And then, there was him. The Other People didn’t like to talk about him; they liked to pretend he wasn’t there. They taught their children not to believe in him. They convinced themselves that he was simply a myth. But whether or not the simple, self-satisfying minds of the Others accepted his existence was irrelevant. Because here he was. And no matter how hard they thought about not thinking about him, he would never stop going about the business of existing. He called himself Aurgor, though the Other People called him something different. They had many names for him, actually. Some that were silly, some that weren’t. Some that made sense, some that didn’t. But for the purpose of the story we will stick with his most common Other title, a devil. Aurgor was not a devil so far as he knew. From what he understood of the People’s fantastical musings, devils were from a dark, lower place beneath the earth where creatures from outside the bounds of nature were spawned. It was true the Aurgor was from a lower, darker place than what the Other’s were used to, but he certainly wasn’t from beneath the earth. And as far as he understood all known laws of life applied to him, so he certainly was within the normal bounds of nature; therefore, he couldn’t possibly be a devil, right?

Aurgor was, as far as he knew, the only one of his kind in this area. He knew he couldn’t have always been the only one because though Aurgor’s understandings were lowly, he knew the requirements for life and the reproduction thereof so his mind accepted the belief that somewhere else in the world were other Aurgors. He accepted it without any visible evidence beyond his existence, but that was enough for Aurgor. However, as it was in the present, Aurgor was alone. His appearance was one unique to his kind. From a distance he seemed one of the People, but close up one would find Aurgor’s bowed body to be covered in smooth blonde hair, much like the coat of a hound. His face was gaunt and his mouth opened up twice as wide as the Others’ did. His protruded mouth housed a row of sharp teeth in front, four up top and five on the bottom, and ten thick molars in the back. His eyes were large and vibrant green. Atop his head was a shaggy mane of brown hair. His thin hands held six long, spindly fingers. His legs had two joints instead of one and bent in thirds rather than in halves with the lower third bending backwards rather than forwards like the Other’s single joint did. His feet were the only thing that seemed People-y, though he only had four toes and they were webbed. Aurgor liked to imagine that his fifth toes had somehow made it up to his hands and grown up there. This didn’t make very much sense so Aurgor didn’t imagine it very often.

To return to a previous subject, to say Aurgor was alone wasn’t quite correct. There were quite a number of Others here, but he disliked them just as much as they disliked him, albeit for different reasons. The Other People were loud and always moving. They always seemed to be either running towards him or away from him. In either case, they were annoying with their loud movement and Aurgor never stuck around any of them for very long. He wasn’t afraid of them, he just simply didn’t like them. Aurgor lived in what he had always known to be Brookstone. Though the People called it by a different name. He lived in a lower, abandoned place beneath the busy streets, unseen and forgotten by the Other People: an old abandoned railway station, decorated by stone and marble. A beautiful place, even if it was built by Others. It was definitely more pleasing to the eye than the railway stations the Others used currently. This particular station had been abandoned before Aurgor had memory, which isn’t to say he wasn’t alive to see it occupied.

Aurgor’s sense of time was distorted, he only saw the sun every so often and when he did he never had any idea how much time had passed since he saw it last. Aurgor’s understandings of the People’s methods of keeping time was vague. Their logic behind organizing the rising of each moon into three-hundred and sixty-five days was lost to Aurgor but from what he understood he believed he was somewhere between twenty-six and forty-two years old.

Life in the station was a mundane one. He would spend his time gathering mold where he could find it and hunting tunnel-crawlers where he could find them. He would then combine the two with water, cook them into a food, which he called “snraek,” and eat it. He would do this whenever he had enough ingredients for a snraek. Sometimes the time between each snraek was long, sometimes it was very short. It depended on the season. The only time Aurgor did not eat snraek was when he ventured out of the Station, which was about every six or seven snraeks. That too depended on the season. Whenever he did go out he would find the most interesting thing he could and eat it. If he found that it wasn’t edible, he would keep it as a decoration for his station; if he found that it was, well, it was eaten. What was interesting mostly depended on Aurgor’s mood. Sometimes what was interesting was what was the shiniest. Sometimes what was interesting was what smelled the best, or looked the strangest, or felt the softest. He found that some interesting tastes were often more edible while others were usually more decorative, as a result Aurgor’s hunger would also determine what was interesting. He tried his best to go out with the moon; there weren’t as many Others out when the moon shone and the less he had to deal with them and their loud, screaming way of speaking the better.

