Sett woke up on what was probably the tenth day since they were taken, by Croh’s estimates. He had spent the past 8 days working on his Ether circulation, and guiding it to heal his leg. He’d finally managed to complete a route around the obstruction in his body, succeeding in circulating all the Ether in his body through the leg without disturbing the storage pocket.

  His leg still hurt and he couldn’t bend his knee much, but the pain had subsided. The swelling had reduced too, though it still looked more like a tree trunk than a limb. He had examined it on his trips to the latrine, and he would've been amused by the dark purple color of his thigh if it wasn’t for the pain. Using the latrine was an excruciating task, even with Croh accompanying him and helping out, so he limited relieving himself. The room itself bore dark splotches of blood from Sett’s surgery, though it had dried up, and no one else had either noticed or cared enough to call the guards.

  His fingers had healed well, scar tissue covering up the missing skin. The wounds still felt raw, but they didn’t hurt anymore.

  His lessons on Universal Common occupied the time not spent sleeping or circulating his Ether, and he’d picked up enough to understand what the guards were shouting at them. Croh taught him well, and by this point they occasionally had small conversations in broken Common to practice. Sett was grateful for the company and the distraction from his thoughts. His tutor had tried to strike up conversations with the guards, but was shouted down and threatened.

  There were four guards within sight of Sett’s position, two on either side of the chamber, near the walls. The chamber was shaped like a long tunnel on either side, and Sett couldn’t see too far down. They rotated every three hours, the old guards disappearing down the tunnel in the opposite direction from where the crowd entered. They were all E grade, evidenced by them flaring their auras everytime they rotated their shift.

  “Next section! Come get your food!” The food soldier, as Sett had taken to calling him, screamed, carrying his three drums.

  Sett winced as he got up without assistance, taking care not to bend his right leg too much. He held onto Croh’s shoulder to steady himself for a moment, and limped towards the distributor. Sett picked up a glass and dunked it into the water that seemed dirtier than the last time, glaring at the guard’s visor. He immediately felt a pressure descend on him, a wordless threat. He lowered his eyes, grabbed his bread and left. A hundred eyes stared at him, but he ignored them and sat down.

  “What did you do, Sett?” Croh sighed as he sat down too.

  “Nothing! I just stared at him! I couldn’t help it. I was angry. I’m still angry but I couldn’t help it when those bastards are so close I could-”

  “Die. They’re so close they could kill you. Don’t mess around with them, you aren’t strong enough. You’ll get your chance, just wait.”

  Sett just nodded and bit down on the rock hard bread. It tasted rancid, and the water was brown and thick with mud, but he endured. Wherever they were taking them, he’d look for his family there.

  Sett spent the next few hours circulating his Ether, focusing on the way it flowed through his body. He guided it where needed, and observed it as he relaxed his control over the simmering rage inside him. He clenched his fists as fury threatened to consume him, but he distracted himself with the activity in his body. His Ether roiled and churned like the ocean in a storm, rattling against the walls of his vessels. He could feel a distinct flavor to the energy, one that resonated with his rising emotion. He figured this was what an affinity felt like, but had nothing to confirm his thoughts.

  He reigned in his emotions before they overrode his rationality. The Ether calmed down, once again flowing through his body like a river. He wanted to experiment with different emotions, and see how his Ether reacted but a shout forced his eyes open.

  “...one … speaks Universal Common, come forward!”

  Sett didn’t understand a few words the new guard shouted, but he figured out the gist. He looked at Croh, a worried expression in both of their eyes. The guard repeated the question, and Croh sighed. He stood up, and Sett immediately grabbed his arm.

  “What are you doing?!”

  “It’ll be fine. They probably need me to translate or something. I promise, I’ll be fine.”

  They both knew that was a lie, but the argument made sense. Sett released his grasp and Croh walked away, disappearing into the darkness of the tunnel.

  Sett waited nervously for what felt like hours. He had no way of calculating how much time had passed, he lacked Croh’s patience to count the seconds. He realised how attached he had gotten to the man, and he panicked at the idea of one more person he cared for dying. Finally, he heard Croh’s voice resound through the chamber like an announcement.

  “We are arriving at the mothership. You will be dropped off at the starship hangar. All merchandise are to move towards the end of the hangar and queue up in front of any of the 100 unguarded doors Sett 26. Be quick or there will be consequences.”

