Twenty moons. I have no clue how long a moon is, but it’s probably enough time for me to visit my old home. I equip myself and my deathknights with human disguises and head out.

“Look that’s my old neighborhood sign.” In front of us is the destroyed sign that used to make the entrance to the neighborhood. 

“Sir, we can’t go in there. It is cursed land.”

I pause for a second. “By what?”

“By magic. I don’t know. Your skin falls off, you become sterile, you lose your hair. Ask Son that weapon of his is horribly cursed.”

I give Ned a smile. “I don’t think I have to worry about any of those.”

He looks me over and shrugs. “Fair enough.” Son shrugs as well and follows me into my old neighborhood.

“One, two, three. Here we are.” The third house down the street. There isn’t much here. A few metal fragments vastly overran by plants. “I bet my room is still standing.” I climb through the ruins. “It should be under here.”

“You lived in the basement?”

“Who doesn’t?” I scoff. My foot goes through the floor. I smile as I stomp out a suitable hole to jump through. I land in my old room. Son soon follows after me. I dust off my computer screen. Ah, the years I spent on this. Bad times, very bad times. The bed that I wouldn’t leave for days. It’s almost in pristine condition. I lay down on it for old times sake. Sinking into that divet that only years of sleeping in the same position can put in a mattress. I lay a hand over the side of the bed and grab a bottle. “Just like old times.” I prop myself up and pop the cork off the bottle. I go for a drink but stop myself. It wouldn’t do me any good anymore. I peer over the side of the bed. “Hey, my pills are still here. My gun too.” I pick it up. With an almost nostalgic feeling I cycle out the spent bullet casing. “That’s the one that killed me.” I take my mask off and point to the hole in my skull. Son gives me an indescribable look. I shrug it off and hand the gun to him. “You can have it. I don’t have much attachment to it. It’s a cheapy I bought for only one purpose.”

“But then my nickname wouldn’t make sense.”

I shrug and put the gun in my inventory. “Where are my cigarettes?”

“Your what?”

“They’re small white tubes filled with tobacco. You smoke them to suppress suicidal tendencies. I kept them right next to my bed.” I look around more closely. “My copy of Arthur Rimbaud’s a Season in Hell is missing too.”

“Could it have anything to do with that?” Son points to a hole in the wall. A small tunnel, just big enough to crawl through has been dug into the side of my wall. “That wasn’t there before.”

“I figured. Not many basements come with cave systems.”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“Well go investigate.” I nudge Son towards the tunnel. “Cmon, I know I'm your minion, but you can’t make me crawl through an obvious deathtrap.”

“Don’t make me command you.”

“Good God fine. I hate being ordered. My mind goes blank and I come to in random places.” He gets on all fours and begins to crawl through the claustrophobic tunnel. I join him.

We spotlight at the end of the tunnel and shamble towards it. We emerge into a room with a metal door. The kind you see in sci-fi movies. The ones with the gears on them. Except this one has a fancy crest welded onto the door.

“Anon!” Son points towards the crest. “What?” “That’s the royal family seal. We shouldn’t be here.”

“But they stole my book.” I place my hands on the wheel and turn. The old metal clunking as I turn. We enter a white room with another door in front of it. Some kind of airlock. Another bulky door and we are in a large white-tiled hall. Torch holders stick out of the wall but instead of torches, there are light bulbs on poles. I pick one up and inspect the filament. It’s not a filament at all. It’s a small white fairy. Like a little Tinkerbell shoved inside a light bulb. She looks sad. Something tickles the back of my undead skull. Something almost like humanity.

“They stole my book. I’m stealing their fairies.” I can't put living things inside my item box so instead I pull a burlap sack out of my inventory and begin putting their torch bulbs in it. We make it halfway down a hallway until a man in a leather radiation suit steps out from a room. He pauses. Placing a hand on the sword around his waist.

“You know leather doesn’t protect from radiation.”

I see his eyes narrow through the glass plane embedded in the leather in front of his face. “How do you know that?”

“I went to high school.” Duh, fucking jackass.

“You went to the high school? You’ve been using our tunnels?”

“Yes, but I don’t see how those are connected. I graduated in 2015.”

He takes his hand off his sword. “You’re from the before times?”

“Yeah, yall stole a book out of my room.”

“You remember the before times! This is amazing. Please follow me!” He leads me to a desk with papers on it. He sits me at it. “Sit, write everything you know.”

“No.” Aint nobody got time for that.

“No?”

“I just came to get my book. Oh, and to steal your torches, but that’s more of a side mission.”

“I work for the King himself. He will pay you greatly. Your book isn’t even here. All books get sent off to the kingdom to be placed in the royal library.”

“Then I’m going to rob this place.”

“Please, think about what you are doing. You have the knowledge to change the entire world.”

“Doesn’t mean I’m not going to rob you. It’s only fair, you did it first.” I hear metal leave the scabbard and a sword sticks through my chest. I turn my head 180 degrees and look into his eyes. The latex eyes of the human disguise staring into his with a dull lifelessness. The man drops his sword and begins to scream. Son grabs him and holds him at gunpoint up to the wall. “Now why would you do that?”

I take off my human disguise and give him a Skeletor worthy cackle. “Well. You hold him down, I'm going to steal the rest of his torch bulbs. The next room I entered had demihumans in it. Not living demihumans. Demihumans with radiation poisoning to the point of death. The king had been up to some real fucky shit down here. Nothing of value for me though.

I sling the burlap sack over my shoulder and collect Son. He drops the king’s researcher to the ground.

“Oh yeah. I almost forgot.”

“Forgot what?”

“Kill him.”

Son shoots first and asks questions later. “Why?”

“A wise man once said. If you are to inflict a wound make it so grievous that you expect no retaliation.” I don’t want to anger the king so killing the only witness is a pro gamer move.