Chapter 27

I never thought I’d miss the blue glow from The Hub as much as I did when the rescue team escorted me out of the mines. It’s a welcoming sight I didn’t give too much thought to before but seeing the blue brightstones shining all over the walls relieves the stress and tension that has been accumulating since I was first trapped in the tunnel. I’m finally free. Once we’re out of the mine, sunlight shines down on my face and it has never felt better than right now. Breathing in a deep breath of fresh air, I can finally relax for the first time in what seems like an eternity.

I’m brought to Oliver’s office where Oliver and Harold welcome me in with smiles on their faces. They sit me down on a leather seat and serve me milk and honey once again while they explain what happened to me. Apparently I’ve been trapped in that tunnel for exactly one week. A week ago, an earthquake started right next to the Wellock Mine and it caused multiple tunnel entrances to collapse. Miraculously, no one was even hurt let alone perish and thanks to the waterskins every miner was required to carry, everyone managed to survive. Wraine’s tunnel didn’t even collapse and he’s been helping the rescue team dig out collapsed tunnels. My tunnel was the last to be excavated because it was the deepest tunnel in the mine, but they assured me the rescue team was working day and night to make sure everyone got out alive.

When Oliver finishes telling me what happened, the door to his office opens and Mr. Wellock, the owner of this whole outpost and the Wellock Trading Company’s namesake, walks in with a bright smile on his face. I’ve only seen him once before when he was doing a personal routine inspection of the outpost. He’s a rotund old man with neat white hair and a matching mustache. His rosy cheeks tell anyone who sees him about his vibrant health despite his age and weight. He’s dressed in a black suit I’ve only ever seen incredibly wealthy merchants wear and he even wears a gold monocle over his left eye. When he sees me, he comes up to me to shake my hand and tells me what an amazing feat I’ve accomplished by surviving a tunnel collapse. He tells me as compensation for the hardship I’ve had to endure, he’s giving me 1 gold coin. I’ve heard about the sort of person he was before but this is too outrageous. My mind is too stunned to comprehend his words but he sees this and chuckles while patting me on the back. He gently grabs my hand and puts a gold coin on my palm before he closes my fingers around the coin. “You deserve it Isaac. Not everyone is capable of surviving what you’ve gone through but I can tell you’re a fighter. This coin is just a reminder and reward for your perseverance. Use it for whatever you’d like and follow your dreams.”

What happens after that becomes a blur and before I know it, I’m back at The Sleeping Hornet. Farland gives me a nod without saying anything but he doesn’t really need to say a word for me to get his message. The past month I’ve spent at his inn before the tunnel collapse has let me grasp the sort of person he is and with that nod he communicated a dozen things to me. A gold coin is a major sum of money for me and the first thing I do with my newfound wealth is upgrade from our dormitory bed to a private room with beds for 80 copper coins a night. Even if it’s just for one night, a private room and a bed to myself is exactly what I need to unwind both my body and my mind. The room even comes with additional services and after a few minutes of rolling around on our personal beds, there’s a knock at the door. Wraine opens it and Farland hands him a large bronze basin filled with hot water. Seeing the steam gently drift off the water is more satisfying than I expected and when Wraine brings the basin into the room, we take turns cleaning up our bodies. Words can’t describe the feeling of wiping off the dirt and grime on my skin that has built up over a week with hot water. Alright, the 80 copper was worth it.

When we’re finished up in our rooms, Wraine and I head down to the dining hall and Quinn’s already seated at our usual table. Surprisingly, there’s dozens of dishes full of food I’ve never seen before spread across the table. “Look who it is! Nice to see you still alive Isaac my boy. Tonight we celebrate you getting out of those mines in one piece. Have a taste of all these delicacies here, tonight’s my treat.” I’m not one to turn down someone’s kind offer and all three of us start tearing into the feast. I’m not familiar with any of these dishes but I know when something’s tasty and every single one of these dishes was fucking delicious. As we’re gorging ourselves on all the food, we’re downing mugs of ale as quickly as Farland can serve them and before long, we’re full and drunk.

When it gets late, Quinn heads back to his room while Wraine and I support one another to get back upstairs to ours. When the door’s shut and locked, we kick off our shoes and jump right into our individual beds. Our room has an open window and the moonlight filtering through it not only lets us see inside the room without needing a light but it also gives the room a serene, ethereal feeling. I’ve never felt this comfortable before in my life and for once, I’m really glad I left the farm. Ever since leaving the farm, there have been horrible incidents after horrible incidents and after the disaster in the cave, I started to wonder whether my decision back then was right or not. But for the first time since leaving the farm, I’m really glad I made that choice. After a few more minutes of relishing in my full belly and the comfortable bed, I start to slowly drift off to sleep. Turning over to take one last look at Wraine to see if he’s already asleep, I see a large man on top of him, strangling him with both hands.

Terrified, I realize I can’t move my body. Wraine’s looking back at me and I can see tears in his eyes as his face quickly starts to redden. For some reason I can feel hands around my throat as well as if I was being strangled at the same time by some invisible force. The hands gripping my neck completely stop me from breathing and tears start to well up in my eyes as well. What horrible pain. But it's a pain I’m familiar with. Where have I felt this before? When I try to remember where I felt this before, I remember his eyes. His dead, lifeless eyes staring at me, judging me. The pain’s too much and I wince, closing my eyes for a moment but when I open them again, those dead eyes are right in front of me once again, blaming me for his death. Ahh, I understand now. Taking a closer look at the man strangling Wraine, especially at his face, I see his peculiar black beard that mismatches with his bald head. No wonder I couldn’t find him when I left the tunnel. He seemed to disappear into thin air but that was never the case. He has always been right here, right next to me. Rather, it seems like he’s on top of me right now.