  The nervousness was evident in his friend’s voice. The crowd erupted in muffled whispers, but Sett focused on one part of the message. ‘Sett 26’ was a message spoken directly to him, hoping none of the invaders understood. The crowd would have picked up on it as well, but Croh had thought it was worth the risk. I have to get to the 26th door?

  There were no developments for a while after that, but Croh hadn’t returned. Sett waited nervously, a sentiment shared by the people around him. He cradled his relatively healthy leg, and waited for something to break the nervous waiting.

  His prayer was answered, as the chamber shook violently, throwing bodies around like dolls. The tremors lifted Sett off the ground and he came crashing down. His leg throbbed with excruciating agony, and Sett squirmed on the floor, screaming his lungs out.

  The quake stopped as quickly as it had appeared, and Sett lay there waiting for the pain to subside. By the time he regained his senses and sat up, the blast doors at one end of the tunnel slammed open. Beyond the exit, Sett could vaguely make out a black wall in the distance, similar to the walls of the chamber.

  “Move!” a guard shouted, and kicked someone in the crowd. People scrambled to their feet, their bodies swaying unsteadily from the lack of proper food for so long. The first of the crowd began plodding uneasily towards the exit, and Sett slowly stood up. He limped cautiously, each step sending pain up his leg. As he walked through the ship, he saw many bodies lying across the floor, unable to get up. He wondered for a moment what would happen to him, but it was obvious.

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  He exited the ramp onto a dark metal floor, similar to the one inside the ship he just exited. The hangar, however, was cold and dry compared to the musty, humid warmth of the chamber he was in. The room he was in was gigantic, the ceiling at least a 100 meters above him. The hangar seemed to be shaped like a horizontally aligned octagon, with diagonal ramps connecting the floor and ceiling to the walls. Far above, giant yellow strips of lights illuminated the chamber in the same sickly glow he had gotten used to in the freight ship.

  He looked to his left, and in the far distance he spotted a shimmering, translucent blue curtain of energy. Beyond that, he recognised the vast emptiness of space. To his right was a giant octagonal wall, and he assumed that was where he was supposed to be headed.

  The crowd had the same idea, as they pushed and shoved their way out of the ship. Sett limped slowly toward the wall, taking in his surroundings. As he left the shadow of the vessel he arrived in, the full scale of the hangar he was in dawned on him. The vehicle he had arrived here in was gigantic, bigger than Trent Park, but the hangar he was in could fit at least four of those and still leave space in its cavernous interior. In the distance, he spotted another of the same ship that brought him here, though it seemed empty. He hoped that it was the first ship he saw take off from Mupnal, and its cargo arrived here safely.

  He powered on, most of his co-passengers overtaking him. The limp forced him to move at a snail’s pace, each step earning a wince. His face now wore a permanent scowl, one he imagined would stay with him for a long time.

  The walk to the wall was excruciatingly long. He had been moving for what felt like hours, his energy slowly trickling away. He saw many former residents of Mupnal strewn across the floor, unable to make the long journey. He considered curling up into a ball and joining them, but he had too many people to think of.

  Eventually, he spotted the hundred queues in front of doors he could not see. The lines stretched on for a long distance, but he welcomed the chance to not keep walking. He counted the 26th line and joined the back, a line that was bigger than the rest. He imagined it was Croh’s announcement that caused this, a lot of people seemed to have inferred its meaning.

  The woman in front of him was trembling, possibly out of a mix of both fear and the cold. Her body was emaciated, like most aboard the ship, and her limbs frail. She was hugging herself with all the strength she could muster, her torn, thin clothes unable to keep her warm. Sett expected her to end up like the many bodies strewn across the path they had just walked, but he hoped to be proven wrong. Many in the line in front of him had sat down, hoping to get some rest while they waited. Sett knew he couldn’t, the moment he sat down he may never be able to get up on time.

  Five minutes passed before the line moved, its pace excruciatingly slow. Fatigue had consumed his body a long time ago, half way through his trek to the queues. Now, it threatened to consume his mind and consciousness. He fought the urge to sit down and rest, knowing the consequences if he couldn’t get up, he ignored the pain in his leg and held on. After what felt like a day but was likely just an hour, the line had barely moved a dozen or so metres. Sett swayed in place, ready to collapse. He had stepped over an unconscious body in the line, and he wasn’t ready to join that man. The lady in front of him shivered more violently, but she held on as well.

