Prisoner? or a Guest?

The only Martian creature that was left dropped it's spear and the other weapons it carried, and then proceeded to drop down from its mount and come towards me by encircling the incubator.

When it stood at a mere distance of about 15 meters from me, it took off an armlet from his upper right arm and extended it to me.

It spoke, in an eerie and strange language, which needless to say, was completely foreign to me and beyond my scope of understanding. When it was done speaking, he waited and stared at me, no doubt expecting me to say something.

Awkward silence once again descended between us. I was not sure what I should say to it, for I did not understand the intentions it held when it presented me the armlet. Not being able to bear the painful silence any more, I spoke.

That too because I was fairly certain that this weird creature before me came to establish peace. If the fact that it threw away it's weapons and approached so cautiously was a sign that is. Or it could just be that it was trying to get me to let my guard down for a swift kill, but I quickly dismissed that thought. If it wanted to kill me, it could have done so using the firearms it possessed.

Opening my mouth, I spoke in the only language that was ever so familiar to me, English. I told him that I was from Virginia and arrived here from a distant place, though it seems like he mistook it as me saying that my name is Virginia.

I also told him that although I do not understand his strange language, his efforts to establish peace spoke well for themselves. Although I was not expecting him to believe me, seeing him tilt his head in confusion at my words left me dissatisfied.

I bowed to him as a sign of respect and gently extended my hand to him, trying to take the armlet that he had offered me. I advanced and took the armlet from his open palm, clasping it about my arm above the elbow; smiled at him and stood waiting. His wide mouth spread into an answering smile, and locking one of his intermediary arms in mine we turned and walked back toward his mount. At the same time he motioned his followers to advance. They started toward us on a wild run, but were checked by a signal from him. Evidently he feared that were I to be really frightened again I might jump entirely out of the landscape.

He exchanged a few words with his fellow kin, which I was unable to understand, and then motioned me to ride behind one of them. With that, he mounted his own animal. The fellow designated reached down two or three hands and lifted me up behind him on the glossy back of his mount, where I hung on as best I could by the belts and straps which held the Martian's weapons and ornaments.

Then the entire group of the green Martians moved upon their mounts, into a random direction.

The ride was bumpy, as was expected when riding such a giant creature but it did not make me uncomfortable. I took this chance to look at the surrounding scenery of Mars. I did not know what I was expecting from a barren planet with nothing more than some distant hills, moss like vegetation and randomly placed quartz crystals, but my heart thumped with anticipation about the type of things that I would witness upon Mars.

After travelling for about 16 kilometers, the ground began to rise rapidly. In no time, we were at the foot of the mountains and after traversing through a narrow opening between them, we arrived to an open valley, from which I got to witness the beauty of Mars. The landscape which held giant rocks that formed monoliths and the 2 giant moons that shone in the distant horizon riveted my attention. The sheer beauty of the thing I witnessed could not be described in mere words. Perhaps it would be better if I did not even try, for that would undermine the beauty of the scenery that I was gazing upon at this exact moment.

At the far end of this open valley, stood an enormous city. We galloped towards it, entering it by what appeared to be a ruined roadway leading out from the city, but only to the edge of the table land, where it ended abruptly in a flight of broad steps.

As we passed by the buildings, I noticed that they were deserted, and while they did not look as destroyed or decayed, they had the appearance of thousand year old architectures.

Toward the center of the city was a large plaza, and upon this and in the buildings immediately surrounding it were camped some nine or ten hundred creatures of the same breed as my captors. The were all of the same olive green color, though some held a darker shade than the rest, which were also the ones to have a taller stature.

There were also children among them, which held the lightest color on their bodies in the entire group of green Martians. The only similarity I could make out of all of them, was that they were all naked, except for the few ornaments they wore that covered their groins, breasts and their neck region.

As we neared the plaza and my presence was discovered we were immediately surrounded by hundreds of the creatures who seemed anxious to pluck me from my seat behind my guard. A word from the leader of the party seemed to still their clamor, although they did not move away from us, gazing at me intently.

As we traveled across the plaza, I laid my eyes upon the most magnificent piece of architecture I had laid my eyes upon till date.

The building was low, but covered an enormous area. It was constructed of gleaming white marble inlaid with gold and brilliant stones which sparkled and scintillated in the sunlight. The main entrance was some 30 meters in width and projected from the building proper to form a huge canopy above the entrance hall. There was no stairway, but a gentle incline to the first floor of the building opened into an enormous chamber encircled by galleries.

On the floor of this chamber, which was dotted with highly carved wooden desks and chairs, were assembled about forty or fifty male Martians around the steps of a rostrum. On the platform proper squatted an enormous warrior heavily loaded with metal ornaments, differently colored feathers and pieces of beautifully crafted leather which held precious gemstones on them. His strong looking shoulders held a short cape of white fur lined with brilliant scarlet silk.

What struck me as most remarkable about this assemblage and the hall in which they were gathered in was the fact that the creatures were entirely out of proportion to the desks, chairs, and other furnishings; these being of a size adapted to human beings such as I, not at all made for the great bulks of the Martians, who could scarcely have squeezed into the chairs, nor was there room beneath the desks for their long legs. This made me realize that there might me other races upon Mars, more developed and advanced than the grotesque green creatures that I have stumbled upon and captured by. But the antiquity of the buildings and the furniture told me that these races might just be far gone from the face of the planet, if not, in no way would they have allowed these green creatures to occupy their creations.

This also made me consider a terrifying possibility. What if these green Martians were the only race that inhabited these lands? I shook that thought away. Under no circumstances was I going to stay among these people forever. Not to sound racist but if they were at least a bit more humanoid in shape, then I could at least have some sense of familiarity with my surroundings.