This is also something to note. Aurgor’s favorite thing to talk to, for there weren’t any other Aurgors to talk to, was his reflection. He found his voice smooth and warm as it echoed off his station’s walls. He would verbally take count of how many tunnel-crawlers he had caught for this snraek or outwardly reflect about his last outing. He found that his reflection was a very good listener, for whenever he looked at it, it was always staring at him attentively.

It was during a particularly good snraek-time that something unimaginable happened to Aurgor. Aurgor actually believed that had it not been for the goodness of the snraek, the event would have probably gone a lot worse. As he was talking to his reflection about a particularly ill-tempered, long tailed tunnel-crawler he had caught his ears picked up the sound of something walking towards his station from the farthest entrance. At first he dismissed it, but then his mind grasped the reality of the sound. Something was in his station! Somehow, and Aurgor couldn’t imagine how, some foreign entity had found its way through the maze of tunnels, collapsed doorways, blocked paths, and crumbled walls into his abode. This did not sit well with Aurgor. In stunned silence Aurgor listened to the thing walk closer and closer to where he was standing. He was sure it was drawn to the light of his snraek-fire. After sixty-seven beats of Aurgor’s heart, an Other walked into the light of Aurgor’s station. At first it stared at the camp in bewilderment, then it saw Aurgor standing just outside of the ring of light. It spoke it’s screaming voice. He had heard this particular cry a thousand times but he was never able to determine a meaning beyond identifying the males from the females. The males and a low voice and the females had a high one. This particular Other was a female and her cry echoed wildly around Aurgor’s station.

Aurgor moaned. Great, now there was this Other scaring away all the tunnel-crawlers with her loud way of speaking. Half-heartedly Aurgor said “Baaahhhhh saku re.” which roughly translates to “Aaaahhhh to you too.” This caused the Other to immediately stop talking. She stared at Aurgor for twenty heartbeats, her face a perfect example of surprise. And then she did something Aurgor didn’t know the People were capable of, she spoke softly. And by softly, we mean at the same level that Aurgor did. In a normal, smooth voice. This, in turn, surprised Aurgor. He looked at her, intently examining her face. Was she some sort of youngling, still developing her voice? Aurgor wasn’t sure the Other People grew that way, but this one seemed tall enough to be full grown so he held the idea loosely. Aurgor responded to it with “May sanechan re tolas eko ci.” (Translated: “I’ve never heard your kind talk like that.”) The Other made a gasping sound followed by a short sound, high and happy. The closest thing Aurgor could compare it to was the joy-sound he made when something delightful happened. Whatever the sound meant, Aurgor felt the tension in his station ease, which was excellent for Aurgor was terribly opposed to tension; this caused Aurgor to make his joy-sound. That one sound was enough to melt away the rest of the tension in the room leaving only curiosity. Why was this Other in his station? How did she get here? Why wasn’t she running like all the others did? After a while the Other made more sounds, they sounded like “Ummm-hehheh” and “Jo.” He looked at her, puzzled. He could never quite figure out their language, everything he knew about them he learned through observation and imagery. She motioned with her small hands, pointing at her chest. “Jo.” It didn’t take Aurgor long to realize that she was pointing at herself saying, “Jo.” It was only logical that she calling herself “Jo,” So Aurgor responded in turn. Perhaps this was how the Other People made greeted each other. “Aurgor,” he said making the same gesture that Jo did. Her eyes went wide and she made that joy-sound again. “Aurgor” she said. The word sounded strange coming from her but she was saying his name well enough. Aurgor grinned and tested her, gesturing with his hands to point at her. “Jo.” He said in his deep, smooth voice. She once again made a joy-sound and made the same gesture saying, “Aurgor.” Aurgor hummed in satisfaction, this Other was catching on quickly.

And that is how Aurgor met Jo.

It wasn’t that Aurgor hated the company, he just wasn’t used to it. Several months after Jo had made her way into his camp, she had become a frequent visitor. In fact, the days that she didn’t come were beginning to seem odd. Aurgor knew that she was content to watch him do what he normally did and he was happy to oblige. And so he made his snraek. He gave up offering any to her after the second try. Her gestures told him she wasn’t interested in it. She mostly kept to herself and made small runes on a flat object divided into several layers. The object fascinated Aurgor. It was much more efficient at keeping notes than his station’s walls, those had to be cleaned ever few days to provide fresh writing areas. Another device that Aurgor thought delightful was her portable flame. She often used it to find her way to his station. She simple would click it and the flame on the end would light, bright and direct. He soon found that the reason for the directness of the light came from shiny material on the back end of the flame, which reflected the light towards the front. This was revolutionary for Aurgor, who’s mind whizzed with ideas of implementation of this fantastic invention. Finding good mold would forever be far easier.

It was after the third month that Jo started to try and speak to Aurgor. He was busy stirring his when she said his name in her strange manner of speaking. He stopped and stared at her for a moment before saying “Jo” and went back to stirring. She persisted, babbling away a statement that began with his name. He sighed, it was really a matter of time he supposed, he would have to try and communicate with her. They had had success with gestures before, so he would try that again. He turned and waited, she eventually caught on to what he was doing because she started slowly. Her sounds sounded like, “Aurgor, hah-oo long havv yoo been da-oon heer.” Aurgor shook his head, he didn’t understand, but before he could teach her something else, she persisted, after a thought. She pointed at Aurgor and said “Aurgor.” Then she ran over to his snraek and said, “stoo.” Then she grabbed a piece of charcoal and started drawing lines in succession, calling off a different name with each line, “won, too, three, fore, five.” Aurgor looked at her for six heartbeats, then understood. She was naming things. Apparently her kind called snraek “stoo,” a strange name in Aurgor’s opinion. And the lines… he wasn’t sure about the lines. He could see there was a group of five of them next to each other, and Jo was… counting. She was counting! Aurgor shook his head, impressed, this Other was rather smart, he had to give her credit. She pointed at Aurgor, then the snraek, then the lines several times. Aurgor shook his head. She shook hers, eyes matching his, then thought a moment. Ten heart beats later she sprang up and grabbed his snraek-stirrer. She pointed at Aurgor, started stirring his snraek, then pointed at the lines.

Aurgor, snraek, counting. Aurgor, snraek, counting. He puzzled over this for a while, long enough that he began to worry if his snraek would burn. Then he had a thought. Was she asking how many times he had made snraek? He hadn’t the slightest idea, he didn’t keep count. He pointed at the snraek, then the lines, then his head and shook it. She understood. Then she simply pointed at Aurgor, then the lines. How many Aurgors? He took the charcoal and drew one line. One Aurgor. Jo looked at him, a crestfallen look on her face. Then she used the charcoal to draw two shapes, which he quickly figured to be the sun and the moon, and drew and arch between them. The passing of a day. Smart. She pointed at the diagram, then the lines, then Aurgor, then gestured to his station. How many days had Aurgor been in his station? He would have to do some explaining of his own first. He cleared a spot on a wall and began to draw. A tree, the sun, a bare tree, the moon, those made a circle. It took Jo a few moments but eventually she said, “a yeer” and drew a circle in the air with her finger. Aurgor did not know what “yeer” meant but she seemed confident enough. He proceeded to draw circles, or “yeers”, on the wall. He knew he could not give an accurate count so he drew thirty. Her mouth fell open after he stepped back and she softly said, “Thirty years.” She shook her head, “wow.” Aurgor hummed and went back to stirring his snraek.

