I shouted and begged everywhere I went, crying to get food. But nobody replied to me.

The streets were empty, and I was too scared to go inside other people's homes, for fear of what I might find there. The same smell was coming from all around me. And from those houses that weren’t silent, I heard only the sounds of suffering.

I don’t know for how long I ran and searched. But eventually, someone replied to my calls.

“Hey! Kid!”

I turned around, frantically searching for the source of the voice.

Two men walked out from a house and waved at me to come closer. I ran towards them.

“Please! I need food! My parents are sick and my uncle is hurt!” I told them.

“Is that so?” one of them said, looking at the other.

“We could help you, but we need to take you to our team lead,” the other said. “It’s his call, you know?”

I nodded. “Please, take me to him! I’ll do anything!”

They both smiled at me. The way they did should’ve made me run away. But I was five. And I was desperate. Everyone was dying around me. My parents and uncle needed food. Their lives were in my hands. And so, I followed them.

A short while later we came to a place that was full of people, though they were mostly young men and women.

They laughed and joked and played games, as though nothing was wrong.

I followed the two men deeper into that cluster of streets, shocked and stunned, not understanding what was going on there.

But it didn’t take me long to hear the sounds coming from the houses. The pain. The suffering. It was there too, but it sounded different… I didn’t understand how, but I just knew that it was different. That’s when I first realized that something might be wrong there. But by then, it was too late. I was scared of what they might do to me if I tried to run away.

They took me to a house. Inside, there were a lot of young men. A tall, older man, older than my dad but younger than my grandpa had been, told me to come closer. He didn’t look like he belonged there, amongst all the young people surrounding him.

As I walked, I saw that there were women and girls there. They all looked hurt. Some sobbed quietly, others just looked into the nothing.

I regretted coming here. I was terrified. And I just knew that something bad was going to happen to me here.

“So, I heard you need food, eh?” the older man said.

I nodded, not able to find my voice.

“Well, that’s not a problem,” the man said. “We have plenty!”

From behind him, from deeper in the house, a scream rang.

“Hey, keep it down back there!” the older man shouted. “Like I said, we have a lot of food. But we can’t just give it away. You need to earn it.”

I nodded, swallowing. “What do I have to do?”

The man grinned at me.

“It’s easy. Go out there, find me a woman. Or a girl. It doesn't matter how old or young. Anything will do! But the bigger they are, the more we'll get! Oh, and they can’t be sick! That's very important, you hear me?”

The other men laughed.

“Simple, right? Bring them here, and I will give you all the food that you need!”

I looked around at the other women. Something was going on here that I didn’t understand. It was grown up stuff. Really bad grown up stuff. I didn’t know why the man wanted me to bring a person to him, but I knew that if I did, something really bad was going to happen to them.

But my family was dying and I was so scared.

I just nodded.

“Good. Go on, then! Bring them and I’ll give you all the food you want!”

I ran out from there.

I think I stopped somewhere to cry. I don’t remember for how long.

I thought about going back home and telling my uncle everything. But I knew that he would tell me to never go back to that place again, and that place was the only one with food. He was hurt and my parents were dying, and I was so scared of being left behind. Alone.

So I searched.

And eventually, I did find someone. She was alone, out looking for food, like me.

She was a bit older than me, by three years and Crystal, she was so happy to see me.

And she was even happier when I told her I had found a place with food. So much food that I needed help to carry it all back to my family... I even made her promise she wouldn’t take the food from me, and that we would split it.

She believed me. And she promised.

So I took her back...

She was so happy, so relieved. So grateful to find some food for herself and her family. She laughed and skipped on her way, making enough conversation for both of us. Meanwhile, my heart hammered in my chest, the tears burning behind my eyes. The most I could manage were grunts and nods in reply to her enthusiasm.

But just a couple of streets away from that place, and all the food that I had been promised, I stopped.

The tears fell freely now. I couldn' stop it.

She asked me what was wrong and I just... Told her. I told her everything. About where we were going, about my parents and my uncle and how I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t bring her to those horrible people. I was a kid, yes, but I knew that they would hurt her. And that it was very, very wrong. My parents or uncle would have never stood for something like that, and I couldn't bear the thought of her hurt and crying like that either.

