The manacles bit into the flesh of my wrists, my own body weight tearing the skin and sending rivulets of blood down my arms under my fancy leather armor. The way it seemed to pool and dry in my armpits was almost as bad as the pain from being bound. It wasn’t just me either. Nora and Gabby were strung up the same way I was with maybe a foot between us.

The room we were in was large, ridiculously cold, and lit in that same sickly green light that my brain just really didn’t like. Give me red or yellow or even white light but this green shit was just not okay. I liked the fact I could see my friends but being able to see the hanging hunks of unidentified carcasses all around us was less enjoyable. I could kick out my foot and hit the flank of something bigger than a cow. Watching it spin on its hook did not make me feel better. Being in cuffs rather than having a hook shoved through some important part of me did, though.

Time remaining: 5 minutes

The clock ticking down at the height of my field of vision gave me a small thrill of optimism. Sure, five minutes of torture was far from good but when the timer ran out we’d be yanked out of this place and back into the real world. That’s what I hoped anyway. The Witch of Evermore hadn’t exactly been clear about what would happen over here.

Nora groaned and rattled her chains as she came charging out of her stupor. She swore and yanked herself about, her flailing legs bruising my own and setting me into a painful swing.

“Oy, stop it!” I yelled, wincing at the pain.

“What… where are me… we?” she asked groggily.

“In a giant fridge by the look of it,” I answered.

“Gabby? Gabby are you alright?” Nora cried, using her foot to gently jab at the girl beside her.

Gabby didn’t respond except to mumble and turn her head away. She was not ready to wake and truly, I couldn’t blame her.

“Can you get out?” Nora asked.

I turned my eyes up to my manacles again, eyeing them desperately for the lockpicking icon but it never flared into existence. My Enhanced Shadow Eye made the chains glow an odd shade of orange that made no sense to me.

“Unpickable,” Kendrick’s voice called out from a box across the room. A box that glowed the same shade as our manacles. “No need to worry. We’ll be home in no time.”

“So I’m right? We’ll just get flung back into the celestial tunnel when the timer counts down?”

“Yes, the potion is what made it possible for you to even set foot here. Even I can’t do that without some solid prep and I’m, let’s face it, pretty fucking awesome. When it runs out you and your friends will be ejected by the Guardians. They don’t like it when people mess with their systems.”

“Seriously? They come into our world and mess it up and they get salty when we do it right back?” I snapped.

“Pretty standard behavior, don’t you think? They can dish it out but when it comes to taking it it’s a solid no from them. Can’t really argue when their combined power is stronger than most gods,” Kendrick said.

“Joe,” Nora said with a hard edge to her voice. “I’m sick of pretending that you talking to nothing is normal. Tell me who you’re talking to. Now!”

“Don’t mention the Shadow Walkers,” Kendrick cautioned. “It won’t end well for you if you do. Oh, no mentioning the Forerunners either! That’s our little secret.”

I closed my eyes, letting the wave of pain shooting from my wrists down to my shoulders take over my mind for a moment. How do you explain something like Kendrick without going into specifics? I could just outright lie and call him another player with a special skill. I don’t think Nora would take it too kindly if she ever found out the truth though. I’d been lying and telling half-truths my entire life. Sometimes that was the only way to get Rory out of trouble. So why when it came to Nora did lying become so difficult?

“It’s one of his skills,” Gabby answered for me. She twisted her body until she was facing our way and cleared her throat to rid it of its hoarseness. “I have something similar.” She stretched herself out, pinning me with her oddly stern gaze. “You do realize you don’t need to speak out loud to it, don’t you?”

“Skills?” Nora asked.

“Yeah, maybe it’s class-specific or something,” Gabby said.

“Well, that’s comforting. I guess,” Nora said.

“Hmm, the small one raises a good point,” Kendrick said. "Maybe we can speak telepathically. I’ve never tried it with a subordinate before.”

“Are you shitting me? All this time and you’re only realizing this now?” I barked.

“I don’t know why you’re surprised. I’ve never really bothered to get to know any of the new Shadow Walker recruits before. Well, maybe with Jitta but even that wasn’t like what we have.”

“What do you mean ‘what we have’?”

Gabby sighed loud enough to drag me from my conversation. “Use your mind, Joe. Use your mind. Nora is right. It’s super weird to hear only half a conversation. Can your friend get us out of this?”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“No need. We’ve got less than two minutes before we’re ripped out of this place,” I said.

“Good, because…”

The banging of the door slamming open interrupted whatever Nora was going to say. A Croc stomped into the room. The dull green glow exposed him as a larger beast but not one of the Generals. It might have been the one named Polk but it was hard to tell when they all looked the same.

The Croc marched right up to me. I struggled in my chains, wanting to be far away from the beast's many teeth but stuck hanging there right at toothy snout height.

“Open. Suck on this,” the Croc snarled.

The stench of rotting flesh wafted over me from between its many teeth. “Get away from me.”

The Croc grabbed my chin hard in its fist forcing my mouth open with a thick and very sharp claw. Its other hand rose up, holding a vivid purple and blue toad in its grip. I kicked out at the beast, trying to struggle free. The Croc’s strength was undeniable though and the claws only dug deeper into my flesh the more I moved.

