I drew the machete and made my way to the stairs. From the bottom of the stairwell, came a creature with remarkably rat-like features: gray, wiry fur, a pink, pointed nose with whiskers sprouting near the tip. Two pointed ears on its arched head. It stood on two digitigrade legs and had a sloped, hunched back that looked remarkably wide. It had arms, nearly like a human’s, but covered in the same fur that covered the rest of its body. At the tip of its fingers, were sharpened claws. Within those hands, it carried a long spear; its shaft made of the same dark wood as the trunk, and all the furniture, and tipped with a triangular point. It wore a thick, blue coat of gambeson; something I only recognized thanks to video games. As it saw me, it paused halfway up the stairs and snarled before charging again.

Once it was in range, it stabbed forward with its spear. I tried to dodge the jab, but the point still tore through layers of cloth and scraped against the skin of my gut. I reached down and grabbed hold of the spear’s shaft near the point, and held it in place with my left hand, and with my right, I swung the machete down toward the face of the ratman. He stopped my swing by grabbing hold of my wrist and tried to pull away from my grasp. I do the same.

For a moment, we stand there, glaring at each other, locked up in that momentary struggle. I catch my breath and hiss as the sweat beginning to form on my body washes over my new wound.

“Ik mak, Roki?” The creature chittered as it loosened its grip on my arm.

I take the opportunity to yank the spear forward, pulling the ratman’s body forward with it. I raised my knee and slammed it into the creature’s snout. It yelps a little and falls back. I tried to pull it back to keep it on its feet so I could attack again….but oh god it's heavy. Instead of me pulling it back up, I was pulled down with it instead. We fell together, tumbling down the stairs. It released its grip on the spear, and it rattled on the stairs behind me. The jolt of the fall yanked my machete from my grasp.

It reached out to me while it was beneath me, and grabbed hold of my throat. I broke its grip with a downward chop of my forearm and used my superior height as leverage to push its gnawing teeth away from my throat and neck with my left. I balled the fist of my right and slammed it into the side of the creature’s head. It did the same with its left. It landed a solid blow on the open wound on my side just as we made it down to the first landing, which began the second flight of stairs. It stood up and began stepping up toward its spear, and I pushed myself self to my feet, grabbed hold of its waist, and dove forward down the next flight; bringing it with me to land on the solid stone ground beyond in a tackle.

We landed on the ground floor, and the ratman managed to slip from my grasp and landed a kick to my chin as I was trying to push myself up. It stepped away, and I grabbed hold of its ankle; pulling it to the ground, and pushing myself up in the process. I stomped on its head, and it caught the blow with its arms and grabbed hold of my ankle. I shifted all of my weight onto my forward foot and pinned it to the ground as its claws dug through the denim jeans and into my flesh. I hissed and fell back; my heart thumping and my lungs burning.

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The ratman rose to his feet; one of its arms dangled uselessly at his side; be it from the fall, or the stomp I didn’t know. It pulled a serrated dagger that glimmered as silvery as the spear point. It approached me with the blade pointed forward. I drew the only thing on me that could be considered a weapon: the wand. It approached me warily before launching forward with a stab aimed at my chest. I managed to step out of the way, and thanks to my many layers of clothes, the knife barely dug into my shoulder. Still, the pain was nothing like I had ever felt.

I grit my teeth and grab hold of the creature’s wrist to hold it in place, while I jab the wand forward into the creature’s black, beady, hate-filled eye.

“I allow the blood of the salamanders to flow through me.”

Five pieces of hot ash poured into the creature’s socket. It roared as it let go of the hilt of its dagger and fell back; clutching its sizzling eye. I take that opportunity to counterattack. I lifted a nearby wooden chair, and bludgeoned the creature over the head with it; sending it sprawling on the ground. The chair broke apart from the impact, so I picked up the most intact of the chair legs and hit it over the head while it tried to push itself off the ground with such force that it drove it back down. I pulled the knife out of my shoulder and hissed as the serrations cut through flesh and fat. I slammed the chair leg into its back as it tried to rise again, and fell onto it with my knee pressed against the back of its neck. With a quick jab, I stabbed the creature’s own knife into its throat. It gurgled on the floor as it tried to push up off of me, but I stabbed it in again: this time through the back of is head. The blade chipped off in the creature’s skull, but it finally lay still.

I stood over its body, huffing. Sweat beaded down my face, and ran into the open wound on my side, and on my shoulder. Blood stained the gray cloth on both. I sit down on the bottom step and press my hand into the puncture wound on my shoulder, trying to block out the gurgling of the creature on the stone floor in front of me. I stumbled up the steps and picked up the creature’s spear. To me, the point reached to my cheek. I stepped down the stairs, and quelled the quarrel in my stomach, as I approached the dying rat, and jammed the spear through its middle back. The gurgling stopped, and I felt a rush of energy through me. The blood from my injuries slowed to a trickle, and the pain lessened a little.

I stepped over to the creature. Its eyes still contained some hint of light in them. Light that seemed as if they would blink to life at any moment, but they wouldn’t. Its body was now stiff, and all the life was gone.

I bent at my waist and retched. This was the first time in my life that I had killed something, aside from a baby bird that accidentally shot once with a BB gun shooting at the rotted fruit at my grandparent’s place. In those eyes, I could see the gasping of that small bird, begging for life. I threw up again. I tried to apologize to the dead, but my words fell on still ears.