Forlorn Dimension

by Matthew Satterlee

  The first one was dead by the time she turned around. So was the third one she hadn't seen join the battle. Her new teammates were strong, she had to give them that. She might just survive the day after all.

  Kilroy took off running again, and she followed.

  "There's a team stationed on top of the tower up ahead," Kilroy said. "Nobody's heard from them in hours. They might be pinned down, or they might be dead. We'll find out when we get there."

  The tower was a short sprint away. Even from afar Ellen didn't like the way it looked. It was a wide-open area surrounded by waist-high stone walls. An uncomfortable number of crude and twisted weapons, the kind monsters used, stuck straight up into the air like the grass out in the plains. A battle had swept through the area recently, or so she suspected.

  Her fears proved true when she reached the tower. A dozen members of the Fortress Guard lay dead and impaled on the ground.

  The whole area stank of filth and decay. She pinched her nose shut.

  "That's a shame," Kilroy said flatly. "Let's keep going. There's no time to waste."

  "Is it alright if we leave this area unguarded?" Lindsey asked.

  "We have other work to do. I'll send a team over here if there are any left. If there aren't, then-" He shrugged.

  Ellen hated that shrug. A dozen people had died on top of this tower yet Kilroy didn't show even a hint of concern. Neither did Brendon or Lindsey.

  She couldn't stay mad at them for long. She did feel sorrow towards the deceased, but there was simply too many of them for her to grieve each person. She faced forward and continued following Kilroy across the wall.

  Another spear wielding monster soon appeared. It seemed smarter than the others. Rather than land on the wall, it instead flew up into the air and started casting its magic spears at the ground below.

  Ellen hid in her shield right away. She was the monster's first target. It cast three spears at her before it lost interest. Her shield sent two out into the plains and the other into the fortress somewhere. She couldn't see where it went. She didn't want to see where it went.

  Her shield vanished for a second when Lindsey fell in behind her and knocked her off balance, but she summoned it again right away.

  "Your shield makes an excellent addition to our team," Lindsey said as the spear meant for her bounced off Ellen's shield.

  There she was being called a shield again. Ellen wanted to frown.

  A second monster flew up into the air and joined the first, which kept its attention on Lindsey, and started casting spears down at Kilroy, forcing him to guard himself with his sword. The oversized weapon worked well as a shield, Ellen saw now, but it wasn't half as effective as her own.

  A third monster soon appeared, but before it could fly up and join the others, a small whirlwind of axes shot through the air and hit it head-on, shredding it into dozens of tiny chunks of meat. It hit the second monster right after, reduced it to a bloody mist, then butchered the third and fell apart.

  Ellen dropped her shield and glanced at Brendon, who didn't look the least bit strained despite the power he had just exerted. There had been at least a hundred axes in that tornado, if not more. She'd never seen someone control so many weapons so well.

  Brendon lowered his axe. "Desperate times," he mumbled.

  "Good work," Kilroy said. "Let's keep moving. There's another team on the next tower we need to meet with. Or at least, I hope there's another team."

  A dozen more monsters crawled up the wall on the way to the next tower, but they came one at a time and none retreated into the air. Ellen stuck to the back of the group, occasionally bringing out her shield, while Kilroy, Brendon and Lindsey did the fighting. It was a pleasant change of pace.

  For a brief moment she almost felt comfortable, then four monsters attacked together. Three were spear wielding types, all of which landed behind her and set their gazes on her, while the fourth was a gray and black beast with a yellow mane that ran on all fours. It looked just like the monster she'd seen when she first found the fortress. It carried a red glaive in its powerful arms.

  The glaive wielding monster was the largest and most deadly of the group, but the others would have to worry about it. The spear wielding monsters were already winding up their attacks. The air around them was rich with violet energy.

  She faced them and summoned her shield. They hurled their magic weapons at her, but none could hit her nor her allies, who she hoped had the other monster under control. She also hoped they were about to kill it, because the monsters she was facing were slowly inching their way towards her. They'd soon be sticking her with their real weapons if nobody came to help her.

  Nobody came. After trying unsuccessfully to pierce her shield a few more times, one monster moved in close enough to take a swing at her. She dropped her shield and quickly stepped to one side to avoid the downward smash, summoned it to repel the weapon cast at her by a second monster, then dropped it again and ducked under a horizontal slash from the first.

  Ellen stood upright, turned her back to the monsters and ran. She didn't stand a chance against the three them. Even facing two would likely end with her getting launched off the wall.

  She kept her eyes on the monsters behind her as she ran. She focused on them so intently she forgot there might be something in front of her to worry about, until she crashed into something hard and metal.

  "You did well," Brendon said.

  He was that metal thing, and he was painfully sturdy. Ellen stumbled backwards a few steps then collapsed onto her back.

  Commotion erupted around her. It was very loud and very metallic. By the time she managed to catch her breath and stand, the fighting was over and the area was silent. The glaive wielding monster was gone, its body shoved off the wall, or so the long blood smear leading to the edge led her to believe, and the three spear monsters had been reduced to shredded chunks of silver meat.

  Brendon gave her a pat on the shoulder. "This isn't easy, even for us. Someone your age really doesn't belong up here."

