by Heath Pfaff
“If I used anymore of that rope, we might not have it if we need it. We’ll have to work with just the one torch.” I told Zark, handing him the light and getting closer. “Alright, let’s go.”
“Why am I holding the torch?” He grumbled as we started forward into the dark.
“Because you have a weapon that can be effectively wielded one handed.” I answered.
“You can use half your staff one handed.” He came back quickly.
He was right, of course. I even had it stowed on my back in two separate halves. It made it much easier to carry without having it get in the way. The truth was I’d given it to him in an effort to protect him. It was a strange gesture, and one I now felt rather silly about. “Fine, if you don’t want the torch, then give it back!” I snapped, a bit more heatedly than I’d meant to.
“No, it’s not that.” He said quickly. “Sorry, I was just being an ass.”
“What, you? Wow, what a surprise.” I replied a bit tersely.
He laughed. “You’re spending too much time with me, Lil. You’re sounding almost as bitter and sarcastic as I am.”
Something moved in the woods around us and we both went quiet, freezing in place for a moment. I strained my eyes to try and see something beyond the glowing sphere of our torch, but there was nothing but the dark. We listened, waiting for something to give a sign of passage, but there was only the quiet of the night woods in response. Occasionally a breeze would slip through the boughs, knocking loose a dead branch, or stirring the leaves above us, but nothing seemed out of place.
They were out there somewhere, the creatures with the silver eyes. They hadn’t just vanished. It was unnerving not to know where they had gone, but we couldn’t do anything except press on, and so that was what we did. We traveled for another ten minutes, more or less walking in a straight line with no clear goal in sight, before we heard a scream from somewhere in the woods. It echoed through the trees and seemed to come from all around us. It was definitely a human sound, and it was soon accompanied by other screams, yelling.
We had little time to worry about it though because a moment later little silver lights began to appear around us, eyes flashing to life in the dark. At first a few pairs, and then dozens of them. They stayed just beyond the circle of light cast by the torch. I drew my weapons. My legs felt weak, my hands shaky. This was a test. The school was testing us. We could beat this. I kept repeating this in my head, trying to reassure myself without directly addressing the concern that they expected some of us to die.
There was one of the things directly in front of us, the closest of them, and I couldn’t quite make it out. It appeared to be about the size of a medium dog, low to the ground. It’s shape was indistinct though, a mess of movement in the pure night void beneath the trees.
“Keep going forward.” I whispered to Zark who nodded and took another step in the direction we’d been traveling. The creature in front of us backed away, unwilling to step into the light
“I think if we keep moving like this, keeping the light on us, we’ll be alright. They don’t appear to want to enter the light. Let’s just keep going.” I hoped I was right. It was a bit of a leap in logic, but it was all I had at that moment. For all I knew they were just waiting for the right time to attack us.
Zarkov was quiet, his weapon in one hand, the torch above his head in the other so that it cast the largest circle of glow possible. We kept moving. We managed this for another few moments before I almost tripped over something on the ground. I looked down to see what it was and I saw an old piece of formed stone. It was covered in moss, but it was clearly part of what had once been an intentionally formed archway. There were other pieces around as well, though not many still stood. The ruins. We’d made it to the ruins.
“I think we’re here.” I said, voice soft but excited, and that’s when the thing in front of us began to hiss, though the word didn’t quite accurately describe the sound it made. It was a rattling, grinding sound that was like a hiss mixed with the noise of rough textured bone beings scratched together. Suddenly it flared up in front of us. It went from it’s low profile to being above eye level with us, and even in the darkness I could see it’s shape expand as though it had unfolded and opened up. It was now directly blocking our path. Behind us the others were doing the same thing, that terrible noise coming at us from every side.
I instinctively shrank back and almost ran into Zarkov.
“What should I do?” He asked, looking afraid and uncertain. He had to speak quite loudly because the sound around us was a cacophony of noise that it was difficult to hear each other over.
“Keep moving.” I said, not really certain, but hoping the creatures would keep moving back if we kept the light burning into the dark.
Zarkov shot me a look that said he wasn’t particularly certain about that advice, but then he took another step forward in the direction of the thing in front of us. It didn’t move, but this step allowed me to get my first good view of the horrors that had been following us through the woods.
It was difficult to say what it looked like because I’d never seen anything quite like it before. It had legs all along its body a bit like a centipede, but the legs looked like they were made of bone, connected by leathery sinew, and its body wasn’t chitinous at all, but covered in pale flesh wrapped over a bizarre skeletal structure that was equal parts artistry and horror. It’s head was like the skull of a dog, but the snout was longer, full of more teeth, all viciously hooked to draw things into its gaping jaws, jaws that hung far too wide. It had that same, taunt white flesh stretched over its head, and eyes that looked like polished mirrors shone out from it, reflecting back the red light from our fire.
The sound it made seemed to come from the scrapping of its legs together, something like a rattlesnake’s rattle, but deeper, and with a low rumbling beneath it that might have come from the creature itself and not its legs. It was a nightmare, something that shouldn’t exist at all in the waking world.
