Chapter 6: Chapter 6 - Idiots and Idiolatry

Theo backed up to give Axen space, looking down at the stones in her hand. Using her injured hands, wincing with each motion, she tapped and flicked, attempting to communicate back to the distant teams.

The pattern broke on one of the sending stones, devolving into frantic buzzing, no message being sent at all. Another fell silent. Only one answered properly, as far as Daniel could tell.

“Splinter three is still responding. Party is intact,” Theo reported, wavers in her voice conquered through gritted teeth. “Splinter two has stopped responding. Splinter one is…”

She held up the chaotic stone, letting its abnormal behavior answer for itself.

“Any information on splinter three’s location?” Axen pressed. “And light a rock, Mayline.”

Theo looked down at the stones, helpless, constrained by the communication method, or perhaps the knowledge of whoever held the stone on the other end. She let silence answer, and Daniel watched her pull a plain stone from her bag and pass it to Mayline.

The golden woman’s fervish prayers had increased again, but she kept her voice low and placed another rune as commanded. Axen took it and threw it, a proper baseball player’s stance and strength in his arm, but limited by the range of motion of his armor.

The rock soared, casting a fleeting light back down the hallway they had just passed through. Daniel watched the bricks light up piece by piece, identical in every way to every other brick they had seen. The glowing rock clattered against the floor, against more bricks, beneath more bricks, next to more bricks. What type of crypt was long hallways, identical bricks, and no dead?

Axen began a slow approach to where the rock had fallen.

”Theo, what does a crypt-type dungeon mean?”

She glanced up from the stones. “It’s a broad categorization, to prepare Crawlers for what they might encounter. Undead, minimal traps concentrated around coffins or burial locations, high risk of scavengers…” she explained, each word thickening the sludge in Daniel’s stomach, the feeling reflected back to him on her face.

Mayline and Theo both started running, the lightbulb going off at once. Daniel staggered after, more afraid to be left alone than an understanding of what the dungeon was, if not a crypt.

“My Lord, get back, it’s a maze,” Mayline cried. Axen’s last step fell and the hallway shuddered.

The movement was almost imperceptible, so much quieter and smoother than the outside fountain had been, like it had been a cruel and intentional mislead. But just the same, a section of the hallway was bisected, the bricks rotating beneath Axen’s feet.

The motion threw him off balance, sending the glowing sword he held skittering down the growing crevice. The hallway was quick to move and he was quick to fall, his hands curled around the edge that was becoming more vertical each passing second.

Mayline reached him first, grabbing at the stone in a futile attempt to stop it. Theo skidded to a halt next to her, hands plunging into the stone without so much as a flinch.

Whatever mechanism moved the hallway screeched in protest, but Theo was losing the battle, her breath labored gasps. She braced her legs against the wall, her back curled as she heaved to fight the rotating hall.

Mayline lunged over the high edge, careful to keep most of her weight on their side, reaching down with her magic arm, but just as their fingers met, the smooth edge was too much and Axen plummeted.

He didn’t fall far, but there was a sick thud when his metal helmet hit the matching bricks in whatever room he ended up in.

”My Lord!” Mayline called. There was no answer.

Daniel dove into the crevice, tucking and rolling in hopes of being spared the same fate as Axen. The hallway snapped shut a second later, Theo’s strength giving way. Mayline’s magic arm was severed and it fell, landing on Axen’s still body.

They were in a bigger room. Daniel couldn’t see the edges of it as he could the hallway, despite the light of Mayline’s arm and Axen’s sword. The sword was a few feet away from the men, and he crawled forward, aching shoulder squealing in protest, to snatch up the blade. He retreated back.

A furious knocking came from the other side of the wall. He couldn’t hear any voices, but he pounded back at it in return, single punches in a rhythm. They hurt his hand, but he hoped Theo got the message.

Success, as much as it could be at that point.

The pounding on the wall relented and Daniel went to investigate Axen.

Blood had trickled out between his helmet and armor, but his chest was moving. Before Daniel could debate the pros and cons of whether the helmet was preventing worse bleeding, Axen moved, sitting up slowly and prying off his helmet.

