Chapter 8 — Interrogation at the Threshold

Alex sat against the cold stone wall, feeling the cool weight of the rock pressing into his back, making the old abrasions on his shoulder and wrist ache. Exhaustion shackled his body—a heavy, leaden fatigue that made even breathing an effort. Every inhale brought the scents of the settlement: the heavy stench of livestock, sour mash, and the acrid smoke from the forge, all of which only intensified the spasms in his empty stomach. Arno stood ten paces away, his broad figure casting a long shadow in the light of the sinking sun. The man's posture expressed a patient but stern expectation—not hostility, but a simple readiness for whatever came next. Alex looked up, but Arno was staring at the opening in the wall, where approaching footsteps could already be heard.

Out of the shadow of the opening in the low stone wall stepped not a village elder with a wise gaze, but a local guard—a heavy, humorless man with broad shoulders and a hand resting carelessly on the hilt of a short club hanging at his belt. His face looked as if it had been carved from the same stone as the wall: coarse features and squinted eyes that immediately assessed Alex not as a person, but as an incident requiring resolution. The guard stopped, glanced at the bundle of logs by the wall, and then shifted his gaze to Alex. A short question escaped his throat—rough, abrupt, with an interrogative inflection—addressed to Arno. He nodded toward Alex as if pointing to a bag of trash.

Arno answered evenly, without excuses, in short phrases that sounded like stones rolling. Ilsa followed behind the guard, her wide basket now resting by the wall, and she quietly added something in confirmation. Alex tried to stand—out of politeness, out of fear of appearing even more pathetic—leaning on trembling hands. His legs gave way treacherously, his knees hit the dusty ground, and he sank back down, feeling a hot wave of weakness flood his chest. The world tilted for a moment; Alex's gray eyes clouded over. The desire to show that he was fine, that he was not a burden, shattered against physiology, against hunger, against a sleepless night by the fire, and the transitions between worlds. The guard noted this: his grip on the club loosened slightly, but the alertness in his eyes remained, like a shadow from the low wall.

The guard stepped closer, ignoring Alex as an individual. He crouched down, not touching him yet, and began to examine the clothing. A thick finger poked at the dirty tread marks on the dark blue jacket—tire prints, smeared blood, strange, unnatural abrasions on the fabric. Then the guard's gaze stopped on the narrow puncture from the stiletto just below the ribs: not a fresh wound, but another's mark of attack, left on the clothing as evidence. He uttered a sharp, questioning phrase, turning to Arno and Ilsa, his voice low and demanding explanations. Ilsa nodded, confirming what she had seen in the field.

Alex tried to answer with gestures: palms up, a simulated blow to the side, then a wide movement of the arms as if pushing away an attacker, and a point back toward the forest. The movements were jerky, clumsy—his arms shook from fatigue, his fingers wouldn't obey. The guard frowned, perceiving this fuss as a sign of insanity or lying. The language barrier stood between them like a physical wall: the words of Arno and Ilsa flowed past like water over stones, and Alex could only watch, realizing that his life was currently being decided without his participation. The realization hit sharply: all his knowledge from his past life, memories of anime, and fantasies about heroes who save worlds held no value here. He was completely dependent on the mercy of these three: a plowman, a woman with a basket, and this guard with a club. Alex's gray eyes dimmed, his shoulders slumped even lower.

Ilsa took a step forward, seizing the initiative. Her voice sounded softer but more confident as she spoke to the guard. She pointed her finger at the stiletto hole in Alex's shirt, then made a smooth, mimicking stabbing motion with her hand, as if plunging something invisible. Afterward, she spread her arms to show emptiness and nodded toward Alex's exhausted face—the pale skin, matted chestnut hair, and sunken cheeks. The message was readable even without words: "He was found like this; he didn't attack, he is a victim." The guard looked skeptically at the tire tracks on the jacket—those strange prints that didn't fit into their world—but the authority of field workers who knew the local area outweighed it. He exhaled heavily, his shoulders dropped, and his posture shifted from "threat inspection" to "recording a burden." Alex's status in their eyes was finally cemented: injured, but useless. To them, he was simply an extra burden that needed to be placed far from sight.

