8 The Man With A Warm Smile

Auo stepped reluctantly inside the Dining Room. That familiar nervous feeling filled him like many times before.

One would describe the feeling like the first day of school.

A new city, a new school, a new system.

The way people talked was different, the way things ran socially were different, cultures were different, even the curriculums were different- everything was different.

Auo wanted to walk away and go… anywhere besides there. This place was unfamiliar and uncomfortable.

Auo was considered a loner type anyway, why would he even try to accustom himself?

Once Auo was close to the large doorway, a guard that was previously standing in the right corner of the room, came up to Auo.

" You seem new mate, care to tell meh your name?", a light voice called out.

The man had curly shoulder length black hair and dark olive eyes.

He had many freckles spread across his face and two of his front teeth had a gap between it. While other guards had their sleeves neatly tucked or folded, this man had rolled his sleeves up and put a band of some sort there to keep it in place. His arms had some scars on them and more freckles spread across, decorating his forearms.

'This man sounds like he's from Australia or possibly Britain. He can't be Irish or Scottish,' Auo thought.

'This place is pretty diverse, I would like to make the safe bet of this being America but I could be wrong.'

Auo made himself look up at the dark-haired man. He seemed to be a good 5'9 or even six feet tall.

"My name's Auo Ju," Auo responded in a smaller voice than he intended.

"Auo Ju eh? Interesting name you got there. You happen to know the meaning of ya name?"

A warm smile spread across his face slowly.

"No, I can't remember anything..."

"Bloody hell, how could I forget-", the man muttered under his breath.

Auo was only able to capture the "bloody hell" part.

'Australian, definitely Australian…'

"Your name means blue in Japanese mate. That gives you the possibility of ya being Asian. Anyway, my name is Becker Cauldron, but ya can just call me Beck."

'He seems to be like a nice guy. A bit naïve, but he has a good spirit. He reminds me a bit of Irin but Irin seems like a coward quite frankly. He obviously knows the dirt about this place, yet he's too afraid to say anything.'

"Alright mate, follow me."

They began walking to a table located on the far left side of the room.

Beck had a laid back quality to him, he walked confidently yet he had an excited bounce in his step.

Auo dared to take a glance at some of the patients already sitting at the tables.

'...'

The same deadpan expression remained on their face.

'This place must be utter hell for them to look like that.'

Auo took another glance at Beck who had begun to whistle some sort of tune.

Auo smiled and then quickly wiped it off of his face.

'God damn it, I don't want to get too attached to these people, but Beck is like that one guy you can't help but not hate...'

Auo arrived at an empty table.

The table was close to the blue painting that hung on the wall.

"I picked this table just for ya, blue for blue."

Beck smiled brightly at Auo and Auo felt like he had temporarily gone blind.

'He is the epitome of a prince charming my gosh-'

"Er-," Beck's happy demeanor had plummeted and he now looked at the metal chair like it was a demon, " I'm sorry lad, but it's a protocol to bind our patients to these metal chairs."

Auo simply nodded and nervously sat down in the chair Beck had pointed to. A cold sweat began to break out on his forehead.

"You'll only be in this thing for thirty minutes, till then hang in there, mate," Beck explained, patting his shoulder right afterward.

Beck walked away from the chair and seemed to be headed to the front of the room and in the blink of an eye, Auo was bound to the metal chair.

He felt overwhelmed and he wanted to get out of the chair as soon as possible.

Auo contained his jitters to the best of his ability, save for the constant movement of Auo's fingers, and he began to process what has happened to him the past few days.

It seemed like Auo's opinions were changing as each person he's gotten to know showed up in his life.

While Auo was having an internal battle, three other patients had sat in the remaining chairs.

Auo didn't snap out of his thoughts until a loud "DING", echoed into the room.

"It is currently nine-thirty A.M, patients who are not inside the Dining Room will be locked out until the following morning. The Dining Room will now begin breakfast. Enjoy your morning."

