"Aghhh".
David lightly touched his head where he had been bludgeoned and smarted as the pain started to deepen.
The spot had dried slightly, but was still wet enough that his finger was slick with blood.
His eyes opened slowly and he felt his stomach drop. The light from a single torch in the hall outlined the black bars of his cell and numerous others.
I've been thrown in prison. I'm going to be executed. Or maybe I'll just rot here until I die.
OH GOD OH GOD…THIS IS INSANITY, THIS IS….my fault. I shouldn't be here. Kleymon showed me. For god's sake he fucking showed me! This world is a terrible, evil, deranged place. I could have figured things out on Earth, I could have…He manipulated me. Made it sound like I would accidentally kill someone if he didn't train my abilities. No, I had to work my ass off to learn those stupid things. I would have been fine, I could have kept living my life. He's still manipulating me, isn't he? Of course of course of course! Bringing me here. It's all part of his revenge.
"I swear it." He whispered the words.
"I WILL SEAR YOU OUT OF MY FUCKING BRAIN, KLEYMON!"
He willed the flames to engulf his hand…but they did not come.
"YOU WILL SEAR NOTHING CURRENTLY, DAVID. LOOK AT YOUR LEFT HAND."
"What the…" He ran his fingers over the reddish black bracelet around his wrist. The color and the chalky texture were similar to the orb in Kleymon's cave.
"AN ORMER CREATION TO RESTRICT ABILITY USAGE. THEIR CREATIONS ARE MORE COMMON IN THE LAND THAN I EXPECTED."
David attempted to slip a finger under the bracelet to pull it off, but it proved impossible. The accessory was fitted so tightly to his wrist that there was not even a centimeter gap between it and his skin.
Unable to think of an alternative, he smashed the bracelet against the bars of his cell. A shock of pain hit him, but he ignored it. The bracelet was undamaged. He ground his teeth and slammed it against the bars again with all his strength.
His wrist ached more than his head and the chalky red surface of the bracelet was not even scratched.
"Stop that shit. Ain't gonna work." The deep woman's voice came from his left. In the dim lighting he could barely make out what looked like her leg in the cell next to him.
"You tried?"
She snorted. "No, not stupid enough to. Verdugo ain't gonna throw us in the dungeon unless he can keep us here. He ain't stupid either."
Her point was logical. But he was still furious, at himself and Kleymon, so he smashed it against his bars once more before giving up and leaning against the cold rock wall of his cell.
"ASK HER ABOUT VERDUGO." Kleymon's voice crackled with a scorching intensity.
David made no attempt to lower his voice like he usually did. "I'm not listening to you anymore."
"I can tell. Doubt ya ever listen. Prolly why yer here."
He sighed. "I'm not talking to you."
"YOU WOULD BE ROTTING IN THE DIRT IF NOT FOR ME. EACH TIME YOUR UNGRATEFUL HEART BEATS, IT IS BECAUSE OF ME. YOU HUMANS FORGET SO EASILY."
"I FORGET? NO KLEYMON, I NEVER FORGET HOW YOU DESTROYED MY FUCKING LIFE, HOW YOU MANIPULATE ME WITH EVERY WORD YOU SPEAK." His shouted words echoed down the hall.
The woman chuckled. "Usually it takes a few wiqs 'fore people start talkin' to themselves."
"ALWAYS ANOTHER TO BLAME FOR YOUR OWN MISTAKES. PERHAPS SOMEDAY YOU WILL REALIZE THAT IT IS NOT OTHERS OR THE LAND THAT MAKES YOUR LIFE IRREPARABLE. IT IS YOU, DAVID."
He closed his eyes, and took a few shuddering breaths. This was how Kleymon worked, tearing him down to his lowest point so that he could be more easily manipulated.
"So who is this Clay-man you're talking to? That like a rockman?"
"DO NOT SPEAK WITH THIS HUMAN, DAVID."
He smirked to himself. "No, his name is Kleymon and he is a Shadebringer."
"YOU FOOL! SAY NO MORE!"
"Heeheehee." Her laugh was oddly high-pitched compared to her regular voice and it made him smile.
"A shadebringer, huh? How long he been talkin' to ya?"
