“I think they said something about a circle… or it could have been seaweed.”

“Well which is it blondie?!”

“I don't know!  I don't have the translation guide in front of me and it was made by guys I didn't entirely trust to begin with!”

“Well then what's the use of you?!”

That's the argument Blaine woke up to.  He heard the voices first before he actually groaned and opened his eyes, drawing the attention of the owners of the voices.

“Blaine!”

He blinked a few times, focusing in on Jeff's face in front of him, then turned his head to see Sam there too.  Behind them, and he had to blink to make sure he wasn't seeing things, was Santana as well as the whole flock of missing members of the community.

“What?  Where am I?  We?”  He asked, looking from face to face and recognizing them all, allowing Azimio to help him up with a pull of the hand.

“The Others have us munchkin.”  Santana snapped, still as irritable as ever.  She didn't look any worse for wear despite being missing for two months.

“Explain.”

In turn, each group rattled off their stories, each one with the same pattern of events.  They had reached a certain point in their travels where they lost all control of their horses and bodies, and woke up here - which they had yet to determine the exact coordinates of.  Each one of them had been scanned by odd Other devices, looked up and down, yelled at in the foreign language of the Others, and then put into this odd, white and glowing holding cell.  Apparently every time they got more prisoners, the cell expanded with a life of its own.  Food was somehow teleported into the room as well, and waste matter transported away.  Santana spoke about how she had tried a hunger strike, only to be plucked by the room with Other magic and force fed courtesy of their ability to make her body do as they wanted.  She decided then she wouldn't allow herself to be puppeteered by them again, and ate, making sure everyone else did as well.

“How's Brittany?” was Santana's next question, looking pointedly at Blaine for the answer, eyes rounded with more than just curiosity, but worry too.

“She…”  He looked from Sam, to Karofsky, to members of the other groups, trying to mentally ascertain what they had said.  In the end, he went with honesty since none of them seemed particularly readable. “She needs you Santana.  We need to get you out of here.”

Santana sighed, wringing her hands together in front of her.  “Tell me something I don't know.  If there's a way to get out of here, we haven't found it… at least not yet.  What about the baby?”

“Eugene.  He's good.  Kurt has been taking good care of him.”

Santana nodded, looking a little more relieved to hear that and tilting her head up to let the light glow of the ceiling force tears back into her eyes.  Blaine noticed then that while she still looked healthy and fed, she was clearly exhausted and stressed.  Dark circles below her dried out looking eyes - telltale signs of crying hard and long.  She had bite marks from her top teeth on her lower lip, and her nails were chewed down as far as was possible and then some.  It was like her sadness was a mirror of Brittany's when Blaine had left.  

“They'll be here for you soon Blaine… did you happen to study any Other translation guides in your time with the Warblers too?”

Blaine blinked and looked over to Jeff who explained, “We got that translation guide the year Blaine was in the community along with Trent.”

“Translation guide?”

Jeff nodded, “Nick and I traded a Renegade some creamed corn in a can for a copy of it.  Words they figure they knew from the Other language.  We studied it like crazy… Never figured we might actually need to know it… just got it for the sake of curiosity.”

“So you can speak it?”

Jeff shook his head, “If my interrogation was any indication then no… I definitely can't.  I think they asked about a circle and power and maybe something about candy - but I'm not convinced on that last part.  They have all sorts of weird intonations and the same sound can mean different things depending on the pitch they use to say it.”

Blaine shook his head, “Well it would help to be able to speak what they do…  Why haven't they killed us?”

A chorus of shrugs went up through the room.  So helpful.

“How long was I out?” Blaine asked then, turning to Sam.

“Azimio and I were out for a full day according to them…”  Sam said with a nod towards the community group in there, “... and Jeff woke up about a half day later… and now you… so I'd guess about two days for you.”