'Like I could enjoy my morning while strapped to a metal chair-'

"Alright ya Loose Screws, I'm in charge of the Dining Room today so I get to decide what goes on in here!"

Becker expected to see the dead faces resurrect again, but to his dismay, only half of the room seemed to have come alive.

'These people are becoming duller by the day…,'he thought.

He put on a brighter smile and looked towards the darker corner of the room.

"Oi! Why don't ya take those blindfolds and whatever the hell that mouth thing is off of meh lads, eh?"

"Becker, if we get in trouble again…" a deep voice started, " I'll put you under the bus!"

"Don't worry mate! I made sure that no one could come in here during this hour period. Now go ahead and take the damn things off of 'em will ya?"

"I'll take the blindfold off of Quinten but I won't do that for Lenix."

Becker looked as if he were debating with himself and he finally sighed.

"Fine, do whatever the hell you want…"

He sounded a tad disappointed.

"Beck…"

"No, I understand mate, safety reasons."

The man with the deep voice, along with another man, began to take off the mouth straps.

Auo could see the two people a little bit better now since he was seated at the table, but he couldn't tell what color their hair was or their skin tone.

"I thought you would let me see this time Becky," a boy's voice called out.

His voice sounded as if he were smirking.

"Er, I mean..,"

Beck tried to defend himself, but in the end, it was useless.

"Just tell them to get this blindfold off of me. I promised you that I wouldn't do the same thing as last time didn't I?"

Beck looked very conflicted. He didn't want another altercation like that to happen again. Two patients were severely injured because of it.

"Alright mate, I'll grant ya wish this time. Try anything funny and I can't promise ya anything."

"Sure thing Becky," Lenix responded with a cocky grin.

Beck made a motion towards the guard standing near Lenix. The guard closest to Lenix hesitated but took the blindfold off anyway.

"There, much better," Lenix expressed, satisfaction clearly evident in his voice.

A low voice began to speak to Lenix and Lenix responded in a lower voice.

"Hey Becky, there are new patients here?"

"Ya damn right, we received four new patients yesterday, and they're here with us today!"

'Why does he sound so happy about that...?'

"Oh really- Ah, I see them now. Is this the last batch?"

"Unfortunately not mate, we've got ten more coming later on today, and then we're finally done with it."

"What?," a patient sitting in front of Auo muttered.

Auo quickly glanced at the patient.

His skin was like a golden brown. His eyes were almost yellow, but Auo could see hints of brown. The guy's hair was curly and up in an afro and a brown birthmark was on the left side of his cheek and it went down to his collarbone.

'I wonder where he comes from... ', Auo began.

'His hair is mostly like caucasian hair yet it's as curly as a person with kinky hair. His eyes suggest that he's of Asian descent, yet his skin contradicts it. He's definitely mixed, in what way, I don't know though.'

"Right, you'd think they would be happy enough with the forty people sitting in here yet they want more," a voice sitting next to him responded.

The boy sitting next to him pushed his glasses up and swiped the wavy black hair out of his eyes. The boy had bright blue eyes and he to wore braces. His skin tone was very pale, and his ears were slightly red at the tips.

'Could he be from Greenland possibly? Or maybe London but he doesn't sport an accent. Well, wherever he's from, he obviously lived somewhere where the light isn't the norm...'

"Their greed will bring immense pain on these people," another voice whispered.

A girl with curly brown hair, one hazel eye, one green eye and a mole on her right cheek spoke. Her skin was olive toned and her facial features suggested that she was Hispanic.

"And when that happens, I shall rejoice," the curly-haired boy determined.

The group of four were so busy talking quietly among themselves, they didn't realize that others were tuning in on their conversation.

Lenix, having a feeling that something was going on at table fourteen, began to speak, scaring the four who were chatting.

"Let's hope they can stay sane until the end of this week," Lenix began, " or else they'll be a meal for the pigs"