The Oathstones

A while later, Yuuta comes inside the cell, he seems fine and even smiles. I wave my hand in greeting and motion for him to come over. He does so obediently, sitting down next to me.

"What did they ask you?" I ask the boy.

"Not much, the female giraffe was very nice," he says, smiling in reminiscence.

I sigh, Yuuta has been fooled by the fake kindness the giraffe showed us. If she really was kind, we wouldn't be here, stuck in this cell now would we?

"They are called Anuins, the giraffe people," I make an offhanded comment.

"Ah-Nu-Eyns," Yuuta repeats awkwardly, tasting how the word feels in his mouth.

"Yep, sounds a little weird but I am sure the word human sounds weird to them too."

Yuuta agrees with me, nodding in thought.

"What do we do now?" he asks, he already seems bored.

"I don't know, I guess we have to play the waiting game." I answer as I move about to get myself comfortable. At least as comfortable I can get against a warm stone wall. I close my eyes as I prepare for some sleep.

When I wake up again, I find Yuuta's head against my arm as he sleeps fitfully. It feels more warm than when I fell asleep, leading me to think that it is a hotter part of the day now, either morning or afternoon. A few minutes later and the door bursts open, awfully convenient that I woke up just now, I muse to myself. I shake Yuuta awake as he looks around blearily, disoriented. I rise to my feet as a group of Anuins walk in.

"Come," they beckon, more of an order than a suggestion.

Obediently, we make our way out of the cell and into the winding sandstone hallways outside. This time, we aren't blindfolded, which makes me wonder why they trust us now. The group leads us through the many sandstone paths as we walk through their underground city. Sometimes we find ourselves in vast rooms and other times, we have to crawl through small openings.

After some time, I can make out the glint of daylight and without my knowledge, my heart beats faster in excitement. The cramped nature of the underground city makes me yearn for the open tracts of desert. Although the temperature is a major drawback, one cannot discount the freedom that an open space gives you.

One of the Anuins smirked at my excitement, "We aren't letting you go free, so stop getting excited," he said in a superior tone.

I frown at his sentence, although I knew that we weren't going to be given our freedom back, his words had burned the small hope that had wormed its way into my heart. The other humans around me looked even more miserable as they heard the sentence, suddenly we found ourselves slowing down unconsciously, we weren't moving as quickly as before.

"Move it," growled an Anuin as he grew annoyed.

Finally we made it out of the cave system and into the burning sunlight. Maybe I had spoken too soon previously. Now, I felt that I would rather have the warm, stuffy caves underground rather than be subject to this heat.

"You think this is hot? What if I told you that this is one of our coldest months? In the hottest months of summer, the sun can even burn your skin. Place a dry leaf outside and it will catch on fire in a few moments," said one of the older looking Anuins.

"Wow," I whispered to myself, I couldn't imagine myself living in that kind of conditions.

"Shouldn't that kind of heat affect even your underground city?" I ask. It was a valid question, the cells weren't located very far underground.

He snorted," You think that was our city? That's where we keep the prisoners, " he says as he snickers malevolently,"they always die first. We have many more layers underneath the one which you have seen, I doubt you guys will ever get to witness them."

I shuddered, thankfully it isn't summer right now otherwise... I would hate to think of what would have happened to me if it was one of the hotter months. Death by being burnt alive was surely one of the worst ways to die.

The group of Anuins escorted us through the desert as we walked in a rough formation. The Anuins did not seem to be on guard, which meant that we wouldn't encounter any danger for now. They made us keep a constant pace and whenever it seemed like someone was about to slow down, they would threaten the person and make him keep pace. Yuuta did not seem too troubled by the speed at which we walked, he seemed more uncomfortable due to the heat.

Occasionally I would catch glimpses of animals darting across the sands but those instances were few and far between. This desert was unwelcoming to life yet life found a way, life survived. I sensed that we had almost reached our destination as the Anuins started to slow down. After we hiked past a particularly tall dune, I could see a set of stone boulders placed erratically across the sands. The sight reminded me of Stonehenge, it looked very similar.

That seemed to be our destination as we once again picked up the pace and walked towards it. As we neared the rocks, the temperature started wildly increasing. The intensity of the suns gaze only increased as we walked closer. Right when I was reaching the point where the heat would be unbearable, the Anuins pulled out a muslin cloth that they threw up in the air. Magically, it unfolded itself into a thin sheet of cloth that covered all of our heads. A layer of cold air descended down upon us from the cloth. I couldn't feel the sunlight that was previously baking me alive, instead all I felt was a comfortable cool.

"We have arrived," spoke a rough sounding Anuin,"these are the Oathstones, one of the holy sites of the Anuin race."

"Each of you will swear a binding oath upon these Oathstones," he continued.

"I will explain how the oath shall go, all you have to do is touch one of the rocks and repeat after me," he said.

"You, go first," he said pointing at one of the humans in our group.