His blonde hair was matted and red on the back, but there was no sudden gush of red, to which both men seemed relieved.

“Shit,” one said.

”Shit,” the other agreed.

Axen pressed a hand to his temple, then pulled a small canister of ointment from the pack around his waist, fortunately undamaged. He slathered the thick substance on the back of his head, then surveyed his surroundings.

“Garbage investigators giving garbage intel,” Axen muttered, then sighed, quick to shake his head and amend. “No, no, thinking you know something just makes you blind to what it is. This is my fault, my ego.”

His face was pained in more ways than one. “I’m sorry, Daniel. I’ll get you out of here. I’ll get us all out,” he promised, rising to his feet, unsteady. He offered Mayline’s arm to Daniel, who took it.

“Though… what are you doing here?” Axen pressed, clear eyes surrounded by a blend of blood, sweat, and tears.

“You weren’t responding, I thought I could help.”

Axen’s lips pursed and loosened a few times. “Pretty stupid move.”

”It’s feeling that way.”

Axen clapped the other man’s shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “But thank you. Now let’s get out of here.”

Together they cleared the room. It wasn’t as big as Daniel feared, and with the two light sources they checked every corner, revealing brick on brick on brick. There was only one exit, into another dark hallway, and as they confirmed the discovery, Mayline’s arm flickered and faded away.

“Sucks splinter three didn’t fall into this trap too,” Daniel said as they approached their only option. His stomach was churning at the idea of creeping down another of those hallways again.

Axen blinked at Daniel’s word choice, but context-clued his way through. “Maybe they did and moved on.”

Daniel thought of the splinter groups moving behind them, their only light source being torches. He looked down at the sword, horrified to find less than a quarter of the runes remained, more peeling away every second.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Axen saw his face and matched the grimace. “I can make small fires,” he reassured, half-hearted. “But not forever. We’ll need to move fast.”

Before Axen could take a step down the hall, though, Daniel grabbed hold of his shoulder. “If you didn’t know this was going to happen, then you really don’t know what’s down there.”

Axen rounded on him, annoyed, but the emotion was dulled by pain and recent failure. Daniel pointed at the wall they had emerged from. “Theo’s on the other side of that. She stopped the thing from moving long enough for me to get over here. Maybe she can get through the wall, or they can trigger the trap again.”

”If they could, they would be here. That would be the first thing they try…” Axen argued, but his brow sank. “She stopped the wall from moving?”

”Yeah, reached into the bricks.”

Axen pulled his helmet back on and drew his other sword. He checked out Daniel, then gestured at the short blade dangling from the sheath around his waist. He drew it, as requested.

“Start checking the bricks, all of them. Don’t skip any,” he ordered, approaching the wall and leading by example. His glowing sword clinked lamely against the first brick, and he moved on to the next.

Daniel obeyed, staying only a few paces away from Axen since he had no light source of his own and the far corners of the room were cast in shadow.

The men progressed through the room, clinks of sword against stone the only sound competing with the roar of blood in Daniel’s ears. Each swing chipped the blades further, and he didn’t care to think about how he would get it repaired when they got out of there. If they got out of there.

Daniel distracted himself with questions. “What do you think stopped her from reaching into the bricks before? Magic barrier? Cursed bricks? Off her game?”

”Or,” Axen countered, voice straining through pain and an exhaustion in his arms that Daniel too felt. “It wasn’t a brick.”

The answer made Daniel pause and scrutinize the matching bricks. A shiver tickled across his shoulders, a deep part of his psyche rearing up in protest, like he was too close to an insect.

He hesitated, blade lingering just above the surface, and the room exploded.

A brick hurled itself from the wall, crashing into Axen’s chest and taking him to the ground. A chunky black substance was stuck to the back, trailing behind the soaring brick in long, thick tendrils.

Four more followed, plummeting to the floor then rising with a wobble, each moving on three tentacles like they were legs. The brick formed its head, or was on its head, and made the creatures teeter back and forth. One fell over from the motion, then rose again, staggering over to Axen and surrounding him with its companions.