She looked at me for a long while after I was done.

“Where are they?” she eventually asked me. Her tone had gone flatter, bereft of it's earlier excitment.

I told her where she could find them, unsure and not caring why she wanted to know, and she ran away without another word.

I stayed where I was, crying for a very long time. I had lost my chance of getting food. I had searched and searched and no one else would talk to me. No one would give me food. Only those people had talked to me, and I needed their food.

So I decided to go back. Empty handed.

The older guy slapped me. So hard that I fell, and everything moved around me, my ears filled with a loud buzzing.

“I told you to bring me a body!” he shouted.

“There’s no one! Everyone's sick!” I lied.

“Don’t fuck with me, kid. I know there’s still plenty of people out there! You think you can just come in here and lie to my face? Take my food? Just like that?”

“I’m sorry! I’ll look again! I’ll…”

There was only pain after that, as he kicked me again and again.

When he was done, he laughed, and the others laughed as well.

He lifted me up to his face. His eyes were so wide and angry, he didn’t even look like a person anymore.

“You had your choice,” he said. “Now, you’re staying here.”

“No! Please!” I begged him. “I…”

And that, thankfully, was when the screaming and the shouting started.

“What in pile is going on out there?” their boss asked.

“We’re being attacked!” someone shouted from outside.

“Shit!” the older man said, dropping me. “Out! Everyone out!”

I could hear people fighting then.

Men and women were suddenly at the door, both old and young.

There was blood all over them, and when they saw me lying there on the floor, they came for me. One of them grabbed me and I tried to fight him off.

“It’s okay! I’m not going to hurt you!” he told me, hugging me tightly against his chest. “We’re going to take you back home!”

I stopped fighting him and hugged him back, crying.

“Get him out of here!” someone shouted. “Quick! Get him out!”

He took me outside. Everywhere there were people fighting. Killing each other.

I was taken to an adjacent street, to where injured people were being taken to, and told to wait there until the fighting was done, and it was safe. One of the woman there noticed me alone. She was already hanging on tightly to another weeping child, and she beckoned me into her arms. I ran to her, my sight blurry with fresh tears, and she held me tighter than I've ever been hold...

Together, all three of us waited for the fighting to end, and it went on for a long while. Later, I would discover that the people who had saved me didn’t leave a single bad person alive. They killed them all in the name of self-preservation, safety and vengeance. As for us, the ones they had rescued, they promised us that we were safe, and that they we were going to be taken home, back to our families. And if anyone didn’t have any family left, they were welcome to stay with them and their families, and they would be looked after and fed.

A man came to me then, as people began to disperse. He gave the woman holding onto me a nod, and she finally let go of me, he sat next to me. For a while he didn’t say anything.

“That was my daughter you almost brought here,” he told me eventually.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

I didn’t have a voice to speak with. I was shaking, I think.

“But you didn't. You didn’t bring her here, and that took a level of courage and sacrifice than you can't possibly understand at your age,” he told me. “Thank you. Now come. There’ll be food. And then I will take you home.”

He lifted me up, gently, and made me follow him.

My saviors were carrying bodies.

Most of the bodies belonged to the bad men, but there were tears and screaming, for the good people that had died. And for those who would yet die from their injuries and the sickness plaguing us...

But things are blurry after that.

I know we took the bodies to the recyclers, and we got the bereavement food in return. And that man took me back home with plenty of food and he told my uncle everything. My uncle held me and he wept for a very long time. Back then, I didn't even know that adults could cry like that.

The man, Kol was his name, told us where to find him for more food, and left us.

“Nar, I’m so sorry,” my uncle told me when later on he finally managed to stop the tears. “Your mum and dad. They’re gone… They… They’re not speaking anymore.”

I tried to go see them, but he wouldn’t let me. I fought him and pushed him, and he fell. He was still hurt and weak, and I ran to the room. I ran to my parents.

I wanted my mum to hug me. I wanted my dad to tell me I was safe now, and that he would protect me as everything I knew was falling apart around me.