Blaine shook his head, setting a hand on his stomach which growled to confirm that length of time passing.  “That's insane…”

“That's insane?  Try spending two fucking months trapped in a glowing room that's probably being watched by those creepy long legged bastards as you squat to pee because there's no possible way you can hold out for a toilet any longer!”  Santana snapped at him.

Blaine cringed, face contorting as he tried to give her a sympathetic look even though he was sure he just looked disgusted.  Granted, she had been trapped in here for a couple months.  Going a little stir-crazy had to be expected.

Blaine was asked if he knew anything more about how relatives and friends were doing in the community by those that had been here for awhile, telling them what they needed to know, and, on occasion, leaving out the fact that their family and friends might have been so depressed that he had seen them in the clinic and treated them for problems arising out of that.

“So… how have you even been sleeping in here…?”  Blaine asked as he looked around the unfurnished room.

“Uncomfortably.”  was Santana's grunt of a reply where she had sat herself down on the floor.

“And to pass the time?”

“We piss one another off.”

“Great…”  Blaine drawled out with a sigh, stepping around in place.  Most people were sitting down, or laying down on the ground now.  Azimio was speaking softly with Karofsky, nodding every now and then, while Jeff tried to get comfortable on the floor, tossing every which way and irritating the people around him.  

“We can't just accept this…”  Sam whispered to Blaine, standing quietly aside him still as they looked over the group.

“What can we do though?  You heard Santana… they've been here two months… they're not stupid people.  If there was a way out you think they'd have found it by now….” Blaine whispered back with a small shrug.

“I am not accepting this as my fate.  I need to get back to my girls.”

Blaine nodded, sighing once more as he thought of Kurt.  God… Kurt was going to be so pissed off.  Blaine should have told him… or asked his permission… or… anything. Why had he been so stupid?

As he thought about how he would explain himself to Kurt, if he was ever given the opportunity, a hum filled his ears and he felt a tingle go up through his core.  In one instant he was still in the white room, and when he blinked, he was in another - darker, filled with what looked like screens but projected three dimensional images instead of flat ones.  He tried to move, but found his limbs useless once again.  He could only look, and try to inwardly talk his heart down from the rapid beating it had taken up inside him.  He knew this was coming, but it didn't make it any less terrifying.  

Blaine had only ever seen Others from afar, Halflings as dead bodies… and now… to know he was going to be interrogated by them was scary to say the least.  These were the creatures that had turned the world upside down, that likely killed his family, that pushed humanity onto the endangered species list.

One of them stepped into his view.  They were all tall, but this one seemed like a giant, and unlike the ones he'd seen before, he was hairy.  Chest exposed with tribal like tattooing only breaking for the dark fur lining his olive toned body.  His face looked like something out of one of those old muscle magazines Blaine used to masterbate to when he was still a young teenager - all chiseled and rectangular and meaty.  Then of course, there were the pointed ears, also rimmed with fur at the top.  This one, this one was one of those shapeshifting ones.  Blaine was sure of it.

The creature in front of Blaine made a series of pitched noises that sounded vaguely like latin opera and made Blaine cringe in place.  It wasn't a pleasant language to listen to, especially when it seemed so angry sounding all the time.  He remembered people joking about how Arabic or German always sounded angry no matter what was being said, but those two language had nothing on the words the Others spoke.

The Other huffed as he got no response out of Blaine and stepped away, another taking his place.  This one wasn't as tall, but was infinitely more frightening.  The skin was pale to the point of being grey, no hair to speak of on the head, and probably none under the dark cloaking it wore.  What was truly scary about it was the way it lacked any discernible pupils and only had whiteness looking towards Blaine which was set against hollowed cheeks and an all too sharp jawline.

Again he was spoken at, and again Blaine couldn't respond.  Did they really expect him to understand what they were saying?

The pale one rattled something off to the hairy one and then went to the counter behind them, grabbing a small, coin shaped and sized bronze object off the counter and then holding it front of Blaine.

“Slaap'ka!”

