I missed them, my family, the people in my corner who spoke my language, a language built on trust and subtlety. Mr. Mosely couldn't compare. He certainly tried to keep up, but it seemed as if the two of us were on the opposite end of the spectrum when it came to communication. Every waking minute was arguments galore on what we were to do about our predicament.
I glanced over at him as he slept. He was bare-chested and using his long-sleeve shirt as a makeshift pillow. In his offhand, he held Doug, the skeleton's arm bone, sharpener to a point at one end. ‘Another layer of safety,’ Mr. Mosely called it.
The snatchers—again, a personal nickname for the creatures that Mr. Mosely abstained from using—were devious, coming at odd times to probe our alertness. They’d poke their tiny heads through the [blast] hole and were quick to evade. We’d missed every [blast] we’d taken.
I called them snatchers because they’d stolen our jackets and my watch, and I was rather peeved about it. Losing the jacket was fine; I’d yet to feel as much as a breeze in the lukewarm air, but losing the watch hurt. It made me painfully aware of how long a minute could last.
I shifted my eyes back to the hole, and there was still no movement. It was the perfect time for practice. “[Ethereal],” I whispered.
The near-transparent ball of blue light appeared in my hand instantly. It was still the size and weight of a marble, but practice had taught me there was more than meets the eye when it came to this magic.
I focused first on my hand, allowing the warmth to course through my body and settle there. Activation came much more straightforward than my last attempt. When convinced I’d reached a boiling point, I focused the warmth up and into the ball.
I watched, with a smile on my face, as the ball of light ballooned in size while maintaining its original weight. It grew to about the size of a tennis ball before I finally restrained the swell of warmth. I wanted to stop the sphere’s growth a bit sooner, but overall, I was satisfied with the test. The first time I had tried this stunt, I hadn’t realized how to stop, so the [ethereal] ball had reached the size of an overgrown watermelon before it stopped. And the headache that came with it had caused my nose to bleed.
Unlike [platform] and [shield], [ethereal] seemed to command a high upfront cost in quote-on-quote ‘magic energy.’ The opposing spells felt more like a leaky faucet, dripping out bits of power to keep the spell active, while [ethereal] worked more like a switch. Once I paid the energy, the draining feeling would cease.
[Blast] had a similar effect, but not nearly as taxing. I could get off at least five [blasts] in a row without getting the same intensity of headache as it took to make a single tennis-sized [ethereal] ball.
I placed the ball in my lap and focused on my left—offhand—and said, “[platform].”
The [platform] appeared in front of me instantly—its glow greatly diminished due to my new eyes and started the hour or so-long window that the spell could run for before symptoms appeared. I wouldn’t need that long, but the number was worth remembering.
Without needing to look down, I took the [ethereal] ball and ran a few tests to confirm nothing had changed. My test encompassed a few squeezes and a couple of tosses, but that was about it. And as far as I could tell, there was no difference.
“A success,” I whispered.
Over the course of the past few days, I’d learned three important things about magic. One, it wasn’t infinite. I’d learned my lesson in what many—only me—were calling the battle of the rooftop in the ongoing snatcher war. If I tried to overuse the ‘energy,’ I’d get headaches, nausea, dizziness, nosebleeds, or worse. Thankfully, I hadn’t found anything worse yet, but the chance remained.
Second, I’d learned you only need one hand for magic. And if only one hand was required, that meant the second was free to do something else. That something else was more magic.
It had taken me a bit of time to get my left hand acquainted with the spread energy, but once I did, doing two spells at once became the goal. A goal that I have now achieved.
I focused back on my left hand and dismissed the [platform], which was my third most crucial discovery about magic. I could end a spell. Instead of switching back and forth between spells and bringing on a headache sooner than needed, I could simply cut the flow of energy and dismiss the magic.
“You go in here.”