  Sett’s leg screamed at him, the pain reaching unbearable levels. He wanted to lie down and wait for the guards to end his misery, but he kept the faces of Mitt, Sapp, Bone, Brec, and Croh in his mind and he held on. He assumed the line was most of the way through at this point, scores of unconscious souls lay in his wake. The lady in front of him had collapsed half an hour ago, to be replaced by a man who collapsed a few minutes ago.

  He had long passed the point of unconsciousness, and relied on his unyielding rage to keep him going. Alternating between the faces of his loved ones were the helmed faces of his kidnappers, the scum of the universe who had murdered those Sett held dear. The fury dulled the pain in his leg, and turned his expression into steel.

  An hour or an eternity later, the man in front of him disappeared into a door, leaving Sett next in line. He wondered if this was the 26th door that Croh wanted him to go to, or if he had even interpreted the message correctly. A few minutes later, the door opened and his question was answered as he saw Croh inside.

  He stepped inside a large room that paled in comparison to the hangar he was in, but dwarfed Thane’s smithy back home. In front of him was a table with nothing on it, and a creature that was armored similar to the guards outside but had no helmet, giving Sett a clear view of its face. Behind him stood Croh looking more haggard than Sett had ever seen the man. His eyes were sunken and heavy dark bags hung beneath them. His glasses were skewed and he swayed in place, barely able to stand up straight. Sett imagined he had been here the entire time he had been waiting in line, perhaps longer.

  To the left, a large pile of dull gray clothes filled a corner of the room, presumably what he’d be wearing from now on. On the other side of a room, he saw a furnace and a long, thin rod sticking out of it. On the far end of the room, behind Croh, was a door he presumed he’d be going through.

  “Come forward.”

  The creature in front of him made a high pitched sound as it spoke in Universal Common, a voice like nails on a chalkboard. It looked humanoid, but its skin was a pale pink without a speck of hair, glistening with wetness. It had two mounds with thin holes for ears, and two round slits for a nose. Its nose dripped a pale liquid down to its bulbous lips.

  Sett obliged, limping forward to the table. It said another word which Sett didn’t understand but Croh chimed in weakly, “he wants you to strip.” The man’s voice was barely audible.

  Sett removed his shirt and placed it on the table, slowly unbuckling his loose fitting pants. They fell to the floor, exposing the putrid wound on his thigh.

  “What is this?!”

  The creature walked up to Sett and smacked his injured leg. He screamed in pain, dropping to the ground squirming. He writhed and clutched his leg, the agony preventing him from hearing the words Croh was speaking to the guard. As the pain calmed down, he felt a hand on his shoulder jerk him upwards. He stumbled as he balanced himself, but didn’t fall again. A moment later, the hand grabbed the back of his head and slammed it onto the table.

  He was bent over across the table, his legs threatening to collapse. He felt the guard rip his underwear in two, and shove a hand into his rectum. Just as he expected, the cavity was searched. The pain of the violating probe dulled in comparison to the pain in his leg. A moment later, the creature was done.

  Before Sett could get up, both his hands were grabbed and stretched forward across the table. He felt a sudden and intense pain in the nape of his neck, a pressure pushing down on him. He heard his skin sizzle, and felt his flesh melt. Sett’s whole body shook and he screamed, his fists clenching so hard he drew blood. He felt foreign tendrils of Ether invade his skin and embed into his neck, the infringement amplifying the pain tenfold. His own Ether attempted to resist but the murky energy burned itself onto Sett’s very being. The branding iron was pulled out after a minute of mind-numbing agony, leaving Sett heaving for breath. His legs had given way the moment the brand touched his skin, but the creature held his head in place.

  When he finally thought the ordeal over, he heard the rattling of a chain approaching, and he felt a similar searing pain on his wrists. Heated metal wrapped around his forearms, burning through his skin. He screamed again, quaking violently as steel embedded itself into his wrists. The only silver lining was the lack of Ether being forced into him, a lesser pain compared to his branding.

  He wasn’t given a minute to compose himself, as he was yanked by his shoulder upright. His legs collapsed and he almost fell, but Croh caught him and held him till he managed to find his own balance. He opened his eyes to find thick steel cuffs cooling on his wrists, and a long metal chain, about 10 metres long, connecting the two. His hands trembled from the ordeal, and the chains clanged in response.

  A pile of clothes was thrust into his hand as the creature shouted,

  “Get out and go to the …. Now leave!”

  He glanced at Croh who explained wearily, “Go to the medical bay once you leave. I’ll come find you later if I can.”

  The door at the other end of the room opened and Sett was thrown out before he could wear his new clothes. He lay on the floor naked, collecting himself.