  "I can handle it," Ellen said. That's what she wanted to believe, but it was looking less likely by the minute.

  "These small ones are the least of our problems," Lindsey said, gazing out into the wilderness. "Our real nemesis is out there."

  Ellen followed her eyes out into the wilderness. One large section of the forest was hidden inside a pitch-black cloud taller than the fortress walls. It stretched backwards for miles. Dozens of legs as thick as the oldest trees in the forest stuck out from both sides.

  She lowered her head and whimpered quietly to herself. The monster she'd met in the forest was nothing compared to the new creature lurking inside that cloud. If it became active, not even the fortress's massive outer wall could keep it at bay.

  "Usually they crawl out of the dark when nobody's looking," Lindsey said, "but this one has no trouble appearing out in the open where we can see it. There's something telling about that."

  "I think this dimension is trying to send us a message," Brendon said grimly. "It wants us gone, and it wants us gone now."

  "We still have time. That thing hasn't moved once all day. It might not even be fully formed yet." Lindsey paused. "But you're right. We can't stay here much longer."

  They were missing someone. Where was Kilroy? Ellen searched for him, and gasped when she spotted him laying sprawled out on his back, his great sword on the ground beside him. He wasn't moving. "Is he alive?"

  "I'm still kicking!" Kilroy heaved himself up. "So was that monster, until we killed it. Good thing I have all this insulation to keep me safe." He picked up his weapon. "Now let's get moving."

  He continued forward, slower than before. He grunted in pain after every other step. Brendon and Lindsey walked at his side.

  Ellen followed cautiously behind them. One member of their team was already hurt, and they'd only been on the wall for an hour. How long could they keep this up?

  But no new monsters appeared on the wall. The trek to the ne
xt tower would've been peaceful if it weren't for the horde of awful shapes slowly creeping across the plains.

  Two dozen soldiers were guarding the tower. They were scraped and bruised and battered but otherwise upright and seemingly eager to fight.

  Ellen felt all of their eyes studying her. They were probably wondering why someone like her was up on the wall with them. She'd been wondering the same herself.

  "Who's in charge here?" Kilroy called out, and one grizzled old soldier approached him. "I need you to send half your people to the tower west of us. Everyone over there has been wiped out."

  A fit of shouting then complaining then finally pleading erupted from the old soldier's mouth. Ellen tuned most of it out. It was vulgar at first, then simply disheartening, but the old soldier eventually followed Kilroy's orders and sent twelve of his soldiers to the other tower.

  "How are your supplies?" Kilroy asked.

  "Haven't had any all day," the old soldier said. "I was hoping your lot had some, but it looks like you're just here to give us a death sentence."

  "We need to check on the rest of the towers first, then we'll try to bring up some supplies."

  "For both groups."

  "For both groups," Kilroy agreed, a tired smile on his face.

  How they hadn't lost the fortress yet Ellen was beginning to wonder, but she didn't say anything. There was enough misery in the air already.

  "So how are your friends?" Kilroy asked her on the way to the next tower.

  "They're alive," Ellen said, "but... they're not the same."

  "They're probably just shaken up. Give them some time and they'll be back to normal before you know it."

  He gave her a smile, but Ellen couldn't reciprocate. They had precious little time left. Worse yet, if Trevor couldn't work something out with everyone's families-

  She shook her head. He was going to work something out, she just had to wait.

  More spear wielding monsters crept up the wall on the way to the next tower, but Brendon's axes and Lindsey's swords cut them down so quickly she never had the chance to use her shield.

  The third tower was the same as the last. It was guarded by a handful of beaten up soldiers with no supplies to speak of. Kilroy promised to bring them relief soon. It sounded like a rather hollow promise, but it did seem to give the soldiers a little bit of hope.

  "This is awful," Lindsey said along the way to the fourth tower. "We'll be lucky if we last another day with so little support. What's worse is that there's nowhere for us to fall back to. If we leave the wall, we'll give our enemies the perfect vantage point."

  "We have been telling everyone to leave," Brendon said. "We can't blame them for following our orders."

  A monster Ellen recognized from the mining site flew up onto the wall. It was one of the raw meat looking creatures with long claws and tan wings. It had a toothy grin on what might've been its face, until Brendon cut it in half with his axe.

  Six more took its place. Two went straight for Ellen. They slashed their claws through the air and casted a whole slew of black twisted nails at her, but she sent them all away with her shield. One went straight back at its owner. It hit so hard the monster exploded into specks of meat. It was quite relieving to kill a monster so easily. She was confident it would never happen again.

  The second monster flapped towards her with its claws raised. She dropped to the ground as it lunged at her, then after it passed over her, she leapt back to her feet and aimed her knife at one of its wings, which she discovered were very fragile. She severed the wing with a single slash, then when the monster dropped to the ground, she kicked it off the wall and into the plains.

  Brendon and Lindsey and Kilroy finished off the others.

  "Let's take a breather after we reach the next tower," Kilroy said, panting.