I placed the [ethereal] ball into the vase and replaced the lid. Since the magic wasn’t a constant drain, keeping it would be fine. I wasn’t sure if the ball would last forever, but it would be amazing if it did.
“Hey, wake up,” I said as I nudged Mr. Mosely gently with my foot. The last time I checked Mr. Mosely’s watch was at least an hour ago. My watch duty was near completion. “Come on, I need to sleep.”
I continued to prod him with my boot until. Eventually, he stirred with a bewildered look on his face.
“It’s your turn to watch. And I drank all the water in our spare vase, so you’ll have to open a new one if you're thirsty.”
“Did any of them come,” he yawned.
“Nope, first quiet shift.”
“Hope it's the same for me,” he replied as he was putting his shirt back on.
I crawled over to the corner near the hatch opening for the next floor where I’d done as well a job as I could to clear the dust and placed the vase with the [ethereal] ball in it near. I didn’t have a nightstand, so the floor would have to do.
I removed my pants—underwear was still on—and placed them on the floor to use as my pillow. Mr. Mosely had complained about it the first ‘night’ but relented after realizing I wasn’t going for it.
“Wake me up if they come,” I said as I lay down. I was on my back and rested my arms on my chest like a corpse. Usually, I slept face down, but my arm wouldn’t allow me. The cut arm was large and still in the early forms of scabbing, so I wanted to do everything possible to avoid it opening.
“Hey,” I called out. Mr. Mosely was nodding off but snapped back to attention. “Drink some water. Stay awake. And wake me up if they come, ok?”
“You’ll hear me shoutin’,” he replied between another yawn. “I promise you that…”
------------------------
“I’ve tried and failed. You have to go with me,” Mr. Mosely said. He was leaning against the wall, and holding his chest as if he was having a heart attack.
“You know one of us needs to keep watch. Have you tried—“
“I’ve tried everythin’! We will die! Don’t you see that! You’d rather face certain death than help me get us somethin’ to eat, are you dumb,” he shouted. I reeled back in shock at Mr. Mosely’s outburst. It wasn’t an argument we hadn’t had before, but he hadn’t yelled before. If anything, these past few days, he’d been anything but vocal.
“We gon’ die. We gon’ fuckin’ die. Fuck those dammed things. They haven't shown their faces in two days. They’ve probably moved on to catch something else to eat. We not gon’ get anything by waitin’ here. We are going now!”
He slowly slid down the wall into a squat and eventually to sitting. I could see the outburst had strained him. He was breathing short, uneven breaths and grimacing in pain. Hunger had sapped his strength.
“Ok,” I mumbled.
“Ok, what?” His tone was a bit more hostile.
“Ok, we go. You're right. Even if the snatchers returned, it wouldn’t matter if we starved. We’ll try one person on the platform and use the bone to skewer one of them.”
“We goin’ now?”
“No better time than now. We only get weaker as the days go by.”
“Help me up, will you.”
I shuffled over to him. Just as his body was weak, hunger had taken its toll on me too. I could feel stabbing pains and the headaches I got were worsened by my hunger. When Mr. Mosely got to his feet, he leaned heavily on me, and I leaned heavily on him.
Together, we slowly descended the tower to the awaited seventh floor. We brought with us sharpened arm bones, one normal femur, the metal chains that held Doug to the wall, a vase filled with two [ethereal] balls, and our wits.
“What did you say happened last time,” I asked as I watched a rat scamper across the floor.
We were peering down from the safety of the sixth floor, and I was shocked by the things I saw. The entire room was like a self-contained biome. There was a hairy brown moss on the walls and ground and piles of feces mixed with bones. In one corner, there was even an igloo of feces that many of the rats were scurrying in and out of.
I turned my attention back to Mr. Mosely who was droning on about how he’d tried everything a single man could possibly do.
“...It was impossible. This ain’t like fishing, I’ll tell you that. I managed to kill one of ‘em with one of ‘em beams, but I wasn't able to get the body because the rat exploded when it got hit. And that sent the rest of ‘em into hiding,” Mr. Mosely said.
