There’s a reason we fight to the death over something like simple arguments. For arguing in the Long Dark will get you, and your party, killed sooner rather than later. So you might as well nab that future teamwork problem in the bud by removing the friction entirely.

What’s that? The best way to settle your differences? That’s quite simple. You just need to drive your point home. Preferably between the ribs.

- Grumpy, the Burrows’ most feared drillmaster.

“Hand over that traitorous piece of shi-”

“I’m warning you, blondie, one more step and I’ll be messing up that pretty face of yours.”

A groan escaped my lips as the shouting match began to intensify. Their insults lost on me when Sly’s voice filled my ears. “Thank the Gods, you’re awake.” An arm gently lifted me up against the rocky wall; blurred vision filled with dozens of vague shapes. “Things are getting out of control, Marcus. You need to call Gob. As in, right now.”

“What?” was all I managed to blurt out. A few rapid eye-blinks made my sight sharper, though it did nothing for the splitting headache. What the fuck is happening? I was propped up somewhere in the back of a cave; crystal light revealing the mob of Awakened in front of me. They were practically foaming at the mouth as Hammer, Pickle, Dirk, and Dagger had positioned themselves into a protective semi-circle.

“He’s awake!” a blond girl shouted, barely able to advance an inch before Pickle’s fist impacted her face. Her head snapped backwards as she collapsed back into the arms of a bystander, blood spurting from her broken nose.

“How could you!” One of the men stepped forward before freezing in his tracks. Hammer’s raised fist proved enough to send him scurrying back into the crowd.

“Well, I did warn her,” Pickle said, wiping away the fresh blood onto his sackcloth. His stiff lips now curled into a smile as his other hand drew a knife from one of his boots. “Though I suggest you don’t try my patience again.” Whether people backed off because of the knife, or the dangerous glint in his eyes, I never knew.

With another groan, I forced myself upright. This doesn’t look good. We were situated in a huge, natural alcove whose ceiling was at least dozens of feet high. The light of the various crystal clusters, scattered on its walls and edges, enough to convey the situation. That’s a lot of angry people. I reckon a good sixty to seventy Awakened had driven me and my squad-mates into the alcove’s pocket. Most of them angry, but still in control. What scared me were a few at the front. The way that their hands made various gestures as they locked eyes with me. Magical gestures. This is going to get real ugly. Real fast. I broke the eye contact before looking around. I need your help, Max. Where the fuck are you? A few seconds later, I found him.

He was sitting with the rest of the Awakened, on a lower elevation, in the middle of the alcove. Thirty something men and women huddled alone, or in small groups, as they rocked back and forth. Maximilian situated next to a thing resembling Isabelle; her face was still there, but here horns had grown to at least a foot each, concealing most of her body in a forest of human thorns. Thorns that dripped blood as her fingers scratched at what few places of flesh remained, her eyes vacant as she mumbled incoherently.

“Say something, you asshole!” one of the men shouted. Dark rings under his brown eyes wrinkled as the eyebrows above were pulled into a scowl. “I heard your demon’s speech! Deal my ass! You were just pretending all this time!”

What are they talking about? Sly must have noticed my stunned look, for she quickly made her way besides me. “A few of them remained conscious inside that… suit Gob made.” She shivered, and so did a few others. “Those that didn’t, woke up the moment they hit the water.” She pointed behind the crowd. “When we finally got out of them, we found ourselves wet and washed up over there.” There was a gentle slope leading from the alcove and into a large lake — one whose span suddenly ended when it hit a steep vertical wall. Several massive bridge pillars rested on a series of small island situated in the lake. Its waters lit with a myriad of colors as numerous crystals shined beneath the surface. A surface mired in a puddle of black blood and floating chunks of flesh. I felt someone squeeze my butt. “Focus, Marcus.”

I coughed awkwardly before looking back at Sly. “So what’s that got to do with me?”

She raised an eyebrow. “We were hoping you could tell us.”

“Liar!” someone shouted in the crowd.

“Get that fucker!” a girl screeched.

“You get him yourself,” a man said at the front, barely able to resist the mob pushing him into Pickle’s knife range.

“What the fuck did I lie about?” I asked.

“Don’t play games with us!” the tired-looking man spoke up again. “We all found you lying here in the cave! Sleeping away, safe and sound, as we had to suffer through that whole… that whole… thing.”

One of the girls clenched her arms together as she began mumbling, “I can still feel it crawl all over my skin, the way it slithered into my mouth.” A few in the crowd began to dry-heave at her words. Even my stomach churned when remembering those events.

“And don’t forget the fact that we all got eaten alive!” someone at the back shouted.

“Yeah!”

“That’s right!”

Most of the crowd joined in, but not all of them. “I didn’t get eaten,” a bald man said. A few other Awakened nodded in agreement.

The tired looking man began to gnash his teeth before looking back over his shoulder. “Almost all of us got eaten alive. You happy now?”

“Not really,” the bald man replied. “I kinda feel left out, you know?”

