Sirens blared.

A young man raced down a large tunnel.

Curved paneled walls reflected strobing lights, all bloody and red like a murder scene. Heavy boots battered the ground and wild chatters echoed through the cavernous passageway. People ran and tried to get ahead of one another. Many gave the young man a bewildered look that quickly turned into a beaming smile when they realised who it was.

"Qale!"

"Hey, Q."

"Tell your wife I'd said she's beautiful!"

"Sauveté!"

"Wrong way, boy!" a man said. He was one of the few new transfers that did not know Qale. They would cocked brow or two as he ran past them. Who could blame them? They were running for their lives while he ran towards his death. His destination? Tirfo A1.

The rude shoving and polite cursing metered out lessened the further the young man got into the dungeon. Dark hair clung to his damp forehead as he huffed and puffed down the extensive tunnel. His breathing was audible yet steady. He swam for bronze when he was a young boy.

Behind the bright eyes and youthful complexion was a man battled and bruised for almost three decades. He'd done things that made angels weep and demons cringe. One look at his innocent boyish features and none would be wiser. None would know the journey he endured. He didn't need them to, he just needed to be home on time.

“Qale!” The young dungeoneer skidded to a halt.

He wiped his brows and looked for the source.

“In here!”

He peered into an adjacent pit—a man was on his hands and knees. “Qale! Help me, please—I don't wanna die!” yelled the man, voice hoarse. He must have been yelling for some time. The siren was loud.

The young dungeoneer did not know the man and it was common for strangers to know him, or at least his name.

"Name?" Qale shouted over the siren and the man responded with his name. Sweat and tear ran down his face. The salty liquid dripped onto a camera hung from around his neck. A dungeon geek?

“Knappa,” Qale called out to the man. “Wait a while and I’ll get you out, okay?”

The man nodded.

Qale looked around the site and spotted a chest with wheels moving by itself—a robostore. He hailed it down and swiped his badge across the terminal. The store beeped positively and the hatch opened. It had everything he needed—a chain block, six arm-length stakes, two ear muffs, a spotlight, a blower fan, a tank full of diesel and a body harness. Kinky. He placed them neatly on the ground where one of the barricades surrounding the pit was knocked over. The man must have fallen through there.

He glanced into the pit—Knappa was still sobbing on his hands and knees. Blood stained his tattered clothes, most of which dissolved past his elbows and knees. His limbs were a bloody mess. The red liquid from his wounds flowed to the two ducts in the pit. A large eyeball stared back at the sobbing man. Knappa was ensnared by a tirfo.

Fortune favoured the man for Qale was a specialist. Unfortunately for the tirfo, Qale was a specialist. He pushed a mobile rack and positioned it over the pit. The rack was simple. It resembled a pull-up bar—two thin metal pipes on wheels supported the bar. It was new too.

He flipped the tag and a familiar blue tote flashed in his mind. The winding aisle, a shrinking bank account and a house full of poorly self-assembled furniture. His mouth watered at the thought of the juicy meatballs.

The growing sobs snapped him to reality. He hung the spotlight and the chain block onto the rack. He attached the end of the chain to the body harness and placed four wooden stakes in it. The chains clinked as he lowered the harness into the pit.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

He placed one of the ear muffs over his helmet. He placed the other around his neck. He picked up the remaining two stakes and stood at the edge of the pit.

“I’m gonna jump down now. I need you to stay—”

“B-but how are we gonna get out?” said the man, his voice trembling.

“With these.” Qale held up the stakes.

“N-no! You can’t hurt the eye—it’s too tough.”

Qale pointed to the red armband to remind the man who he was talking to. Qale was a specialist—a sauveté.

“I need you to stay still no matter what happens,” Qale said. “Can you do that?”

The man nodded and the sauveté leaped into the pit.

He threw the first stake to the edge of the eyeball. The tirfo grunted in discomfort. Annoyed, it secreted tears to dissolve the puny toothpick. But the sauveté was not done.

He threw the second stake to the opposite end of the eyeball and landed feet first onto the first stake. The force from the drop drove the stake so deep, only the tip could be seen. The creature's pupil dilated as it bellowed.

The sauveté used the momentum of his landing to propel himself towards the man. Before Knappa could yelp, the sauveté grabbed the chains above the man—the one with a body harness full of pointed stakes. Qale was a virile young man—he had amazing aim.

