Just A Bunch Of Problems and Questions

As soon as the sound of the door closing came, Xetalona started to freak out, way more than I thought imaginable.

"Oooooooooh my. Uhhhhhm, shoot!"

She frantically looked around for something, eyes wide, and kind of in a daze.

"""What's going on?""" The three of us voiced some concern, especially because of how instant the freak out was.

Her wide eyes turned to look at us, and then she faked being fine, even with a slightly trembling, shaky voice. "W-w-well.. uhm... You see.. a-about that.. Sensen likes to.. 'speak' with any newcomers."

'Ah. I mean, I guess a leader would like to not have any threat to his people on the same island, right?' I was about to brush it off before I remembered something crucial.

"Wait a second! You've told us that this 'Lord Sensen' wants to meet all arrivals to this island twice now, but you said before that you've not learned about the outside world from anyone! How's it possible that you don't know a single thing about the outside world if you had plenty of people to ask?"

She very visibly started to freak out, a drop of sweat falling to the ground.

"Heh... Heh.. heh.. uhm.. ye-yeah, thaaaaat.. I've never actually.. spoke to an outsider before.. the-they all disappeared before I could speak to them. Sensen says they left the island."

If the posture of absolute insecurity and the continued shaky voice were any indication, she was very much hiding something when saying that.

"So... They leave? How? Even Sensen wants YOU to find a way to get off the island, so that can't be it."

She visibly started to get less comfortable, and her whole body shook.

"And.. Sensen wanting to quote, unquote, speak to ALL.. EVERYONE who shows up on this island? That's a bit suspicious."

The shaking of her body continued, to the point that i could feel she had fear instilled in her. Enough fear to start crying a little.

I felt my own body move on its own until I was in front of her, and spoke "Is Sensen killing people?"

Her knees finally gave in after hearing that question.

Before I could move any closer to ask again, Taki got in between me and Xetalona, saying "Bugs, what're you doing?"

"Huh?"

"What. Are. You. Doing?"

"Whatdya meam what am I doing? I'm just asking a question."

"I can see that, but your eyes.. they aren't normal."

"Hmm?"

I reached up and put a hand over an eye, then noticing a glow of red show up on my palm, just bright enough before it disappeared.

'Wha.. what was that? My eyes changed color? Just like with my different modes? Did I have a different personality this time?'

"Your eyes are red.. were red this time, Bugs. Last time I remember, they were purple."

"....My personality switches...." I mumbled to myself.

"Ah.....?"

"Rem!" She jumped a little from being next to Xetalona, and I didn't care that she moved quickly.

"Heh?"

"I'm gonna need your help with something later. Something only a doctor could do."

"...Why?"

"Because I need to get this issue out of the way, it would be VERY bad if this happened all the time. Especially around everyone."

She was in thought for a couple seconds before she nodded slowly. I then looked at the crying Xetalona, and sighed.

"Sorry.. sorry about that. Uhm.. I didn't know I was doing that. It's not your fault for me doing that.."

I saw Taki staring me down, making sure I wasn't going to do anything, lowering her arms slightly. I backed up a step, and she found I was back to myself, lowering her arms to her sides, and I continued "Lona, I'm sorry that happened, I didn't know it would, and forgot about it happening before. So.. I'm just gonna give you some breathing room, and let you calm down, and then we can go. Does that sound good?"

I tried to give a consoling smile with my eyes being normal this time. She looked up at me and met my eyes, surprisingly calming down, and then pointing something out, stumbling over words at first, then speaking out ".. you.. your eyes.. they're blue.. and glowing.."

I scrunched my eyebrows. "What? Again?"

I used observation this time, and found my eyes to be blue, a sky blue.

Sighing, I talked to Rem again. "Well, we need to figure this out, my doctor. Rem, please remember we need to do this, I may not."

I then walked away, Xetalona calming down considerably faster than I would have thought, and I caught Taki glaring concerningly at me.

•

After a while, Xetalona was calmed down enough that we could all head to town with her leading us down a path. She was at the front, Rem and Taki we're in the middle, and I was taking up the back, just in case anything else happened. When we first left the building, I saw that the entire island, after going up that sheer cliff, was still surrounded in fog, and even the actual top of the island was covered in fog, but it was much less dense, and we could all see relatively far without any issue, even if we couldn't see the entire island.

Alongside the path we were on, on either side, there was plenty of crops, it was farmland, and when I asked about it, Xetalona answered "The city has been growing, especially since a bunch of generations of people are growing into more and more."

"So it's like a normal island town?" Rem had asked before I could ask my more complex question.

"Mmmm.. no, not really. I don't know what other towns are like, but since we don't have any way to talk to the outside world, we kinda had to become self sustaining."

I questioned "Uh, where'd you learn that?"

"Some of the elders long gone wrote it down to make a 'History of the Island' or something along those lines."

"Ah. Makes sense."

"Apparently they wrote that we needed to survive somehow, and the crops coming out this far is the reason why we can eat. There's no native creatures that would eat all the crops, so we generally have an abundance of food. Uh.. before you ask, in the center of town, there's a well, it's been there for a looooong time, and that's how we all get water."

We continued to walk, and it seemed like the path would go on for eternity.

"We weren't gonna ask."

"Why are you telling us though?"

"Because someone shot my design down and now we need to start from scratch because there are better ways to do what I was doing."

She turned slightly to have part of her face in view, and she was smiling, with a very obvious undertone of not smiling at all. That was soon replaced with a slight hint of fear and she turned away.

I took a quick look and found my eyes turning back from red to normal, once again, and I yelled in my head 'Okay, can you, whichever one you are, stop? I don't need Lona to hate me and us to never get off this island.'

No answer came, but I could tell nothing else was happening. I felt a bit annoyed, but I couldn't tell if it was me or not who was annoyed. I very much was, because it was happening for the second time within only a day, but I still didn't know if it was me or not, so I gave up after nothing else happened.

And then, the town finally came into view. It was still surrounded and partially still covered in light fog, but we could see the outside edge of it. The buildings in view were the ones I went off of, and I could describe them as tents, but not tents. They were teepees, but made out of layers upon layers of wood, and aproximately four times bigger than what a normal teepee would be. At the base of each and every one of them, there was a slight alcove in the sides, where I could find doors in the indent. The windows on the other hand, were not in any indents, nor were there slight extensions to them for the windows to be built as an exterior addition. The windows were seemingly randomly placed about on each and every one of the homes with no actual, single design to the placement of the doors or windows. One thing they did have in common was the top being open, and from each of them, there was smoke billowing out towards the sky.

Another building, one remeniscent of the building Xetalona brought us to, was on the outskirts as well, I assumed it was something else entirely, especially with the windmills sticking out of the top. I then used observation to find the obvious answer: it was a grainery. It should have been more obvious since it was this close to all of the crops, but I stopped thinking about it and just followed a still slightly shook Xetalona.