It felt ridiculous, but it had only been a few days since he had eaten the dragon fruit. "Four days ago. Right after I ate part of him. Isn't it the same for you? The sharing of eachother's memories and all that."
"YOU WILL REGRET THIS, DAVID. WE WILL NOT SPEAK AGAIN."
Nothing would make me happier.
"Eh?" The woman sounded confused. "You sayin' you ate the meat of a Shadebringer and now it speaks to ya?"
It was frigid in the dungeon, but he could feel sweat creeping down his back. "Well…yes. You have a voice in your head too, don't you? From the meat you ate?"
She spoke to him like he was deranged. "Uh, no. The only voice in my head is my own, cause I ain't crazy."
His hands started to tremble. "But…the, the memories…you saw the creature's memories didn't you?
"No. Wouldn't wanna see the memories of a tunk. Those things are vicious."
"How…No, the meat is a lens…it's…" His voice faltered and his mouth became dry as crusted blood.
Am I…crazy? No, no I can't be. This is all real. The things I've gone through are all real. I killed those raskers. I learned how to control flames. No, this is him. All part of his manipulation.
"KLEYMON! WHO ARE YOU? WHY DID YOU DO THIS TO ME?"
No crackling reply.
He screamed. "ANSWER ME KLEYMON! FUCKING ANSWER ME!"
Unintelligible screams erupted through the hall from the other prisoners. In his head, only silence.
"No no no, I'm not crazy. I AM NOT CRAZY!" He slammed the bracelet against the ground. Again and again and again. Fresh blood oozed over his hand. He felt his wrist snap. Broken.
His eyes closed and blissfully, he lost consciousness.
When he awoke, two wooden bowls and a bucket were in his cell. One bowl was filled with murky water, the other a thick gray slop. He felt no thirst or hunger; he felt nothing at all.
"Kleymon, speak to me." Over and over he said the words until his voice became too hoarse to speak them any longer.
The woman tried to talk to him, but he ignored her, and drifted into a fitful sleep of twisting nightmares.
Upon waking, he finally felt the trifecta of pain he had earned over the past day or however long it had been. His head still ached dully, moving his left wrist even slightly assaulted his brain, and his stomach seemed to be collapsing into itself from hunger.
He hadn't been given a spoon, so he brought the bowl up to his mouth with his right hand, and slurped the tasteless gruel until nothing remained. After drinking some of the water, he felt revitalized. The pains were still there, but his mind no longer seemed like it was sinking in an endless bog.
With newfound clarity, he reached a conclusion. Somehow, he had to escape and get the bracelet off of him. Once he did that, he would make a portal. Back to Earth. He was unsure what he'd do when he returned. That seemed unimportant. All that mattered was leaving this horrific world.
To gain knowledge for his escape, he spoke with the woman.
His voice was still a hoarse rasp as he asked her name. She said it was Lor. Once she started talking, she hardly ever stopped. She told him how when she was a child, her father killed a tunk and forced her to eat it. He taught her how to fight with her abilities, but she never used them outside of their training. Instead, she became a cook, and worked for Verdugo, the Count of Dracon, at his castle. On one occasion, the Count even praised her veal stew, saying it was the best he had ever tasted. She brought this up numerous times. It was obviously a point of pride for her. One day, walking from the castle to her home, two thugs tried to rob her. The fight quickly became violent, and using her ability, she shot her teeth through their brains. Town guards nearby heard the brawl and knocked her out before bringing her here. Ability usage, regardless of circumstance, was forbidden in Dracon.
She asked his story and he told her, all of it. It was liberating. By speaking of what he had gone through, the madness all became real beyond any doubts, it proved he was not crazy.
When he said he was from another world, she didn't understand him, and assumed he meant that he was from past the Ash mountains. He did not try to correct her. When he said that he had burned almost an entire forest of Niven, though it was technically Kleymon, she laughed and said that was impossible. She gasped when he described the raskers to her. When he got to the part about meeting Tunk, he asked if she knew him.
She spoke hesitantly, as if it was a topic better left undiscussed. "Yea, most everybody in Dracon does. He's…a strange man."
"How so? Because he's named Tunk and hunts tunks? Is that strange here?"