Blaine's brow furrowed, looking at the coin-thing and then back to the white eyed Other.  What did they want?

“Hurr…”

The coin-thing was set back on the counter then and a couple foreign looking devices were grabbed, one by each of the Others present, who waved them up and down over his body as he mentally chanted ‘Please don't probe me' inside his head.

One of the devices started making a lot of sharp, static noises, making both of the Others there perk up and start speaking to one another fluidly before they scanned him over with it again, eliciting the same response.  

Whatever that thing had picked up on him, couldn't be good.  He knew that much just by watching how excited their reactions were.

They both yelled at him now, and he winced and just let them - because, really, what else could he do?  He was fixed in that position and had no way of being able to communicate with them.  He was trying to figure out what they were saying, but like Jeff had said, they used the same sound at different pitches all over the place.  It was damn near impossible to keep track of.

Then, his body went tingling again, and he heard the hum once more as he found himself whisked back into the white room, body back in his control.

“Well?” Santana perked up, looking at him like it was no big deal that he had just been teleported by magic.  

“I uh….  I have no idea what just happened…”  Blaine said, looking around to make sure he was actually back.

“Of course you don't.”  She sighed and flung her arms up into the air, “None of us do.”

“Did you guys have the same ones?  A shapeshifter and one of those creepy white-eyed ones?”  Blaine asked, looking over to Jeff.

Jeff nodded, but everyone else seemed a little more confused.  Blaine realized he had only ever given them the quick notes on identifying subtypes of Others.  “Shapeshifters take on features of what they can change into… there was a super tall, hairy one… wouldn't be surprised if he changed into a bear or wolf or something…”

A small chorus of ‘oh's came up and then everyone was nodding, talking about the weird tattoos all over that one's body or how that one could have dominated professional wrestling back in the human world.

“What about the white eyed one?”  Santana asked then, breaking the conversations up as everyone looked back to Blaine and Jeff.

“Well… ah…. from what we know they're not really fighters… they have more magic than most Others we think…. A renegade we ran into once describes them as the mad scientists of the Other world.”  Jeff offered.

“Oh good… well then… all we have to worry about is explosions and bear attacks.”  Santana grumbled, arms folding over her chest as she leaned back against the wall with a huff.

“Remember that Other you guys saw the year I was first in the community Santana?  That was a shapeshifter too… only a bird one… You should be afraid of a bear one though… it would be all the power of a bear, but with the mind of an Other… mauling would be easy….”  Blaine murmured, shuddering at the thought.

“Well he hasn't killed me yet so colour me unconcerned.”

That was the end of the discussion, everyone returning to their doing of nothing and Blaine sighing as he sat himself down in the place he had been standing, looking the room over, hoping that miraculously he'd find some kind of hole or crawlspace he already knew wasn't there.  He needed to fix this.

Except that the more he looked around, the more he realized he couldn't figure a way out of this.  All his time on the road with the Warblers hadn't prepared him for being caught by the Others any more than his time in the community had.  How did you fight back against magic when you didn't have any or understand it?  

So Blaine slept, hoping that sleep would give him some inspiration for escape, leaned up against Sam and Sam leaned up against him as they both dozed awkwardly and uncomfortably - just as Santana had warned them.  No dreams surfaced, as least not long enough for him to remember, especially since every so often he'd wake just long enough to remember the unfortunate state of his affairs and reposition himself to try and be more comfortable as he fell back asleep.

Sleep didn't bring inspiration though.  It only brought about muscle aches and a feeling of more exhaustion than he had when he initially tried to doze off.  How had they occupied their time up until now, Blaine wondered, glancing around at the equally drained and soul absent shells of humans around him.  People weren't even talking.  It was like they had given up and accepted their fate - whatever it was.

“We need to do something…”  he uttered, looking over to Sam for affirmation and finding the blonde man dozing against his shoulder, a trail of drool down his cheek and almost at Blaine's jacket.  “... Sam!  Hey!”

