tyrants. This was the 3-hour Great Rebellion. After that, many Meluvens were killed or captured. Yet Hurlem's choice was to let them off the hook and ask the people to try and give us another chance.. For me, I was born near the end of their reign, before the revolution started. Yet I was thrown away and rejected by my own bloodline, so I was turned into a slave, just like the rest of my kind. After the revolution I blended in with the rest of the demihumans, concealing my last name in shame of what had happened. People didn't want to make an effort to tell apart the bloodlines of the felines and treated every lineage as horrible.", she takes a deep breath when she finishes talking. Then there's this strange silence that is putting weights on our shoulders. "I'm sorry to hear this.", I quietly say, taking one last bite out of the food which I was eating subconsciously when she told me the history of her people. She smiles a little, "It's alright. We are mortals aren't we? The past is something we can't go back to. The only way ahead is forward. History will be history.", the girl pushes her glasses back up. "Thank you for telling me all of this. I really wanted to know about this world's past. Well, I think you should dig in now, you must be hungry.", I smile back, placing the now empty plate on the table. Natalia nods and begins to enjoy her meal. Interesting. This world has such a dark past. And the old world? Does that mean there used to be different races before? I wonder how everything was back then before the Great Silence. Well, all I can do now is just wonder and ponder around. It's all in the past now after all, as she said. And this girl, she knows really well about history, and she seems smart too. Kinda my type.

"Are you okay?", she asks suddenly, placing the empty food tray on the table. "You seem to be quite occupied by something.", Natalia adds, tilting her head to the side, her cat ears standing up in curiosity. "I'm okay.", I answer. Gotta keep my cool for now, though. I have better things to do than daydreaming. She looks kind, I can sense a vivid warmth emitting from her, she's also like a very big and sturdy book filled with knowledge and interesting things waiting to be uncovered.. Just gotta open it first. With thoughts of people worth knowing finally appearing on my head in what seems like ages, a bit of joy seeps from my face as I grow a little smile, knowing that I've successfully made friends in this new world, something which I haven't had for a long time. Lightheaded as I am while I am thinking of other things, I pick up the dirty plate and place it inside of the tray. I take a deep breath to regain full consciousness and turn over to look at the girl. "I'll take these out. You can stay here if you like to.", I offer, opening the door and stepping out, being greeted immediately by Raven. He seems as surprised as I am to meet him. The elf leans over, looking inside of my room. "Oooh.. I'm sorry, something interesting must've been happening between you two..", he smirks and chuckles softly, taking the plates in my hands. "Now, go, have fun.", the elf swirls his free hand around with a big smile on his face, forcibly turning me around by his magic and pushes me inside of the room then promptly closes the door behind me. Natalia was having her face covered by the hood of her outfit the whole time, though it's obvious that you can tell that it was her because of the constantly wagging tail of hers.. "I'll leave.", she says briefly, then quickly gets up, rushing to leave my room. The only thing I saw was her tomato-red face passing by.

I guess that's that. I think I'll go to sleep for now. It's night. As I lay my back against the soft cushion of the bed, I am reminded of the girl once more by the warmth of the sheets. What a strange feeling. To think of someone at this time of the day, even though we just met. The night slowly envelopes me as the candles die out while I lay as still as a statue on bed with one hand covering my forehead, staring off into the endless dull grey of the ceiling. Moonlight comes to visit me once more in the young night, to accompany me silently in this long night. The moon never talks, but it knows how to listen very well, and maybe that's what the poets loved about the moon. Its inner beauty is accompanied by the soothing and luxurious shine. I find a glimpse of motherly love in the moon's soft embrace, caressing the clouds in its loving arms like a guardian and their beloved. Envious, should I be at all? I miss my mother now. I hate her for leaving me so early, but what type of child hates one's mother? The bad ones, of course. I feel sorry fo r my mother and her hardships, I feel horrible for the times when I wasn't there to help her. These thoughts transform themselves into more and more tears as each drop hits the soft pillow, soaking as deep as my sorrows of another night, alone with my ever so pessimistic thoughts. I hate myself. Sleep soon comes to comfort me in the night, as I drown myself into the endless void in my mind.