She laughed before taking a serious tone. "That's part of it. Somethin' else though too. He'll come to town with a young man or woman, say they're from some farm out yonder, and that he's helpin' em get some coin. Next time he comes to town, they're not with him. He says they went back to their farm, couldn't tough it out like they thought, somethin' like that."
David gulped. "You…you don't think he's killing them, do you?"
"Dunno. Never seemed like a man that'd do that, but who's to say?"
Did I sleep in the same room as a serial killer? Fucking fuck.
He threw away the thought and finished his story, explaining the incident with the coiner which had gotten him thrown in the dungeon.
"Prolly sound stupid, but ya made the right choice. That coiner that wanted ya is a freak. All kinda rumors about what he gets up to in his palace. Much better to be in here than with him."
"That's reassuring I guess."
"Yea, ya ain't as stupid or crazy as I thought."
"Thanks, Lor."
"Mhm."
"So, how are we gonna get out of here?"
"Don't have an answer for ya, there. No way to get these bracelets off. Bars are too strong to break. Only time our cells are opened is when they bring in food and take the shit bucket. Two guards, both armed, just hopin' you'll try somethin'."
"What if I distract one when they open your door? Can you take the other?"
"Heehehee! Don't think so, but…why not? Better than rotting here."
They both reached the quiet realization that they would rather rest and prepare themselves for their suicidal plan than continue talking.
David thought of the best way to distract the guard. Banging on the bars, cursing and shouting, things like that probably happened all the time; they were not nearly dramatic enough. As he did his business in the shit bucket, he came up with a disgusting but surefire way to get their attention.
He let himself drift into a state half between waking and sleeping as he waited for them to come.
After an indeterminable amount of time, the echo of boots down the stone dungeon stairs roused him awake.
Two guards, clad in black cloaks, stepped into the dungeon hall.
Immediately, David began to rethink his plan. One guard was about his size, perhaps a bit bigger; the other, however, was the largest human he had ever seen. Perhaps the man wasn't human, for some reason, he and the other guard both wore their hoods so David could not make out their faces in the dim lighting.
The idea of doing what he had planned…to that man. He was going to be ripped apart.
Lor whispered to him and David could hear the fear in her voice, "these ain't the guards."
The hooded pair scanned the cells before walking to David's. They spoke nonchalantly to each other at a level he could easily hear.
The one on the right, a woman, said, "You gonna use your ability?"
"No." The giant man's voice was like a boulder rolling down a hill. "Not unless I have to."
They reached the door to his cell. He put his hand under his thigh to stop it from shaking.
The giant man spoke first. "Interesting flame ya have there on your arm. You look like a fighter."
David's dry voice cracked. "Not…really."
WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE? WHAT DO THEY WANT?
He could see the cloaked woman's lips curve into a grin. "Well, today you are."
The giant man placed his two hairy hands on the bars of the cell. The metal shrieked as he pulled the two apart, creating a gap big enough to stick a head through.
"Give me your wrist. We'll take off that.." He was interrupted by what sounded like a hundred men marching down the stairs.
"Barog…"
"Fuck." He sprinted over to the narrow stair entrance and placed his hand on the stone wall. Still stunned from what was happening, David thought maybe he was hallucinating as the man's hand seemed to absorb the gray stone.
"WE HOLD THEM HERE, JEMEEN!"
The rest of the prisoners began to scream and bang their bowls against their cells.
In the cloaked woman's hands, a glob of dripping green ooze formed and shaped itself into a ball. The tiniest of drops that hit the floor hissed and burned through the stone.
Over the roar of the prisoners and the thundering march down the stairs, David barely heard Lor yell, "Oh shit!"
Her words coincided with the first guard to step off the stairs and into the dungeon hall. He was young, maybe 18 years old, and looked uncomfortable in the heavy, quilted tunic he wore. He held onto his shortsword like it was his only anchor to reality.
Barog brought his stone-covered fist back and cracked it into the boy's temple. His head splattered and he crumpled onto the first step of the stairs.
David vomited in his mouth.
The next guard tripped over the dead boy's body and stumbled into the hallway, dropping his sword.
Jemeen winded back her arm like a baseball pitcher and launched the ball of green ooze with incredible speed. It ripped through the man's stomach, creating a fist-sized hole that his pink intestines began to seep out of. He looked down at the hole before collapsing to the ground.
