I looked over at the army of skeletons, eyebrows scrunching together as a feeling I didn’t like at all twisted at me.

“B-but I can’t win against them. Does… does that mean I’ll have to kill you? I don’t want to,” I said, my voice showing how little I liked that idea.

A very long silence stretched out.

“There isn’t another way, is there?” I asked, “Ninety days, that’s…” My mind flashed to all of the glowing portals that appeared, all of the bright lights, “Is that for all dungeons? Are they all this strong? Are they all skeletons?”

The lich gently sets his teacup down, reaching to the teapot and pouring himself another cup, the liquid a dark caramel that steamed in the cold.

“No, they aren’t all skeletons,” The lich said, “There are mostly flesh and blood creatures. Sometimes there are floating artifacts and the like. I would say this dungeon would be one of the only if not the only skeletal dungeon. Why, would you be better equipped against non-skeletal creatures?”

“Yes,” I agreed instantly as I relaxed a bit, thinking of the guns and nukes the planet had, “Definitely,” I groaned, one fist smacking at my helmet, “Agh, it’s good to know my planet isn’t dead in the first three months…” My voice grew quiet, my shoulders slumping as I thought of everyone I’d started caring for,

as I thought of the dying man only a few floors below the portal, “Just the city.”

The silence stretched for several long moments as I thought. That silence grew to last for hours.

The world was doomed. Not only the world, but the people I cared about would all die. The only people I cared about. Jerry the janitor, Shawn the assistant, Steven the still-new-lawyer, Charles the adorable old man who would never get to retire. Even Scott, the sexist asshole that gets the whole team yelled at often. Were they all okay? Were they all alive?

Was Davis, the CEO, okay?

A feeling I’d never felt before burned through me, my heart twisting and my face morphed. My eyebrows were pulled together as hard as they could be, and my mouth was twisted.

Even the ones I left behind in the midwest, the ones that made me miserable, the ones who tried to help… The ones who cared about me, even knowing I didn’t return that feeling.

My chest ached, and my eyes burned.

I’d never cared about people like this before. To think it was all over… No.

No.

I was a human. I couldn’t forsake my species just because I didn’t want to forsake my morals.

My head bowed as I thought of the man still bleeding outside.

I had to protect them. I had to warn them. They had to know.

“Can you teach me how to heal?” I asked miserably. Would he? We both knew what had to happen, would the lich still offer his help? Would he still answer my questions?

The lich was quiet. I looked up to see him setting his crown down, giving off an exhausted and resigned feeling. I could feel who he was, in that moment. Could feel the intentions he had, and could practically feel the things he felt.

The lich was just an old man who wanted someone to talk to. An adorable old man just like Charles who was put into a situation where he could only suffer through violence.

My heart ached, and the burning in my eyes flowed down my face. The lich gently set a ring down. It was silver, and it glowed with a purple energy the same as his eyes. A pinkish-red glass vial appeared from the ring, and the lich spoke.

“This will heal your friend. I hope you take the ring and whatever reward you get from my dust and use it to protect those you love, like I could not,” The lich said.

My breathing grew ragged, but I stood up. A skeleton stalked forward, and I found my bat being held out by Sir Hat.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Leave us,” The lich said after I retrieved my weapon. I watched as all of the skeletons left, “Once I perish, they will not listen to your words. You will have to run, or otherwise survive until you reach the exit, as they will not spare you,” A deep, bone-weary sigh escaped the lich, his purple flames flickering, “This dungeon will fade from your planet once I am gone.”

“N—you, you said I had time, right? We can sit down, talk about stuff, right? How long is an hour here to the outside world?” I said. My resolve was firm but my heart was bleeding.

The lich slumped, “We can speak for as long as you wish. In this dungeon, each day is a thousand.”

So… I had two thousand minutes before I had to leave, otherwise the guy would probably die. Doing the math on my phone, I nodded. Giving myself ten hours to escape, I spoke.

“Because I have a man who will die if I am gone longer than a few minutes, I set the alarm. We have twenty-three hours to talk about whatever you want,” I said, relaxing.

