I turn towards the thief-girl, who I see waving excitedly in the distance; her slender silhouette running towards me and I turn to walk towards her in turn. “Hey. Hey!” calls out her excited voice, as she approaches, her leather boots slapping against the pristine stone floors of the entirely featureless, flat room. Running up to me, she wraps her arms around my large body, locking me in a tight embrace. Her head pressed sideways against my metal breastplate, she laughs and holds me firmly.

“It’s okay now! It’s okay now! Everything is okay now!” she explains as we stand there.

  I take her word for it, as she just stays there like that for a time. It’s… nice, you know? For someone to be so excited every single time that they see you. It’s… nice. It makes me feel nice. Is that weird? Wrapping her arms around my back, she holds me and sways from side to side, humming off tune, as she always does. I try to ask what it is we’re doing here. But hollow-armors can’t speak to the living. She just laughs again, as I rattle, and continues her dancing motions.

Pulling back, she looks around the blank space surrounding us and turns to look up towards me.

  “It used to look a lot nicer, you know?” she explains. Uh, I mean. I guess not being able to see it counts as nicer? Then again, maybe she remembers a different version of this floor than the one I just experienced. Maybe she remembers this floor from when before all of this happened. The shuffle. The resets. I look around, following her gaze, looking for anything that could have been different, in a time that I don’t remember. But I just don’t see anything really. It’s just blank. An empty canvas.

I want to answer her, if only not to be rude, but I don’t have a mouth that something living can understand.

  She cocks her head. “I know you can’t talk to me in this body!” she explains with that wide smile of hers shining out. A small, slender hand grasps my metal gauntlet. The little bauble still held tightly in the other. With a mischievous grin, the thief-girl pulls me forward along behind her, which is a little embarrassing because she barely reaches up to my neck in this body. But at least there is nobody here to see her lead, with me in tow.

  Well, except for the dungeon-master. So I guess it is still a little embarrassing actually. I’m not sure why I feel that it is, though? Maybe it’s some misplaced sense of pride, some remnant of the previous inhabitant of this body. Or maybe it’s my own personal ego, or maybe it’s just that I know that the dungeon-master is watching and I feel like I owe them one. I sigh inside, since I have no mouth, and I look up into the void above myself, knowing that they’re watching. I do this for you, dungeon-master.

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I stop and lean downward, the hand that is pulling me grows taut as she turns to look back at me, somewhat perplexed at my sudden halt.

“Ah!” squeals the elf, as I lift her up off of her feet and carry her forward held in my arms instead.

  I suppose the proper term is a bridal carry, but let‘s not get carried away here, okay, guy? Is there a point to it, other than to protect my own ego? Probably not. But I’d rather carry her, than to have her drag me there like I’m a child. She giggles and points forward and I head in that direction. I suppose it reminds me of when I was a unicorn, which, all things considered, I am also surprisingly open in talking about. They say you should talk about your traumas in order to heal them, dunno who ‘they’ are, but they’ve clearly never been a slime-girl before, tell you what.

  I shudder at the memory. The elf doesn’t notice, she just has her eyes closed and is leaned in towards me, nested and humming with a random giggle thrown in every once in a while, her face flush and rosy. I wish I could ask her where she’s been, but it’s fine. Everyone needs a day off and maybe it’s just none of my business, to be honest. People may not respect my personal space that often, but I want to respect theirs. That’s what a hero would do, right?

  My metal boots clank forward, as we walk down the length of the room. To my surprise, we actually seem to be making progress towards the high walls of the space now, the edge drawing closer and closer. She opens her eyes and points a little towards the left, nodding, I follow her instructions and keep walking with her in my arms. I never noticed how small she was before, how light. I suppose that’s just how elves are. We never got many of their kind in our dungeon, we’re located in a more human-rich zone. Plenty of humans to go around here.

  But there are more populated elf areas near some of the other dungeons. Apparently enough so, that entire adventuring parties there can just be elvish, kind of like how our hero-party is just made up of humans. Well, humans and one elf, but she doesn’t count. We walk towards the wall and there, plain as day, I see a single cut-out in the stone and look inside of it. There is nothing beyond. No stair-case, no light, nothing. It is as if the floor simply stopped and gave way to the void beyond. She points towards it. Gesturing for us to go inside the gap.

I mean, I’ve jumped down pits and all before to find the secret stairs, so I’m used to weird exits. But this one seems… sketchy.

  “Don’t worry!” she says, as if sensing my thoughts through my squirming motions. As I stare at the gap before us, I turn to look down at her sharp face, that is looking up towards mine. That strange expression of hers adorning it, just above her ever-present smile that I have no choice but to trust.

I nod, and I step forward towards the brink, holding her tight, in-case we fall.

  The sharp whistle slices through the air like the hellish scream of a demon in the night and my body lurches forward violently. I only just manage to catch myself with my shoulder against the corner of the wall, holding her tight against my chest, as we lurch forward. Her eyes wide with shock and with a worried expression, she reaches upwards and places a palm on my chest. Her fingers straddling the head of the arrow that pierced me from behind.

Huh?

I turn around and look at the green silhouette standing in the distance, with a bow held in her hand. Her forest eyes filled with a burning fury.

Looking down, I look at the elf in my own hands. She looks at me, her face moving closer to mine as she leans in, she has no eyes. The room goes black.

It skitters.