“Hmmm,” I groaned in reply.
“So what you gon’ do?”
“Well, you said they were aggressive, right?”
“Yeah”
“Well, one of us needs to get close, kill it, and then stab through it with the bone. I’m going to tie the bone to the chain so whoever is up here can pull the body up while the person at the bottom is getting away. If we go down, they will be drawn to us.”
“Kill it how? I told you the beam explodes the rat.”
“Aim for the head, I guess.”
“Aim for the head, he says,” Mr. Mosely said as he chuckled. His laughter turned into a long hacking cough that ended in silence. “Who should go down?”
“You're an adult, remember. I’m just a kid.”
“A kid? You already got the makin’s of a mustache. That is a man where I’m from.”
“I’m still hurt. See.” I flashed my unhealed arm, which was healing rather slowly than my usual flesh wounds. There was some worry in the back of my mind that there was something more, but I was suppressing the thought.
“You’re better with the magic,” Mr. Mosely replied.
“Yeah, but I've seen you shoot [blast]; you’re just as good as me.”
That was a lie. He was nowhere near as good, but up close, it wouldn’t matter.
“My hip is bad, you'll move quicker.”
“My ankle still hurts.”
“No, it doesn’t. You've been walking fine.”
“I don’t want to reinjure it.”
“Oh, fuck this,” Mr. Mosely said as he threw his hands up in exasperation. “Let’s be democratic about this. Rock-paper-scissors. Loser goes down.”
“Fine,” I said.
We did rock-paper-scissors, and of course, I lost. I’d always been a rock type of kid. Unfortunately, the masses were paper players.
“Me then,” I said. I wanted anything but to go. My chest was tight, and my hands were shaky.
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“I’ll be quick up here. And I’ll keep an eye out for the monsters outside, too.”
“Great. Just great.”
I grabbed one of Doug’s arm bones we’d sharpened and tied it as tight I could to the rusted chains. We used one of the sleeves on Mr. Mosely's shirt as our tie, so he was left asymmetrical in terms of clothing. But Mr. Mosely didn’t strike me as the type to care much about fashion.
After I was finished tying the bones to the chain’s end, Mr. Moselt undid the knot, re-tied it, and said, “Double fisherman knot is better.”
“[Platform],” I said. I set the platform right below the hole and climbed down. The smell was atrocious.
“Hand me the vase.”
“What for,” Mr. Mosely asked.
“I put a couple [ethereal] spell forms in there.”
“What?”
“Oh, just hand me the vase.”
Mr. Mosely handed me the vase, and I paused to take a long look around. More than the smell, the sight of the giant rats made me sweat. I hadn’t done much sweating since we’d arrived–especially due to my hunger, but when I looked down I couldn't help but catch a slight tremble. In theory, facing your fears was a good thing, but in action, it was anything but good at the moment.
I set a second [platform] with my offhand and began my descent, going down on the two platforms like a squarial staircase. When I got halfway from the bottom, the rats started to stir. They peeked out from under the mountains of bone feces and began to squeak rapidly to welcome my arrival.
“Lower the chain,” I yelled up.
As Mr. Mosely lowered the rusted chain, I cracked open the lid on the vase. Inside were three identical-sized [ethereal] balls, and they were giving off a soft blue glow that I could see around the interior of the clay.
I grabbed ahold of the bone and took one glance back up at Mr. Mosely—who gave an encouraging wave—before I descended a little deeper. I stopped a few feet shy of the bottom and sat the vase down on [platform].
The rat chatter near the bottom was loud and sounded like a flock of morning birds pitched one octave higher. The giant monstrosities scampered away from the light to the room's edges, where even my improved eyesight proved useless.
“Who's scared? Not me. Just a few bloodthirsty bubonic spreaders,” I whispered to myself.