The first creature craned its heavy head up and Axen lifted his arms to guard his own from the oncoming slam. But after that first protective motion, he held perfectly still. The creature bashed at him a few more times for good measure, but Axen made no noise, no motion.

Daniel dropped like a sack of potatoes, protecting his head in the same way and wishing desperately his arms were as armored as Axen’s.

But they weren’t, and when his own brick creature sauntered over, it took only one bash to crack his left forearm, a second to steal his consciousness.

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When Daniel came to, a man was shouting, bricks were grinding against one another, and blood oozed down his face and arms.

His hands were bound, stuck behind a pillar of all-too-familiar brick that his arms were bent around. His left forearm was turned at too sharp an angle, bone stretching out the skin, its point scraping agony on his insides. He nearly fainted again.

Whatever trapped his hands was slimy, dribbling down into his hands but resistant to his pitiful attempts to pull them free. He was shocked he was alive, but with each passing second he wondered more and more why he was so worried about staying that way. He could die, be brought back again. He would. Over and over. His eyelids lowered, gravity’s pull too strong for his fleeting will.

Pain tickled the palm of his hand, tugging him back to physicality only because it differed from his already existing suffering. He wanted to shrug it away, to close his eyes, but it persisted, and he slugged his head to the side, holding on to consciousness to peer around the room. “Bitch…” he mumbled, delirium making his tongue swollen and heavy.

“Sorry…” he added.

The third splinter team was in the room. Two were free, shouting and gesturing at one of the walls. It was rotating as he had seen before.

Axen was also free, one of his bracers pulled off, revealing a flame in his hand. He was scorching another team member free, shouting over the screams of the man he was burning and the grinding of the moving walls.

“South wall, south wall!” He jerked his head back to motion to the wall behind him.

The wall opposite of him ceased its grinding and a side wall took up the process.

The man Axen was working on snapped free and fell forward, clutching his burned hands and cursing, but Axen was already on to the last Crawler.

The free members exchanged looks, watched Daniel, but moved to the south wall and waited as instructed.

The side wall finished its rotation and the south wall started its movement. As the bricks shifted and squealed, Daniel caught a glimpse of Kire on the other side, but he couldn’t keep his head up.

The woman being freed howled and ripped at the restraints with viscous desperation, her burned flesh sliding out of the goopy restraint. She crawled towards the wall, then was hauled to her feet by Axen and ran.

The splinter members slipped through the grinding wall, rolling through the narrow crevice.

Axen didn’t hesitate. He didn’t look back. He dove through the crevice, and the wall snapped shut after him.

The room was silent as a coffin. No walls moved.

Daniel couldn’t see anything, the glimmers of light from Axen’s flame and the moving rooms were gone. He was blind, but somehow that bled to the rest of the body, his lungs struggling to grab air as if being unable to see it meant there was nothing to breath.

His heart pounded, the gush of blood deafening in his ears. He wondered how long he would hear it, how long until he bled out. He was oozing into the floor, soon to be nothing but stains and bones.

He screamed for a while. Cried and sobbed a while longer. Begged for them to come back, his own voice so feeble he wasn’t sure if he was actually talking or if it was all in his head.

He wanted to understand.

He wanted to understand why the woman hesitated on the subway tracks. He did understand, he thought, but her face sobbed at him in the darkness and the more he watched it, the more he wanted her hand to reach for him.

He wanted to understand why Axen left him, why he didn’t deserve to be freed. A part of him understood the need to rescue his team first, the mission first, himself first. But he wanted Axen to turn back, to save him.

He wanted to understand why his mom left him, why she couldn’t hang on a little longer, why he didn’t deserve a mom in his life. How could she abandon life without him? Did she want him to follow him? Did she care if he did? He couldn’t follow her anymore, even if wanted to.

He couldn’t scream anymore either, his voice a strangled cry that died in his swollen throat. He pressed his head back against the pillar he was bound to.

The blood from his head had stopped oozing. Horrifying as his arm was, it didn’t seem to be bleeding, externally at least. Unable to fathom his insides, he was as far as he understood… stable.

He let out another guttural sob, spit bubbling over his lips. That was so much worse than bleeding out. How long would he have to stay here? Would dehydration be his end? How long could people survive without water?

Torture, it was torture. Plain and simple. He was in hell. If gods were real, then hell was real, and he had found it.

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Daniel’s dreams were no different than reality. He knew, because when he came to, head slouched on his chest, he felt nothing different from where he was before and where he was then.

He had run out of tears, run out of screams, all he could do was run down a clock that he couldn’t see.

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His arm ached.

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There was nothing.

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Why was this happening to him? Was someone keeping score and he deserved this? Was someone keeping score and didn’t care? Was no one counting and he was just the mouse unfortunate enough to step in the glue trap?

Was someone counting, and put the glue trap in his path?

He hoped someone would come break his bones, crush him out of existence, and carry the feeling in their heart forever.

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“No one dies alone,” Daniel mumbled, eyes closed, maybe open, he couldn’t tell. “If you die alone, then you feel this. We all feel this. Everyone who’s ever died alone has felt this, so we’re all together. Dying alone together.”

His scarred hand erupted in agony, flame roaring up his skin, his shattered bone shaking from the force, creating its own form of agony. His eyes snapped open and he jerked against the pillar he was bound to, futile attempts to run away, until he realized what it was.

“Svel,” he choked out, throat scratched but mouth containing some moisture. He didn’t know how long it had been, but if he wasn’t dried out, it couldn’t have been too long. Maybe the Crawlers were still here. Maybe on the other side of the wall. Maybe trying to save him. He swallowed thick and cried out again.

“Sveltana, help me!”

A pair of yellow eyes blinked into existence. They watched him from a distance, their soft glow a glass of cold water that he savored, unable to look away.

Her eyes vanished, but chains clanged against the floor, closer, closer, closer. A shuddering weep racked his body, relief making him limp. Her hand cupped his face and he didn’t flinch. It was ice cold, but he leaned into her palm like it was his last source of warmth.

Her lips were wet on his neck, on his ear, words worming their way into his brain. “Tell me your wish,” she whispered.

“Get me out,” he exhaled, unable to see her, only able to feel her.

“More specific.”

Another silent sob made his abdomen clench. He couldn’t think, couldn’t find the words to describe an ability, a wish, anything but his desperate want to be free.

“Oh, poor baby,” she murmured, a wolfish grin felt by teeth against his skin. “It’s a wonder you’ll ever do anything.”

She slid onto his lap, knees on either side of him, and leaned forward, vibrant yellow eyes open again and holding his gaze. They radiated life, his only hope, a warm glimmer of chance against an unfathomable ocean of black despair. Her pupils expanded and contracted, so human, so careful in their examination of him.

She reached her arms around the pillar, her body pushed as far into him as it could be, the chains that snaked out of her a painful pressure. She held the position, a mockery of his own bound arms.

“How about this?” she asked, breath burning his face on exhale. “You grant me a wish, Daniel. Anything I want that you can do, whenever I ask. Just the once. You keep your wish. I keep mine. And I’ll help you escape.”

Every thread of his body knew it was a mistake. He didn’t dare guess what she would want from him, what damage she could do with one wish, what she might make him do.

“Don’t want my help?” she teased. “There’s other ways out, you know. For instance—“

She stuck her tongue out, the moist flesh stretching out before being bit off in a single snap of her jaws, the meat flopping against his chest.

He gasped, mouth flooded with the blood that gushed out of her open wound, hotter than an ember shoved down his throat. He tried to cough it up but Svel pushed a finger against the underside of his jaw, forcing his mouth closed.

“Or you could wait it out. We can try again in a new world, if you want. But I should tell you,” she warned, her tongue healed in less than a second. Her eyelids sank lower, cutting away part of their light. “It’s all the same glue trap.”

“Okay,” Daniel whispered. “A wish for freedom.”

“Good choice.”

Svel slinked away with a clap of her hands. Her eyes vanished again, and for a moment he worried she had just left, but then he heard the first squelch of parting flesh, and a digging sound, like rats chewing through a wall. A wet gush followed, then the cracking of bone, and a much subtler grinding noise.

Then, a pressure on his hands. She pulled them apart and sliced him free in a single motion. Whatever she used clattered to the floor, and she was gone.