There's something in my pocket. I feel it as I dig around.

We’re walking again, crossing back over the bridge of white-magic that the priestess made to span the gap. She knows how to make horizontal platforms, I’ll have to ask her some time about that. Though the ‘we’re’ part of ‘we’re walking’ is a bit of a stretch. The monk is still carrying me, as I am a bit wobbly on my brain. Brain? Legs. Legs? Feet. Who am I? Why was I in the water? My brain itches, but I can’t reach it, my eyes are in the way, but no matter how much I push against them they keep pushing back. We’re hurrying after the rest of them agreed to keep moving, the black-water will be back soon. Not even the hero’s strike can destroy all of it. There’s just too much. It’s everywhere. It’s inside all of us, inside of me, inside of you, guy, inside of our eyes. The pitch-toned mass that had swallowed me whole is no more. But…

  I look out past the shoulder of the monk who is carrying me in front of herself. The bridge dissipates behind us and I watch as goo seeps out of the cracks of the walls. Blobs of living ink creep out of every crevice and crack between the slash that runs through the stones, all of it seeping back down together into the pool. All of the faces watching me from afar as they slide down into the abyss, as they slide back into the water, as they fall from the apex of the world down into the darkness so deep below.

  The apex of the world? What a weird thing to say. I look around us. I wonder where that is? I wonder if there’s like a… an anti-dungeon. Something that just goes higher and higher up, pushing higher and higher, pressing towards the gods themselves. I wonder. I wonder. I wiggle. Haha. Wa-wa-wa-wa — wiggle. What a fun noise. The monk flashes me a strange look as I wiggle in her arms. It's nice being carried, I feel like a princess, guy. Haha! Whatever, she doesn’t get it. She doesn’t know. None of them know! She isn’t trying to talk to sister like I am. Sister only speaks in wiggles and jiggles and iggles and uggles, she can’t use words. Words like “mmmmmma-“

“You good?” asks the monk, rudely interrupting my train of thought. Oh well.

“Did you know that some mushrooms only live for a day?” I ask her.

“…Huh…” she says, giving me a look that I don’t feel is quite justified, really. She looks up to WIGGLE, who looks back shrugging.

“Some mushroom fruiting bodies can even last for hundreds of years though!”

“Neat?” says BMMMM raising an eyebrow and I nod in affirmation. It is neat. Isn't it neat, guy?

“I have hands,” I say, somewhat surprised at the revelation as I look at the odd protrusions coming off of my arms. Which are also odd protrusions coming out of my body.

“You do,” she says, puzzled.

“That’s neat,” I respond.

  “Sure, I guess? Do you have goo-brain or something? WIGGLE, can you take another look? I think you missed a spot,” she asks the priestess who seems to be somewhat unsure herself. SCRIE is just walking up front by the hero, I don’t think she likes me. She’s not big on the church. That’s fine. Human social dynamics are wei-

I look around myself, as I am held high up in the air, held up towards the apex of the world. I look at the monk. I realize something. Someone is missing. I turn to look up at my favorite person here, apart from you, guy. “Hey, where’s GUY?”

“Are you fucked in the head? You’re GUY," she says, rolling her eyes.

“Oh…” I say, somewhat let down. This is it, huh? This is what being human is like? My brain is itchy. “Can you scratch my brain?”

“I can kick your ass if you don’t pull yourself together.”

  “Haha!” I laugh at her joke. What a good friend she is. She never got along with the rest of the clerics, but we hit it off right away. I like her brashness, you know? I appreciate that rough honesty in a human. It’s too bad that she doesn’t know that I’m not real. I'm basically her imaginary friend. Maybe I should tell her? Maybe I should tell them? I look around us. Wait. Where are we going? We’re going downstairs. I need to go up though, this is wrong. This is wrong. Why do I need to go upstairs though? I’m not sure anymore. Uh…

“Are we going to the miller’s? I don’t want to go to the miller’s again.”

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She stops. “Okay. Wait. Hold on, I know how to fix this-“

IAH!

The monk flips me upside down, holding me by my ankles and begins shaking me wildly around.

“BMMMM!” yells WIGGLE, running over to stop her. My arms flop around, dangling loosely beneath myself as I watch my hands scrape along the rough dirt floors. “Stop! You’re going to hurt them!”

  “I’m just shaking GUY out, we used to do this all the time back at the temple, it’s fine!” she says, shaking me. Something pops in my back as I stretch out, it hurts, but it also feels kind of nice. Something else catches my eyes though, as I am held aloft, something small in the darkness, something that isn’t made out of goo. Something that scampers. Haha! “Th-th-th-ere’s a ra-ra-rat!” I tell them as she finishes jostling me around. I hear a constant thwacking, as the priestess is beating on the monk’s arms, trying to get her to let me go. She stops shaking me and flips me over back upright and sets me down.

“So? There are rats everywhere down here.”

I sigh. They just don’t get it, guy. No matter what I tell them. No matter what I tell you, none of you get it. I really wish you would. I wave to the biggest rat and squeak at it. It flinches back into the shadows, but its brother’s squeak back, pushing it out towards me.

“Did you just squeak to the rat?”

“Oh yeah, we go way back, he was my brother once, you know?”

She turns to the priestess, grabbing her by the shoulders. “…huh? WIGGLE, come on! They’re fried! Do something!” asks the monk, grabbing the priestess’ hands.

“We don’t have time for this,” snaps SCRIE from ahead. “Just leave them here!”

“Go climb a wall of dicks!” yells the monk back at her. The wizard just sticks her tongue out and makes a noise as she keeps walking.

