When Toma woke up, he saw that all the other elves were lying on the floor too. He felt a sudden dizziness. His head was splitting. Not a headache–something deeper. He pushed
himself up and immediately regretted it. The room tilted. His hands were trembling.
Even though he was unable to move his legs, he mustered up
the energy in his knees and stood up. He immediately started to search for Eldiea and the chief.
He searched the whole area and suddenly noticed her lying
on the floor with her bow in one hand, and in the other hand, she was holding an arrow that was hard like a rock.
He woke Eldiea. When she woke up, she immediately started searching for someone or something.
Toma asked her what the matter was. But she kept on ignoring him and kept on looking for something particular. On noticing her strange behaviour, Toma decided to find the chief and ask him what was going on.
Toma, when he saw the chief of elves, he was covered in bruises as if someone had attacked him. He noticed a quite large red bruise on his right arm, as if the enemy had kept on hitting that spot for a long time.
So, Toma woke the chief up. When the chief woke up, he also started behaving the same way as Eldiea, looking for something or someone. Toma asked the chief if he could help him in any way. The chief reacted the same way as Eldiea, ignoring him as if he didn't even exist.
After searching for a while, when the chief found nothing and was hopeless, Eldiea came rushing to the chief with the green cloth and the small wooden box Toma remembered in his blurry memories.
"Chief, I found something horrible!" exclaimed Eldiea,
handing over the objects to the chief.
"What is it? What happened? You look very–" The chief's
eye fell on the wooden box and the cloth, and he stopped
talking.
"The ORE, THE ORE–" Eldiea took a heavy sigh and continued. "THE ORE, THALORYN, HAS BEEN STOLEN."
Saying so, she bust out in tears.
The chief opened the small wooden box and found a small piece of paper in it. The paper was curled into a ball. The chief unfolded the paper and read the text inside it. He looked devastated; then he put the paper away and looked inside the box and found the box empty.
The box was covered in gold on the outside, and inside the box lay a red silk cloth under which something that looked like cotton was placed.
"What's the ore, chief? Who stole it?" Toma asked the chief to know the details about what was going on around him. "The ore is a very important aspect of our lives. We can't afford to lose it. The ore is said to have been given by the creator of this world to the first elf that was born in this world. No one knows its significance. But it is a very integral part of our lives. If we were to lose it, it would be a shame for our ancestors who had been protecting Thaloryn with their lives," the chief answered gloomily.
"Thaloryn? Is it the name of that ore?' Toma asked out of curiosity.
"Yes, indeed." Eldiea answered with a gloomy yet strong voice.
"But I want to ask a question. How come we were all put to sleep? I can still feel the dizziness in my whole body." Toma asked.
"I think they used the sleeping gas when everyone was busy at the banquet. I think that someone must have infiltrated the place, and they had this planned all the time. On top of that, I think that 'that someone' is a hero who all this time was among us, and most probably someone was with him this whole time," the chief put forward his idea.
"I think, Chief, you are right because when I was searching for Thaloryn. I found footprints in the gathering area. There were footprints of two people." Eldiea agreed with the chief's conclusion.
"I don't know, but when I was asleep, my eyes opened for a second, and I saw the chief coming out of the dungeon with that box and the cloth. But I don't know what happened after that." Toma told them what he saw in his blurry memory.
"You saw ME?" The chief's face went pale.
Toma nodded.
"That's impossible. I was asleep the whole time. Just like everyone else."
He looked at his own hands, covered in bruises, still not believing Toma's vivid memory. He carefully observed the bruises. Threads. It looked as if his body was covered in threads.
"I am a hundred percent sure it was you. When I woke up, I saw Eldiea with her bow and arrow and you covered in bruises."
The chief and Eldiea agreed with him, as it was clearly visible that the chief was covered in bruises.
Eldiea, too, remembered that she had a bow and an arrow in
her hand, but she couldn't remember why.