As we drew closer to it, it winced back from the light, its legs writhing together faster, making that awful noise even louder. Some spark of rebellion flared up inside of me. I gave a growl of anger and struck at its head with my staff. The blow connected solidly and the creature fell back as its skull, protected only by thin skin, splintered and puss colored white-yellow fluid dripped from the wound. It’s legs began to twitch and it fell to the ground and thrashed about.
“Shit, shit, shit, shit!” Zarkov began to say over and over again. “Oh Gods, Lil, what are these things?”
Other creatures were stalking closer now, pushing at the boundary of light created by our torch. I wondered how much longer it would burn. The wood was surely burning by now, the rope long since consumed by the flames. Time was slipping away from us.
“It doesn't matter what they are. We know what we’re here for. Come on, we’re close.” I told him and pushed him to move again. The death of one of their own hadn’t frightened the rest of the creatures. They were now pushing against the border of light even more fiercely, their terrible bone-hissing sound loud and angry. I had no doubt they’d be on us quickly if the light failed. The first one hadn’t been particularly difficult to kill. That was something, but there were a lot of them, and I doubted I could swat them all away fast enough. In complete darkness we’d be at an even greater disadvantage.
A few moments later we began to see more structures around us. We passed through an intact stone arch and suddenly we were in a sprawling relic from some bygone era. The scale was impressive, though clearly time had done it no favors. Everything seemed built fairly low to the ground, no more than two stories tall at the highest, and most things were a single building high, many with no ceiling, though they may have had thatched ceilings at some point in the past. There was a symmetry to the way everything was laid out, a pattern that was easy enough to discern. The structure was clearly assembled with a purpose and that made it somewhat easier to navigate. It spiraled towards a c
enter, and we moved at a good pace traveling towards that center.
Every single footfall was hounded by the monsters in the dark, and some few of them got brave enough to press into our light, though it seemed to cause them physical discomfort. I knocked those back that came too close, though this infuriated them, and one even charged in and struck at me with its bone-like limbs, ripping a nice gash in my arm before I struck it dead. Blood trickled down from the wound reminding me of just how serious this situation was.
Screams sounded from ahead of us, as well as the sounds of a struggle. A look passed between Zarkov and I. This wasn’t our problem. These other people weren’t our group and we had no commitment to give them any aid at all. No commitment but for the fact that they were still people, and they still deserved a chance.
“There is strength in numbers.” I said with a shrug, and Zarkov nodded. We headed in the direction of the fighting, though it took us away from our inward spiral which I felt was leading us towards the stone we sought. I had no way of knowing if that was a certainty, but it felt right.
We came upon the other group quickly. There were three of them, or there had been at one time. One was down already, being torn apart by three of the creatures just beyond the sphere of light being cast by a very badly built torch that was flickering out. Zarkov surged forward as they came into view and I had to run to join him. We joined our light to the survivors who’d been fighting back creatures that backed away, hissing at us as we approached, taking their food supply away.
A flash of red hair sent a pang of anger through me as I realized that one of the people we’d saved was Kiiava, the bitch who’d been making my life miserable since that first day in the Rift. I choked back my hate for a moment, though. Now wasn’t the time for it. The other person with her was a dark haired girl who was carrying a spiked mace in one hand. She had a bad cut stretching from her left shoulder down to just above her stomach. It was bleeding profusely and she looked pale. Her eyes were wide with shock. I didn’t think she had long left like she was.
“We have to get Toma.” The wide eyed girl said, pointing at their dead companion who was only an upper torso at this point. My stomach churned at seeing him, the look of horror still on his face. “We can’t leave here without him.”
Kiiava’s eyes met mine and I saw a look of pure hatred cross her features before she looked away. “We should just leave him. There isn’t enough left to bring back. If we get the stone they won’t care that we didn’t bring him back.”
“He . . . we can’t just leave him here, not like this. He was our friend.” The girl who was bleeding out said.
“He was an idiot. He made the shitty torch. It’s his fault he’s dead.” Kiiava said, pointing toward the center of the ruins. “Come on, you’ve got the light, let’s go.”
Dragging the corpse of their friend would slow us down a lot, and those things were still shadowing us, still all around us. I wasn’t sure how much longer our torch was going to burn. I didn’t want to agree with Kiiava, but I also didn’t want to die to save a dead body, especially not when it meant nothing for my own group.
I took the girl’s hand. “Come on, we’ll leave him. It’ll be alright. Let’s get the stone and get out of here.” I told her, urging her to come with me as Zarkov began to lead us through the dark again. The torch was growing a little dimmer, running out of burnable fuel. The wood was being consumed. We were lucky it had been dry enough to burn as well as it had. I should have wrapped it deeper with rope, I realized. We could stop and wrap some more, but if we messed up we could put it out entirely.
The other girl fell in with me, though she looked back at their fallen friend until he was completely lost from sight. “Please don’t leave me to them.” She said softly after we’d walked for a few moments. “I don’t want to be eaten.”
“I won’t let that happen to you.” I told her, squeezing her hand, but she was fading fast. She’d begun to stagger and I wasn’t sure how much longer she would be alright. I looked at our dwindling torch again.