  I sigh. Humans are so immature. I nod as the rat slowly emerges from the darkness, suspicious, but forced out of peer pressure to see what it is that I want. Rat society is also weird, peer pressure, you know? That’s fine, pressure makes diamonds. I think? Dunno. I don’t want diamonds. I want a rat. Ratty ratty.

  “Hey, hey!” I lean forward on my knees, placing my face down to the ground, towards the large rat that I have chosen. He is strong of heart, I see it in his beady eyes. He’s not the biggest, or the roughest looking. But he’s the best man for the job. Can you see it too? Can you see that strength in his heart? The rat champion who I have proclaimed from up here, from so high up atop the apex of the world. It crawls out of the shadows to stare curiously into my eyes, its large body shaking in fear, as it leaves the safety of the darkness. As it comes towards the hero-party. Towards me.

“You’re talking to a rat, GUY.”

  I turn my head and hiss at the monk, she doesn’t understand. Looking back to the rat I dig into the pocket of my robe and pull out the piece of crumpled black fabric I had found in my last life and place it in front of the large creature whose head is the size of my fist. Its eyes open wide and a flurry of abhorred, jealous squeaks emerges from the darkness around us. The cloth is still crumpled, but they smell the rat-queen. I hold my hands clenched tightly above my heart that thrashes so deep, as I stare into its eyes. “I’ve chosen you, brother.” I lean in towards the rat, my fingers now loosened and digging into the dirt, as my eyes shine bright, as the sun shines out from my gaze. “I proclaim you to be the rat-hero.” I lean in more, pushing the cloth towards it, my vision shooting open wide. “This is your sacred mission, hallow! Hallow! Go! Take it and run! Protect it with your life!” I lean in further towards the shaking rat, my face pressing nearly against its, I’m crying at the beauty of this moment.

  A thousand beady eyes emerge from the darkness around us, shining in the lantern-light. “Protect it with your soul!” It looks up to me, shaking, unsure if it is ready to accept this true destiny. But I know brother, I know he is meant for greatness. If not me, if not any of us, then at least brother. “Go!” I yell at the rat, crystal tears falling from my eyes. The rat springs to action with a hero’s heart, grabbing the pair of underwear and scampering away in a flurry, vanishing into the darkness of a tunnel in the rock as his adventure begins.

“WHAT THE FU-“

  A thousand rats emerge from the darkness, from every crevice and crack and cranny all around us. From the walls. From the floors, from the edge of the black-water, from out of the wizard’s bag. They’re everywhere as they always have been and they run, they scamper-scamper, they stampede in a jealous frenzy as they chase after the chosen brother. The priestess shrieks and the wizard lets out a frightened yelp, flailing as the rats all run around them both, as they run around the human ‘hero’, not caring in the least for their presences. They all want one thing. They all want the true destiny of the true hero who I have chosen. Sacred. Blessed. Hallow. Hallow!

The monk is busy stepping around the rats, as the priestess who jumped into their arms is shrieking and flailing wildly. The wizard is spinning around in a circle, trying to blast any and everything with fire and the hero is just at the same loss of words he always is.

  I take my chance and I too, scamper-scamper, skittering into the darkness as I hiss between my teeth, taking part of my own hero’s journey. It was nice to have friends for a while, but my brain itches and I need to go. I need to move. I need to climb. Can you hear? Can you feel it? That strong feeling, it’s pulling us further, it’s pulling us higher. I run down towards the darkness, the black-water sloshing to my left as I go down the path that they had cleared before, as I run towards the stairs. The real stairs, as I sprint, black-water oozing from my eyes, from my heart as I run. Black-water oozing out behind myself to give chase. They don’t know. They don’t know!

  My boots slide around the corner and I hear a shout in the distance, I hear a strong voice calling for me, calling for my name and I spare only a glance back, happy to hear someone say it with a feeling as strong as mine. Happy that someone notices that I’m not there. A cloud of dust shoots out from beneath myself, as the compacted dirt comes loose in my sprint around the bend and I keep running as the black-water sloshes, as it comes for my eyes. I keep running. I keep running towards that place higher still. I’m not going to stop. I round the next bend. The real stair-case is ahead of me, the one that leads upwards.

There’s something that’s wrong. I’ve been trying to tell you this whole time, guy. But you haven’t been listening. I run towards the staircase from the side and I leap. The black-water crashes into the side of the staircase below myself.

My hand grips the edge of the highest stoop and I hang there, frozen in place as I touch it. My body tingling and becoming numb as I touch a spot I was never meant to grasp. But this body...

  Something’s broken. The game is broken. The rules are broken. There’s something in the bad-water. Run little ratty, go as fast as you can. Don’t stop. Don’t ever stop! I pull my second hand up and my body vibrates, buzzing as the magical energies of the dungeon course through me, as they shake my bones, as they shake my eyes. I hear the dungeon-master screaming already, probably clutching their head and hair in exasperation as they watch me. Good! Good. Watch me. Watch me! I place my boot on the edge of the staircase and I leap again, pressing myself upwards and onto the final stoop before the real stairs vanish into the darkness above. Standing up on high, sparing not a glance for the bad-water below myself I run. I run. I run, with eyes that shine hallow, I run. My body shakes. I run. It hurts. I run. There are screams around myself, the dungeon shakes as the world quakes. I run. I hear rats. I run. I hear sloshing. I run.

This body isn't entirely a trash-mob. It isn't entirely a human. It isn't entirely bound by the rules of the dungeon.

I run, climbing towards the apex of the world.