The sound of a door creaking open startles me awake. Everything hurts. I get up from the dirty prison floor and wipe my eyes. A faint smell of rotten fish awaits me. My breakfast. I stumble towards the door and feel around for the tray.

The prison door slams shut again, and I jump back, tripping over the tray.

I turn around and take my first bite of the disgusting stuff. It tastes so bad that I have to put it down after the first bite.

I’ve been here for four gruesome months starving in this prison cell. Nobody came down here, except for giving me rotten food. All I know is that I was forced to go into this prison cell by some lunatic farmers with a helicopter.

I honestly don’t care about my life anymore. Today, tomorrow, it doesn’t matter when, they will stop feeding me and that will be it.

I sigh and collapse to the floor. A grey mouse comes by and takes the leftovers of my food. I don’t care much, it’s not like I’m going to eat any of that stuff anyway.

A few minutes later, the cell door creaks open a second time and I hear footsteps come inside. It’s unusual for the cell door to open twice an hour, so I turn around to look up at the door. A tall girl with long black hair stands right in front of it, staring down at me. She doesn’t say anything, but I get the feeling that she might get me out of this place. A bit of hope stirs in my chest.

Out of nowhere, she says, in English, “Hi there, what’s your name?” I am so shocked that I don’t have any words for it. This is the first time since arriving on this island that someone has spoken something I can understand. Noticing that I’m not talking the girl says, “Can you talk? My name is Bleylchik, but you can call me Bley.” I finally find my voice.

“Y-you can speak… English?” I blurt.

“Yes, quite fluently in fact, and I have some questions for you.”

“Questions for me? I’m the one who was forced into this prison by some farmers with a private helicopter!” I shout.

Bley stammers, “Well, uh, you see, we’ve never had an Outsider come here before…”

“You mean, someone that isn't from this island?” I clarify. Bley nods.

“Then why did you throw me in jail! I did nothing to harm you! All that happened was that there was a storm I crashed on this island, and then some crazy farmers threw me in jail!”

There is a long pause. Bley takes out a blue notebook from her pocket and writes something down.

Eventually, she says, “Now that you’ve told me what I need to know, I think it’s fair that I do the same for you.” I perk up at this.

“Thousands of years ago, settlers were shipwrecked on this island. Fighting for their lives, they built a small society here. As the years passed, the small society turned into a booming civilisation. Few people left, taking small boats with them. We don’t know why they left, but we do know that they were never heard from again.”

“Why are you so much more advanced in technology than us,” I blurt, interrupting Bley.

Bley looks at me in an annoyed sort of way, and keeps talking. “We are more advanced in technology because it just so happened that this island had all the resources we needed for anything we wanted to build. Including a special sap that makes us live twice as long. Anyways, we found out quite quickly that we were a few centuries ahead in technology. Because of this, a civil war started, with one side wanting to share the science that we’ve learned, and the other trying to keep it secret. After years of battle, we finally decided to keep our knowledge secret. So, with our resources we built a dome around the island, so nobody could get out or in, until you.” Bley pauses on the last word.

Now that I have the answers to my questions, more appear in my head, the biggest one being: how did I get past the shield? Was it something to do with the storm? Was it just me?

Bley has the same questions too. “Do you know why you got past the shield?”

“No,” I whisper, and look up at her. She nods and then walks out of the cell, closing the door behind her.

* * *

The next few days are uneventful. I’m thankful for the information, but I don’t get why I can’t be let out of the cell. I should have had Bley let me out of the cell in exchange for what she wanted to know.

A few days later, I hear faint footsteps coming down the stairs towards my prison cell. It seems as if someone is running down them at top speed. I look up to see Bley burst out of the stairway, her eyes wide with terror.

“We need your help,” she says, out of breath.

Like a vacation, I murmured to myself as I felt the tears welling up in my eyes. I had tried to convince myself that this was all a fever dream, that it would be heart-wrenchingly unpleasant in the moment but over in the split second my eyes fluttered open. Struggling to keep at the pace of the group, I dragged my feet behind me, panting with exhaustion. As I wiped a bead of sweat from my forehead I looked up into the blinding sun, surrounded by the smoke jostling back and forth in the sky. I put my arms atop of my head, the engulfing heat swarming all around me leaving me weak with my head pounding. Shaking off the ringing in my ears, I trudged further along the powdery dirt road, crystals of sand stinging me in the eyes.

