waterskine
my heart! my head! my mind!
K las watches as the monster and all of its horrid little legs disappear into the chasm in the dungeon’s floor. Then he watches a little longer after that, just to make sure it’s truly distracted. For a single moment, there is no sound but that of his own, ragged breaths.
Back on the surface, a lifetime ago, he’d crowd around the fire with the other squires as the eldest of them spun stories about the creatures that crossed their paths at the earliest, most dangerous hours of their patrol. Poisonous fanged beetles the size of small children; mimics that disguised themselves as helmets so that they may eat soldiers’ heads straight off their shoulders; many-eyed deers that, should you meet their gaze, drove you insane. He would roll his eyes. Pretend not to be impressed. Remind himself it was all exaggeration and tale-twisting — and in any case, he didn’t need any more cautionary tales. He thought himself too smart to stray from the forest path in the first place. He thought himself too laden with honour and virtue and to succumb to fear. He thought himself brave.
Here in the deepest depths of the Origin’s dungeon, with the world going in and out of focus before his eyes, his hair stuck to his scalp with blood, and his sword reduced to splintered iron in his trembling hands, Klas would do anything to think he was brave again.
A shrill cry from the creature reminds him that he needs to move. He’s immobilised it, but it won’t be down for long. He scrambles out of the ancient courtyard, through its crumbling archways and down into a hallway with a gate hanging over its entrance. If there was ever such thing as merciful gods, it will lead to an exit.
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