He followed each throw with a surgical hop onto the stakes. The creature's gut-wrenching howls rose above the blaring sirens. Knappa cried like newborn, more tears pooled around his dissolving limbs. A powerful digestive enzyme, it coated the man’s limbs and glued him to the monstrous eyeball.

While the man was screaming for his life, the young dungeoneer was looking at the moon, or in the case—moons. Both were round and spotted, like the one Apollo 11 had landed on. Except these were half-moons peeking from a jean—the butt cheeks of a crying man.

Dangling on chains, he strapped the body harness onto Knappa. He took the ear muffs from his neck and placed them over the man’s ears. He climbed up the chains and was greeted by a small crowd.

“Cannot hear the sirens izit? Evacuate—now!” The crowd dispersed, leaving a timid young man.

“Pit,” greeted Qale. “Help me grab me that fan”

Phitri nodded and positioned the fan to face into the pit. Qale headed for the switch and turned on the spotlight. The creature mewled at the blinding light.

“Fan!” said Qale. The blower fan hummed to life and the creature shrieked.

When dungeoneers first encountered the tirfo, it was dubbed the “crybaby”. Not because it dissolves its prey with tears, but because the prey would be reduced to tears as it shat itself—a crybaby.

The tirfo's lids were the colour of the dungeon ground, the perfect camouflage for inexperienced seekers. Lack of illumination was cited as the number one factor for the high mortality rate attributed to tirfo. How Knappa fell into the pit was beyond Qale's imaginations.

Once a prey falls into a tirfo’s pit, its survival was nil. The lids would part away to reveal a monstrous eye. Impenetrable, inescapable, and perverted. The tirfo relished watching its prey struggle. It would stare at the crying victim for days, unblinking.

Imagine a burn on your tongue from eating too much pineapple. Now imagine that burn all over your body, doused in lemon juice and generous sprinkles of fine salt—that's how it feels to be dissolved by a tirfo. Imagine going through that for days, sometimes for weeks, you wouldn’t want to wish it on your worst enemies.

Blinding lights and howling winds, the tirfo couldn't survive the twin assault Its pupil darted erratically, it couldn’t cry and it couldn’t blink. The stakes driven into its eyelids made sure of it. All it could do was scream like the man its ensnared. The tirfo had been slapped by karma with capital 'B'.

“Can you move your hands?” Qale yelled over the siren and the blower fan but got no respond.

The man still had his ear muffs on. “Right...” Qale shrugged, he ordered Phitri to grab the chains and received an affirmative nod.

“On the count of three,” Qale grabbed the chains a few inches above Phitri’s hands. “One… two… three!”

They pulled the chains with all their might. The man screamed as they yanked him off the tirfo. Knappa's right arm remained stuck on the eyeball. They pulled and pulled until the man out from the pit. Phitri helped the man out of the harness while Qale powered down the spotlight and fan.

“Hey, eye-fuck.” Qale held a tank of diesel over the pit. “Here’s something to moisturise your eye.” He tipped the tank over and its content fell onto the bloodshot eye. The monstrous eye glared with sinister intentions.

Qale whistled, “If looks could kill.”

Except for wind and light, nothing could hurt the tirfo. The creature knew it too. Diesel was nothing more than a moisturising drop. The creature narrowed its eyed as Qale retreated from the edge of the pit.

“Which is your wanking hand?” asked Qale.

“W-what?” Knappa was flabbergasted at the intrusive question.

Qale responded with an air wank.

“Um… is that appropriate now?”

The sauveté pointed to his red armband.

“It-it’s my left, sir.” The man held out his only arm.

“Good.” Qale nodded.

“But I write with my right, sir.”

“Good thing we drive on the left.”

“I ride a motorbike, sir.”

“Pit.” Qale ignored the one-arm man. “Get this man some first aid and join me at A1 when you’re done. And oh—I need a cig.” Phitri raised an eyebrow and offered a stick.

“You smoke?” Phitri held up his index finger to Qale and lit the cig.

“I do—” Qale coughed and fanned the smoke away. “—I don’t. And stop wasting your roh.” He flicked the cancer stick into the pit and flames raged from within.

Half an hour later, the creature’s dying shriek still rang in his ear when he arrived.

His destination? Tirfo A1.