Earth's Revolution

Chapter 2 - The Awakening

For a moment, none of us did anything. 

I vaguely saw it, but was too late. A large soldier hit Oscar in the back of the head with what seemed to be a stick, but I quickly discarded the idea. The Jotwa were very advanced, they would never resort to something so inferior. But as I was thinking this, it hit mine as well, and I collapsed on the ground and my eyes closed. 

Later, when I opened my eyes back up, my vision was blurry, because of all of the moisture, and because of where the strike had been placed. But something was restricting my hands from clearing them.

I turned my attention to looking around for Oscar, hoping he hadn't been killed. I finally found him - about five seconds later - tied to a nearby tree in the same fashion I was, still knocked out, with drool sliding down his cheek.

It was only then that I realized I had a gag in my own mouth. 

I could see a lot of the area from where we were. I reasoned we might be at Resolute peak – the highest point in the forest. To Oscar's credit, I could in fact see a path at the bottom of the peak that led to the city, that would take much less time than going back the other way.

Even though I hadn't expected to live for much longer when we wandered into the clearing, I was pretty sure that whatever was going to follow their taking us alive wasn't going to be something much better than death. 

A few minutes later, one of them happened to glance over, and seeing I was awake, said something to the others I couldn't make out – but this didn't matter because I wasn't fluent in their language anyway.

The soldier came over and squatted down to my eye level and looked into my eyes a little less than a foot away. I tried to swallow, but couldn't. I looked into those eyes, and finally, the soldier stood up. He went to the back of the tree and untied the cords which held my hands, which had turned a different color because of the lack of circulation.

I stood up, and considered my chances of getting away quickly, but there was no way I could save Oscar too. 

I furrowed my brow and rubbed my wrists, deciding that if they had wanted to kill us, they would have already done it. I would just have to wait and find out why they hadn't. 

The soldier pushed a few buttons on his forearm, and the Jotwa natural skin shade faded into a calm tan, and the uniform changed into a mixed and matched array of military getup. 

A sweaty head of black hair, and a hard face of a teenager who looked like he couldn't be over nineteen finally appeared after the rest was washed away. He shook his head to break the crust his sweat had made his textured hair. Their costumes were all holographic images, made to look like Jotwa soldiers. Clever. 

"Listen, we're not going to hurt you." He assured me, seeing the distrust. His voice was irregularly deep, but not cruel or even mean. "Why are you here, in the forest?" he said. "And who's that?" he added, pointing to Oscar. I had so many questions about him and this group, and their intentions, that it took me a moment to gather my thoughts and decided whether or not I should trust them. 

"Um," I mumbled, trying to come up with something believable. "We were..."

"You can tell me the truth," he said smoothly, in an off-handed way, and smiled encouragingly. "We just want to help." and then added, "And we skinned and butchered your catch for you." he said, pointing to the skins. 

"We were just hunting." I replied, quietly. "But its not like we need the catch to survive or anything; its just a reason to get away." I added, hanging on to my dignity. "And that's my brother," I said, and then thinking again, shrugged. "kind of." I looked back at his dark eyes, with curiosity. "Why do you care?" I asked, in a tone barely above a whisper.