“Huh!  Wha?”  Sam snapped his head up and looked around before looking back to Blaine and rubbing his cheek off, “What?”

“We need to do something.  Everyone here has already given up.”

“Maybe because there is no hope man… I mean… have you seen where we're being held?”

Blaine scanned the room over once again.  Plain white room, that glowed incessantly, making it impossible to get a decent sleep without covering up your eyes… Uncomfortable surroundings made it hard to sleep at all.  Nothing to stimulate the mind around, and Blaine was sure there was a small buzz of white noise.

“This whole place is designed to keep us too worn out to fight… always on the edge of sleepiness but never rested..”  Blaine mused quietly back to Sam.

Sam eyes the place over and nodded in agreement, “Yeah… but what good does knowing that do us?  Humans have caged each other in shitholes for centuries before the Others came along when they wanted a psychological advantage. How did people get around it then?”

“Not sure… never took that much history before the Tides happened…”

They both sighed together and nodded in unison, trying to wrack their frazzled brains for an answer.

“You figure the room's organic?”

Sam peered sidelong at Blaine, “You mean like… alive?”

Blaine nodded.  “They said it grows out every time someone new comes in.”

Sam looked it over, as they had again and again, “Hard to tell… the way everything glows makes it hard to see the details in the walls… you have to squint… it could just as easily be them opening up a new section by opening a wall or something…”

Blaine sighed, “You think anyone has tried feeling the edges of the walls yet?”

“They'd have been stupid to not to.”

“Want to feel it with me anyhow?”

“Nothing else on my schedule man.”

They scooted to the closest wall and began feeling around the connection from the wall to the floor, each moving in a separate direction.  Aside from the fact that it stung to look at, what with the bright light in their eyes, it still felt as any wall did connected to the floor.  

“We've tried kicking them down, punching them….”  Santana mumbled as she watched them lazily, “They don't budge.  You're wasting your time.”

“We have time to waste.”  Blaine grunted, eyes looking upward.  “What about the ceiling?”

“It's too high to reach.  It's made for their monstrous height.”

Blaine looked over at Sam, “Hey.  You think you can hold my weight?”

Sam nodded, and the pair came back together, working together to figure out how Sam could lift Blaine up on his shoulders and getting Karofsky and Azimio over as well to help.

Even with Blaine crouching on Sam's shoulders, he could still only just reach the ceiling, but it was enough, and he stretched himself out to feel along the ceiling.  For the most part it felt like any other flat ceiling he'd touched before, but once they reached a corner, his finger was able to push past something foamy feeling, drawing the attention of everyone in the room as they all held their breath.

Then there was a buzz, and a jolt went through Blaine, knocking him clean off Sam's shoulders and onto the floor where he gasped for breath as electrical jabs stabbed him with tiny little knives all throughout his body.  He didn't know pain could be THAT painful.

“Blaine?!  Blaine?!”  Sam's head hovered over his own as Blaine worked on remembering the dynamics of breathing.

“Oh my god that hurt.”  

Above him, Sam breathed in relief, as did the collection of bodies around them, and helped Blaine sit up.  

“I think we either found something electrical - which means the room isn't alive, or they've been watching us and didn't like what we were finding and zapped me.”  Blaine groaned, reaching up to rub his hair and finding it extra poofy courtesy of the electrical shock.  “God… Kurt hates it when my hair gets this terrible…”

His heart ached as he thought about his man and he stopped talking once he caught himself doing it.  If he wanted to get back to Kurt, he had to think past this, move past this.  A little zap - no problem.  Just a bump in the road to freedom.

He hoped.

Not a moment later there was a deep purple glow in front of him and Sam, and the hairy Other was in the center of the room, spitting out something in that terrible language of theirs at Blaine.  Was he giving him a scolding?  Telling him something?  Asking a question?  DId these creatures not realize just how useless it was to talk to humans that didn't understand them at all?