  As she marched across the wall, Ellen couldn't help but wonder, was this where her guardian had pictured her ending up? On top of the fortress wall, in the middle of a decayed dimension packed full of monsters, following around a group whose members were all at least twice her age? She severely doubted it.

  She relaxed when the fourth tower came into view. Just over fifty soldiers with clean sets of armor and faces full of energy were lingering around the area. None complained when Kilroy asked them to reinforce the other towers.

  The fresh soldiers had a jug of water with them. Ellen gulped down as much as she could handle when given the chance. It was the first time all day she'd drank anything.

  "What now?" Lindsey asked. "We have enough reinforcements to last a few hours."

  "First we'll try to fulfill all those promises I made to the soldiers we ran into earlier," Kilroy said. He called over three of the fresh soldiers. "Head down into the fortress and start looking for food. Check storage sheds and training halls first, and if those aren't any good, start raiding restaurants and taverns. You have my permission to use as much force as needed."

  The three soldiers gave him startled looks. So did Brendon and Lindsey.

  Kilroy shrugged. "We're running out of options. If people refuse to move on, we're going to end up fighting each other just as much as we're fighting these monsters."

  Ellen couldn't muster as much surprise as the others, not with so much guilt weighing down her pockets. She had no trouble imagining everyone in her dormitory heading down to the cafeteria, their stomachs growling, and wondering why all the plates were empty.

  The guilt slipped into the back of her head once she started following Kilroy again; there were too many monsters climbing up the wall for her to worry about anything besides her own survival.

  Her nerves never completely settled down, but after making it through the whole day without receiving so much as a scratch, she no longer regretted her decision to help Kilroy. They'd made a massive difference. All the towers had been starved for supplies and either grossly over or understaffed in the morning, but by the afternoon each one had a balanced force and enough food and water to make it through the day. On top of that, her team had killed more monsters than she could ever hope to keep track of. Of course, Kilroy, Brendon and Lindsey did most of the killing, but without her shield protecting them there was no telling what state they might've ended up in.

  She left the wall at nighttime, or at least, when she assumed it was nighttime. It was impossible to tell the time with the sky perpetually black.

  "The only reason we survived this long is because you stuck with us," Kilroy told her before she left. "Tomorrow's going to be worse. Much worse. If this ends up being your last day in this dimension, or if something goes wrong for us tonight, I want you to know that it was an honor to be your instructor."

  Ellen returned to her dormitory with tears in her eyes. She kept wiping them away with her sleeve, but they kept coming back. Kilroy didn't have to act so sappy. She planned to stay until her friends were ready to leave, which would take at least another day.

  Fortunately her dormitory was deserted, and nobody was around to see her tears.

  A handful of rifts were lingering in the lobby. Whoever had opened them was in a safer place now, or so she hoped.

  The next morning started the same as the previous: with an explosion outside. Ellen peered outside her window.

  A second home had been crushed beneath a monstrous hammer. A crowd soon gathered around the wreckage, and more weeping ensured.

  The hammer was far too large for any of the monsters she'd fought yesterday to wield. Was it the monster hiding inside the cloud throwing them? It had sprouted another dozen legs while she was patrolling the wall yesterday, but she'd yet to see any arms or a body.

  Ellen left her dormitory and headed for the plain building where she'd first met Mareem, not for a reason that might cause Ludendi to snicker at her later, but to check on Mareem's wellbeing.

  There was still tens of dozens of people inside the fortress, either hiding in their homes or wandering panicked through the streets. She did her best to ignore them, but their presence alone caused an
anger to build up in her chest. So many members of the Fortress Guard were being hurt or killed so they could leave the fortress safely, yet they chose to stay here where they might be run down by a horde of monsters at any moment.

  She reached the plain building after a short walk. Its doors and windows were boarded up, and the whole area was deserted. She peeked inside one window to make sure nobody was trying to use the building as a shelter.

  It was empty, and Ellen felt a hint of relief. If Mareem wasn't here or bumping into her on the streets, it had to mean her and her family had left the fortress safely.

  She made her way to Ludendi's home next. The door was open when she arrived, and Ludendi greeted her, "I heard you joined the Fortress Guard."

  Ellen sat down on the edge of her bed. Her anger left her in an instant. Ludendi looked more sick and pale than ever. She might've mistook her for a corpse if she hadn't spoken. "I've been working with a group from the special forces," she agreed.

  "I'm not surprised they took you in. You were the most talented out of all of us. We were just holding you back this whole time."

  Ludendi's stomach growled. Ellen tore a handful of monster meat from her pocket and offered it to her. "Eat it," she urged. "You need it more than I do."

  Ludendi sat up slowly. Her hands trembled at first, but after she swallowed the first piece of meat, they became steady and she had no trouble shoveling down the rest.

  "Are you feeling better?" Ellen asked.

  "I'll be alright, I just haven't eaten much lately. These soldiers raided my parents' shop yesterday and took all of the food they had stored. They probably need it more than we do, but I really would've appreciated them leaving us something." She smiled weakly. "But thanks to you, I'll be alright for a few days."

  Those soldiers doing the raiding were likely the same soldiers she had fought beside on the wall. "Do you think you'll be healthy enough to leave the fortress soon?" Ellen asked.