LIFE IN NEURTH
"Brian! Wake up! Wake up!"
I felt a couple of delicate hands caressing my cheeks. I sprang up from my mattress instantly. "Again I heard this lovely voice"
"You are awake Brian". Inquired the round-faced, black-haired woman with a couple of pink lips and white teeth smiling at my face. Furrows at the corner of her eyes. She's gorgeous if not for her furrow and her pale face. "Who is this woman and where am I". I asked myself in my mind.
Glancing at my left and right, the only question I inquired myself is that "where on earth is this? Am I dreaming?". My cushion is gone, my soft mattress is gone, the large comfortable desk I utilized for my study is gone, even my wardrobe and other stuff are nowhere to be found... "Where am I? I asked myself again".
Then loads of information started rushing into my head, I can't keep it up anymore I blacked out in the blink of an eye...
"Brian! Please wake up!" The woman said with a crying face, but I can't control myself...
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... Stretching my sleepy fatigued body, I unfolded my eyes just to behold what I saw in my nightmare. I rubbed my eyes whether it was just a nightmare, I pinched myself and I'm still laying on the haystack mattress.
"What's happening to me", I asked myself, the woman is nowhere to be found. Also, I attempted to raise my sleepy body and stroll to the mirror shelf.
Looking at the blurred mirror, "what type of mirror is this", I can't glimpse myself. "Where the hell am I?".
Again, another piece of information ran into my head just like the other time.
"Chi... iii.... iii... im!", the information keep sliding into my head. I gripped my skull, groping it crazily. Then after like five minutes, I got some information that shocked me.
Looks like I'm reincarnated. Is this a fictional novel, even I can't stop asking myself?
With the information I've got, it seems like I'm the last son of the king of this kingdom 'Neurth', "but why am I in such half demolished place".
"Another series of information slipped in", it appears like the ebony-haired woman is my mum, and even she is barely a concubine of the king. And she seems to be out of the king's favor giving rise to him sending us to a faraway land, to the border of 'Neurth', which is called the 'death zone.
Yeah, that's the name 'death zone. "Death zone is completely what you're imagining, it's the land of plague, land of war and slavery... And all sort of dirty things you can guess of". No one sent there ever gets to tell the tale.
Still, "what is the reason for her being sent out", I asked myself wishing to get another answer. But I never felt any information in my head.
"Did he hate my mom", I asked another question in my mind, but the answer is nothing. I never found any information about this. "Looks like the information I'm getting is the one for the body owner since he can't know why the king disliked his mother".
Shifting around my gaze to the blurred mirror, my body is a far cry from what I anticipated. Like all those reincarnated people in stories with large body build. I'm a thin loser here, but the sole thing giving me happiness precisely currently is that my new body got this kind of cute face every girl will pursue to have something with.
I walked away from the mirror, leaving for the door. Pushing the door, creaking noise could be heard as my eyes met the blinding ray of light, coming from the outside. Before I can even step my foot out the woman from the other time hold me back.
"Brian, you're up", she smiled happily, like a lover seeing each other after many years passed with a drop of tears at the corner of her eye, you can't walk out, the plague is spreading rapidly and I don't wish for you to be a victim of this deadly plague. She added while cleaning her teary eye.
Looking deep into her eyes, I felt those feelings I felt while looking at my mum's face in my prior life before her demise.
I felt like weeping on the spot, and hugging her intimately which I can't help but do. This hug just felt like my mum's. Her fragrance sipped into my nose. The emotion I'd been locking in my body appeared back into being instant. I kept weeping into her shoulder as I can't just help it.
After like 10 minutes of her patting my back and weeping into each other's shoulder and she can't stop mumbling, "everything will be alright" into my ear. She separated the hug and asked, are you feeling better now?
"I thought you'll leave me when you keep shivering all night long, the cold is just severe", she added as she went into the room to pick up other cloth to cover my thin body.
"Thank you mom!", it is now that I caught a precise glimpse of her body stature, to be sincere, she's such a gorgeous woman. Her slender waist, her flawlessly shaped face, her white set of teeth, her rosy lips... All those made her resemble my mama, even I should say she's my mum... Mama, I want to take a look outside.
"You can, but I must accompany you". She said cheerfully.
... Walking side by side with my mum is just the best thing I'll ever imagine in my previous world since she left me at the age of 10.
Looking at the vast forest lands, and the gentle water passing between the two huge mountains gave me the best sightseeing of my life. And as I was about to walk down the street I felt a pair of hands holding me back.
"You can't go to the lower city, that's simply the land of death, where the plague happens, where the slavery happens, and the likes. The stinking smell over there can even infect you. The reason we're able to reside in the upper city is because of my noble blood. All those in the upper cities are simply nobles, while all those in the lower city are just commoners..."
"Mom, please can you tell me more about this?" I asked her innocently.
"Since when have you been interested in all this kind of stuff, just let me accompany you for a walk like you usually like..."
"Mom, I'm serious, I want to know more."
"Since you want to know more, I won't hesitate to tell you about it."
"You know we have three kingdoms in Neurth: Kingdom of Hearts, Kingdom of Cetlic, and the Kingdom of Bratin. so all the nobles that lost their faces and cannot cope with life outside there are being sent here giving rise to the upper city, and it took a lot of years to build a city on top of this mountain."
"The same goes for the lower city, they're made up of petty thieves, and some other small criminals, hardened criminals, they lose their life over there every day due to starvation, plague, beast hunting..."
"Wait, beast hunting, or what did you say?" I asked as I stopped my strolling.
"Yes, beast hunting, it happens that I also don't know much, but I'll tell you the little I know... It happens that five hundred years ago, there is some kind of creatures that entered the human world, they massacred, eat and enslave humans."
"They're ruthless and mad, that get violent at the scent of humans and most especially blood. In short, they enjoy human blood and flesh."
"Their appearance is even more monstrous. They're ape-like with massive and powerful body build, rows of sharp bloody red teeth, scaly armor, two muscular legs, two pairs of muscular arms, with one pair to the left and right, big eyes to the side of their head with no ear, and their other four attributes that make them even more destructive is that they breathe out fire whenever they fight just like dragons, they have this kind of terrible speed, that your eyes can hardly read their movement, they use magic power, and lastly a pair of mighty devil-like wings on their back."
"They're called 'Drapens'.People believe they're monsters and are bloodthirsty devils, they tear their prey with their sharp fangs, they can never be pierced by an arrow, and who will ever be crazy to fight them 'one on one' with their sword?"
"They're intelligent just like humans, their age affected their armor, and their armor gets stronger year after year."
"The worst part is that they're hunted but never seen, anybody who dares follow after their blue mist environment which is where they live can never live on to tell the story. But from time to time the drapens will send different species they enslave to the human world, those species are in different forms, some are hairy with sharp fangs and cat-like eyes, some are even scaly and in form of a huge lizard, and so on, they send them to bring them their food which is human flesh and blood. Which gives rise to the beast hunting of today."
"Since the weather in Neurth is not favorable to drapens now, they hate cold weather as their abilities reduce whenever there is cold. That's all I know about them..." she replied.
"How can one kill them?" I asked her.
"Humans have never known how to kill them so far, but they already know their weak spot, which is the cold region", she replied abruptly.
"Can humans also use magic power", I added?
"No mortal ever used magic power so far, because the drapen race is the only creature in North that can use magic power". That's all I know about them.
I got a series of questions that I want to ask her, but it seems like she also doesn't know too much.
"Brian, the cold is getting too much and this is not good for your health, please let me escort you back to your room". She asked as she drew me back heading to my previous location.
"Ok, mum". I replied not wanting to raise her concern for me too much.