And so I claw my way up onto the bridge and throw myself over, the cloud of smoldering ash that makes up my body condensing and coming together once more to reform my entity as a whole. I stare to my left, Piotr stands there in the middle of the bridge and stares down the way. He stares down towards the staircase off in the distance, at the end of the straight bridge. The staircase leading upward that the hero-party will surely come down soon enough. I opt to turn my head instead to the right and to look down the other way. Down towards the staircase leading below and what a sight it is.
The stone bridge is wide, easily wide enough for the hero-party to stand shoulder to shoulder and then some. Statues line the way, statues of strange entities. The intricate stonework depicts all manner of dungeon oddity. Goblins. Slimes. Minotaurs. But even humans are mixed in with the statues, the only commonality they all share is that they all face down towards the same direction. As if all of them were standing guard on the long bridge that leads up to the exit. The exit shaped like a giant’s skull, the bridge extends out of its mouth as if this whole thing were just its rolled out tongue. As if to enter further was to be swallowed, to be consumed by the dungeon and to fall into the belly of the beast.
The skull is massive. I don’t know if it’s a real skull, or if it’s made out of stonework and dungeon-magic. But it must have been a sight to behold if it was real, a giant. Even the hero would have had issues with this colossus. But there are others as well, others between the statues. Large, bulky silhouettes patrolling up and down the bridge. I watch as one of them walks past me as it patrols the way. An empty suit of clanking, ornate plate armor. It walks like a man, but there is no man inside. There is just ash. Just ash that has rained down from above, filling the hollow core of the possessed armor. They carry with them great pole-axes, I suppose they are handy weapons in such a defensive position. Not that that will make a difference.
Without sparing me or Piotr a glance, the suit of armor walks by down towards the stairs in the distance to continue its route. There are many of them here. Many of them patrol along the great bridge, giving it a semblance of a busy pathway. Like a bustling hive of a city, there is movement everywhere between the smoke. But none of them are real, there isn’t a single corporeal being here among us. All of us are nothing but smoke, nothing but fire. Nothing but ghosts and ash. There is nothing here to burn. The walking armor isn’t even worth the effort. Besides, they’re on our side. The burnt spirits inside of the heavy metal suits, that did so little to protect them in their last lives.
Floating over to Piotr, I stand by his side and we both stare into the distance, as we wait for the hero-party to arrive. From the side, I look into the smoldering clumps of glowing ash that make up his eyes. They burn with such determination. With such passion. The shine in them tells me that this is his purpose, fighting the hero-party is what Piotr lived for in his final moments. It was a feeling so strong that it consumed his heart, like it had most of ours. That single instance of urgency overwrote all of our old lives, loves and desires. I suppose mine as well, isn’t my being here also testament to that fact?
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
I wonder why it is that the cosmic powers that be chose the hero. I wonder why they told him to come down to our dungeon and to kill us all. I wonder why he listened and did it. I wonder why, after all that happened, I am somehow still here? I wonder how that we are still here? The dark gods intervened, but for what reason? Are we all just part of some heavenly squabble? Is that what this is? Or is there something else at play? As I look at my smoldering hands and think, I hear Piotr’s voice crackle out next to me, the sound obscured by scorches hissing from his body.
“It doesn’t matter, Miika,” says the burnt voice clearly and plainly.
“Huh?” I ask, not sure what my friend means.
He shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter. Why we’re here now,” he says.
Curiously, I tilt my, for a lack of a better word, ‘head’. Piotr was always smarter than me, but can he read my thoughts? I never knew he could do th-
“No, I can’t read your thoughts, Miika. Idiot,” he says dryly. “We are friends for many years, no? I know what you think. I know what you think because I think it as well. We all thought it. The fools that we are. Were,” he corrects himself.
“Piotr?” I ask.
“Look around you Miika, what do you see?”
“Excellent spot for family picnic!” I joke before even thinking about it again.
“Shut-,” the remnants of a man stop himself and he sighs instead. Tired. Frustrated. “What do you see?” he repeats and I look around, not wanting to let a man who calls himself my friend down. But I don’t see anything. I see smoke. I see statues. I see a bridge. A giant’s skull. Some other trash-mobs, but I feel like he doesn’t mean any of these things.
“I don’t see anything,” I say.
“You don’t see anything,” he repeats. “How many were we? Hundreds. How many are we now?”
“Just us, Piotr,” I say.
“Just us, Miika,” he answers, going on. “Just two idiots standing on a bridge. That’s all there is to see.”
“Piotr?”
“That’s why it doesn’t matter what the reason is, Miika. Why the gods have decided we were to die. Everyone else is either gone to sleep forever, or they are down in fire and they sing and they dance. It is just us, up here. Just us still going forward with this senseless fight. Our stubbornness is the only thing stopping us from rest. From sleep.”
“But you know I can’t dance and I don’t want to sleep yet, Piotr,” I answer in counter. “I’m not tired.”
He looks at me and nods.
“Neither am I, Miika. So let us try again. One last time. Let us try again, us two idiots standing on a bridge.”
“What else is there to do?” I ask.
“What else is there to do,” he repeats as we watch the pair of shining metal boots descend in the distance.