Once the party halted, I was lowered to the ground by the party leader and escorted to a hall which I presumed was the audience chamber.

My captor strode into the hall as the others made way for him. When he stood in the very center of the giant chamber, he stopped and called out to the others that were seated.

Firstly, he introduced himself, a greeting among these Martians I presumed, and finally I could make out at least some information from my green captor. His name was Tars Tarkas. I think... probably. And then, he introduced me to the onlookers, as Virginia. Yes. He said that my name was 'Virginia'.

As dissatisfied as I was with it, I could not do anything for I did not know their language.

Then, the assembled martian chieftains observed me closely, more specifically my muscle structure. After they were done, they left me alone without any support and and such, I was left hopping around in the chamber. Not to the extent of 3 meters into the air, but a mere half a meter. This proved that I was slowly getting control of my body.

But on one occasion, I accidentally applied too much strength that led me face first into the ground, much to the amusement of the Martians.

I again had recourse to creeping, but this did not suit them and I was roughly jerked to my feet by a towering fellow who had laughed most heartily at my misfortunes.

As he banged me down upon my feet his face was bent close to mine and I did the only thing a gentleman might do under the circumstances of brutality, boorishness, and lack of consideration for a stranger's rights; I swung my fist squarely to his jaw.

That single impact to the side of his face left his silent on the ground. Dead.

"What... the fuck?" I exclaimed and looked at my balled fist in astonishment. I knew that I was stronger here on Mars than I could ever be on Earth, but the fact that I could kill a fully grown green Martian with a single blow was a surprise.

Breaking out of my thoughts, I quickly backed away towards a wall and held up my fists before me, prepared to give anyone that dared attack me a fight before going down. The rest of the martians look at me in wonder and surprise, but then, contrary to what I had been expecting, the hall instead of being filled with the sound of metal and war cries, was filled with a wild display of laughter and applause.

I stood there on the ground in confusion. My tiny mind could not tell why they were so happy about one of their kin being killed in front of them. They did not attack me for it, instead, they celebrated it.

'What the hell have I gotten myself into?' I thought to myself with a small bead of swat going down my face.

Tars Tarkas, not even bothering to check the well being of his fellow chieftain, came towards me and escorted me outside to the plaza, the other chieftains followed him. And when we were finally outside, he repeated a strange word to me. "Sak", I think.

I tilted my head in confusion and to make me understand, he jumped several times and repeated the word 'sak'. Finally understanding what he was trying to say, I nodded.

He was trying to showcase my jumping ability to his fellow martians. And so, I 'sakked'.

My impressive strength carried me 40 meters into the air, almost 100 meters away. The green martians hummed in amazement at my impressive display of strength and agility. I landed without any mishaps and returned to my captors with small jumps of 30 meters across.

My exhibition of jumping had been witnessed by a good number of Martians and they were all asking for repetitions. But I was in no mood for it, for I was both hungry and thirsty.

Seeing as to how i refused to 'sak' Tars Tarkas silenced the martians and looked towards me, expecting an explanation. I merely rubbed my stomach area and this made him nod his head in understanding.

Tars Tarkas motioned for one of the women in the group to take me, and that she did. She took me to a spacious chamber in one of the buildings in the front of the plaza, and which, from the various kinds of silks and furs scattered on the floor, I took to be the sleeping quarters of the martian community.

She motioned me to be seated upon a pile of silks near the center of the room, and, turning, made a peculiar hissing sound, as though signaling to someone in an adjoining room. In response to her call I obtained my first sight of a new Martian wonder. It waddled in on its ten short legs, and squatted down before the girl like an obedient puppy. The thing was tall enough to stand against my chest and long enough to be at least 1 and a half meters, and its head bore a slight resemblance to that of a frog and a hippo, except that the jaws were equipped with three rows of long, sharp tusks.

The Martian woman appointed to me said something to the strange dog like creature and proceeded to leave the chamber. I looked curiously towards this strange creature, wondering what it would do next, but it only looked at me for a second before it hobbled away to a corner and sat down without so much as a sound.

While my Martian caretaker was away I took occasion to examine more minutely the room in which I found myself captive. The mural painting depicted scenes of rare and wonderful beauty; mountains, rivers, lake, ocean, meadow, trees and flowers, winding roadways, sun-kissed gardens—scenes which might have portrayed earthly views if not for the different coloring of the vegetation. The work had evidently been wrought by a master hand, but the thing that I found curious was the fact that there was not a single representation of a living animal anywhere on these murals, by which I could guess at the likeness of these other and perhaps extinct denizens of Mars.

While I was allowing my fancy to run wild on the possible explanation of the strange anomalies which I had so far met with on Mars, my caretaker returned bearing both food and drink. She placed them on the floor beside me, and seated herself beside me. She motioned towards herself and said in the same weird language.

"Sola." She said. Realizing that she might me introducing herself, I thought of introducing myself as well; and then there was the problem of my identity.

For a moment, I was confused whether I should refer to myself as John Carter or Damien Smith, or neither of the two. But considering that I was in the body of John Carter, I settled with using his name.

I placed a hand onto my chest and replied, "John Carter." Sola nodded in response and did not speak anymore. And so, I focused back on the food.

The food consisted of some solid substance of the consistency of cheese and almost tasteless, while the liquid was apparently milk from some animal. It was not unpleasant to the taste, though slightly acid.

After I had eaten I was greatly invigorated, but feeling the need of rest I stretched out upon the silks and was soon asleep. I must have slept several hours, as it was dark when I awoke, and I was very cold. I noticed that someone had thrown a fur over me, but it had become partially dislodged and in the darkness I could not see to replace it. Suddenly a hand reached out and pulled the fur over me, undoubtedly Sola's, and shortly afterwards the same hand another to my covering.

And with that, I slept for the first night on Mars.