As we passed the last block of stucco homes and cows mooing in distress, I begrudgingly shifted one tired and sore calf in front of the other. I dreaded the moment we would pass through the worn red brick gates that confirmed our departure. Squinting my eyes and weaving through the crowd, I caught a glimpse of the harsh realities of the outside world, the one that I unfortunately would not be waking up from.

We made our way onto the sewage flooded path, amid the wailing of my younger brother, who was swaddled in a thin linen wrap across my mother’s chest. I crunched my nose in disgust as I was simultaneously washed over by a tidal wave of dizziness. Struggling to catch my balance as the leafy green trees and the fatigued people spun all around me, I felt the growling in my stomach evolve into a sharp pain. I grasped my stomach in agony, realizing that I hadn't eaten or drank anything all day.

Noticing the deepening colour of indigo sky, the elders decided that we would settle down for the night. We turned to a dense forest that lined our path, and began to curl up beneath a large bush. I let out a sigh of relief for my numb feet as my eyelids fell, desperate to escape to a whimsical land of my imagination that excluded the horrors of my reality. Just before I could zone out completely, I felt a soft kick across my leg. I glanced up to see my uncle’s back standing before my family and I, his eyes nervously fleeting back and forth across the trees. Before I had the chance to ask him what he was looking for, I saw my answer approaching in a large pack, its faces unrecognizable between the flashing torches and the deafening thumps of menacing black bulls. Their carts came to a screeching halt and a gang of angry men descended their bull-drawn vehicle. I quivered at the sight of the glimmering thin swords that lay dangling from their bulky hands.

That night I barely slept a wink. Once the men had left, having slaine three members of our group as an act of revenge on our religion, I shook in trepidation as the smell of metallic blood wafted up my nose. I lay in my spot, anxiously hyperventilating at the sound of the slightest rustle of the tree branches. I sprung to my feet at the soft brush of a monkey’s tail over my tense body. As I got up in the middle of the night to relieve myself in the bushes, I felt a cool soft clump beneath my feet. I knelt down to the ground, only to realize that it was one of the victims’ lifeless hands.

When the rays of amber sunshine began to peek through the leaves, I struggled to revive my heavy eyelids. As I vigorously rubbed my knuckles over my bloodshot eyes, I noticed our group congregating around the victims front the night before. I gingerly made my way over, bracing myself for the soulless shells I was about to see. When I neared the crowd, I caught a whiff of the signature sickly-sweet odor of death, emanating from the icy bodies that lay before us. After a few minutes of complemplating in indistinguishable murmurs, the crowd was hushed by a frail man’s voice. I, he began in a rickety high-pitched tone, say that we dispose of the victims in the river.

With that, the flushed faces and the slack skin were scooped up, and carried to the river. I aided a group of men in the carrying of an older woman whose face seemed frozen with an air of misery. Her doughy brown eyes were wide open and her mouth clenched, as though she was wincing in pain. As I shoved my hand under her arm, an image of the last night flashed across my mind. I feel the tight grasp of that man’s hand cuffed around her arm, and the excruciating slit of his razor sharp sword across her neck. Desperate to shake my terrors away, I proceeded with the men to the river’s edge. There, before the shimmering water and plush lily pads, I felt my last grasp of her tender arm as I gave her body a thrust into the current.

I began packing up our belongings, securing my brother in my mother’s sack, and helping to dismantle our fire’s wood from the previous night. I hauled up a block of chalky timber, set it to the side, and slung a bag filled with a few scraps of clothing over my back. With that, our group set back out on the seemingly never-ending path. As we fell back in rhythm with the rest of the walking groups, I felt the blunt sunrays crash against my eyes, and that ominous headache resurfaced like a dark cloud.

The house of elders, although not even a touch more circumspect than the other buildings in the village, was initially designed with a unique premise in mind. For its residents were not family—and therefore did not wish to sleep in a common room. Yet such a logical concept seemed far from logical after such a tragedy: the death of one of the elders had certainly brought the safety of the building into question. Yet this reason alone could not possibly incriminate the wandering swordsman. So why, he wondered, did they seem fearful of him?