The prisoners' rabid screams became deafening.
At age 24, David finally realized that hell did exist.
Two more guards vaulted out of the stairwell, avoiding a blow from Barog, and rolled onto their feet. They saw Barog standing beside the stairs and charged towards him, shortswords swung backwards, ready to carve him into a bloody sculpture.
Once within reach, he threw a crushing roundhouse into the right guard's ribs and shattered his spine like it was a twig.
The guard on the left managed to bring his sword down onto Barog's cloaked shoulder but the blade clanged off, leaving the man vulnerable to a head-popping uppercut that flung his whole body to the ceiling.
Five more guards spilled out of the stairway and charged Barog, battering him with blows from their swords.
Jemeen became occupied in her own duel as one of the guards opened his mouth, revealing razor-sharp teeth that were perpendicular to his nose. Like a gattling gun, they fired through the air towards her. She threw herself to the ground and cursed as a few embedded into her shoulder. On the floor still, she somehow lobbed one of her acid globs at the man. It melted through his shin and he fell to the ground shrieking.
Barog had been pushed back from the stairwell and was breathing hard. His cloak was in shreds and blood dripped from gashes that cut past the stone skin enveloping his entire body. Guards with mangled limbs were sprawled on the floor around him like broken toys.
Wincing from the pain in her shoulder, Jemeen stood, another acid glob shaping in her palm.
She shouted over the roar of the prisoners. "YOU STILL WITH ME?"
Barog did not respond. He stared intently at the bloodied stairwell, where deep rumbling steps echoed.
Barely fitting through the stairwell, a giant green-skinned man nearly twice the size of Barog flattened the corpses strewn on the ground as he stepped into the hallway. The man, or creature—David was not sure which a more apt descriptor—was the same as the ones he had seen in the market. His skin was the dark green of a decaying leaf, and he wore a black woven tunic with a huge metal belt. The massive iron hammer he held was so long, the squared face scraped the floor. He glanced at Barog and then faced Jemeen without saying a word.
All David could do was watch as the battle ensued once more.
Jemeen struck first, launching another dense, speeding glob of acid at the green man's chest. He watched it come, and a mere second from hitting him, the glob reversed its path and propelled back towards Jemeen. She ducked and it flew past her into one of the cells.
In the same moment, the green man moved toward Barog with impossible agility and cleaved the giant hammer into his abdomen. The force of the blow slammed Barog into the wall to his right, large chunks of gray stone from his body crumbling into dust. Barely standing, he leaned against the wall with his hand, and like flowing lava, a layer of stone reformed over his body. He lunged from the wall and threw a roundhouse into the green man's ribs. The punch David had just seen break a man's spine caused little but momentary discomfort on the green man's face. A hammer swing from above crashed into Barog's stone head with a sickening crunch, and he dropped face first into the floor.
A piercing scream came from Jemeen as she charged the behemoth with a blood-glazed shortsword she had picked up. The green man pivoted and swatted her away with one hand. She went tumbling backwards 15 feet down the hall.
The green man turned back to Barog. David wanted to close his eyes, so badly he wanted to, yet they would not close, they absorbed every detail as if time had decided the moment of horror should last forever: the downward arc of the hammer, a hint of forlorn in the green man's expression, the splatter of blood and flesh, a frantic twitch in Barog's limbs, and then, stillness.
Yes, stillness. That was all David desired anymore. A reprieve from this world and its horrors.
But existence, on this world and on Earth, does not allow for stillness. Existence is action, minor or monumental, in every single moment. So, it was either existence and action, or stillness and death.
He picked up one of his wooden bowls, aimed carefully, and threw it out of the head-sized hole Barog had bent in his bars. It went about halfway to the green man, then rocketed back through the hole in his cell and struck him in the head. He faltered backwards and grabbed the bars on his left before he fell.
While the green man looked at him quizzically, a glob of acid flew towards his thigh. This time it did not return the way it came, once more it flew towards David's direction and struck the bars of his cell.
The green man began to walk towards Jemeen.
Not again. What can I do?! I have to…
The glob of acid redirected to hit his cell was still somewhat intact, corroding through one of the lower bars. He dropped to the ground like a worm and carefully pressed his bracelet against the glob. In a second, the acid melted through and was about to hit his skin before he ripped the bracelet off his wrist.