“Something about moving… and something about circles again…” Jeff offered.  Like knowing things about moving circles made the whole exchange less confusing.  

Another purple glow formed beside the Other in the room, and a new Other was there.  A woman, shorter than the Others they had been interrogated by but still taller than even Karofsky, ears pointed, but not as extreme as a pure Other.

“A halfling…”  Jeff breathed out, and then caught his breath in his mouth.  Blaine kept looking the girl over.  White hair, bound in a long braid that fell down to the middle of her back, and dressed in black, metallic armor.  He'd only seen the child halflings… but it was true she didn't look quite enough like all the Others Blaine had seen before.

“Yes.  That's your word for us.”  She spoke in flawless english, looking over the group with clear disappointment.  “Go Bruno.  I'll be fine.”

The hairy Other grunted beside her, but faded out in another shimmer of purple, leaving her here, alone, among so many humans and clearly not worried for her own safety.  It told Blaine she was more dangerous than she looked.

Left by herself, she directed her gaze to Blaine.  “Do not toy with this structure.  It is designed to collapse if broken and kill you all in its wake.”

Blaine wrinkled up his nose at her, pushing himself up to stand despite the ache that still resonated through his body.  “Sounds like something someone would say because they're worried that we found a way out and they're trying to scare us into not pushing further.”

“I have no interest in keeping you.”  She said plainly.  “They do.  That's why they spoke to you first and not me.”

“Why witch?  Why talk to us now then?” Santana spat, coming up aside Blaine.

Blaine noticed then the violet eyes set in the Halfling's face as she looked over to regard Santana with equal disinterest.  “The Ilu asked me to.  The white-eyed one.”

“So… you can speak English… but they they only now asked you talk to us.  Brilliant.  How was it that your race took over the world again witch?”  Santana growled, Blaine having to set a hand on her back to warn her to stay with him.  She seemed dangerously close to rushing the Halfling and Blaine was pretty sure that Santana would find herself outmatched.

The Halfling ignored Santana's spiteful rant and looked back to Blaine.  “What is the source of power you came from?”

Blaine shook his head while Jeff murmured at his other side, “I was right.  They were talking about power!”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“There's a circle of protection we can not enter.  All of you left it and that is why we were able to capture you.  They want to know what the source is.”

Blaine blinked a few times, digging through his mind to try and figure it out and looking over to the rest of the community for help.  All of them shaking their heads, shrugging, or both.  “I don't think we know what you're looking for…”

“Then you're all useless to us and they should have let me kill you.” The Halfling huffed.

Mouths snapped shut and looks were exchanged.  Santana was the one who dared say anything.

“You?  Just you?  You're a Halfing… doesn't that mean you're only half as strong?!”

Blaine and Jeff were the ones who winced as she said it, knowing, if only from the rumours, how wrong she was.  There was a flash beside Blaine then, and a gasp.  Heads turned to look at the wall where the Halfling woman had Santana pinned by her throat with one of the long, silver fingered, hands of the woman.  “Halflings are the reason there is power at all… witch.”

Santana was released then, slumping down to the floor and gasping for her own breath as her hands went to feel her neck.  A couple of the members of the community went to her aid while the Halfling woman spun in place with a flourish and looked the rest of them over.  “You are all on borrowed time.  As soon as they realize how useless you are to them, you'll be dead.  Make your peace now.”

Purple swarmed over the woman, overtaking her, and teleporting her out of sight once again, leaving in her wake, Santana's choked breathes, and a silence that only the dead could appreciate.

“Lift me up again Sam.”  Blaine said finally, looking over at his friend.  “We either get out or die trying because it seems the alternative is just waiting for her to come back.”

Sam nodded, and soon there were several community members feeling around at holes in the ceiling, trying to push into those corners until they were electrocuted off - but each time, they got back up, and went at it again.

They had nothing to lose.