I reached the vase and pulled out one of the [ethereal” balls. “A little light should do the trick.” I aimed at the mound, where I saw a few rats scamper and gave the ball toss. It hit the ground with a thud and stuck like mud.
None of the rats darted out from the area for me to pick off like I was hoping for, so I aimed with another.
My aim was much better on the second toss. The [ethereal] ball disappeared into the rat hole I aimed for, and the rats squealed. In a stampede, dozens of the giant rats scurried across the ground in all directions–hopefully blinded like I was going for.
They avoided the soft glow from the [platforms] light, seeking to skirt around the edges and join some of the others in hiding. I couldn't allow that. I gave my third and final ball a toss, and it landed in a dark corner. The hundreds that were in that corner re-congregating turned back into a stampede. This time, some headed in my direction.
“[Blast]! [Blast]! [Blast]! [Blast],” I shouted from my perch.
The rats dodged, or I missed, except for one shot. The [blast] I did land blew the hind legs off one of the rats and sent it flying in the air, landing not too far away.
I reacted fast, mainly in an attempt to limit the fear. I jumped off the platform and yelled [shield]--using my left hand to not dismiss [platform]. And the translucent green octagon appeared in front of me.
I dashed toward the twitching dead body of the rat with our makeshift pulley system in hand, but I didn’t get far. The chain yanked me back.
I glanced up at Mr. Mosely, looking down with an open mouth as the chain fell to the floor. It hit the ground with a large rattling thud and was accompanied by a yelp from Mr.Mosely. The chain wasn’t long enough. I discarded the sharpened bone end I was holding and turned my head back toward the dead rat just as one—a very alive one—slammed right into my [shield]. I fell onto my backside in shock and yelled, “[blast].’
The red beam of light shot right through my [shield] and exploded the beady-eyed rat into hundreds of pieces. With no time to waste, I scrambled across the piles of feces and yanked the original–mostly intact rat by its singed tail back toward the [platform] to leave the chain and all the scurrying black blurs behind.
By the time I reached the top, Mr. Mosely was waiting for me with a worried look on his face. “I’m sorry, kid. I’m so-so-sorry. I tried holdin’ on—I did. I swear it.” He was standing a little ways away from the floor opening and was pinching his nose shut.
I didn’t get the chance to respond with the harsh words I’d planned because when my mouth opened, water spewed out, and I vomited all over myself. The vomit smelled nasty, like rotten food. Mr. Mosely caught a whiff and backed off even farther.
“Are you ok,” Mr. Mosely asked.
“Let's feast," I replied.
-------------------
“What are you doin’,” Mr. Mosely asked as he hung the two freshly acquired rat pelts. He had nailed a few bones into the wall days ago—rats' bones—for the purpose of ‘drying’ the pelts out. According to him, it would keep their fur from going to waste, but for what purpose a rat pelt held, I didn’t know. I chalked it up to idle hands needing something to do. Nonetheless, I appreciated his contribution.
“Making a map,” I replied after careful consideration. The topic of anything besides survival had become a sore subject since the snatchers' last invasion. They’d nearly gotten in while I was nodding off.
“A map? A map of what?”
“Well, I started here.” I pointed to a piece of broken vase I’d been internally referring to as ‘the starting point.’ “If I started here and walked about an hour or two, that gets me here.” I pointed to a bigger piece of vase. “This is the edge of the ‘Darkened City—wait, no! The Forsaken City.”
I smiled without bothering to look up at Mr. Mosely, who was likely rolling his eyes. For me, It was the little things. And a good name was everything plus the little things.
I continued, “Your timepiece has a compass, remember? It says where I came from is the East if we consider the building we’re in now the North. And that means if we want to go deeper in the city, we’d need to head west if I remember correctly.”
“We can’t leave until we have enough food. And we need a way to store our water. Not gon’ to get far without water. We’ve already talked about this,” Mr. Mosely replied.