The green man was steps away from her.
He focused on his right hand. Orange flames leapt into existence in his palm, wrapping into each other, forming a pommel, and then a blade. With two large diagonal slashes, he carved through the cell bars and the door collapsed to the floor.
Jemeen, still on the ground, held a large pouch in one hand and a glob of acid in the other. It looked as if she was about to put the acid in the pouch. The green man was a hammer swing away from her.
Both looked at him with incredulity as he walked out his cell, the flame blade in his right hand casting sharp crescent shadow puppets on the walls.
He used the moment of surprise to strategize.
If he's facing my direction, any projectile I throw at him is gonna come right back at me. That seems to be how his ability works. The only option I have left is to fight with this sword or another weapon like my spear. Maybe if I could throw something that went behind him…
His train of thought was interrupted by mind-numbing fear as the green man rushed towards him.
He did what seemed like the only sensible thing and ran in the other direction towards the stairwell, careful not to trip on the corpses that had claimed the ground as their new home. After pounding halfway up the stairwell, he stopped and took a breath so deep his lungs croaked. The flames from his sword unraveled like torn DNA, spiraling through the air into his mouth where they depleted every drop of moisture inside.
Like a shot from a horror film, the green man appeared suddenly at the bottom of the stairs, rumbling up each step with frantic speed.
David exhaled the flood of smoldering flames towards him. The green man tossed his hammer down the stairs, and crossed his gigantic arms to protect himself as the fiery deluge poured over him.
The muscles in his arms became candle wax, bones burnt charcoal, yet he still forged forward. David's lungs seized with pain, baked from the inside, and his flame breath dissipated.
The green man stood inches away, looking like the subject of a monstrous experiment. With only a black elbow bone intact, he thrust it upward at David's chin to deliver a killing blow.
Fractions of a second from death, David reached into the depths of his consciousness and found a sliver of the unthinkable. Acceptance. He had done his best, sacrificed himself to save someone. Perhaps it was for nothing, but still, it was nice to think his last act was a selfless one.
HSSSS
A sizzle and then a pop. The green man collapsed onto one knee and his strike was misdirected, grazing David's chest, yet still sending him flying backward. The remnants of a glob of acid melted into the stone steps.
David clutched his chest with both hands, desperately fumbling for a single gasp of oxygen. Just as he managed to inhale a small breath, he saw Jemeen walk behind the kneeling green man, and plunge a sword through his head. She left it there and let him fall to the ground.
Due to how cramped the stairwell was, the light from the single torch at the top provided ample illumination. Now, still fighting for breath, he could see her face much more clearly. Her thick black eyebrows and tightly wound hair in a ponytail reminded him of his 6th grade teacher, Mrs. Reza. The confident lines that outlined her face were uniquely her own though. The terrible loss that fluttered in her eyes like a bird with broken wings, that too was her own.
She stepped closer to him. He couldn't tell if she looked at him with pity or concern. "Can you walk?"
His first instinct was to say yes, which was strange because he wasn't actually sure he could. Besides his struggle to breathe, he felt something had surely broken in his back. Regardless, only an incomprehensible wheeze came out.
"I'm takin' that as a yes." She slipped her uninjured shoulder under his arm and yanked him up. Shocks of furious pain tremorred down his spine.
Slowly, with him leaning half his weight on her, they went up the remaining half flight of stairs until they reached an arched wooden door.
She stopped and looked at him. The fluttering loss in her eyes was no longer as desperate; the bird understood it would never fly again. He thought it disturbing how quickly she had come to terms with her friend's death.
"Not sure what's waitin' for us out there. They sent a lot at us down here, so it could be nothing. Or…well, you get it. Just be prepared."
Before she opened the latch, he croaked out two words and pointed back down the stairs.
"... get…Lor."
"Lor? Was that the woman in the cell next to yours?"
He nodded.
"A few stray tunk teeth hit her. Nicked an artery I think. Guess we both lost somethin' important today. Let's go."
She threw open the door and pulled him outside.
He imagined having a beer with Lor, talking about meaningless things like the recipe for veal soup.
Instead, his meaningless tears mixed in with the misty night air.