My uncle shouted from behind me, begging me to not go in.

But I ran in, my feet sticking to some kind of jell-o on the floor. I remember thinking, where had all that jell-o come from as I ran to the bed.

And what I saw there was barely my parents anymore. And I will never forget it...

There were two things laying on the bed, holding what had once been hands, now fused together.

It was… It was something.

Two somethings.

Bloated to the point of nearly bursting. Their veins black under their stretched skins and-and... And more that I will not tell you.

I couldn’t believe those things were my parents.

I reached out to touch what had once been my mother. It felt… I won’t tell you what it felt like either.

I touched her hand and then… Then she just popped.

Just like that.

And my dad did too.

It went everywhere. They went everywhere.

All over me.

It got in my eyes. In my nose. In my mouth…

And someone was screaming. Screaming and screaming and screaming. And they wouldn’t stop.

My uncle came in and he grabbed me and I think I passed out then.

When I woke up, we were somewhere else. My uncle had moved us in with Kol's family.

His daughter tried to talk to me, but I didn’t talk back. I didn’t talk to anyone or do much of anything for a very long time.

I just stared into nothing, as days became weeks, and months, and we ended up just living with them, and forming what was essentially a new family. Sometimes the adults would go somewhere, and they would return injured and bloodied, and with more people and food. Always with food.

The only way they could get it was with dead bodies. And looking back, as I grew up, I slowly realized just how bad things had been for us, and just how badly people had broken and in their despair turned onto each other. Men and women both did horrible, disgusting things. And they weren’t even cannibals.

But, enough of that. Eventually it became apparent that whatever had ravaged through our homes and families was not affecting us, and that we were all going to survive through it. We weren’t getting sick, and there was no one left to kill for their sins and evil.

So Kol went to those that had called us sinners, and who had told us to die. He told them that too many people had died, and that they cubeplant was at risk of failing the quota if they didn't allow us out to get food and return to work. And he worked out a deal with them. The Unclean, as they would come to call us, would work double of what they did, in place of those who had died, and we would all work at the machines, regardless of whether we were suited for them or not.

The Clean finally accepted that deal, but on the extra condition that every child from the age of 5 would also work, and Kol had no choice but to agree to it or see us all die. And Crystal, you have no idea what accepting that deal did to him. It broke something in him that the sickness and the fighting hadn't managed to, and he wasn't quite the same ever again after that.

Two days later, my uncle wrapped a bit of cloth around my right arm.

“From now on, you need to always have this thing around your arm. You hear me?” he asked me in a gentle tone.

I nodded.

“Nar, promise me. This is important. If you don’t have it on, they can... They can do some really bad to you,” he said, his voice stragled.

“I promise, uncle. I'll never take it off!”

The walk to the factory that first day was the worst. People gathered to watch us go. They called us sinners. Unclean. They said we deserved to die.

We went in, and the adults that had worked the machines told us what to do. How to operate the machines. How to push aura into them. My uncle was one of them, and he taught me everything.

And so we worked. We worked and worked.

I cried to sleep for a long while, my body trembling from the torture of those early days. But eventually, I got stronger, and I stopped crying.

Two years later, when my uncle’s nineteenth full season arrived, he told me he wasn’t Climbing. Everyone else who had been young enough, had and was taking the Climb. But not him, he wanted to stay.

He told me that he was too scared to go. But I knew the truth.

“I don’t want you to stay!” I told him. “Go! There’s nothing here! They won’t even let you have kids! Why would you stay?”

I was seven then, and I had learned a lot in the meantime. I understood a lot more by then as well.

“Because I want to! And that’s the end of it!” my uncle told me.

“No! You’re staying because of me!”

“I’m not!”

“Yes, you are!”

“I swear it on the Crystal!” he shouted.

It didn’t matter. That oath meant close to nothing amongst us now, Unclean. Cursed and punished as we were, not one of us sang or prayed, unless when we were forced to. It was better to go into the Eternal Dark to find our family, than into the light of the One who had taken even the little we had from us.

“I want to stay, Nar,” my uncle told me. “I don’t want to Climb. I’ll die out there!”