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Opening my eyes once again and finally waking up, I see Kayman’s face, distorted by rage and madness. His hands are around my neck, trying to crush it but he doesn’t have the strength to finish the job. I understand because I’m the same. We haven’t eaten anything in such a long time and it’s hard to even hold my fist tight. I grab onto his wrists and try to pry them from my neck but he’s not letting go. Fuck, I knew I should’ve ended him when I had the chance. I try again to get his hands off my neck but it still isn’t working. Something else then. Scrambling around my body with my hands to try and find something, anything I can use as a weapon, I find a rock with my right hand and use all of my strength to bash it into his ribs. He winces from the impact but still doesn’t let go. My vision’s starting to blur and darken, but I know if I pass out now, I’ll die. I don’t know how long I’ve gone without a breath but any longer and it’ll be over. I try again to find something on the ground that can save me since the rock isn’t enough. When my right hand bumps against something, I grab it and when I feel what it is, the familiar sensation sends ecstasy through my body. With my last remaining strength, I swing the item I found on the ground and it pierces into Kayman’s side, knocking him off of me and he screams at the top of his lungs, nearly bursting my eardrums in this narrow tunnel.

Coughing and gasping for air that finally fills my lungs once again, I frantically check my neck to make sure it’s still there. Of course it’d still be there but my panicking mind just had to make sure. My neck is painful beyond belief and my throat feels like it’s on fire. When I try to call him a motherfucker, only a wheeze comes out of my mouth and my heart drops. If I can’t talk ever again because of him… Once I’ve calmed down, I look over at Kayman and he’s lying on his back, moaning in pain. What the fuck did you expect when you tried to kill me you fucking prick? My calm is replaced by anger and I know this tunnel’s no longer large enough for the both of us. Lumbering over to his side of the tunnel, I find his pickaxe and I pick it up. Feeling the weight of the tool in my hands is a sobering feeling and it gives me pause. I think back to the moment when I stood over Kayman’s sleeping body with my pickaxe. I try to remember why I spared him before and try to conjure those same feelings again but I cannot. Maybe if I see his face I’ll be reminded of what those feelings felt like before. Every step I take towards his unmoving body feels heavy. I know it’s in my head and if I can just forget these feelings for even one moment, it’ll be better for me but I can’t shrug off this weight on my mind. Is this what it feels like to hold someone’s life in your hands? I think I might’ve underestimated what achieving my dreams would be like.

Standing over Kayman’s body, his face is a stark contrast from before and the rage and madness is now replaced with pain and fear. There’s blood trickling out of the corner of his mouth and every time he tries to breathe, he has to open his mouth to suck in a gulp of air. When he does this, I can see his blood stained teeth and I’m reminded of the blond bandit. He’s the cause of all this. Shaking my head to clear my thoughts, I can only assure myself he’ll get what’s his soon enough. But my focus right now is on Kayman. My pickaxe is still stuck in Kayman’s left side and it looks pretty deep. Seeing the pickaxe stuck in his body and how he’s struggling to breathe, I can only assume the mining pick was lodged deep enough it stabbed into his lungs. I’m not a doctor and everything I know about the body comes from harvesting livestock but I don’t know if any of that matters right now. I’m just silently standing over Kayman, hoping I’ll find mercy somewhere inside of me. When he musters enough strength to open his eyes, he sees me standing over him and tries his best to smile, “Isaac, you have to help me. Please. It’s a misunderstanding, it’s all a misunderstanding. I wasn’t trying to kill you, honest. Please Isaac, I have a wife and daughter in the city. If I’m gone, they’ll be prey to the gangs and the things they’ll be forced to do…You have to help me. If you start digging out the rubble, that’s our only chance to survive. There’s no one coming for us if they’re not here already. That’s why I did what I did. It’s not my fault Isaac, it’s the Wellock company’s fault. They’re the ones who did this to us. Please Isaac, we’re in this together right?” His lungs really might be damaged badly. He had to take a deep breath for every sentence he spoke and even then, he struggled hard to get those words out. The problem is, none of those words reached me.

This is the worst case scenario and I really hoped it wouldn’t happen. I hoped, I prayed when I got here and saw his face, something would click and I could remember those feelings when I spared him the first time. But I can’t. I even hoped his words could do something, anything to convince me or reach my heart and make me doubt myself and what I wanted to do. But they didn’t. My heart remains unchanged and this is something that must happen. The whole time I was thinking to myself, Kayman laid there right in front of me, his eyes filled with fear. He already knows I’ve made a decision and it isn’t the one he hoped for. His eyes widen, his nostrils flare, and he seems to have found his second wind. He snarls at me, growling like an animal and blood mixed with his spittle sprays from his mouth. He starts cursing at me, calling me names, hurls insults at me that I’ve never heard before or even thought possible, and says my parents should be tortured for bringing such evil into this world. Joke’s on you buddy, they’re already dead. His arms flail around wildly, trying to once again grab onto my throat but this time I’m awake and this time I’m the one who holds all the power. My breathing quickens and the anger that I bottled up before coming over here is let loose and it burns through my body, filling it with just enough strength. Just enough strength to raise the pickaxe high above my head. It hangs there for only one second but that second feels like an eternity and then the pickaxe swings down at Kayman’s face and his body jerks violently before it stops moving completely.

Still breathing heavily, I sit down at my usual spot with my knees bent toward my chest. I rest both of my arms on my knees and then I rest my head on my arms. Taking one last took at Kayman’s body, I close my eyes and finally let myself fall asleep peacefully for the first time in who knows how long.