Souvenirs From Dead Worlds | ✓

Chapter 5

They were moving, Sam had told Kias, because Sam's old room was too small. Kias wasn't quite sure how this plan meshed with Sam's intention to whore Kias out to the people he had lived with, but he’d decided not to bring that up.

First, Sam put all of his belongings into boxes to transport them. Kias wanted to help — felt he should be helping — but after what had happened with the beeping object Kias didn’t think touching Sam’s things was such a good idea. So instead Kias sat awkwardly in the middle of the bed, knees pulled up to his chest and his arms wrapped around them, and worried that Sam would be angry that he hadn't helped. Kias had a lot of worries.

Some of Sam's friends had come to help them carry Sam's belongings, and Kias was relieved to see that the man he'd attacked wasn't among them. He kept waiting to be punished, for Sam to let the man take his revenge, but it kept not happening. Kias was confused, but he didn't dare question it.

To get to their new room they had to go into a very small room with doors that opened all on their own. Once everyone had entered, Sam pressed something on the wall and the doors closed again. Kias felt an odd lurching sensation in his stomach, and when the doors opened again he discovered they were not in the same place they'd entered from.

Kias wondered if this room was like the strange room he had escaped from his world in with Sam. This room seemed to have moved its location in the same way, but it hadn't shaken or caused Kias pain. None of the others seemed to find any of it at all remarkable.

Their new room was, as Sam had told Kias, bigger than the one they'd left, and like the one they’d left it had no windows. The floor was hard and grey but smooth, and the room already appeared to be fully furnished. Not that Kias actually knew what furnishings were considered requirements here.

Kias didn't recognise most of the large boxy things taking up all of the space in one corner of the room. There were counter tops and draws and what Kias now knew to be a basin and a water pump, though, so Kias tentatively guessed the boxy things were for food storage and preservation. He hoped they were, anyway. He liked the idea of having food so close at hand.

There were two beds in this room, and one of the first things Sam did when they entered was to indicate that one of them was for Kias. In truth, Kias hadn't minded sharing a bed with Sam at all. Though being in the same bed as someone with power over him was something that would generally be more frightening than reassuring, Sam had so far provided him with more security than he had harm. Besides, the beds seemed unnecessarily large for just one person. But, Kias supposed, perhaps Sam wanted to be able to allow others to share Kais' bed but not his own.

Kias was glad to be assigned the bed furthest from the door. He liked being as far away as possible from anyone who might enter.

The furniture in this room was similar to that which had been in Sam's old room, and most of it was recognisable. Shelves, drawers, a desk and one of those strange chairs. There was also another of those large sheets of black glass on the wall behind Sam's bed. Kias still couldn't guess what they might be for.

Kias explored the room leading off of their new room and discovered it to be a washroom complete with shower, water pump and basin, toilet and, bizarrely, what appeared to be a bathtub. Kias wasn't sure why anyone would have a bath when they could instead have a shower, but perhaps the novelty wore off.

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Sam wasn't happy with the room. It was dull and ugly and incredibly basic, and it wouldn't grant either one of them any privacy unless they felt like hanging out in the bathroom. Plus it had concrete floors. Sam probably should have checked the room out before he'd agreed to take it and moved his stuff over here, but the move really had been necessary. They needed the space, and Sam really hadn't wanted to share a bed with Kias forever. He knew very little of what had happened to Kias, but what he did know was enough to make certain things uncomfortable.