The Croc shoved the Toad into my mouth and squeezed. Thick slime that tasted of sour cream filled my mouth. My stomach revolted sending a wave of burning bile shooting up my throat. The Croc clamped its hand over my mouth, stopping the deluge from exploding past my lips. I struggled to breathe and expel the foul substance before the Croc clamped my nostrils shut with a pair of claws. Unwelcome wetness leaked from the corners of my eyes as I forced the foul combination down into my angry stomach. The Croc let go. I coughed and hacked before sucking in desperate gasps of damp heavy air.

The Croc didn’t wait to see if I’d keep the toad's goop down, moving along the line to Nora and doing the exact same thing. The warrior woman howled and cursed and struggled but it was no use. All of us were useless in this situation. Gabby was next. The girl struggled but not as much. She knew from the pair of us that it was inadvertible. Still, she cried out when the Croc let her go, hanging limply as she shuddered with streams of tears coating her cheeks.

“The Prince will enjoy eating you. Maybe there will even be leftovers for the rest of us,” the Croc said before he turned and stomped from the room, his thick tail swinging with each pounding step he took.

“Are you alright?” I asked the others.

“No,” Nora said.

“Why did they do that?” Gabby cried.

“Well shit,” Kendrick murmured from his box. “So much for our quick escape.”

Panic welled up inside me, chasing away the pain of hanging by my wrists for the shortest of moments. The timer at the height of my vision had changed color; the number replaced by nothing more than a question mark.

“The timer,” I said.

Gabby slumped in her chains and Nora’s face turned a violent shade of red.

“The bastards have trapped us here,” Nora hissed through her teeth. “Now what are we supposed to do?”

“They’re going to eat us,” Gabby said.

“No, we won’t let them,” I said.

I yanked and tore at my chains, gritting my teeth to hold in the howls as the skin on my wrists tore even more. I had hoped the anchor holding the chains in the ceiling would give a little but they held fast, determined to keep me trapped. I really didn’t want to be cooked into some half-assed pie. Not that I wanted to be eaten while I was still alive either but you get my meaning. Alive is good, eaten is bad, right?

Finally, I let my shaking muscles win and returned to my dead weight hanging. Panting and with an ungodly amount of sweat joining the rivulets of blood coating my body I leaned around Nora and eyed Gabby. “Is your crossbow loaded?”

“If it was I would have already used it,” she snapped.

I reeled back at the verbal slap. I was used to that kind of talk from Nora but not from Gabby.

“I guess all this chatter means you can’t get to your own inventory, sweetheart?” Kendrick asked.

I opened my mouth to respond but closed it again. Talking to a ghost still felt wrong regardless of the others’ wary acceptance of it. Besides, there wasn’t a great deal in my inventory that would help right now. I couldn’t poison my way out of this.

The door swung wide again and a new Croc marched inside. A Croc wearing what could only be described as a frilly apron made from the same silvery material the General’s outfits were. The poor scrap of material was stretched to its limit to reach around the beast's incredibly round body. Each step the monster took seemed like a struggle. Even the deep breaths it took rattled in its chest like the foul liquid that coated the ground had filled its lungs. The Croc stood in front of us, just outside of kicking distance, and inspected us all one by one.

With one clawed finger, it pointed at me, “You will roast well. Big enough. Others are too small, better for stew.”

The Croc then turned and snapped its fingers as it dragged itself from the room.

“What the hell was that about?” Nora asked me.

“I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure the prick just called me fat.”

“Well…”

“Lay off would you? It’s not like I’ve been kicking back in a hammock chowing down on fried chicken. I’m lean as hell right now.”

“Cook doesn’t think so.”

“Oh, yes. We should all listen to the Croc that’s about to cook us.”

Gabby let out a noisy sigh. “Do the pair of you really think this is the time for this?”

“I’m enjoying it,” Kendrick called out. “Kind of boring trapped here in the dark.”

The reason for the Croc’s finger snaps interrupted any more conversation. Four Crocs traipsed into the room. All of them were much smaller than the cook had been and wearing aprons that actually fit.

One went straight for Kendrick’s box and started shoving and heaving as it pushed the box from the room. The others came for us, lifted the chains from the anchors in the roof, and dragged us kicking and screaming behind them. Well, alright. I was the only one kicking and screaming. I won’t be taking any judgment on the matter.

The further we traveled down the hall the more the scent of cooking meat filled my nose. Despite the fact I knew I was about to become one of those tantalizing smells I couldn’t stop my empty stomach from rumbling. Even having the toad’s slimy gunk churning away in there did little to stop my appetite.

We rounded a bend and the racket of a busy kitchen in full dinner hour chaos joined the smells assailing me. I closed my eyes, not wanting to see what was coming next.

Something small but somewhat solid landed on my face making my lids fly open again as I jerked around. A shadowy head no bigger than my fist leaned into view, tilting to the side in a display of confusion that a featureless glob shouldn’t be able to replicate.

I couldn’t help but smile despite the pain radiating down my arms. I whispered, “Hello, little friend.”