Chapter 3: Chapter 3: In a New World
The first thing Rye heard the moment she gained consciousness was a jingle in her ears and a slight pain around her wrists.
She slowly opened her eyes only to come face to face with people who looked like humans but had shocking features that made it impossible for her to refer to them in such a way.
There were five other people in the cell and only two looked somewhat normal apart from how ragged and malnourished they looked.
The moment her eyes were done taking in the scene around her, she tried to distance herself from them only to find it impossible to do so.
She finally noticed the chains around her hands and legs, too short to allow her to move a step away from the door of the cell she had been chained to.
She was even more shocked to discover that she was not the only one being treated in such a way, as all the others had longer chains.
"Whe-where am I?" Rye stammered in fear, glancing from the skinny person with what seemed to be wings attached to her back before fixing her gaze on a woman who was more than three times her size, both in height and weight.
"I'm not going to eat you." The big woman spoke, her voice deep but feminine in its way.
"You can call me Heren, even though I don't think you'll be here for long. Humans sell out faster than we do," she continued as she sat at the farthest corner of the cell, taking up enough space for five others of Rye's size as she sat down.
"Just don't attract the guards, if you do, I'll be the first to knock you out," the winged one whispered with a very irritated look on her face. She was the skinniest of them all but she looked pretty fierce.
Her eyes were pale blue and she had beautiful swirly designs on her forehead. Rye was confident that she would have been extremely beautiful if she didn't have a week's worth of mud and dirt on her face.
"Don't mind Sierra, she's just grumpy because your presence means that whatever food we get would have to be divided into six instead of the usual five. My name is Shiya, I'm a Santor," the other winged one sitting beside her introduced herself with a faint smile on her face.
"I can't imagine how it must feel to be taken away from your home and everything you know without being able to ever go back!" She continued looking at Rye with a pitiful expression, one that Rye found difficult to understand.
It was clear to her that she had been kidnapped, but what she found hard to understand was the strangeness around her.
On seeing the weird people around her with multiple colored wings, Rye understood that she was somewhere different but never had it crossed her mind that she would be unable to go back home.
"There's no way the police won't look for me. I'm sure you'll also get rescued," Rye responded thinking they were simply aliens or something close.
In her head, she was already spinning a tale about an outer space facility where she had been kidnapped mainly to be used for experiments.
"Trust me! It might take a while but we'll—" Rye said again trying to impart a few words of hope in the hopeless faces around her only to be sharply interrupted by Sierra who looked angrier than before.
"Fool! You'll understand soon enough!"
Rye was stunned, as Shiya hurried to speak trying to soothe the tension in the air as Sierra continued to glare hatefully at her.
"This is the kingdom of Hoyen, you were pulled from your world into ours, through a dimensional rift. It's done once a century to harvest humans for the red ones to feed on,"
"It's not that you can't go home, it's impossible for you to even if you wanted to,"
"What do you mean? I came here through a rift, right? I can just go back through it."
"A gold stone was used. It's impossible to find because there's only one in existence and—"
"Then all I have to do is find it right? Or at least get someone to help me—"
But again before Rye could continue, Sierra interrupted her jumping on her feet, with her chains jangling behind her as she strode forward towards Rye.
"I'll break it down for you. The only reason you can understand us is because we choose to speak your language," she said enunciating her words as she slowly closed the distance between them until she was staring down at Rye who couldn't help but stare back.
Sierra looked furious but her short stature made her look less threatening than she sounded.
"Era Dias no Tor," she growled, speaking a language Rye couldn't understand.
"Here humans are eaten or played with. You will be sold to a Red and at the end of your miserable life you will die," Sierra said in an incensed voice and eyes that burned with hate as she stared right into Rye's eyes.
"I-I haven't done anything to you," Rye managed to stutter, wondering why Sierra treated her like the enemy when they had all been captured together.
"The mere fact that your blood keeps them alive is enough for me to hate you," Sierra harshly whispered, spitting loudly on the ground a few inches from Rye.
Any closer and it would have landed on her face.
"Back off!" Heren snapped, her voice echoing through the cell, forcefully enough to stop whatever words Sierra still had to say.
Yet low enough to not pass the boundaries of the cell.
"That's enough! She'll be out of here soon anyways," Heren spoke up after not speaking for a long time.
Sierra looked unwilling to comply but under Heren's intense stare, she finally gave in and moved to sit back in her previous position by the side of the wall.
For a few seconds, the tension in the cell was encompassing but none of them were as scared as Rye, who was unable to move away from the door of the cell, where she had been chained to.
"I'll only say this once. The best thing you can do as a slave is obey!" Heren said, looking right at Rye before shifting her gaze away and staring at the ceiling.
It was obvious that she no longer felt that Rye was worth any more of her time.
'Even among slaves, humans are the ones with the worst fate,' Heren thought to herself, knowing that she might not survive the coming days.
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone