Chapter 8

"So, this is it huh?"

"Yes, sir Han."

They had once again entered The Gray Lands. This time it was Han and Cloudia, not Han and Meno, who had entered.

Maybe this was for the best, or maybe it wasn't. Han trusted Cloudia, not only because she was Cloud's loyalty but also because she had been a nice girl, from the moment they had met.

She looked different from Cloud, her hair was up in a bun which was tied in a pink ribbon. She was also dressed in a blue shirt instead of a white one and wore a white skirt instead of brown leather pants. What didn't differ though, was her round glasses, which all of the Clouds up to that point had worn.

She looked back at him.

"Is something wrong, sir Han?"

"Not in the slightest!" He exclaimed and turned his gaze toward what they were viewing in the distance.

On the horizon, a giant castle stood, its towers stretching up toward the sky, and casting a long shadow over the gray fields.

Everything in this world was gray, every bit of it. The grass, the mountains, the castle, and the giant tower separate from the castle.

It was like they had walked into a 1950s TV show. Everything was monochrome, well, except for Cloudia whose not-so-colorful outfit stood out like a sour thumb in all that grayness.

She stood out just as much as Han had in The Library of Clouds.

They both knew that their roles were reversed at this moment and Han gave her a strained smile.

"You sure are noticeable..."

"What do you mean, sir Han?"

"Nothing." He said, blushing a little. Which didn't show at all since he too was entirely gray.

They had begun wandering over the gray fields that were this world.

Every breath he took felt a little heavier here, but not wanting to get left behind, he walked at the same pace as she did.

Maybe he breathed that way because the world they were in was something that reminded him of his times in The Gray Rooms, he did not know.

As they crossed the gray fields, they spotted a lone tree in the middle, with four children playing around it.

This shocked Han. Seeing other people in this world was something entirely new to him. At least if he didn't count the figure from the night before, but these were mere children.

All of them looked just like him, gray. Gray clothes, gray hair, gray skin. Even if they were in different shades, they were still gray. Just like he was.

The children were laughing and passing a ball back and forth between one another.

He gave Cloudia a questioning look and she nodded back.

They had concluded that having him talk to the people of this world was the best since he looked just like them.

Their intention was essentially not to scare away the children gathered around the tree.

Han noticed that they were passing it over a branch sticking out of the tree from out of nowhere.

Han was about to step forth and talk to the children when...

"-?!"

"Coming thru!"

From out of nowhere, a girl that looked like she was the same age as Han, sprinted toward the children.

They all turned their heads toward the girl who was flying over the field.

She threw herself at the ball that was still in the air and did a magnificent jump in the air to pass over the branch. This, though, didn't work out all in her favor, as she crashed into another girl way younger than her and they ended up on the ground, half passed out.

"Huh..?"

Han looked as both of the girls lay on the ground. He could only think of the way cartoon characters look when they are dizzy, with birds circulating their head, as a way to describe the scene.

"..."

The ball one of the girls had tried taking in midair had rolled over to him.

The children who hadn't passed out went to check on the two girls who had.

"You okay, Ava, Sayo?" One boy asked as he ran up to them.

Another boy joined him but didn't say anything, just shook them carefully.

The last kid, a boy wearing a beanie hat with a tassel on the top and two hanging down and covering his ears, sighed as he stepped up to them.

"sigh, sorry about them, this is their way of ignoring you so you will go away. sigh."

"Uh, have you slept in a while?" Was the first thing Han asked the boy, who must have been only one or two years younger than himself.

"sigh, yeah, I sleep a lot. sigh."

"Yeah, that was the second thing I thought of asking."

The boy was way shorter than him, but he gave off the vibe when Han knew that he was way older than he looked.

He was wearing a darker short sort of cape that, to Han, looked like it would fall off at any moment.

"sigh, guys, can't we just introduce ourselves now? sigh." Said the tired-looking boy.

The other two helped the girls who had half passed out, up and let them support themselves on them.

There were two young and two older looking. Two girls and two boys, and gathered behind the tired boy.

"sigh, can't help it huh? sigh." Said the tired boy, even more tired than before it seemed.

"sigh, my name is Phil. sigh."

"Phil Sigh, huh?"

"sigh, nope, just Phil, sigh."

"Yeah, I was sarcastic."

Han turned to Cloudia to get support from her, but she just looked back at him, letting him lead the conversation.

Han understood this and turned to Phil once again.

"My name is Han. It's nice to meet you, Phil." He said, trying to give a confident smile but ending up giving a weird grimace instead.

"sigh, already addressing each other by name, are we? sigh." Phil said, looking up at him, with the elder boy's hand on his shoulder.

"What else should I have called you?!" Han exclaimed, a little irritated at the boy's lack of interest.

"sigh, sir, maybe? sigh-"

"Sir?! You are younger than me, Mister!"

But Phil just stared at him with tired eyes, like that of a golden retriever, but sad instead of its usual happy face, it shouldn't be sad, but it was. He looked way gloomier too.

"sigh, my apologies, sigh. this is Ava, Hank, and Finn." He pointed at the children, first the girl who had been the victim of the failed, catching-the-ball stunt, then the youngest looking and the first one to check on her, and last he pointed at the quiet guy that had laid his hand on Phil's shoulder.

They all wore an accessory that made it easy for Han to point out which was which. Ava wore a bunny hat with long ears, Hank wore a beanie with a hassle on top, and Finn wore headphones. Both Ava and Hank wore clothes suited for cold temperatures, must like Han himself, but Finn wore a t-shirt and shorts. The strangest thing about him though, was that he was wearing socks with no shoes and knitted gloves.

Han examined them for a moment before looking at the girl that Phil hadn't introduced yet.

"And she?"

"sigh, no one in particula-"

"Me? I'm thee greatest! The most beeautiful, of them aaall! Sayora! At your service!" The girl hadn't introduced herself yet as she let go from Finn's shoulder and shoved Phil aside, pulling off a bunch of strange poses as she introduced herself before finally, bowing her head down a bit and lifting out her hand like Han was going to take it and she was going to lead him out to the dancefloor or something.

"What the?"

"sigh, I'm sorry for her behavior, she wasn't raised properly it see- ouch!"

The strange girl, whose name was Sayora, had flicked his forehead.

"So, who are you, people?"

"Uh, as I said, I'm Han."

"And the colorful girl?"

"Cloudia is my name," Cloudia said before bowing her head to the group of children.

They all watched in amazement at seeing her, like she was the weirdest but most beautiful creature they had ever seen and Han couldn’t blame them. The first time he had seen colored things it had felt unnatural, like he knew everything was to be gray.

Han looked at Sayora, who was younger than him but probably only by half a year or two. What he immediately noticed about her was her different colored hair, one side was dark gray and the other was light. But what stood out to him wasn’t the school uniform she was wearing but her eyepatch, covering her left eye, or right from his perspective.

He wondered why she had it but since this was their first encounter, he thought it would be weird to ask.

“So, why are you here?” Said the boy known as Hank.

Han stared at him for a second.

Why were they here? And what could he tell them about why they were here for?

“Uh.. we are here to…”

“Meet with The Inheritor.” Cloudia filled in for him, to cover up the story.

“‘Inheritor’? Oh, you must mean The Housemaster!” Said Hank, who must’ve realized who they were talking about.

Han didn’t know why Cloud and Cloudia had called him by a different name but Hank had understood and said.

“Sorry, he isn’t here this day, not until the eye appears and the darkness grows strong.”

“Really..? Hmm..”

Han wondered just who this Housemaster may be and what he was doing.

“He.. is usually out at these t-times…” Murmured the other girl, Ava, shyly behind Hank's back.

“Oh, he is? Well, that just makes me more curious, mind if we go inside that?” He pointed toward the castle behind the five children in front of him.

The children instantly became tense and Cloudia glanced at him so strong that he felt it from behind.

“Wha- oh sorry, I didn’t mean to”

“sigh, why not, come on bro. sigh.” Phil said, tiredly.

“Wha- oh, thanks.”

The others had become tense when he had said those words, and their suspicious glances pained him, but Phil, who must be the so-called “Leader” of the group, didn’t seem to care that much, which calmed the others down.

Cloudia seemed to notice this as she tapped Han’s shoulder and turned him around to whisper in his ear when they were walking to the castle.

“This child, Phil, seems to have a great influence on these children, almost too great.”

Han nodded and turned around as Phil and the gang led them back to their castle.

“So.. what are your children?”

He asked his question, already knowing the answer but asked, either way, to try and light up the mood.

“Same as you, of course!” Hank grinned at him. It wasn’t in a friendly way, or an unfriendly way, he grinned back to help Han light up the mood more.

“All of the children living in the castle are The Gray Children!” He continued.

“The Housemaster brought us here not long ago and has given us a place to live in exchange for practically nothing!” The happy Hank said as he jumped around.

Hank seemed to be the type of guy to always be happy, which Han enjoyed watching for some reason. He was the youngest, probably ten or eleven years old, and compared to Han’s sixteen years of age, he felt kind of old.

Seeing a child as happy as Hank made him feel kind of nostalgic.

“And here we are! The Castle of Motion!” Sayora said, suddenly bursting out her arms and making an overly dramatic pose while standing in front of the castle.

It was a big castle, but plain. A simple design, looking more like a fortress with two great towers than a castle.

He wondered where the word ‘motion’ came from since the castle wasn’t moving, nor anything inside it, it seemed.

He wondered just how many people lived there until they all entered.

One by one, the eyes in the dark corridor observed their return as they hid in the shadows, like bats in a cave.

Han felt unsure and awkward when standing there, but his nervousness surely couldn’t be compared to that of Cloudia who still looked as out of place as a stain on the carpet.

But when he looked her way, she had a respectively straightened back and an inviting smile on her lips that no child could withstand, because soon, they all came out of the shadows, one by one, to greet their friends who had returned.

They all stood out from one another, one with weirdly colored hair, one in a tank top, one with very messy hair, none looked the same.

Han was amazed that all these children were living in this castle and he wondered just how long they had been here.

As the friends of the gray children he had met reunited with them, they threw adorable glances Cloudias way and either threatening or weirded-out glances toward Han, who was just awkwardly standing there.

But to his surprise, they greeted him as well, probably because he looked just like them.

Some of them were the same age as Ava, Hank, or Finn and some were the same age as Phil or Sayora. But none of them was older than himself, making it even more awkward.

Han looked around, was there any room in which information was stored so that he could find some kind of answer to possibly escaping this world?

He whispered this into Cloudia's ear and she nodded toward him before saying.

"There should be a library here somewhere, containing knowledge not even I have accessed, sir Han."

Han nodded and tapped on Phil's shoulder, asking him if he could help.

Phil just shook his shoulders and sighed but Han could sense a tiny glimpse of curiosity in his eyes.

Han looked over his shoulder at the children who were engaging in conversation with each other. But they had stopped talking, and now they all stared at them creepily which gave Han goosebumps.

He quickly followed behind Cloudia and Phil as they traveled up the stairs to the second floor.