I lay on the ground heaving and huffing with my hand pressed against my forehead. After about the sixth time casting the healing spell, my brain seized up as if I had just shoveled a whole cup of ice cubes in my mouth. The blood had stopped flowing around the fourth, and the torn lobe of my ear began to reform about the fifth. The bites on my left hand were now but pox scars.

I pushed myself up off the ground and stumbled forwards. The room spins. The lost blood, of course, had no way to recover that quickly. The banister creaks as I grab hold of it to steady myself. The ratman’s spear had fallen with him and was currently halfway up the stairs. I stretch out and grab hold of the handle and drag it down the stair.

There was no paint on the wood of the shaft; as I discovered with a probing scratch with my thumbnail. In fact, the wood itself was dark black. Red tar oozed out of the small scratches made from my thumb. The tip is strong and sharp; with a leaf-shaped blade — complete with little ornate veins engraved in the metal. The blade is serrated; sort of like the teeth of a small saw. I peel a strand of bloody gray cloth from its tip. It unfurls in the colors of the layers of clothes I wore.

I use it as a crutch as I shamble across the room. I pick up the machete that had fallen out of my hand and slide it back into its sheathe. As I straighten out my back and catch my breath a bit longer the glint of gold catches my eye.

Three plain gold rings; increasing in size the further up they are, adorn the rat’s long tail, I pull them off one by one. The first one is large enough to fit on my thumb, the second large enough to fit over my middle finger, and the third was large enough to snugly fit both my middle and pointer fingers. I put them within my bag, and pull out the bottle of water to take a long drink before slipping it back inside of the bag as I sit down on the edge of the staircase; the spear leaning against my right shoulder.

The water helps still my spinning senses, so I take a deep breath, grab hold of the spear, and push myself up. I leave the chipped and damaged kitchen knife in the back of the Ratman as I step over its body, and head to the door on the opposite side of the kitchenette room. There’ll be plenty of time to look around later, once I ensure my safety.

The door pushes open and swings out into a small set of stairs that extend all the way to the ground about two and a half feet below. A fog hung heavy on the air like a veil, but despite that thick fog, the air feels as light and crisp as a clear day. I step out and down the stairs into the middle of a cobblestone street; bordered on either side by similar-looking houses of wattle-and-daub construct. The same type of black wood of the shaft of the spear contrasted against the white clay of each building. Arched straw roofs and red brick chimneys crowned each house. The phantom outlines of buildings beyond the fog stood above the nearby buildings.

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Leaning with its back pressed against the chimney of the building across the street was another Ratman; the black-fettered tips of arrows poking out from the crest of its right shoulder. Its shoulders rise and fall in a steady rhythm as it sits. Its head is lowered into its chest. I examine the other buildings around me. Aside from the one I had just left, and the one with the sleeping Ratman on the roof, the others were behind a thick layer of fog.

I approach the house across the street as quietly as I could. The door to this one was off of the road, on top of a patch of grass that poked through the slats between the blackwood stairs that led up to the door. I pull it open slowly and step into the house. It was in a similar state; the kitchen’s small cabinets had been torn asunder, and the contents lay on the ground stinking and rotting. Deep scratch marks gouge the floors leading from a hatch in the corner. Next to the kitchen was a small room with a single window that looked out toward the shrouded house next to it — the red curtains that had once covered it was shredded and lay in red cloth that scattered across the room, over the child-sized sofas and child-sized bookshelves.

A spiraling staircase rose up to the second floor within that sitting room. I take it; stepping on my tip toes in practiced silence as I ascend. The chimney is on the opposite side of the room; right above the kitchen. I step toward it and look up; above the shadowed rafters were the layers of mud and straw. Shards of light bleed through in heavy streaks; much like the room that I first stepped into. A section of the roof, near the chimney, sags. I close my eyes to visualize and tighten my grasp on the spear.

With a heavy grunt, I stab the spear up into the sagging portion. A chittering scream breaks from the roof as my spear pierces the mud and straw like a needle through paper-mâché. Red rivulets slicked the shaft of the spear as it is yanked out of my hand by sudden movements above. Heavy thuds, like a sack full of stones, roll across the roof, until it reaches the edge and then stop. A second later, a dull thunk reverberates outside.

I step to the shuttered windows and peek through the gaps between the wooden slatted cover. The Ratman lay twitching on the cobblestone; heaving. I grab the spear from the ground and run down the stairs and outside the house. The Ratman can only look up at me; hate burning in its glassy eyes. Its legs and twisted and broken. Shards of white bone poke through at the joints. I put the fire out of those eyes with a single stab of the spear to its throat.

After a moment of catching my breath, I approach the wall of fog. Unlike normal fog, it doesn’t retreat at my approach. As I try to step into it, I am repelled, as if I had just tried to walk into a foam-covered wall. I pull out the Shard. It was rainbow-colored once again; as if I were holding a prism.

What is this thing? I think.

“How could we possibly know that.” Came the reply.

I thought gods were supposed to be omniscient.

“Of things on Earth, certainly. You’re not on Earth.”

I fight the urge to sigh so as to not make any unnecessary noise and peer into the foam wall. An entire city lays out before me. A city I couldn’t reach. Figures moved from beyond the wall of fog. In the distance, I could see rising spires, and tall walls hinting at cathedrals and castles unseen. A boyish sense of adventure wells within me. Despite the injuries that I still had, and despite how close I inched toward death; for the first time in a decade and a half, I feel alive. Maybe something’s broken within me, but I feel as if I were made for something like this.