The Sign In

Roenan was in a small bright office that looked a little too modern for the building they were in. The walls were a light tan and the desk, cabinets, and chairs held the same dark wood and dark blue theme the common room seemed to have.

There was a door at the far left corner guarded by a stern looking guard in a dark-blue military suit, with a tan hat shadowing his eyes. Roenan could still tell he had light brown eyes. They didn't have the same caramel tint as Drakke did, but the guy was definitely Vernajjian through-and-through. One of his breasts was littered with medals and ribbons. He hadn't even twitched, let alone blinked, since Roenan walked in.

Sitting at the desk was a similarly dressed man. He was much older and had a moustache. His hair was salt and pepper grey and his dark eyes studied Roenan over a pair of wiry spectacles.

He said something that sounded like "Juznt" to Roenan, throwing his hand at a space across from him at the desk. Roenan hesitated before he walked forward. There was a chair toppled over a little ways away from the space the man was gesturing to. It was lying at an awkward angle, and Roenan had the idea that Saive had made a grand exit.

He picked up the chair and moved it back toward the space in front of the desk and took a seat. The man set a stack of paperwork in front of him and began speaking to him in rapid Vernajjian. Roenan stared blankly and he began shaking his head slightly, his mouth opening slightly and his eyebrows creased in confusion. The man stopped speaking and set a pen down on top of the stack, before looking back to his own paperwork.

"Um. I don't...," Roenan began, but the man cut him off by making signature gestures. Roenan hesitated.

"No, I know that, C-Captain...?" Roenan looked at a gold nametag on the man's breast above his array of medals, "Klonjerikk...?" Roenan tried. "But... what am I signing? What do these documents say? I only know Jaedan."

The man looked up at Roenan like he was the most incompetent human being on the face of the earth. He snatched the pen off the pile and shoved it into a pen holder on his desk, before laying his hand out facing palm up. "Mannt."

Hand, Roenan thought. He remembered not long ago to when Drakke was teaching him Vernajjian about anatomy. He had chosen to do it in a humorously perverted way, making a ton of references to his friend's sister. The entertainment of it all had actually made the terms stick more memorably for Roenan.

Roenan reached out and placed his hand into the man's waiting palm. He immediately pulled Roenan's hand toward him hard enough that he had to sit up out of his chair. He drew a knife up from under the desk and he slit down Roenan's pointer finger. He made a distressed noise in his throat and yank his hand back, staring incredulously at the man. He stared straight back and made the signature motion again, but this time with his pointer finger, before peering back down at his paperwork.

Roenan was boiling with anger and he wanted nothing more than to throttle the guy's throat, but he reminded himself to calm down. His finger was dripping blood because the cut wasn't shallow. He held his other hand under his finger to catch the drips, bring his glare from the man's face, down onto the paperwork in front of him. The signature line looked like it was down at the bottom of each page.

A small pool of warm blood was forming in his palm. He started signing the documents one-handed by running his bleeding finger across the signature line and flipping it over before doing it again and again. His finger had almost stopped bleeding by the last page about thirty pages later. He took his little pool of blood and wiped his hand down the entirety of the last page of the document. He figured it would count as a signature. Klonjerikk glanced up at him from over his spectacles and under his disturbingly long eyebrows before gesturing for guard at the door. The guard moved to the desk and Roenan tensed-up, thinking he was going to get hit, but the guard just grabbed Roenan's papers and flipped through each page to make sure they were "signed". The corner of Roenan's mouth twitched as the guard reached the last page, but he didn't show any sign of emotion and moved toward the filing cabinet to place Roenan's documents into a folder.

Klonjerikk stood up and started messing with a camera he had attached to a tall tripod next to his desk. He started speaking in Vernajjian and gesturing to Roenan. Roenan let out a short and annoyed half-laugh, half-breath as he shrugged. "I don't understand what you're saying, Klon." Klonjerikk wiped his hand across his face in pure irritation and asked something of the guard again. The guard walked over to Roenan and grabbed him by the roughly by the upper arms to slam him into the blank tan wall.

"What the hell?" Roenan gasped, squirming in the man's grip. The man turned Roenan so he was facing to the side and grabbed his chin to shove his head to look straight. "Stay." He said in Jaedan with an incredibly thick Vernajjian accent. He backed away from Roenan and there was a flash. The guard came back and roughly turned Roenan to face the other direction. "I get it! You don't have to touch me..." He said irritably. The man backed away and there was another flash. The guard move forward one last time but Roenan turned to face straight before he could get man-handled again. Another flash blinded him and he blinked his eyes, trying to get rid of the blind spot the flash created.

"Juznt." Klonjerikk said again. Roenan moved forward and sat back in his seat with a scowl. Klonjerikk brought out a device that looked like the finger scanners on the doors, but it was hooked up to his computer by a wire instead. He gestured for Roenan to place his finger on the scanner, but he lifted his cut finger and gave Klonjerikk an incredulous look. Klonjerikk boredly gestured for him to use his left hand. Roenan placed his left pointer finger on the scanner and felt a little heat as the green light scanned across it. Klonjerikk also made Roenan looked into a device that scanned his eyes.

Roenan sat for several minutes as Klonjerikk entered information into his computer. A machine in the corner of the room behind Klonjerikk's desk began making a lot of noise as it worked at doing something. Finally Klonjerikk pulled out a tag and slid it on a small chain before sliding it toward Roenan. The tag had his full name Roenan Farrah, three Vernajjian numbers , his birthdate in Vernajjian numbers, which he only recognized because Drakke had taught him, and at the bottom of the tag it said "Vernajja". Roenan slid the tag off of the table and put the chain over his neck. He tucked the tag down into his dress shirt.

Klonjerikk stood and gestured for Roenan to head toward a door on the opposite side of where he entered. Roenan nodded and quickly pretended to be adjusting one of his cuffs as he reached into his pocket and slid his hand out halfway. Drakke had placed a badge that could be sewn on to a military uniform into the palm of his hand. It was the green, silver, and white flag of Jaeda. He slid his hand back into his pocket and felt his eyes stinging with emotion.

Roenan quickly stood up and headed toward the door. The guard side-stepped away in a practiced move and reached to open the door for Roenan. The door swung outward and Roenan's stomach and jaw dropped at what he instantly saw. The room was the same color grey from the floor, to the walls, to the ceiling. There was nothing in the room except for the body of a person lying in the center, the only source of light in the room pouring down on them.

"Saive!" Roenan yelled, his voice breaking. He began sprinting into the room toward Saive but someone grabbed him from behind, throwing a thick bag over his head. He felt a prick in his arm and he began to grow limp before slipping into unconsciousness.