Promised to the Alien King

10

“He tried running away with a gun. I heard and saw him, so I went to stop him, and he pointed the gun at me, threatening to shoot me. I wasn’t paying good attention, so I thought it was the regular gun with gum bullets, but then he told me it’s real. I had both of my guns left at the board, but I luckily had this small one hidden in my pocket. So, I aimed it at him, making him drop lower his hands so I could kick the gun from them.” I said, speaking quickly. I was suddenly very scared, and I felt my body starting to tremble slightly. I noticed she was looking at the gun, making me remember that I wasn’t supposed to have it.

“Where did you get that gun?” she asked me. My breathing got harder, but I didn’t look away from her face.

“Oh, I found it earlier.” I said, trying to reveal as little information as possible. She nodded.

“Yes, the captain was trying them out this morning, checking if they were all in order. Must’ve missed one. Feel free to keep it, Watson, we have more than enough, and it might serve you well again.” she told me, and a stone fell from my heart.

“Thank you, instructor Mel.” I said, and she nodded. She then proceeded to turn towards the guy.

“You, however, cadet Johnson, will be disqualified!” she said sternly.

“Bullcrap!” he said as he attempted to throw a punch at her. But he forgot that she was an experienced fighter, and he was suddenly on the ground with her holding his arm behind him, threating to brake it.

“Congratulations, you are the first student to get disqualified! Watson, take my position, I need to contact the captain.” she said, turning towards me. I was still shaking, but I tried not to let her notice as I took her place at holding the guy. Now, I wasn’t especially strong, but she put him in a position he had no way of escaping. He tried to break free immediately, but all it took to stop his rebellion was a slight push of his arm.

She was speaking to her com. device in the secret language, and I managed to recognise the word gun- bum, and attack- napad. After some sentences I didn’t understand, they ended their conversation with ‘Seon on’, meaning goodbye. 

“Thank you for your help, Watson, I will certainly remember it. Feel free to go back now, I’ll take over from here.” she said with a smile.

“Always happy to assist, Instructor Mel.” I said. I was trembling less now that the threat was completely gone. I stood up and returned to Laine, who gave me a hug.

“I thought he was going to kill you! Are you insane?” she said angrily.

“Oh, no, I’m not insane. I’m Sane. Sane Watson.”

After laughing hysterically for some time, Laine managed to make me calm down.

“That was idiotic!” she said, but she was laughing too.

“Thanks. I’m going to run for half an hour now… This is how I die! I’ll see you in hell, Laine.” I said. I took the two Neuran guns first and gave them to instructor Mel.

“Watson, I need to deal with him now. I know you have permission to access weapons, and I know where you got the little gun from, so just return them yourself.” She told me and smiled at my shocked expression. She knew?

She had her gun pointed at that guy. She apparently got tired of holding him down so she just kept him calm like this.

I was horrified at her knowledge, but I was glad she wasn’t angry. So I searched for the compartment they belonged to. I opened one that I thought was the right one, but it was filled with regular guns, so I closed it. I got the right one on my second try, and I put the guns back in. I really liked them and would gladly keep them, but I played with their trust enough by taking the small one- that they allowed me to keep, luckily.  

It was time for running. The word for ‘runner’ in the secret language is ‘hel’, believe it or not.

I decided to set the timer on my bracelet to thirty minutes and do this without rest. I knew I could do it, even if I was going as slow as a snail- it was just important to move.

I was barely dragging myself forwards as the alarm went off. I instantly plopped to the ground, not caring where I was anymore. My breathing was heavy, and I actually thought I was going to die, but it calmed down eventually. It was 12:46 pm, and I wasn’t hungry yet, so I decided to go take a shower and go through my language notes. I also noticed that there was a library that nobody told me about when I was going to the gym earlier that day. They probably didn’t expect any of us to go to the library. I was sure that there were books about this language somewhere there.

Lanie caught up to me in the middle of my run to tell me that she’s going to study with a ‘friend’. She winked when she said friend.

I managed to walk to the dorms without collapsing, and I immediately went for the showers.

After I felt refreshed again, I put on my uniform, relocating the little gun. I didn’t know where I could ask for a writing tablet, so I decided to just go to library already and deal with that later- it was unimportant now.