The man was allowed into the house out of what he thought to be hope for his innocence. Although no different in appearance to any other house, there remained an ever-lingering feeling of dread within the man. Surely he would not uncover incriminating evidence! Yet lo and behold, opening the late village elder’s room, he discovered the following spectacle:

The bed, once obviously coated in sky-blue linen, now was splotched by puddles of blood, reeking even after only a few hours. The man’s eyes wandered upwards. The walls, made of fine, polished wood, now had a distinct set of red speckles, which would have, if it had been any other material, been quite a novelty. And finally, the man’s eyes centered on the largest blemish on the canvas that was the crime scene: the dead man, lying on his back, but sprawled out upon the floor. His face, frozen in a perpetual state of shock, was certainly something of note—was he shocked from the identity of his murderer, or from the murder itself?

But nothing compared to the gaping chasm upon his chest: a brutal strike, yet so cleanly done—truly the work of a master. The wound still bled profusely, yet with a kind of grace – a testament to the precision and sharpness of the blade. So this, the man realized, was the reason all looks had so suddenly turned to him on his way to the house: for who else would have been anywhere near capable of such a feat? Yet the man knew he was not the perpetrator of such a crime. There must have been another, with as much skill as he—for what other possibility was there?

The inhabitants of the village however, had not reached the same conclusion in any respects. To them, it was only a matter of finding incriminating evidence of the man, and swiftly apprehending him afterwards. But he was the nation’s hero! It was he who had single-handedly ended the brutal civil war! How could such a great man commit such atrocities? This was the dilemma which the villagers faced—no one wanted to be the one to convict the man. Yet all were wary of him, and observed him closely as he left the house of the elders.

The walk back to the inn was far from pleasant for the man. Bystanders peeked from the doorways of their homes, whilst ushering their children back inside. Whispers floated in the air: Could it have been him? That cut…who else could it have been? But wasn’t he the one to end the civil war? How could he? The man ignored them, continuing his walk back to the inn. And there, he retired to bed. For what else could he do? None of the inhabitants would even speak to him, let alone allow him to accompany them. In sleep however, he had a dream.

It was nightfall. One would have expected to only hear the occasional cricket, or the gentle sound of the wind, caressing the village. But an incredibly adept passerby might’ve heard the subtle sound of footsteps, or seen a blur which was the shadow of a man. Yet this was not a man who attempted to sneak around – he, through nurture, simply ended up that way. And the wandering swordsman found himself in this man’s body. He could not, however, do anything – he was clearly not the one in control. Instead, this body dashed through a village, which seemed ever so familiar to the wandering swordsman, and into a house.

A multitude of actions suddenly occurred simultaneously. The sharp song of a sword pierced the air. The body’s sleeve slipped down, revealing a crest, emblazoned upon all those who shared blood with the man. And crucially, the man, trapped inside this body, realized where he was. Yet he was too late. Where should have been a scream was instead suppressed by a gurgle of blood. Even though only a sliver of the moon shone that night, the man saw something which he had never seen since that fateful yet tragic occurrence, twelve years ago.

His brother was alive. And he, just one night ago, had murdered the elder of the village.

I’ve come to realize that I’ve lived these past sixteen years without really knowing anything about myself. It’s a transient thought that bestows neither insight nor inspiration, that takes its genesis in one of my insecurities. In other words, it’s useless.

Useless was a good way to kill time though. Useless was noncommittal, and noncommittal was the best part of these...lunch dates.

The first time he invited me was a few weeks ago, at the close of April. “Would you like to get a coffee with me?” he texted. Apparently, he was a lot bolder than his downcast demeanor suggested. I decided that I might as well indulge him, and we met up at a rather odd little cafe a block south of the school. Tables of dark-chocolate wood weighed on a checkerboard floor of black and white marble. Light green metal sheets hung in abstract shapes along the walls, outlined by the white glow of the lamps they masked. Just a few minutes spent in the sleek, leather-padded seats seemed to clear my mind, similar to the way mint ventilates stuffy mouths. To be honest, I don’t quite remember what happened, but it was probably more or less the same as what was happening right now.