“You feel… left out?” the tired man asked before face-palming. He quickly turned his attention back to me. “Stupid aside, why did yo-”

“Hey!” the bald man interrupted. “I’m not stupid. I just have a learning disa… disa… disa-some-”

Another man, this one also bald, slapped him in the back of the head. “Shut up James, you’re embarrassing me.”

“Ow! What you do that for, Rick? You always hit me when I talk to others. Mom never does that.”

“Mom still feels guilty about dropping you as a baby.”

“What’s guilty Rick? Can you eat it?”

The man called Rick began to bury his face beneath his fingers. “No, James. It means th-”

“CAN WE PLEASE GET BACK TO THE TOPIC AT HAND!” the tired man interjected. He was visibly wheezing at this point.

Not that it bothered me, there were bigger problems. This can’t be good. We’re making too much noise. “Pipe it down wi-”

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“I don’t like him, Rick. He seems like a meanie.”

Rick gave James another tap before grabbing his earlobe. “I think we’ve caused enough problems here. You’re coming with me.”

“Ow, ow, ow. That hurts, Rick,” James said as he began getting dragged off. “Stop pulling so hard. Why do yo- oooh that’s a shiny rock. Can I have it, Rick? Please…? Pretty please…?”

Another slap echoed through the alcove before silence reigned. What remained was the continuous falling of water-drops, and the soft wheezing of a tired looking man. “Are we done?” he asked, looking around the crowd with bloodshot eyes. “Can I speak now?” The mob nodded, causing him to look at me once more. “I’ll ask again. Why did your demon only bring you to safety? And no-” A human scream cut off his sentence midway, causing the man to practically start fuming at this point. “What is it now!?”

“The water, there’s something in the water!” The mob turned collectively towards the underground lake. A shadow, bigger than the pool of blood, lurked beneath the surface before a giant open maw swallowed the various bits and pieces of floating flesh in one gulp. More screams were heard as the thing dropped back beneath the water, causing a tidal wave to wash towards the alcove. People quickly scurried to higher ground, some of them pressing against the throng of people in front of me.

Soon after, the cave grew still again, safe for the gentle laps of waves washing in and out on the alcove’s slope. “What was that!?” the tired man asked.

“I have no idea,” I said. “But I suggest you shut your trap, or that thing won’t be the biggest of our problems.” The man was getting on my nerves. Each time he opened his mouth, only loud noise tended to come out. Noise that attracted all sorts of things. Things that made me shiver uncontrollably.

The man looked at my reaction and then back to the crowd behind him, causing a thin smile to appear on his lips. “You’re not the one who gets to make demands!” He spread his arms wide. “We are here, because of you! So you better star-”

He froze mid sentence when Sly lunged forward, ripping Pickle’s knife away before resting the business end of it on the man’s nut-sack. It all happened in the span of a second. His eyes flicked downwards before he let out a soft squeak as Sly started applying pressure.

“Look at me,” she said. The man did as he was told, albeit trembling in the process. “You are still here because of him. So, you, better start showing, him, some damn respect.” She shifted her gaze to the crowd. “That goes for all of you.” One of the women opened her mouth to reply, but was promptly cut off when Sly spoke up again, “I don’t want to hear your whining. If it weren’t for Marcus here, you would still be on that bridge. Alive.” The woman looked puzzled, and so did many others. “As for the men, they would have been lucky enough to only serve as lunch.” A light of understanding began to glint in the eyes of many women.

“I don’t understand,” the now shivering man said. He gasped for air when Sly grabbed him by the balls, squeezing them hard enough to make my own start to tingle.

“I know you don’t understand, shit for brains. If thinking was your strong suit, you would have killed yourself the moment you crawled out of your mother's asshole. Save her the trouble of raising such a worthless piece of shit.” The man buckled to his knees as more pressure was applied, all the men in the crowd wincing at the sight. “Now if I hear another thing coming out of your mouth. Just a peep. I will make sure that you’ll be squeaking like a mouse for the rest of your misbegotten life. Do you understand me?”

“Ye-” the man doubled over the moment those words left his lips. I saw the muscles in Sly’s forearm relax as her other arm dropped the knife, using the now free hand to pull his head back.  

The man was pale and shivering, though his eyes conveyed a deeper terror. “Once more, shit for brains. Do. You. Understand. Me?” This time the man only nodded. “Good.” She let go off his hair, and his balls, before kicking him back into the crowd. She picked up the knife, pointing it at everyone in the front row. “Anyone else got any complaints?” The women shook their heads as most of the men seemed too scared to make eye contact. “In that case, I suggest you fuck off and get some sleep. We’ll call you when we have a plan of approach.” The crowd began to disperse, but not before Sly got in one more thing. “Oh, and before I forget.” People froze mid-stride at her words. “Since you all seem so fond of screaming and making noise. I suggest you keep an eye out on the walls and the water. There’s no telling what visitors your whining will have attracted.”

