With hundreds of corpses laying in the hole, thousands of silver lines entangled altogether blinded the kid. He had to close his eyes back.
With the sudden disappearance of Keith in the Explanation, Show followed him outside.
'Boy. We have a problem.'
"I can't see a thing, it's too bright!"
'We have two problems then.'
The man standing a few meters in front of them was Ned. The man had been condemned right after the calamity befalling on the great city. Ever since he had been jailed in the smallest cage until he could be judged by the court's administrative unit.
Thankfully the man couldn't see farther than his nose either. He moved his sword around, to know where his feet would land if he chose to move around.
"Prisoner! Stay alert! We're on our way finding a new rope to pull you back!" The captain said from above.
'Kid, the guy with us in the hole, that's Ned! Ned with a sword.' Show said. He hadn't lost his habit to tell the kid what unfolded in front of him. But he only managed to lock the kid on the spot, he was terrified.
'Bloody hell not now! What am I supposed to do? He's going to do 'that' again! Mister Show you must protect me, you promised!' He said, holding his head as if it was about to explode.
'Well, you fighting against him was optional. I'll take care of this part, you, go avenge yourself!' Show said, unwilling to wait a second more.
But Keith doubted. 'Revenge? That's your thing. I surely want him to suffer like me and my mother did, but hadn't he had enough with the curse?'
'Depends? Do you feel plain? Do you think he had enough? Your childhood rotted away because of him! Your feelings haven't changed ever since, I know it. You're not always in the explanation, but I am, and I've seen plenty of weird shaped objects in it. Let's go and avenge you.' Show said, spreading his body like a bursting geyser.
His many hands crushed every bones they laid on as he reached Ned in no time. He moved the man away from the light beneath the hole and stuck him on the ground near Keith.
The butchers above did not even get the chance to hear the prisoner scream. Just this cracking nonsense, nothing like they had heard before, even during their work.
Ned's head was soaking in a tar like, viscous puddle. He blinked and felt a cold pressure on his throat. Same as on his limbs, but this one held his larynx and stuck his vocals cords, making it impossible to utter a sound. It took him several seconds to notice he had been stripped. Only when he felt the crawling insects climbing on his sensitive parts did he really understood how bad the situation was.
He was stuck underground in a monster's lair. And being attacked by it. His surrounding being pitch black, it was less horrible than he could imagine, but thanks to the strong odour sticking to his hair, the tension was still high.
He tried to move his wrist, but the pressure suddenly increased, mashing it between Show's hand and stacked bodies. On both side of his body were two havocking masses of body parts, the one above him being an entity while the other, he hoped, constituted his future grave.
Keith approached Ned. Show gave him a hand as a guide. He stayed near the man who hurt him in many ways, he contemplated in silence. He was glad to hear him suffer again. He wished to accentuate his suffering. He walked on the man's body, near an articulation, he knew that with a bit of pressure, it'd hurt more, so he took his time to balance his weight. He then spoke.
"Long time no see, Ned."
The man's eyes were wide open, yet he couldn't recall who's voice was it. The memory was too far. He tried to scream but in vain.
Keith kicked Ned's ribs. Again and again, harder and harder. How fun! He took the heavy sword Show gave him and after he managed to lift it above his head, he sunk the sword in the man's forearm. He then took advantage of Show's grip to turn the sword a quarter right.
The butchers heard the ruckus below but the captain hadn't come back yet.
Keith decided to take action against what had marked him the most. He used the blade, near the handle to sever his aggressor's genitalia. He decided to cover the wound with anything that came to hand, starting with his puke. He asked Show for help and next instant a torrent of tar like liquid exited his stomach. The pain slightly burnt Keith's lips, but for Ned it was worse, it increased by leaps and bounds.
The kid's gastric acid had to disintegrate a lot for the past days. It evolved into something able to reduce to ashes hundreds of corpses, later reinvigorating Mister Show and never exiting the kid's body.
The kid asked himself a few times if it was normal to defecate only for small plates. But he knew Show was the answer to most of his questions. Keith spoke.
"Let go of his throat, I want to hear what he has to say."
When he lifted his two hands, respectively the one on his neck and the one in the man's throat, he snatched the small little prothesis Ned needed to speak and eat. With his first respite to breathe, he roared in distress. Nothing exiting his mouth resembled a word.
Show saw a semblance of smoke emanating from Ned. His skin seemed to melt, its surface boiled and the simmering bubbles exploded to generate a black and inconstant smoke.
Keith couldn't hear the weak noises because of the man's plea. This sound pleased the kid. After the long period immersed in silence left him mental scars, he could only appreciate his first conversation.
The butchers were panicked, because they didn't hear screams of fear as for every of their previous participant, instead it was someone suffering. And it lasted for long.
After a moment, the man gave no more sign of life, he hadn't fainted, he had an excessive bleeding and died when his heart failed him. Show dismembered the body and scattered its limbs all over the hole, out of prudence, to avoid reviving another calamity.
Keith was covered in blood and many other things, but it didn't seem to bother him so far. He knew licking his lips just to humidify them could drive him in the bottomless hunger again. He asked. 'What now?'
Show explained what to do next, his plan was about to begin with the unfolding events above their heads.
Five more minutes and they heard a voice from above.
"Anybody here? We've got a rope!"
'Go kid! Now is your time to shine, give them your best shot!' Said Show while the kid filled his lungs with air before shouting.'
"Help! I'm trapped! Let me go back home I'm scarred!" With a few coughs and sobs, he painted the portrait of an innocent child thanks to his high pitched voice.
His act sent shivers down the captain's spine, who instantly thought. 'Fuck me sideways! If the commander learns about those idiot's mess it'll be a catastrophe! A child? Come on I know it's needed to have a stone heart for their job, but a child? I am so screwed.'
The butchers shook in their shoes. Never had they descended a kid. They exchanged looks out of confusion and it all ended in shrugs.
"You! Can't we throw a torch down? How the hell did you bet this many times without a show? Give this place some more light at once!" Ordered the captain, pointing at a man in its mid thirties with an apron. The man bowed before replying.
"My apologies sir, it's a taboo. Death's breath amplifies fire, if we do it, this house and twenty more around us will be erased from Varanasi's map. That's the reason why we have torches on bearing walls and skylight at the center of the room.
The captain threw his rope at the bottom of the hole, and asked the men to tie themselves with it, if they were able to descend people so were they able to pull them back up.
"I found the rope!" Keith said.
The team was ready and they started pulling with the captain coordinating them. "Wait for my word... Heave... Ho!" For five men, it was very easy to raise such a tiny charge, but having no pulley to ease the effort, it ended up being a not-so-simple feat.
Once brought up, the kid was covered in a thick layer of blood. He reeked putrefaction and one of the butchers splashed him with the water they used to clean their rusty tools. They scrubbed him with the cleanest spot of their aprons to reveal a poor kid. They moved the sword he brought back from the depths and took a good look at him.
He barely reached their belly buttons. He had greasy glued black hair brushed backwards and something most had never seen, jade green eyes.