The days that followed were far from normal. Jo kept pointing at things and having Aurgor name them, she was acting like a youngling, all the time writing runes in her little object. Twice he was engaged in a “conversation” with her too long and burnt his snraek. This frustrated Aurgor. His simple life was becoming increasingly less simple and he was powerless to stop it. He did like Jo’s company; he had to admit, though his general feelings towards the Other People remained negative. It was hard to explain. Something about Jo’s innocent curiosity amused Aurgor. She was, as near as Aurgor could describe it, cute. An almost funny, little pet. A pet that could think for itself, learn, and come and go as it willed.

Perhaps not like a pet.

But regardless of Aurgor’s feelings toward this female, his life was changing for the worse. No longer could he explore the caves of his station, no longer could he hunt tunnel-crawlers whenever he felt like, no longer could he talk with his reflection, all because Jo was a presence. The thing he missed most was visiting the outside. Even though each visit was never a pleasant one, he still missed the sunshine and fresh air. He was afraid that if he left, Jo would arrive and find him gone. Not only did he not want her there by herself, there was no telling what she would do unsupervised, but he didn’t want her to be frightened by his absence. So he stayed in his station, trying to convince himself that he was content to wait for her each day. Even on the days she didn’t come. While he waited he would practice saying words he heard Jo use. They felt funny on his tongue. The word “stoo” was particularly funny. There wasn’t any word in his language like it. Other words like “thurty” and “yeers” weren’t strange, simply foreign. He would repeat them idly, feeling them out and listening to how they sounded in his deep voice. He decided that he would like to know more of this language, to help better understand Jo and her kind. Besides, if he could communicate with them, perhaps he could tell them that he meant them no harm when he went outside.

It was on a day that Aurgor was musing over the word “stoo” while making a particularly nice smelling snraek that Jo came in carrying a small cylinder in her hand. She jogged up to him saying his name. He gave his attention to her, his deep eyes examining the object in her hand. She held it up to show it to him saying “look,” and began to disassemble the cylinder. Confused as to why Jo would show him something only to break it, Aurgor watched, humming his concern. Jo heard this and held up a finger and muttered something Aurgor couldn’t understand. She held the top of the cylinder in one hand and with the other tipped the base of the object on its side. A wondrous smelling aroma reached Aurgor’s nostrils. Suddenly much more interested Aurgor took a step forward.
“Look!” Jo said again, “Stoo!”

She held the top of the cylinder out to him, which had become a small, circular bowl, which Aurgor found rather clever. Inside the bowl was, beyond a doubt, a form of snraek! It smelled much better than Aurgor’s and was a much darker color. He looked at her and looked at the snraek. She waved at him and said “go on.” He took this as permission and tasted the substance. What met his tongue was singlehandedly the greatest thing he had ever tasted. As mentioned before, Aurgor had eaten plenty of Other’s food in the past. But nothing he had ever found could ever compare to what he tasted now. The liquid was thick, the flavor was savory, the chunks of meat were large and hearty, and there were not one, but four different kinds of meat within the snraek. There was brown meat, orange meat, green meat, and red meat. Each with their own flavor and texture. The brown was most like the tunnel-crawler meat he cooked, the red was soft and mild, the green meat was very small and circular, but made up for its size with its taste, the orange meat was soft, but not as soft as the red, and almost sweet tasting. Aurgor ate as collectedly as he could manage, his whole body shuddering with the pleasantness of each mouthful. Jo watched his revelry and made a joy sound. Sadly, almost as soon as it began, the small bowl was empty. Aurgor looked down into it, as disappointed as he was delighted. He looked up at Jo and gave a large smile. “He agreksavor may savor.” She smiled back and pointed at the small bowl still in Aurgor’s hand. He gave it back to her and to his amazement and utter delight, the cylinder produced more snraek! She made a joy sound and gave it back to him. His own snraek forgotten, Aurgor spent the next several hours enjoying the Other-snraek with Jo.

And that is how Aurgor and Jo became friends.