“If the other buildings are anything like this one, we’ll have all the water and rat meat we need,” I said.
I shuttered involuntarily at the thought of myself eating rat meat. I’d told myself it was exotic chicken to get around my negative sentiment. And it worked for the most part. There wasn’t another type of meat to compare, but I bet any meat seared against the edge of a floating magic beam would taste like burnt chicken.
“I don’t want to risk it. We will stay here a few more weeks, and everything will be ready by then.”
“Mmm,” I mumbled and left it at that.
“You should stop focusin’ on leaving and focus on livin’. Put those hands to good use. Maybe try to make the rope from moss on the walls like I was tellin’ you ‘bout. ”
I nodded and turned my attention back to the map I was envisioning in my head. I could hear Mr. Mosely physically sigh as he walked away.
“Where are you going? We don’t need any more rats.” Mr. Mosely headed toward the second-floor entrance.
“To wash this off.” He held up his hands, stained like dye, the color red. “It’s like no matter what I do; the blood won’t come off.”
----------------------------
“You saw them?”
“How could I not,” I whispered. For hunters who hunted in the dark with surprise as their weapon of choice, the snatchers weren’t very subtle. Every time they came to check on us, they would always lurk around the edge of the ceiling hole, making all types of grunting noises before they poked their heads down for us to take target practice.
They hadn’t learned their lesson.
“What are they doin’," Mr. Mosely said as he circled the hole to the other side of the room. He was trying to catch a glimpse of them. As was I.
“I don’t know—talking maybe. Be ready to fire. They’re not getting away this time.”
My hand was already out in front, ready to [blast] at the slightest of movements.
Nothing happened for a while, and my chest began to tighten. I was forgetting to breathe.
I took a deep breath as the tiny head poked its way down. I mumbled [blast] instantly, and I heard Mr. Mosely follow up a few seconds later. My [blast] hit the target first, while Mr. Mosely followed up quickly. The creature’s head and shoulder got blown off, leaving it unable to let out any cry of pain.
The snatcher hit the ground in the middle of the floor with a thump. And a green ooze—snatcher’s blood—started to pool out around the body.
“We got it,” Mr. Mosely whooped. “We finally got it.”
“They’re leaving,” I said. The snatcher hadn’t come alone. I could hear the echoes of footsteps getting progressively farther away.
“I knew we’d get ‘em eventually. Only so much they could do with us waitin’ on ‘em.”
“Do you think they’ll come again,” I questioned.
“If they do, they'll meet a similar fate as this guy.”Mr. Mosely pointed to the body, and I couldn’t help but feel a sense of relief looking at the corpse.
Pieces of the snatcher’s head and shoulder were missing, likely blown out of existence.
Mr. Mosely approached the body with his femur--The two of us had split Doug’s femurs between ourselves—in hand. He had a grimace on his face as he looked the creature over.
“Dead.”
He reached down to the snatcher's waist, where a tiny loop of black hairs held pouches and a tiny bone knife, and picked up the knife. It was about the size of his forearm and curved like a shark tooth.
“This may come in handy,” He said. “What’s with that look on your face?”
“What look?”
“Like ahh—I don’t know, you just look off.” He pointed at the corpse again and gave it a slight kick before saying, “This thing right wasn't human. It's some demon or monster, so don’t feel sorry for it. It would kill us if it could. You and I are all we have. These are just—bigger rats, you understand?”
“I’m fourteen—almost fifteen. I don’t need a lecture about all dogs going to heaven.”
They were them, and we were the us. We didn’t do anything wrong. I shouldn't feel any way, and yet I did, despite what I told him.
“Good, ‘cause I’m goin’ to need your help movin’ this body later.”
---------------------------
My hands ached, and it was all for nothing. I had spent hours—days even, focused on creating rope and other valuable tools, but I was shocked to find I wasn’t as handy as I thought. Scattered around me were all of my failed attempts. Moss, and vines, and bones, and clay, all gone to waste.