“A bit higher,” he said. I lifted my hand up a centimeter. Moments later, he pressed down the shutter button.

I laid my hand to rest on the table. “How is it? Show me.”

He handed me the camera. “Why’s the hand all blurry?” He had taken a photo of me holding my hand in front of my face. The hand, however, was out of focus, while the hair that outlined my face was so sharp I could pick out individual strands, shimmering in the cold, ashy light that poured through the window.

“That’s how I remember it. Kind of.” I didn’t bother to pursue the question further. He began uploading the image to his laptop, and I returned, reluctantly, to a page of jot notes in my notebook. I was plotting out the story of a janitor’s imaginary escapades in a world of his own making—it was a story that combined my recent fascination with road-trips and my long-standing love for fantastical settings. Yet somehow the excitement with which I took up my pen dribbled out into a puddle of inky irritation as I stumbled through the planning process. Is this premise compelling? Has this expression been divorced of its meaning? Would the reader understand what I was trying to convey?

What kind of story was a good story? And what kind of photography was good photography?

My eyes flitted to the corner of the screen. 11:45. I snapped my notebook shut, tossed it into my bag, and stood. Across the table, he looked up from his work in confusion.

“There’s still, uh, fifteen minutes before class.”

“I’m taking a walk,” I replied. Then I tipped my head back and let the last of my coffee drip down my throat, before leaving the cafe. He followed me, lagging just a few seconds behind.

It was one of those days where the sun and clouds fought for dominance of the sky. One minute, the sun would pour warmly over the streets; the next minute, a cloudy chill would settle on the city. Across the street, I recognized two of my friends, Tanya and Trenice, waving to me. I waved back—and, to my embarrassment, he did as well.

“Do you like him?” Tanya had asked some time ago, grinning widely as many do when the topic of romance arises.

“Probably not.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? You’ve been hanging out with him so much lately!”

"Save it for later, we need to finish this before class ends." Trenice gestured to the documents we had been assigned to read and discuss.

“Where are we going?” he asked. I didn’t reply. We walked past the school, then past the library, then across the bridge, until twenty minutes later we stood at an empty playground.

“What was your photo about?” I asked, kicking a pebble towards him. “Why the blurry hand?”

He kicked it back. “My mom would do that to stop me from taking her photo. It was a recreation of that, I guess.”

“Why me?”

“You have nice hands. Especially the knuckles.”

That bluntness of his always made it difficult for me to respond. I hopped onto a swing and kicked off the ground. “The hand is blurred. Nobody’s going to be able to tell whether the hand is nice or not.”

His forehead scrunched up, as he took the swing beside me. “Yeah, I guess not.” He smiled sheepishly and tugged at his bangs.

He wasn’t thinking about his audience at all.

“Actually, this is my first time skipping class,” he said out of the blue. “Do you do this often?”

“Nah. Perfect attendance until today.”

He laughed awkwardly before lifting the camera hanging at his neck. “Can I?” he asked.

Above, the clouds broke, and liquid light gently washed over us. His face, normally pale and gloomy, was tinged with colour, and his eyes—there was something shining in them—beheld me instead of his shoes.

I leapt off my swing, ran behind his, and shoved him with as much strength as I could muster. He cried out and lunged for the chain as he flew towards the sun. I didn’t know whether he managed to regain his balance or not—I was already sprinting back to school.

I wondered what he thought was ‘nice’ about my hands. And that’s when I realized that I didn’t even know what my hands looked like. I had never noticed the flatness of my fingertips, nor the slightly right-bent middle finger, nor the mole at the base of my thumb, nor the way my knuckles pushed white against my skin. If someone had asked me what my hands looked like, my description would not be much clearer than the blurred hand in his photo.

I reached the school with burning lungs and gasping lips. Like the sky, unable to figure out whether it wanted to be sunny or cloudy, I could pinpoint neither my thoughts nor emotions. I was lost in the ugly fog of my insecurity, a fog that only thickened in the time I spent with him.

My feelings for writing, my feelings for him—I knew them like I knew the back of my hand.