“You’ll die in here!” I shouted. “Just like everyone else is!”

The workload was too much. We had continued to lose people. Kol’s wife had recently been one of them.

“I’m staying. Now go to bed!” my uncle told me.

I looked at him then, desperate to make him leave. And I don’t really know why I said those words, but I looked at him and I said this.

“If you stay here, I’m going to start calling you dad!”

He was shocked. He looked at me for a long time, and I thought that had done it. He had been devastated to know he would never be allowed to have children of his own. Never be allowed to make his own family, like his brother and father had, and this would push him to finally go,

“You can make it to the top. You can make it there, you hear me?” I cried. “You can find someone. You can have kids! If you Climb, everything is forgiven! You’ll be free! You can have a real family!”

He looked at me for a long time, shaking in place. I could see the tears wanting to come down, but he tried to hold them back. He tried so hard.

He lost that fight and a solitary tear ran down his face.

“I said go to bed… Son.”

He wiped his face.

“Tomorrow is another day of work… Son. You need to rest.”

“But uncle…”

“I’m your dad!” he shouted, silencing me. “And I’m telling you to go to bed. Now!”

I hugged him instead. And he hugged me back. And he stayed. Crystal, he stayed for me. For me!

From that day onwards, I called him dad, always. And he called me son. Always.

The years blurred by. People died. People Climbed. No new children were born, for we were far too terrified of what the Clean would do in something like that ever happened.

Kol eventually died of the Wasting, his entire body turning shiny blue. And my dad took his place, leading us.

Bit by bit, there were less and less of us.

Kol’s daughter took the Climb like all the others. She had become like my elder sister, and my dad looked after her too as though she was his own daughter.

Her and many others he looked out for. The adults looked after all the kids and each other, sharing the food and the suffering in one big family. And every kid was forced to Climb without exception at some point.

I think the adults knew that the Climb was their only way out. Once the last kid was gone, they could finally rest. They could stop. But not until the last of us was gone.

I didn’t want to leave though. It didn’t seem fair. My dad had stayed for me. How could I abandon him after what he had done?

“You will Climb!” Bey said, coughing. “Every kid does!”

“You didn’t!”

“I wasn’t a kid back then!” he said.

His coughing got worse and I stopped talking, waiting for him to recover.

Only a few days earlier, he had found a tiny speck of blue at the tip of his finger. It was the beginning of the Wasting.

“I will die soon, son. There’s no point in you staying here. You’ll be left all alone! Every other kid is going!”

“Then I will stay alone!” I shouted back at him.

“No! You will go! We adults will see all of you out of this place! Do you hear me? None of you are staying! You will leave even if it's the last thing I do! I’ll jump, you hear me? I’ll jump into that Pile if you don’t go!”

“That’s… That’s not fair!” I whispered, taken aback by the vicious despair in his eyes.

“Nothing is fair here,” Bey said. “That’s why you need to go. Please. I beg of you. Do it for me, for your parents and grandparents. I have a duty to see you go. Else, I’m not going to be able to face them, in the Eternal Dark.”

I left then.

I walked out and I ran.

I ran out of our little place, where only Unclean lived, past the empty streets that no one had wanted to move into, for fear of being targeted by the Crystal's wrath as well.

Eventually, I found myself climbing up to the chapel. The first of many times I would start doing this.

It was there, staring at the icons, that the plan would eventually come to me.

“I’ll go, but I’ll come back for you,” I told my dad, a few days later. “I will take you to the O-Nex, and I will find a healer for you. We’ll get a ship and we’ll live in the Labyrinth, just the two of us. Where there is light and color, and nobody will ever know we are Unclean.”

My dad looked at me for a long moment.

“That’s my condition,” I said.

Of course, he didn’t like it.

But I didn’t care. My decision was made. And that was that.

Eventually, I realized that I needed to be strong enough on my own to come down later, and I decided on my hybrid tank/DPS class.

And then, the months passed. And eventually I met and I left with you guys…

*********

“... and here I am now,” Nar said, finishing with a grimace.

The silence stretched after his last words.

“And that’s it, I guess,” he said, feeling awkward in the silence.

