By the time Puck reached the cavern exit he was aiming for, he was more exhausted than he had hoped but less so than expected.

He had jogged the whole stretch at a constant and conservative speed. It was only when he had started to jog upwards towards the cavern exit that he began to get exhausted.

But Puck thought it would be worth it. Wherever the others had positioned themselves, they shouldn’t all have positioned themselves at exactly this exit. And with his movement speed, they shouldn’t have had enough time to reposition themselves.

Slowing down to not seem suspicious to the guards, Puck approached the exit. Getting out of the village was often more problematic than getting in. As the chief had decreed, the remaining Gremlins should stay together in the face of the dangers of the outside world, and nobody should be left unaccounted for.

At least for that problem, Puck had come prepared. It was about the time when many of the workers from the mushroom farms would come back into the village, and luckily, Puck himself somehow hadn’t lost his own badge as a mushroom farmer while getting beaten.

Of course, he was going in the opposite direction of the workers coming back from work, but that should be okay. It wasn’t too uncommon for someone to need to go in and out more than once to get all their stuff back home.

The main way problems could arise would be if the guards recognized Puck as a long-lost worker. To prevent them from doing that, Puck waited just out of sight of the two guards until a small group of workers came back together.

They walked slowly and discussed something loudly, it was the perfect opportunity.

Fast, but not too fast, Puck walked towards the exit from the opposite direction of the workers. Doing everything not to seem out of the ordinary, Puck let his head fall down and tried to seem like somebody who really wanted to be anywhere but here, having to finish his work.

Having calculated it right, the other group reached the guards a few moments before Puck did. While chattering on, they showed their badges to the guards one by one. Then, before all of them had shown theirs, Puck simply stepped up to them, held his badge up for the guards to see, and then walked on without another word.

Puck had thought about whether he should say something, but in the end, he decided against it to prevent someone from recognizing his voice.

While walking past the guards, Puck got to examine them a little closer, and a shudder involuntarily ran down his back. One of the guards was somebody Puck would nearly classify as a good soul, never having been particularly mean to Puck. But the other one …, the other one smiled a knowing smile when their eyes crossed for a moment.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

It wasn’t that smile, though, that made Puck shudder. No, it was the four jagged scars cutting through the face of the lanky Gremlin.

Suddenly, Puck was back in that moment before the ambush. Everything was back: the fear, the adrenaline, but also the grim determination. Only barely did Puck manage to let his steps carry him on, away from the guards and away from Trim.

The other guard frowned at Puck’s back for a moment, seemingly unsure if he should simply let him go. But then Trim asked him something and distracted him.

Forming his hands into fists, where his claws nearly burrowed into the palms of his hands, Puck’s eyes started to flicker from one place to another. Trim had recognized him and even then, had let him out. He had even helped him.

That meant he was right. There was an ambush waiting for him. There had been this small part of him that had denied that very reality for the last hours. Why should he be so important for them to organize an ambush in a few hours? Perhaps they had misjudged and were expecting him somewhere in the main cavern, perhaps…

But no, now it was clear what was waiting for him, and Puck’s heart started racing ever faster. With slow and deliberate steps, he walked forward in the darkness.

As Puck walked forward, it got harder and harder to hold himself under control. Primal instincts told him to start running without looking back.

Finally, Puck reached the first fissure of the tunnel going out of the village. Deciding to go left, Puck was aware that this should be the place for the ambush. Any farther away, and they’d risk him sneaking past them into another tunnel.

Worst of all, the fissure wasn’t in any way straight or Gremlin-made. It was one of the great fissures that could go all through the eternal ice. There were corners and protruding edges everywhere and more than a few short tunnels with dead ends went in all directions.

As Puck slowly walked into the small clearing, he decided he would try the left of the two possible tunnels as it was the one with a shorter way towards Scarlet’s abode.

Deciding to speed his steps up a little, as not to give them too much time to calculate their moves and plan their approach, Puck stopped treading so carefully, as he was sure his enemies must already have heard him.

But as Puck came nearer and nearer to the tunnel leading to his escape, he began to doubt his sanity again. “Was he perhaps simply getting too paranoid? Had the attack on him made him irrational when it came to these matters?”

Two opposing sides started to rise in Puck. One was getting more and more fearful of the eventual attack, and the other one was getting more and more hopeful that the attack would never come.

Only with a great amount of his newfound will and courage did Puck manage to push down this turmoil of emotions and focus on the here and now.

Not a moment too early too, as suddenly something started moving to the right of Puck. Before even seeing it, Puck heard the movement, as Gremlin ears were nearly unsurpassed. Spinning around, Puck saw someone rushing out from behind an ice boulder.

Realizing the Gremlin would reach him in only seconds, Puck hesitated for a moment, unsure of what to do. That hesitation might have been a good thing, though, as it allowed Puck to listen for other things.

As it turned out, there was somebody else sneaking up on him from the side opposite to the open attack.

Shoving his mixed feelings finally completely down, Puck readied himself. It was now or never.