“Zark, stop. I need to bandage her wounds or she’s not going to make it.” I told him, and he did, looking back at me with with a concerned expression on his face as he looked up at his torch.
“I’m not sure if we have the time to stop.” He said, though he didn’t push anymore than that. It was his way of telling me he disagreed with me, but wasn’t going to fight me on the point.
“She’ll die if we don’t.” I said, already opening my pack and delving into the medical supplies. This would take all of the gauze I had, and it would need more still, but this might be enough to give her the extra time to get back.
“You’re a real piece of work. You’re going to kill us all to help her, but she’s already dead. She should have stayed closer to the fire. She’s dying because she went after Toma.” Kiiava almost growled. “We’re almost there. We can have the stone any minute now.”
“We’re not going to let someone die when we can help them.” I said, replying calmly despite the anger I felt inside. “Besides, the stone will be ours when we find it. We rescued your group. There isn’t any reason why you should be allowed to have it.”
“You didn’t rescue us. We were fine.” Kiiava snapped, brandishing the weapon in her right hand, a sickle bladed sword of some type, a weapon that could barely be called a sword really.
I ignored her and treated the wounds on the injured woman, though I had to stop and strike down another of the monsters as it strode into our dwindling light. The blow to its head knocked it down quickly enough. I finished with the bandages and nodded to Zark. “Alright, let’s go.”
We started to move again, but the creatures around us were getting increasingly hostile. Kiiava and I set to killing anything that got too close. It became a constant necessity. During a low point in the attacks the injured woman spoke.
“I’m Jillian.” She said quietly, voice shaky. She was leaning heavily on Zarkov. “I’m so sorry I was mean to both of you, to all the deadies . . . is it bad to call you that? I just . . . I’m sorry.”
I didn’t actually remember her specifically being mean to us. “It’s alright We don’t mind being called deadies, not anymore. This place is bad enough that being called what we are is the least of our worries.”
“Bad enough that you didn’t need more. I don’t know what you did to get the tattoo, but it wasn’t my place to judge you. . . . wasn’t any of our places.” She said, drawing in a shaky breath. She sounded like she expected to die.
I opened my mouth to say something in reply, but then we rounded a corner and came upon the last group, or what was left of them. Creatures scattered as our light fell across them. It was impossible to tell how many of them there had been. I tried to count heads, but not all of them were intact enough for me to get an accurate number. I thought there were four of them, though maybe five. They’d been torn apart. I didn’t know how they’d gotten here so fast ahead of us, but there was a small, round shaped white stone laying amidst the fragments of their corpses. It was perfectly shaped, just large enough to fill my palm.
“That’s the stone.” Zarkov said.
“Are you sure?” I asked, my stomach trying to turn over at the horror of the mess around us. So many people were dead. It was hard to imagine this was only one test.
“No, but what else would it be?” He went forward and, after sliding his weapon away to free a hand, picked it up, a look of surprise on his face. “It’s lighter than it looks, and warm.”
We needed his weapon. “Give it to Jillian. We need you to have your weapon in hand.” The torch flickered and two of the creatures came crawling in towards us, their terrible hissing sound getting louder as they dove in to attack. I destroyed one of them while Kiiava took out another looking anxiously at the stone.
“I should carry it.” She said. “I’m more able bodied than Jillian. I can protect it better.”
Zarkov had started moving and we all followed closely, far more more closely togeth
er than we had been before. The torch was dwindling quickly now. We had to get back.
“No, you’re able bodied, that’s why you need to be free to fight.” I tried to keep my anger out of my voice, but I couldn’t manage it. She just wanted the damn stone. It was blatantly obvious and more than a little distressing. She was a real monster, far worse than the creatures we were fighting. At least they were evil because that was their purpose. Kiiava seemed to actively be pursuing her own vile nature.
We made faster time exiting the ruins than we had entering them, but even then the torch was all but gone as we cleared the last of the stone structures, and the creatures were still all around us. It was a constant fight now. The small flame that remained held almost no control over them. We needed to run, and we needed to run hard, but there was no way Jillian could manage it. She was slowing down again. Her wounds were bad. It occurred to me in that moment that we were probably going to die.
“Stop!” I called out and dropped to the ground quickly, ripping my pack open. I pulled out the rest of my rope. We hadn’t needed it. It might save us now. I soaked it in alcohol and grabbed a nearby stick as another surge of creatures came on. One snuck by Kiiava and came dashing for me and I had to dive back, dropping my work in the progress as I reached for my weapon and beat the creature to death. It had landed squarely on my in progress torch and I had to push it off and clean things up to get to work again. “Keep the damn things off of me!” I snapped angrily. I had the rope wrapped and was working on trying to strike the flint again. I hadn’t been as careful this time. We should have done this as soon as we’d found the stone.
The torch flickered out then and darkness fell in upon us as the creatures came all at once. Jillian screamed, everything was a mess of chaos and something terrible and sharp slammed into my back, but I kept striking the flint, throwing sparks that exposed a desperate fight around me. Then the new torch caught. Bright light came to life around us and the shadows jumped back, as did some of the creatures, but not all of them. I picked up the torch and staggered to my feet as blood poured down my back.