I couldn’t help but sit down and laugh at that last statement. There’s no way they would be sleeping soundly with that information. Not with the way they fearfully glanced about. It was more likely they would stay up, suspecting every shadow of hidden threats. Just the way its supposed to be.

“Good job, boss lady,” Pickle said as Sly made her way back. “Sure showed them who’s in charge.” He looked at me before shrugging. “No offense, captain.”

“None taken,” I said. “I’m not cut out for this leadership crap.”

“Give it a few months,” Sly said. She handed the knife back to Pickle before sitting next to me. “I wasn’t any better when I started.”

“Broncoshit,” Dirk said. “Hawk daddy got you tutored on leadership when you were what? Eight? Nine?”

“Six,” Sly said.

“See?” Dirk patted my shoulder. “Don’t compare yourself to this freak of nature. You’re doing fine for a second-day captain. Trust me.” He stretched a it before sitting down. “Besides, you managed to keep your cool without knowing what happened. Normally you would’ve cowered from the beginning instead of at the very end.”

“I wasn’t afraid of the mob.” Pickle looked skeptical, to say the least. “Just afraid of what they might be attracting.” That sentence caused us to make a few fleeting glances at nearby shadows; a habit hard to shake in these dark parts.

“Well, well, well. Would you look at that,” Sly’s voice tingled my ear. She’s close. “Little Marcus seems to be growing up into a brave man.” An arm began to snake its way around me. Too close. “Shame we don’t have a tent.” She began to press herself against me. Way too close “Though I don’t really mind doing it in the open.” Just when I couldn’t contain myself any longer, she pulled back with a smile. “My, my, little Marcus. Do you have cold? Your face is all red.”

I could only look down in embarrassment as people snickered around me. Really need to stop falling for her tricks. “So you want to know what happened, or what?” I asked.

“I don’t know, little Marcus. Teasing you seems so much more fun. But it’ll have to do… for now.”

There were several more snickers before I retold all my experiences. They seemed impressed when I told them about my near escape from the lake. And grimaced when I got to the getting eaten part. It seemed I wasn’t the only one swallowed whole by that thing. Though none of them seemed to have heard that deep voice at the end. Instead, something had suddenly destroyed creature before dumping them on the alcove’s shore. “And that’s when I woke up to you having a shouting match.”

“Huh,” Dagger said. “So that means you have no idea where your demon is?”

“Well, I have an inkling.” Dagger leaned in closer for an explanation. “He stated that we always have to be within a certain range of each other. Unless he lied about that part too.” I frowned before relaxing again. “Though that doesn’t matter. Even if it was a lie, he’s too curious to let such an entertaining opportunity escape from his grasp.” I looked towards the countless shadows around me. “He’s probably sitting somewhere nearby, observing. Laughing his ass off as we struggle to survive this place.”

“So we got a rogue demon, with an unknown amount of power, watching our every move?” Pickle asked.

“That seems about right.”

“I told you that Gob was special,” Pickle said before elbowing Hammer. “It seems to me that you owe me a couple of rounds.”

“What is this all about?” I asked.

“We knew you were hiding something in that basement,” Dirk answered. “There’s no way a newly summoned demon would be powerful enough to scare away a dweller. Heck, not even Sly’s demon can do that.”

“But if you knew, why didn’t y-”

Dirk raised a hand. “We were planning to pull it out of you after we got you drunk and fucked silly. But after that crying plead of yours… Well let’s just say that it wasn’t the right time to ask questions, now was it?” He looked around our circle, getting nods of agreement all around. “Though that doesn’t mean we agree with that magic circle stunt you pulled. I don’t know how you did it, but don’t do it ever again. You almost gave Sly a heart attack.”

“Do what?” My question raised several eyebrows.

“You don’t know?” Dirk looked at Sly. “Well what happene-”

“Not now, Dirk,” Sly said. “I’ll make sure to personally check it later. For now, he doesn’t need to know.”

Pickle began to laugh. “Lucky you, Marcus. That will be an inspection to remember, that’s for sure.”

What are they talking about? I looked at Sly What happened? She simply shook her head. It bugged me that I didn’t know what they were talking about. Though that hardly seems fair with all the secrets I’ve been keeping. I sighed before voicing my opinion, “I understand. You can tell me later.”

Sly seemed happy with my answer, almost grinning when she spoke up again. “Now that we’ve got that out of the way, we’ll need a plan of approach. But first, something important.”

All eyes were suddenly fixated on me. “What? What is it?”

“Well… you’re the captain now,” Dagger answered. “So we were wondering, who’s your second?”

That’s easy. I locked gazes with Sly, feeling ever so small in those predatory eyes of hers. “Sly, would you do me the honor of being my second-in-command?”

She made the most cocky grin imaginable. “Sure I will, little Marcus. But only on one condition. And one condition only.”

“And that is?”

I could feel my heart-rate rise again as she scooted closer, breath caressing my ear.

“Only if I'm number one in bed.”

My reddening cheeks caused more than a few giggles.