“… The weaker species typically have to rest for a specific amount of time in a period less than a day.”

After a confused moment of figuring out what he said, I shook my head, “It doesn’t matter. I can sleep after. I’m not…” My voice grew soft and hurt, “I’m not going to let you die without at least one last conversation.”

The lich was silent for a long moment, then he spoke, “Thank you. That is an honorable thing for you to do.”

We spoke of many things, and I found I really, really liked the lich. My heart ached and my tears continued flowing the longer the conversation went. The lich spoke of his children, sounding heartbroken over the fact that they were either dead or enslaved by the invaders. He spoke of his world, one full of purples, reds, and teals instead of the greens, blues, and browns of my planet.

The lich told me his story.

A story of an old king who burned with so much magical energy that he lived on to fight the monsters that invaded his home even after his body perished.

Then he asked mine, and he seemed so engrossed and appreciative of every part of our society, so different from his. Instead of magic and form, we had science and engineering. I showed him how my phone worked, though, with his skeletal fingers, he couldn’t use it. I told him of electricity used for everything in our society, and I spoke of the vast amount of stories we’d created to entertain ourselves.

We exchanged the histories of our peoples, and we laughed and cried over injustices the other had gone through. In the end, when the alarm went off, my heart felt like it broke.

“I’m glad I got to speak to you,” I said, “I feel like, if circumstances were different, I would cherish you as a good friend.”

The lich gave a raspy noise that could have been a chuckle, “You are very kind. I am glad that I will die to a friend.”

My throat was tight, but the battle was quick.

I’d run out of time to stall, after all.

My vision blurred, but I ran forward nonetheless. Just like a normal skeleton, when my baseball bat slammed into his skull as hard as I could make it, it shattered. I was gasping even though I hadn’t expended much energy, and, setting another alarm, I gave myself five minutes to sob over his body.

A noise of pure agony escaped me, and my entire body jerked as I held his skeleton, a wail and a whimper escaping my lips. I curled around his corpse, holding it dearly as I cried.

My breathing was still unsteady, my lungs gasping for air when the alarm went off. I still sobbed even as I got up. When I looked up, I saw a glowing pedestal that hadn’t been there before.

“R-right, you did mention rewards, huh?” I asked, my voice thick and strained as I continued gasping for air and crying while I moved.

My hand wrapped around the thick black book that appeared, and I put it in my backpack, putting the ring on under my gloves and grabbing the potion in one hand, my baseball bat in another.

The only noises were my own sobbing breaths, and I couldn’t bear it. Glad I put Bluetooth into my helmet, I blasted music. The music was loud enough that I couldn’t hear the clack of the skeletons or the whoosh of air as I stepped into the hallway.

Turning on my flashlight, I stared with an aching heart at the magical constructs.

My bat slammed out, but the bone it hit just rebounded the metal, confirming my theory. Then I ran as fast as I could, vaulting over skeletons and feeling very, very glad that I had taken up parkour as a hobby. Freerunning. Whatever.

It was a very small hallway with several hundred enemies, but I’d ducked and dodged through them, diving through the portal and rolling. I didn’t stop until I was at the man’s side again, lungs torn and throat shot.

The taste of iron filled my mouth even as I poured the glowing red liquid down the man’s throat. Reaching out, I undid the bandages-turned-torniquette, and I watched without much enthusiasm as the leg healed. The entire man healed, looking several times better.

In spite of being healed, he didn’t wake up.

“… I hope you were worth that,” I said quietly, miserably, voice raw as I stood up. I needed to see if Davis was okay. If he was even here.

My exhausted steps took me to his office, and I found myself staring at the shattered ruins. The empty shattered ruins.

He wasn’t here.

No one except the security guard was.

My relief was tempered by the memory of murder I had, and I found myself slumping onto the glass-laden couch. Hearing a beeping sound, I reached up.

Oh. Right.

My camera had been on.

…

It was with a hollow sort of emptiness that my next thought came.

The advertising was right, the SD card was able to store about 48 hours of footage.