He didn’t fear what they would think of him. By now, he knew without a single hint of a doubt that him being an Unclean meant nothing to them. At least not anymore. They accepted him as he was. And he was one of their own. And he, for everything he had suffered at the hands of the Clean, had grown enough to put all that behind him, and focus on saving his dad, and accept the party that had done nothing but good by him from the very beggining.

“I know it’s… Stupid. How will I find him again? How will I Climb back down again? How will I get strong enough?” Nar said, in the quiet. “I know… I know how it sounds. But I’ll do anything. Anything! He gave up his chance of freedom for me. He could’ve been living his best life up above right now! But instead, he stayed. He stayed for me. And I’ll never forget that. Never forget him. He’s tough, and his aura has always been strong, so I know that he’ll hold on. And I’m not going to let him down. I don’t care if I need to break through those damned Doors to do it. He’ll see the light of freedom. One day…”

A shadow fell upon him and hugged him tightly.

“This is why the little boy is screaming,” Jul whispered, crying into his chest, all four arms hugging him tightly it hurt. “But once we save your dad, he will not cry anymore. Okay? It will be done! It will all be done!”

Nar nodded against her, feeling the sting of tears, and tightening of his throat.

“I said I would come down,” Kur said. “And I’m saying it again. I will come with you. That’s not up for discussion.”

“No, it's not,” Mul said, his voice strangled. “And I’m coming too! Fuck what you want! I'm blasting open those fucking doors myself and I'm knocking some fucking sense into all of those fucking Clean!”

“And me too!” Cen said, smiling at Nar. "We will come together, and we will keep you dad safe all the way up!"

“And me too!” Tuk said. "Don't think you're getting rid of me!"

Viy was softly crying into Tuk's shoulder, and the ring tosser had his arm around her.

Nar shook his head, stunned. “I-I can’t ask…”

“Yes, you can!” Gad said, standing up.

He had never seen her look so angry before.

“We will come with you! And we will get your dad out! Him and the others. Everyone who is still alive! And fuck the Crystal! Fuck the Admin! Fuck the priest! I don’t care what or who stands in our way. This will be done! I swear it on the Crystal!”

“Gad!” Nar shouted, horrified.

“This will be done. I swear it on the Crystal!” Gad shouted again. “I don’t care. I will not allow this to end wrong! We’ll make it right!”

“We’ll make it right,” Kur said.

A hand fell on his leg, stratling Nar. The heat radiating from it was almost burning.

“Thank you for telling me,” Rel said. “It means a lot to me… And if I live, I will come down too. Your dad deserves to be saved.”

Nar held her hand, his sight going blurry. “Thank you. And I will hold you to it. You hear me? You’ll get out of here, you’ll get better, and you will come back down with me. We all will!”

She nodded, smiling weakly.

“Wait, does this mean you don’t need a hybrid class anymore?” Tuk suddenly asked.

“Oh… I-I don’t know,” Nar said, still shocked by how sudden it all was.

If he had his party, this new family, would he need to be a tank/DPS hybrid at all. Couldn't he just be a normal DPS then?

“I think you should stay on that path you're building, Nar,” Gad said. “It suits you, and it's your role in the party. I can’t tank without you and I still believe what I said before. This is an amazing path, Nar. You will grow to be really strong. Strong enough to save your dad. Strong enough to do anything you want.”

Nar nodded slowly.

“I... I think you’re right. This is what I’ve always wanted. And other than this whole aura mess, it’s even better than what I had thought. I… I like being a hybrid.”

He looked at her. “I will continue building this path. Where it takes me… We’ll find out. Together.”

“Together,” she said, nodding at him, and he knew she truly meant it.

And that was that.

All of his secrets were finally out. And they not only accepted him, and he them, they had even vowed they would come down again with him. And he believed it, without a shadow of a doubt.

How could I have ever thought of them as tools?

Now, he thought of them as family, and felt neither embarrassment, nor that he was tied down by them. If he could, he hoped he would never be separated from them.

Now, all they had to do was get out, and find out what awaited them in the O-Nex. And Nar would do everything to ensure they all got out.