A few failures usually weren’t a big deal, but being trapped in another world made every mistake sting a bit more. Mr. Mosely’s offhand remarks didn’t help either. The man knew how to needle at my pride.
I threw the uncooperative vines to the ground and wiped my sticky hands onto my sticker pants. I’d need to wash them later, a chore becoming increasingly more difficult as days passed.
I stood and took one last look at the blast hole—more out of habit than true precaution and began my climb down the tower.
Mr. Mosely would be on the third floor as he always was. There weren't many other places to go. And for him, the third floor had become his garden of Eden.
When I reached the third floor, he was in the center with his back toward me. He seemed highly focused and didn’t notice my approach.
“Mr. Mosely,” I called out. Either he chose not to answer, or he didn't hear me. Neither was fine with me. “Mr. Mosely!”
His head popped up from the hunched-over position, and he whirled around to face me.
“Yes! Come over, I think I finally got it right,” Mr. Mosely said as he waved me over.
I walked over and stood beside him as he presented a large pouch of dead rat skin for me to take. It was hefty when I lifted it, and I could feel the water moving around.
“It’s a waterskin! It took me a while to get it right, but I did. I had to dissect a few rats to figure out where their stomach was. And then, I had to make sure it was safe and waterproof. And then came the actual sewin’ it. I had to….”
Mr. Mosely continued to drone, but I couldn’t focus on his words, only his appearance. He looked like an entirely different man; the weeks had changed him, made him feral. His clothes were stained with blood, and his hair had grown unkempt. There was also a wild look in his eye that seemed so opposite of the calm man he presented himself as during our first encounter.
“In three days, we leave here for good,” I said, cutting off his rambling.
“What?”
“I said that in three days, we will leave here for good—no more projects. No more being afraid of snatchers—we haven't seen them in weeks. No more rats. No more.”
Mr. Mosely chuckled to himself something about kids under his breath, and I won’t lie, it struck a nerve in me.
“I’m not arguing with you. We are leaving, or I'm leaving. I don’t plan on living out my days waiting for death in this tower. Make your choice. I’ve made mine.”
“Oh, you're serious. Kid, I know your gung ho to leave, but you don’t know what you’re talkin’ ‘bout,” Mr. Mosely said in a condescending tone. “You’ve seen the things out there. We can’t just go. We’ll die. You don't want to die, do you? Just like the man you saw the first day. Remember what you said happened to him. That will be you. Work on the rope. I’m thinkin’ we can steam some meat. Not sure how the smokin’ thing works, but I’m thinkin’ I can heat the water with a bolt and make a little steam.”
“Thirty days, fourteen hours, and forty-six seconds.” I reached into my pant pocket and produced Mr. Mosely’s watch. He’d given it to me to hold days ago and had yet to ask for it back. “Thirty days, fourteen hours, and forty-six seconds. Thirty days, fourteen hours, and forty-six seconds.”
I tossed the watch to him, and he fumbled it on the catch.”That's how long we’ve been here.”
Mr. Mosley flashed a look of grave concern and asked, “Where would you have us go?”
“Deeper into the city. I’ve mapped out the surroundings already while you were down here messing around.”
He scoffed, “Maps are useless when you’re hungry.”
“Food is useless to someone with nothing to live for,”I said.
“And when you find yourself trapped by hideous creatures out there and you are left starvin’, what will you do? I mean no harm. I’m not tryna’ break whatever childhood delusion you have. All I ask is, what will you do? ‘Cause you will be alone. I promise you that.”
I didn’t want to leave without Mr. Mosely, But I wouldn’t stay in hiding forever. There could be others in the labyrinth, my family, or others. Sitting here wasn’t going to find them. We’d overstayed our welcome.
I turned my back to leave him and his bloody crafts and said, “The only thing I can do is die. But until that time comes, I’ll choose to hope.”