Slowly, everyone in the camp started to wake up on their own, but they didn't know about the tragedy that had just taken place in their lives. Just like those three, on interrogation, they came to know that everyone in the camp also lost their memories of the moment after the banquet.
Out of irresistible curiosity, Toma asked Eldiea, "What's that cloth? The green one."
Eldiea looked straight into Toma's eyes and said, "Nothing, it's just a normal cloth."
The way the box and the cloth were hyped by the two, Toma couldn't think that it was just a normal cloth. But seeing the seriousness of the matter at that time, Toma decided to hold
his laugh and be serious like a mature adult.
Some elves started to get a little suspicious of Toma as all this took place just after he arrived. But keeping in mind the agreement of Toma on his arrival, the majority of elves thought that it was just a coincidence. But still, some of the elves did not agree that Toma was not related to all of this.
A blade touched his throat.
Toma froze.
An elf he didn't recognise stared at him with hollow eyes.
"He arrived yesterday. The ore is gone today. You do the math." Others murmured. Weapons rose.
"Enough–" A voice ripped the air. The chief was standing there with confidence. Confidence that Toma was not the reason for all of that.
The blade didn't move.
The moment everyone in the camp woke up and realised Thaloryn was stolen, all of them started to panic and started thinking about what would now happen in their lives and how they all would survive without it.
There was a hush and rush everywhere. Amidst this confusion, Eldiea was sitting in the corner of the room, lost and lonely. Toma approached her to calm her down. She was
sitting alone not because she was sad. She was sitting alone
because she was angry and she didn't want to show that anger to anyone else.
It was always her habit to be alone whenever she was full of emotions, whether it was happiness or anger. She didn't want to accept the reality because it was harsh. No one else in the camp was as worried as she was about the situation.
"Eldiea, why are you sitting alone? Don't worry! We'll figure out something. I will help you get the ore back. Just trust me. Everything would be fine." Toma tried his best to console her and distract her mind.
"YOU WON'T UNDERSTAND!" Eldiea cried out loud.
"Yes, I know I won't understand. I WON'T UNDERSTAND UNTIL YOU EXPLAIN IT TO ME. So, please, make me understand."
The pleading words of Toma and a sense that someone cared
about her pierced right through Eldiea's heart. She was so overwhelmed with emotions that she started stuttering. "How? How can... I make... you... understand? What I have... been through... how can I put it in words? How? I don't know this feeling. I have never felt it before."
"I understand. I will try my best to understand your suffering. So tell me."
She turned away from him. Her shoulders were shaking–not from crying. From holding it in. Her fist slammed against the wall. Once. Twice. "They died for nothing," she whispered. "And I couldn't even–" Her voice broke. She didn't finish. "Please for once, trust me."
"My parents died protecting that... stupid ore. That rock. Just for it get stolen."
Toma opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. "I don't know... what to say." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I've never been good at this. But I know what it's like to be alone. So... I'm here. If that helps."
Eldiea looked at him for a long moment.
An awkward silence filled the area.
Then she laughed–a wet, broken sound.
"You're terrible at this."
"I know."
"But... thank you."
Wiping off the sorrowful smile from her face, she turned to.her bold self and said, "Well, be ready. Tomorrow, I am gonna be harsh on you. Tomorrow is the first day of your training. And once you are ready, we will look for the ore."
"Aye, aye, boss." Said Toma in an effort to make her smile. A small smile cracked on her face from the depths of sadness. For Toma, this moment felt familiar, like that one moment of a friend in his life who he tried his best to forget.
Eldiea took Toma to the place where he was supposed to sleep that night. Eldiea looked at his messy hair and, with a pretty smile, wished him a good night.
She left.
He lay down in the dark.
The ceiling was unfamiliar.
The air smelled wrong.
He closed his eyes. He didn't sleep well.
The next morning, Toma woke up with a rooster beside his bed. He was surprised to see a rooster with big black eyes and the height of a deer. It had large feathers like a peacock but was a rooster. This made his mind sick, thinking about whether he was dreaming or not.