Elam and Inge: Unexpected Courage

It was the smell that woke me.

I had been asleep for hours, I think, so it must've been a particularly pungent nightmare. When I opened my eyes I saw that it was still dark out, and there were two small flames on either side of me casting an orange light around the inside of the shack. By their flickering I could see the roof and walls were made of wood and straw, the floor some sort of packed dirt.

I puzzled over this for a moment before reaching up to rub my eyes. The straw stirred around me with my movements, tickling my neck and arms in a most unappealing way.

I took a breath, trying to calm myself down as I always do when I have had a bad dream. But there was something else here, not just the straw that poked at me, but another scent that lingered everywhere all at once: blood.

As my eyes adjusted more to the low light I could make out the shapes of bodies lying on other piles of straw throughout the shack, many more than there should be in a place so small. The smell became stronger as I rose from my pile, and I noticed that only one man was awake in the room. He sat on his knees with his head bowed forward, rocking forward and back every few seconds as if he were praying or crying softly to himself--though why he would do such a thing in the middle of the night was beyond me.

The shack heaved again with another groan from somewhere within its wooden frame, and suddenly its door swung open with a creak so loud it drowned out whatever noise came from outside. A man stumbled through, blood staining his tunic and trousers in dark blotches. He fell face first onto the floor near my pile of straw, whereupon he began snoring in a most undignified fashion.

The man who had been praying stood now and walked over to him while brushing straw off his own clothes and hair. He knelt beside him quietly for several long moments before looking over at me hesitantly. As soon as our eyes met he became agitated and started gesturing wildly at me while spitting out words quickly in what sounded like an angry tone of voice--but why would he be angry?

I stared blankly back at him until he began speaking slower so that I could understand him better; even then his strange language was difficult for me to follow at first, since I had never heard anything like it before in my life before this strange shack in this strange land.

"Who are you?" he asked loudly in broken Aldiarish after noticing that I couldn't understand him right away."What is your name?"

"My name...my name is Elam," I replied slowly while also using Aldiarish rather than Aldish which is what we spoke back home in Aldorath--though how could I have known which one was right? After all this man had used what sounded like two tongues so far! "And you?"

He looked at me curiously for a moment before replying with his own name: Inge. "Do you know where you are?" he asked next."Do you remember how you got here?"

I shook my head slowly at both questions, remembering now only that last night when we arrived things had seemed much different from how they were now: instead of being inside this hut we had been sitting around what looked like a campfire outside with other people--some of whom were now dead...and others who were not where they should be! Suddenly all of what Inge was saying made sense to me now: the images that flashed into my memory made me feel ill: men talking about killing us! They had wanted us dead because we were different than them! They didn't like us! They called us monsters! It wasn't fair! We hadn't done anything wrong to them except be born different! Why would anyone hate us just because we are who we are?! We're people too! Just like them! We're just...just...not all alike...if you know what I mean..."Different"...that's what they called us: "the Different Ones". And thinking about those words brought back more memories from last night: Inge standing up to them all by himself, yelling at them to stop their horrible talk about us before they started causing trouble for everyone else! He stood up for us even though he didn't know any of us except for Elam...and even though we had only just met ourselves last night too...we stood up for each other because we knew deep down that it wasn't fair or right for those men to say those things about us...that we weren't monsters or freaks or animals or whatever else they called us...we're not any of those things...we're people just like them...just different people...like their families who love them no matter what they look like or sound like or act like...the same way they loved their families no matter what they looked like or sounded like or acted like either...because family loves family no matter what...don't they? Don't they?! Didn't their wives tell them when they left this morning that she loved them even though they looked funny? Didn't their children laugh when their fathers tripped over stones on their way out of town today? Didn't their mothers hold hands with them when they went off to hunt together during fall after gathering apples together during summer? How could anyone hate someone who loved them so much? Especially if that person is one of their own family members? ...Oh no...oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh NO!!! ...Oh wait yes yes yes YES!!! Yes yes yes YES!!! That's exactly why!! Because family loves family!! That's how it works!! And if someone doesn't love you then maybe it's because love isn't what drives their family!! Maybe it's something else instead!! Something bad!! Something evil!! Something rotten!! Something wrong!! Something twisted!! Something evil-minded!! Something hateful!! Yes hate-filled!! Yes hateful hatemongering hatemongering hatemongering hatemongering hatemongering hatemongering hatemongering hatemongering hatemongering hatemongering hatemongering HATEMONGERING HATEMONGERING HATEMONGERING HATEMONGERING HATEMONGERING HATEMONGERING HATEMONGERING HATEMONGERING HATEMONGERING HATEMONGERING HATEMONGERING HATEMONGERING HATEMONGERING HATE-MONGERGING!!" He yelled louder and louder until he fell over on top of them all as Inge held him close against his chest shaking from tears streaming down his cheeks.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . ..Until finally there was silence again save for his soft sobbing amid our cries of anguish..and grief..and anger..and fear..and sadness..and rage..and sorrow..and pain.