In Flanders fields

warm welcome, part II

It was weird to say the truth. Strange. It was like one of those old movies where the rick white kid would go to the poor crime ridden neighborhood for the first time, with the slow-motion and all. They stared and whispered, and that would be fine if it didn't eerily reassemble the stare a predator would have for it's prey, or the way a child would look at their new toys when they wanted to play with them yet weren't allowed to.

I thought it would be overpopulated,what with there being a quarter of the world population, but that is not the case, in fact it looked positively cozy. Not too many people cumbered the hallways and the courtyards were comfortably filled, leaving enough space to move around freely.

However, the weirdest thing was not their attitude or the way they glared or their scars and tattoos, nor was it the sheer quantity of exposed skin that caused our confusion, we have that on Mars too, but the language they were whispering in. It was like nothing I had ever heard, in presence or in rumor, and composed of very short sentences made mostly out of consonants.

It was spoken fluently by all, and understood by all, although there seemed to be many dialects, for some had longer sentences and more vowels, and some had none, the transition between two consonants made fluid thanks to a a tiny 'uh' or 'eh' sound.

How strange.

I expected to de able to see more clearly the specters leading us, but the lighting was weak and they stuck to the shadows while walking. It's starting to get really annoying.

We were led into a building, and through a maze of hallways. My relatively lengthy experience in ships was the only thing stopping me from being sick at all these twists and turns. This continued for a fee minutes, somehow never going in the same corridor twice, before arriving before a giant door, taller by half than regular doors and wider by a quarter, obviously reinforces with steel and triple thickness. It was a bunker, or at least as close to one as I ever saw above the ground.

The leader raised his hand, knocked politely, waited patiently for half a second, and kicked. the door. open.

Inside were men and women of various ages, most stern looking in clean and pressed military uniforms or suits, and others in extravagant outfits sporting devil-may-care attitudes. None seemed surprised the door was booted open, currently banging on the walls. Huh.

One of the grizzly old men stepped forward and addressed us.

"Good day, sirs. I am General Martin, but most people call me Gramps for a reason I ignore. I am in charge of this base, and now with General Kim from the opposing force, of the population of Earth. I hope the journey was well?"

I stepped up to respond.

"Yes sir, there were no complications or unexpected problems. I am the leader and commander of our ship, Freeing Eden, and I usually answer to Sir or Cap. My last name is Marshall and it usually creates confusion when used. This is a small part of my crew, Hudson, Moriyama, Jefferson, and Foreman. We were wondering if you could answer some of our questions..."

"Of course! Ask away, we shall answer truthfully!"

"Okay, so, first of all, what's the deal with that language? I mean, everyone speaks it but I've never heard of anything like it..."

"Wow, you like to jump right in don't you... It's a made up language, a mix of everything, english, arabic, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, you name it we mixed it, as well as codes and stuff. It was easier to use that as a language seeing as everyone had to learn it and it was fairer than having a part of the population learn an entirely different language whilst the others laugh and correct them. That is what is spoken here, although most will understand English, they are used to speaking it, for it has been close to a decade that we have foregone the language."