Part 9

‘-I still have no idea why I can’t feel the pain of this arm, but I guess it’s a plus so thinking about it won’t get me anywhere. ‘

Knight had spent the last couple of minutes theorising possible escape routes before trailing into thoughts of his painless injuries. Although he had actually been thinking about ‘escape routes’ before thinking about actually ‘escaping’. In truth it had actually only been a few seconds since he vowed to escape from this ‘shitty prison’ as he was too scared of the guards to move from his safe toilet.

Suddenly, a quiet yelp desperately reached Knight’s ears, jogging his mind - The girl!

He carefully stood up, allowing his head to poke out of the hole; although he wanted to get to her right away, he would not put his life in jeopardy (despite it already being in jeopardy), that’s what he believed anyway and to be fair it was mostly true, so he must have a weakness to try to help the girl as much as he has done already.

With his head poking out, he realised that the light had gotten darker since the giant blocked its rays; maybe it had gotten dark enough for Knight to get close without being spotted.

‘I thought there may be an escape route but, with the girl here, there’s a high chance the giant is still lingering around.’ He wondered as he struggled to hoist himself out of the roman-style toilet, his right hand lifelessly smacking against the wall, luckily not making much of a sound.

After letting out a relieved yet annoyed sigh, and his pants now darkened with urine, he started to slowly creep forward. As he reached the opening to the cave, he realised that there was no one to the left, he could still see the boxes filled with mined rocks he had found before but no guard.

‘They have to be there-’An audible crack froze Knight in place; he cautiously lifted his right foot off the floor careful not to make more noise and attract a guard.

A cracked shard of bone lay on the rocky floor, cracked by Knight’s foot. The origin of the shard was probably from the skeleton’s head, before it was shattered by the giant’s raging fist at least.

Making sure no one had noticed, Knight listened out for any change in atmosphere, “phew” he sighed; there was no change, no one had heard; he was safe but he could still here the whimpering of the girl...she on the other hand, was definitely not safe.

He carefully avoided the bone shards as he pressed his body against the right wall, leaning his head to peer out of the indentation.

Two familiar figures were stood a good ten metres away, they were in the tunnel, just outside the etched-out room.

Before Knight could notice the creature’s body language, he belatedly realised that the atmosphere was quite odd. No clanging of steel on rock could be heard.

“Wait.” He muttered immediately after he came to this realisation; his eyes darting across the room. There was a good chunk of bone strewn across the room, but that was about right for two smashed craniums. However, the other half a dozen of skeletons were gone, ‘I better be careful still, these skeletons could come back to life any minute... ‘

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

“Phaha-” Knight immediately stuffed his hand over his mouth, his laughter turning to stifled giggles, ‘life...they already dead.’ He couldn’t resist making that joke, even in this situation.

Before he started to think about the technicalities of a skeleton’s ‘life’, he remembered his current predicament and regained his focus, returning his gaze to the tunnel.

Knight normally didn’t care about anyone succumbing to harm, even with a scene as bad as this, but it was different this time, maybe it was hm trying to be a hero. However, he had balled his hands once more but this time crimson blood was drawn as his nails etched at his skin. Even if he was trying to be heroic, he really did care about the girl being safe.

The drop of his blood could be heard as he stared at the scene before him, and it wasn’t Knight’s. The creature’s right index and middle finger were placed under the girl’s right eyelid, it’s thumb underneath the eyeball. Knight couldn’t notice from that distance, but a small amount of blood was spilling out of her eye socket. The creature was attempting to slowly gouge her eyeball out, so much for a ‘guard’.

Knight clicked his tongue and grated his teeth in anger, barely keeping his cool despite the blood seeping through his skin. ‘It’s worse than last time, why the hell is he about to gouge out her eye?’ He asked, before he then remembered the short trance he was in after first laying his eyes upon her gold ones.

‘...What are they? Whatever the case, I know I can’t do anything to save her right now, I wouldn’t even be able to save myself. I’ll have to wait for her to be took away.’

Knight definitely didn’t want to see her like this, but he couldn’t help, he’s useless right now and, to be honest, he’d rather not risk his life to save her. He thought he had a chance before, but how could he anticipate that irregular action made by that disfigured creature? With this decision the dripping blood subsided and the tension faded.

However, just as he was back to his usual self, horrid rasping filled his ears.

“Rof lla eht elbuort ouy evah desuac em, t’nod ouy ewo em meht seye?” This irritating voice was followed by an inhumane rasp of a laugh.

‘Seriously, what the hell is that language? It sounds oddly familiar…’ Another idle thought entered his mind whilst he waited for his opportunity, staying calm and ignoring the strange laugh.

However, he wouldn’t need that opportunity ...

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a stentorian screech burst his ears. Knight reflexively slammed his hands against his ears, memories of his last moments of his lazy life on Earth stumbling into his mind.

Piecing himself back together, he peered around the corner to see what had happened.

The creature’s right hand looked disjointed. No, not disjointed, it was the exact same as a second before but for some reason the hand looked...almost disconnected. “Huh...?”

The hand slowly slid out of position, sliding off the girl’s face, allowing her to blink again. However, his arm stayed in place. The hand didn’t just look disconnected, it was disconnected.

Knight couldn’t help but reveal a smug smile in sight of this dismemberment, however, it was quickly demolished when another giant entered his view.

“Holy shit...”

Although the first creature was absolutely, undoubtedly huge that it even had to duck its head to fit in the room, Knight couldn’t even see the shoulders of this new giant; he could see the neck of the first. ‘How big is that thing...’

“...!”

The smaller giant dropped to its disfigured knees; its head now in knight’s vision, he noticed its head appeared to be shining with what looked like sweat.

An obscure, black face appeared from the ceiling of the tunnel, it was directly above the original creature, staring it down; the smaller giant seemed to gulp at the new arrival’s actions as it rotated its head ninety-degrees to look directly above, to the obscure, black face covered from Knight due to long black hair.

However, Knight spotted a slit on the face of the new giant move, “Ouy od ton hcuot reh, ehs si yrev laiceps ot mih…” before its greasy hair covered the slit once more.

Suddenly however, the seaweed hair was gone, and so was the true giant. However, the original giant was still there, as was the rest of its lifeless body as it fell to the floor.

Knight was confused. The orders of the real giant made no sense to him of course; most of the rasping didn’t even reach his ears as his gaze was stuck on the dead creature. Its hand had separated from its bulging arm, floating in a colourless liquid.

“Well...that’s good... I guess.”