Chapter 156: Tevit: False Hope


    "Tevit," a voice echoed inside an empty room. Five men stood at the corner with anticipationbut they never looked at each other''s eyes? Why is that? Tevit grimaced with the thought.Light shone deep orange: deep enigmatic orange,ing from a crystal-like bulb. Like an early morning flower bud, it shone bright, flickered, then cut-off: the process repeated the same pattern.The air felt heavy, followed by a low murmuring of a man from his left side.


    That would be me. Tevit thought. "I." Raising his hand, dirty sleeves hung looseon his right. His left sleeve was torn, bruises and cuts formed like a tribal tattoo. This is it. He thought. Walking toward the center where the man raised his name.


    In the middle of the deep-orange room was an iron door. There, the man, holding some sort of paper, looked at Tevit with curious eyes. He then raised his left hand, pressing the t toward Tevit. "Hold," he said, aside from his grey eyes, his face was obscured by the shadowing from the heavy iron door. His hand pressed againstTevit''s swollen chest.


    The pain swept from his chest down to his waist. He almost arched from the pain. Tevit hissed, the man took a step backward. He felt like a monster as the man in ck avoided him. The same as how the people from his farming vige avoided him because of his indifference. Was it wrong to dream? Tevit thought, spun around, and walked back to his corner. There, he stood, staring at the flickering bulb. Hazy orange light red his pockmarked face. Nomadic eyesplemented his raffled copper hair: he stunk, like a sewer never been drained for years.


    How long has it been? Four days? Four weeks? No, it was fourhas been four months. Four months of torture, pain, and screaming. He smiled.


    But in here, at least the people in ck fed me. Fed me food, and promise, and hope.


    Tevit shook his head, smiling. He never smiled genuinely back from his farming vige. Hope, huh. He thought, leaning his head against the ridged wall.


    "Why are you smiling, peasant?" The man to his right said. No name, it wasn''t important. He doesn''t need to know their names. Twenty of them, six were left including him.


    No name; wasn''t important. The words echoed Tevit''s mind. He scowled, he didn''t answer. He never knew who they were. Who the man was.


    The man snorted. Orange light polished his balding head, a scar from both his eyes: the scar blinded his left, the other eye going there.


    Next to the scarred man, a kid. A little older than Tevit, eighteen maybe neen. But he looked his third century. His arms trembled uncontrobly. His eyes ran the room in terror, saliva drooling, chest swelled.


    To Tevit''s left, the one closest to him, was an old man almost touching his elbow. Head slumped down, he never looked up. Like a man carrying the weight of all the sins of humanity, he never looked up. He murmured: "For the Emperor, for the Emperor, for the Emperor."


    Four months, and a thousand murmur. Repeated for four months. For the Emperor. Chest swelled.


    To the left of the murmuring old man, standing in six maybe seven feet. A blonde guy, staring deep at the flickering light. He was silent, never talked for months. His eyes: brown, deep, and sane. A man from the North. Tevit thought he has heard of them. Traveling merchants often talked about them. White skin, blonde hair, brown eyesalways brown eyes. A man from the North. North, where the air was frozen, water rarely flowed, and mountain made of white cold sand. I wonder if they were true? Tevit remembering the merchant''s story. An air almost freezing, house made of frozen water, the North.


    Tevit sighed. Looking at the man in ck, scribbling something on his paper with what looked like a quill but more metallic, sleek. The man eyed Tevit, he nodded and started writing again. His back leaned against the door, he looked back to Tevit and said: "Wait for you turn Tevit. Come out after the other onees back."


    I thought no names? Why do they say my name now? Four months and this was the first time they say my name. Why?


    The man in ck stared at Tevit, and as if he knew that Tevit was about to ask him. He shut the door close. The room went orange. Aside from the murmuring old man, it was quiet. And hoped that the old man would do the same.


    Aside from the Northern guy, and maybejust maybe, the scarred man. Tevit thought that the rest of them were mad. He was even surprised he was sane after four months of torture. I thought I was recruited to dobor for the factories. Tevit thought, shaking his head. The scarred man kept on staring at him. As if waiting for him to answer. With all this? Why am I smiling? Why? "Hope," Tevit answered the scarred man. "Yes, hope. Back at my vige, people there stole hope from me. And here, the man in ck said they will give me one."


    He didn''tugh, the scarred man didn''tugh. Unlike from Tevit''s old vige, every time he spoke about hope; the peopleughed at him. Saying that a farmer doesn''t need hope, they need seednt them, grow them, plow them. That was all the farmers have. Seed. No hope.


    "What you have is a false hope, child," the elder of his vige once said. After that, Tevit left.


    But the scarred man didn''tugh. "Where?" He said.


    "What, where?" Tevit replied in unison with the old man''s constant murmur.


    "Your vige," the scarred man said. "Your farming vige."


    Tevit frowned. They didn''t speak for a spun of four months. Yet, the man knew he was a farmer. "How did you know I''m a farmer?"


    The scarred man snorted. His seeing-eye focused closely on Tevit. "Knew a lot of men; killed a lot of men. One look at you, I already knew. So where?"


    Tevit sighed. The man''s insane, suicidal. Perhaps this was his attempt, to talk before he dies. Are we going to die here? He thought. But they told me about hope. Am I going to die here? But I need to die, they said. The man in ck said I need to die first.


    "South of Ekan," Tevit said, shaking his head, raffled hair danced along. "Very South."


    The scarred man smiled, more like a grin. His seeing-eye broaden. "South; North. Doesn''t matter. We''re going to die here. Here! Die!" He bellowed. Yet, he remained standing, fingers crackling. Heughed, the old manughed, the drooling kidughed; saliva spattered toward the center. Theyughed, Except for him and the Northern kid.


    The door wedged open, iron door grated along with the iron floor that made a high screeching sound. The insane went quiet, then a man stumbled inside. Blood sttered the iron floor, flesh jutted out his chest. He was the sixth guy. Dead. But he needs to die to live. That was the man in ck said. To die. Was it possible?


    "You," the man said, pointing at Tevit, not in ck but whitecovered in all white. A mask covering his face and attached to the mask was a tube and the tube was attached to some sort of leather bag slung behind his back. "You," he said again. "Come."