In the time that followed Aurgor and Jo eventually worked out a system of learning. Jo would point to an object and Aurgor would tell her its name. Then she would respond by telling him her name for it. The teaching process was painfully slow but they were making more progress than Aurgor would have ever thought possible. Eventually, after many snraek, Jo knew a basic greeting, “vire” (vee-ray: translated “you live”) as well as the names of most things in Aurgor’s station. Aurgor was learning too, he would listen to Jo’s babble and glean off meaning where he could. He learned her greeting, “helloh,” as well as the names of his station, snraek and its ingredients, as well as The Other’s name for Aurgor. “Dehvil.” He went over that word for several days and came to the conclusion that he liked his name for himself better. He also learned, after an inquiry, that the way most Other’s spoke, loud and shrill, was called “skreeming,” and the way Jo spoke was called, “speeking.” Though Aurgor knew he had more to teach Jo than the other way around, he couldn’t help but want to know as much about her as possible. He wanted to be able to speak her language and know her culture. After all, her kind vastly outnumbered his, it only made sense for him to adapt to the world around him. He couldn’t stay secluded forever; he knew that now. So Aurgor shifted the interest to Jo, showing her he was more eager to learn about her than she was about him. Impressive as always, she quickly caught on the idea and obliged.

Five snraeks later she came back with small posters. He studied these and found that they were covered with simple representations of The Other People and their most common artifacts as well as the Other’s runes. Some posters were covered exclusively with runes. Jo sat down in front of Aurgor holding out a drawing of a male and female Other. She pointed at the female and said “wut is this,” their phrase of identification.
“Jo,” Aurgor answered.
Jo shook her head and said, “Woman.”

Aurgor nodded. Of course. The female in the drawing was named Woman.

Jo smiled and pointed at the male, “wut is this?”

Aurgor had never met a male formally so he had no idea what the males named themselves. He shook his head.

“Man,” Jo said. Pointing at Woman again she said, “Woman.” She slowly alternated between the two saying “Man, Woman, Man, Woman.”

Aurgor nodded, pointed at Woman and said “Woman,” pointed at Man and said, “Man,” then finally pointed at Jo and said, “Jo.”

Jo gave him a look, shrugged, then nodded.

Satisfied that Aurgor grasped the concept of who Woman and Man were Jo moved on to a poster covered in twenty-six different runes. She pointed at it, running her finger underneath each rune, and said “alffabet.”
So that’s what their language was called. Alffabet.

Aurgor nodded and leaned forward, eager to start learning about the Other’s method of communication.
Jo smiled and pointed at the first rune, shaped like a bottomless triangle pointed skywards, a horizontal line through the middle, and said, “Ay. Ahh.” She motioned to Aurgor. He repeated the two sounds. They did this five times with each rune, Aurgor’s mind soaking up the knowledge like a sponge.

“Bee, buh. Kay, kuh. Jay, juh. Arr, rrr. Zee, zzz.”

When Jo had finished the last rune, the zig-zagged one, she motioned to the first one again and said “wuts this?” Aurgor told her. And then told her the next one, and the next one, and the next one. Twenty-six questions Aurgor answered, each one making Jo’s eyes get wider and wider. Had she not expected this level of understanding from Aurgor? Aurgor smiled, if she only knew.

Then she wrote down six runes in succession. “A-ee, ahh; Yoo, uhh; Arr, rrr; Gee, guh, Ohh, Aah; and another Arr, rrr.

“Wuts this?”

She was pointing at the six runes as if they were all one unit. A word. Much like Aurgor’s runes combined to make words. Of course! Their language was phonetic!

He considered, but the double named runes confused him. He had never heard Jo use any of these compound names in her speech. However, he had heard her use the two different names for each rune separately. So, brow furrowed in concentration, he pieced together the word in as many sound combinations he could, mentally logging away the combinations that sounded familiar.

Ay-yoor-gahr
Ah-uhr-gore

Auhr-gar

Auhr-gohr

Aurgor

His name. The word was his name. This is what his name looked like in the Other’s language. Aurgor stared. He looked at Jo. He pointed at the six runes on the material and said, “Aurgor.”

Delighted Jo clapped her hands, making a joy sound. She then wrote down another word. Two runes this time.
Juh-ah

Juh-oh

Joh

Jo?

He pointed at it and asked, “Jo?”

She nodded, “Jo.”