Having ensured there was no immediate threat, the guard decided to be cautious. He rose roughly but professionally and felt through the pockets of Alex's jacket, his fingers passing over the worn fabric of the trousers and the frayed shoes. Alex froze, his body tensing, remembering how in the past world such a search ended in violence—screams, blows. But here, the guard was simply looking for weapons. A hand felt a crumpled, faded receipt in the lining—the very one from the old world, with numbers and letters from the purchase of pre-made meals and coffee. The guard pulled it out, unfolded it with coarse fingers, and looked at the incomprehensible symbols with irritated bewilderment, as if at a dried leaf. Then he stuffed it back into the pocket as useless trash. To Alex, this piece of paper was almost nothing—a scrap of the past—but it remained the last physical anchor of that life. Even this anchor explained nothing and was needed by no one here. No weapons were found. The receipt remained with him, emphasizing his helplessness.

The guard made a decision. From his belt, he pulled out a short length of coarse rope, the fibers of which smelled of the livestock yard and earth. Alex tensed, expecting a blow or something worse, his heart hammering in his chest, but the guard simply took his wrists and tied them in front. The knot was secure, not bloody, but firm—the mark of a dependent, a prisoner, or a servant on a leash. Arno looked away, clearly feeling awkward, but he did not interfere, only shifting from foot to foot. Ilsa looked at Alex with a quiet, practical pity: her eyes said "these are the rules," without unnecessary sentimentality. Alex did not resist—he had no strength, and this was the price of admission. The rope bit into the skin of the abrasions on his wrists, but he grit his teeth. The physical restriction of freedom stung, yet the very fact that he was being led inside rather than thrown back into the forest brought a twisted sense of relief. This was better than freezing alone under the open sky.

The wooden bolt in the opening was slid back, and the passage opened wider. The group stepped over the threshold, and a wall of smells crashed over Alex: wood smoke from hearths, roasted meat, livestock manure, and the sour sweat of working people. His stomach cramped, his mouth went dry as a bone, and his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. He walked with his head down, seeing only the feet of those leading him—the guard's heavy boots, Ilsa's bare feet, the dust beneath them mixed with straw and splinters. The settlement turned out to be larger than it seemed from the edge: sturdy houses with steep, sharp roofs, closed shutters, and narrow streets. People stopped and stared—women with baskets, men at workbenches, children hiding behind skirts. The looks were not malicious, but assessing, as if at a stray dog brought in on a chain. Alex felt every gaze on his skin, realizing that here he was not a guest or a hero, but simply a vagabond on a leash. He was inside the perimeter, but the social distance between him and the residents was as vast as an abyss.

The guard led him not to the village elder's house nor to a hearth with food, but to the far outskirts, where a huge pile of uncut wood towered against the stone wall—a woodpile, dirty, covered in bark and moss, which became his anchor point. The guard pointed to it with his club, then to Alex, jerked the knot loose from his wrists, and threw a heavy, blunt splitting maul at his feet. The blade clinked against the stone; the handle was worn and cracked. The gesture was unambiguous: "Your place is here. Chop, and you live. Don't, and you die." The guard turned and left, his heavy footsteps receding through the dust. Arno and Ilsa lingered for a moment—she cast a final look full of that same practical pity, he simply nodded as if saying "hang in there"—and they too departed.

Alex stood there, staring at the axe, his wrists burning from the rope, his fingers barely bending from weakness. His legs finally gave out, and he sat in the dust by the wood, leaning his back against the rough logs. The smell of resin and earth mixed with a hunger that was now not just an emptiness, but something living, gnawing from within. From around the corner of a neighboring shed, a small figure peeked out—a child of about five, with a round face and wide-open eyes. The boy froze, staring at the stranger by the woodpile, then timidly took a few steps forward, holding half of a stale flatbread. He placed it on the ground next to Alex without looking up and immediately darted back, disappearing around the corner with the light patter of bare feet. Alex looked at the piece of bread, at its cracked crust covered in dust. For the first time across three worlds, he didn't think about how to escape or how to survive further. The thought came quietly, almost imperceptibly, like a crack in an old wall: he wanted to stay here. Even if his place was by this woodpile, even if he chopped wood until he had calluses, even if the language remained foreign. The desire came not from triumph, but from humility—a tiny, unexpected spark of humanity at the very bottom. Alex looked into the dust where the maul lay, and something shifted in his chest, sharp and alive, like the first real breath after a long fall.