“Ok, here's the plan.” My father turned in the stairwell to level 4, placing his hand on my chest to make me stop. To be honest it was probably necessary. I was hardly responsive. “Air, you and I will dismember the Zombies and defeat them, from there Siya and Zu will finish them off.”
He looked down at me. “The crystals are in the back of the head, so just aim there. The final blow is all that matters in this case. If you start falling behind, just skip a few to keep pace with us.”
Setting his hand on my shoulder he waited for Air to confirm the plan with a nod before turning back to Zu. “I’ll be carving a path straight through with my son. Siya will be right behind us, you need to stay by her side. Take care of the ones we miss, and make sure she doesn't miss any, or get hurt, got it? This kind of thing will be your job as a junior knight. I’ll need to be able to trust you with being her sole protector at times.”
Zu nodded, and with that, my father drew his sword and took off like a madman with a worrying smile. It was the moment I had been preparing myself for… Fighting living corpses. I didn’t have time to worry about any of that though. The only thought in my mind was that I had to keep up. He took off so fast it made me feel as though I would get left behind if I didn’t stay close.
Floor 5, floor 7. Before I knew it, we had made it to floor 10.
My nose was burning, my arms ached, my right shoulder felt as though it was about to fall off, and my left arm started to swell and throb until I almost wished that it did.
The zombies were getting tougher. The others hardly even noticed but it was getting hard for me to put enough power into my sword to finish them off. I was using my magic, but at the pace they were going it was draining fast. The deeper we went, the more I had to rely on Zu to help me.
‘I killed… 29 so far counting the skeletons from the first floors. I can't lag behind, I can't fall behind now, we're not even halfway there… I can't’
I was stepping over what felt like mounds of corpses as we progressed through the dungeon. My left arm grew tired so I began using solely my right, but with every jab of my dagger pain shot through the strained muscles in my shoulder until the wound in my back bled through the bandage. Even despite all that effort, I was falling behind, and my knife was starting to dull.
“Siya watch out!” Zu Cried.
I turned around just in time to draw my sword and slash the monster in half, shuddering as its gross flesh nearly made me vomit. The worst part… I split it at the waist, meaning I needed to hunch over it and stab it in the head before it would actually die.
It was still moving, clawing at me... I had been ignoring it all for so long, but it was starting to get to me. Still, I held back my vomit and did my job. Instead of the smooth slicing though, my dagger hit the skull with a thud, and when I tried to pull it out it wouldn’t budge. ‘It’s stuck…’ I started to shake as I tried to get it out but instead of my knife, the whole head ripped off… I quickly tossed it to the ground as the muscles in my stomach began to contract and I grabbed my knees. Somehow I still held it in. Needless to say, I was glad I didn’t eat that much, mentally citing that as the only reason I was holding myself together.
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“Siya!” Zu ran up beside me. “We need to keep moving.”
I raised my head, pointing at the knife and, trying not to look down at the bodies strewn across the floor. “ My knife… Can you grab it please?”
As if it were only natural he stomped the skull until it was so broken nothing could possibly be holding onto the blade anymore. I didn’t watch, but hearing it only pushed me closer to the edge.
He picked it up and wiped it off on his pant leg. “Here, we need to get going.”
“Thanks…”
We took off running, even skipping some of the monsters we didn’t have to fight, but it seemed like there was no catching up, eventually, we found our way to a small clearing and took a break.
“It’s no use, they left us behind,” I said, panting.
He wasn’t even breathing hard, looking down the path for monsters instead. “No, we can still catch up.”
“Maybe you could…” I eased my way down to the floor trying my best to relax my arms.
“It wouldn’t take me long alone. I could go get them, come back and—”
He started bouncing a bit as if he was about to take off before I stuck my leg out and tripped him, making him nearly fall on his face.
“If you leave me alone I’m going to kill you…”
He quickly got back to his feet. “Alright, then what do we do?”
I rested my head back against the wall, finally starting to catch my breath. “We have three options that don’t sound that bad. We could wait here, hope they come back when they realize they lost us.”
“Who knows how long that will be…”
“Right… Or if they would even look for us where we are. That's why option two is better. We find the staircase leading down, and we wait there. The areas around the stairs also seem like they usually have fewer monsters, so that’s a plus. Airsidh no doubt already noticed something was wrong.”
“And option three?”
I lifted my head off the wall and looked back down the path we came from. “We fight our way back to the surface, and regroup there.”
“How would they know we went back up?”
“We would leave a few notes or something as we fell back.”
“That seems like the best option. The way back should be mostly clear, and we should be able to handle it together.”
I slowly stood up, brushing myself off. “Yeah, I’d be a lot more nervous about fighting my way back if I was alone.” I knew that together we would be fine, honestly if I was going at my own pace I was probably strong enough to do it alone, but if I had to fight another zombie up close without someone else nearby I didn’t know what I might do. I was already starting to feel shaky. ‘If I’m being honest I would be terrified being alone right now… That’s why I wouldn’t let you leave… I won’t say that either though.’ “Sorry, I’d never actually kill you…”
He gave a smirk as he leaned against the wall of the dungeon. “You’re saying you’re–” The moment his hand touched the stone the whole floor moved underneath him. In less than a second the ground swallowed him and shifted back as if nothing had even happened.
I felt my jaw start to shake as chills ran down my arms and legs… ‘This is a joke right…’ My stomach began to twist in not until I could feel my throat start to close up. I wanted to scream, but I didn’t want to attract monsters, but I couldn’t hold myself back. In the end, I let out some form of a muffled shouting whisper “AGHHHH YOU’VE GOT TO KIDING ME!”
I raised my foot, about to kick the wall in anger, but I stopped myself, worried the same thing might happen to me. I clenched my hands together and squatted down, covering my head. ‘Come on… Come on think… What now…’
I took a deep breath, or at least I tried to, but my lungs only filled halfway before the air caught in my throat. Still, it was good enough. ‘Ok, the wall ate him, that’s fine, it probably just moved him to a deeper floor. At this point though, even if we are on a deeper floor, I’m probably safer with him than if I’m alone.’
I walked over to where he was standing. ‘So… Maybe I actually want to trigger the trap again.’
My heart quickened as I raised out my arm and started to lean into the wall, closing my eyes and bracing myself. ‘I hope this doesn’t lead straight into the mouth of a monster… Well, it wouldn’t be my first time.’