I saw the door leading to it in the common building, close to the other offices. I passed the classroom I had language and tech in, expecting to see the library at any moment- and I did. It was a door like all others, except that instead of a number, it had ‘library’ written on it. I swiped my bracelet, and the small screen read ‘checking access’. After a minute, I was sure that it wasn’t going to open. But suddenly, it said ‘access granted’, and the door opened, revealing a very, very old looking library. There were actual paper books instead of digital ones- this whole thing was worth millions! It wasn’t a very big library, to be honest- it was like quarter of the language and tech classroom- relatively small for a library. But it was incredible, anyways. There was an old wooden work table in a corner, and a half-burned candle! I never saw an actual candle, but I read about them! My eyes were wide at the majestic room I was currently in.

I walked towards the table, touching the candle with my fingers- I recognized the texture of wax, although it was rarely used these days. There was an electric lighter next to it. But since it was still day, I had no need for a candle. So I decided to look around. I approached the shelf closest to me, only to see that it was written in the secret language- they had books this old written in it? What the heck? Upon further inspection, I realised that all of the books on this shelf were in that language. I picked one at random, just to see what it was about.

It was called ‘Nefur agon’, and I had no idea what that meant, but ‘nef’ meant night, so this could mean darkness or something of that sort. I opened the first page, and it was a short description of the book. I understood a few words, such as fantasy, sword and fire. This was a work of fiction. I flipped the book around to look at the back cover. On the very bottom, there stood the word ‘langs’, which meant language. It looked like this: ‘Langs: Neuran’. I recognized the word ‘Neuran’ from the gun compartment. I wonder why they never told us the meaning, or that this secret language was apparently called ‘neuran’. That was probably something related to their organization, maybe their old name or an acronym.

“Neuran…” I whispered to myself as I put the book back. I grabbed a few more from the same shelf, and concluded that they were all works of fiction.

I went on to the second shelf. There were three in total. Again, I grabbed a random book- it was titled ‘English- Neuran / Neuran-English dictionary’. That was understandable. And it was something useful, as well. All of these books had an old, brown cover so they looked the same. I decided to check some more, so I can bring many to the table. But they were all the same. I made sure to check books from every edge of the shelf, but they were all this same dictionary.

There was only one shelf left, and this one was smaller than the other two- it had about twenty books on it. I took the first in line- it was called ‘Neuran technology’, And once I opened it, I realised that it wasn’t actually a book- it was a tablet with a cover that looked like a book. I rolled my eyes- sweet disguise. It made it fit in with the rest. The rest of the ‘books’ were the same, so I grabbed the dictionary and the tablet-book and went to the desk. The chair was an old-looking wood-and-leather one, and it was quite comfortable. I had no need to write anything down, since it was all in these books- and I could borrow them, since it was the library, after all…

I chased away the impure thoughts of theft and opened the dictionary. I decided to take one of the fiction works and read it with the help of the dictionary- it would probably help me a lot.

I took the book that I grabbed first before, ‘Nefur agon’, and I opened the huge dictionary. It took me a few minutes to find the word nefur. It meant darkness, and agon meant falls, and fall was ago. It seemed like they instead of ‘s’ added ‘n’, and I checked some other random words to test my theory- I was right!

It took me five minutes only to get the title- this was going really slowly. I decided to check the Neuran tech tablet now- maybe it had a built-in dictionary.  

I browsed around different sections- there was advanced technology, medium technology and simple technology, and all of them had some sub-sections. But at the bottom of the section menu, there was the section called dictionary. I was suddenly so happy that I didn’t have to browse for years through the big, old book. I tapped on the section and a search bar opened up, and next it you had an option to just browse through all the neuran words. I tried typing nefur, and the same definition from the book popped up. This seemed to be the digital version of the book, which was great! There was an options tab on the same page too, so I opened it to see what it was about. There was an option to change size and something that really made my life complete- transfer to ID bracelet. I was never so happy in my life- from a giant book, to a giant tablet, and finally onto a small bracelet. I clicked the button, and it asked for my ID number. I tapped my bracelet, since I saw it written somewhere there. It was an eight-digit number, and I wrote it onto the tablet screen. It said ‘transferring’ on both my bracelet screen and the tablet screen, and after a few seconds- ‘transferring successful’. I tapped on my bracelet, and sure enough, there was a dictionary tab there. I tapped it, and the screen was significantly smaller and more difficult to type on than the tablet. But it was good because I wore the bracelet everywhere, and I could use the tablet in here without needing to steal it and hide it all the time.

I closed the bracelet hologram screen and began reading the book.