Being a human is weird. I have weird feelings. I have a weird body. I have weird hands and weird eyes. At least you’re here with me, guy. Looking up to the monk and then back to Madison, I wonder if this is what having a family is like. Just us four. Yeah, I think so. I had a family once, well, sort of. This body did. It kind of feels like that. A little at least.
“Are you okay with just being carried out of the dungeon?” asks Madison, interrupting my thoughts. I look down to the book which is still leaning against me, nested against my stomach and folded legs. Also being carried out of the dungeon.
“If it’s good enough for you, it’s good enough for me,” I tell her. “Besides…”
She stares back up at me for a second, knowing how my sentence is going to end. She sighs and with a strange grumbling noise, lifts up and opts to fly alongside us as well. I shrug. I guess books have weird emotions too. The monk looks as she lifts off and flies past her head.
“Don’t worry, Madison’s a friend. Plus she doesn't even have teeth, so she can’t eat us.”
The monk keeps running, her expression not satisfied with that explanation, but I see the sweat beading on her forehead. Turning away, I look up the staircase instead, seeing the next beam of light ahead. I smile, the apex of the world is really far away, huh?
We breach the precipice and she lowers herself, setting me down as she leans back against the wall, panting. Even for her, this was a lot. Sprinting up two staircases and a floor while carrying someone? I watch her heaving chest as she gasps for air, thick sweat pouts down her face and wet hair. Something grabs her hand, and she turns to look at me.
“Thank you,” I say, pulling back the hand, that I just now realize is my own. Weird. Why is it doing that? Instead, I turn around to look at the ‘new’ floor. Floor seventy-nine. My fists clench as I stare out into the abstract void before us. Floor seventy-nine has no floor. It’s a giant hole in a void. Blackness surrounds us on all sides, swallowing everything into a deep darkness that seems to stretch on forever. Everything except the oddly winding stone platforms and staircases that seem to just hover on their own, they’re entirely lit up and stick out like a sore thumb, despite there being no visible light-source here at all.
A lot of my brothers died here. Thankfully, their sacrifices weren’t in vain. We cleared the floor.
I look down to my hands. We cleared the floor? Thankfully? My fingers find their way to the back of my head as I think, trying to sort out my gooie thoughts. I don’t think I should be thankful for that. Who am I supposed to be? I rub my eyes, they feel a little loose again. Filling up my hands with more magical energy, I send a burst of white-magic into the monk. She’s not hurt, but I want to make her feel good, you know? Grabbing her hand I pull, taking the lead now as we start running again.
“They’re catching up, you know?” says a dreamy voice drifting around us.
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“I know, Madison,” I say looking at the monk who I drag behind myself, perhaps more out of show than out of any reasonable strategy. She’s still faster than me. But as I look at her wildly confused face, I realize that she hasn’t really spoken to me at all since then. I grip her hand tighter, she really has no idea what to do with her feelings. Being a human really is more troublesome than I expected it to be. Maybe when I leave here I do want to be something like a slime or a rat. Our boots thud onto the platforms and it begins. A loud grinding comes out to be heard and we sway to the side as the platform starts floating away from the rest of the path, rising up to connect to another way that lies higher up above us. It’s like a vertical labyrinth made out of moving bridges.
We stand on the floating platform that is, very arduously, making its way back across the room to bring us to a different bridge. “It’s going to take too long…” says the monk, turning back to look down. A small orange light can be seen in the distance, coming up the staircase. They’re not going to let us go, they can’t afford any of us getting to the surface. Not even one of us. She clenches her fists, I’m not sure if she’s crying again or still crying from before, but it makes me feel bad and I don’t like it. It’s ruining her perfectly good eyes.
I wrap my arms around her chest from behind and lean against her, humming. I’m not sure what humans do in situations like this, honestly. My brain is telling me some things, but I don’t know if I can trust it. Then again, you were lying to me about us going to the miller’s, guy. So I don’t know if I can trust you either.
She turns her head around to look over her shoulder. “Keep running, I’ll stay back and -“
“- Let’s go back to the surface together,” I interrupt her. She makes a throat-noise again. Gross. Why do humans do that? It always sounds so wet and sloshy. “- Like we promised.”
“Uh, maybe them staying behind isn’t a b-“ releasing a hand, I swipe Madison out of the air and bring her into the hug.
“Sssshhhhhh, don’t ruin the moment, Madison.”
“But-“
“Ssssshhhhh…” I shush them both as I hum. I have enough eyes for all three of us, they just don’t know that. The ground rumbles, as the floating stone platform docks onto the next bridge. Looking up, I see the platform that we need to get to, but it’s at least another four or five ‘sections’ away because we have to go back and forth over multiple floating platforms. It’s a little dull now, but it certainly wasn’t when those things were swooping out of the darkness towards us.
I let them go and grab both of the monk’s hands. “I have an idea, will you help me?”
She nods, sniffling, and I leap forward against her, surprising her somewhat. But she manages to catch me and hold me like before. Her reflexes are as sharp as ever, even if her brain is a little apeish. Holding my hands together, I channel a new wave of white-magic and pulse it into the ground, making a vertical wall appear next to us, sitting on the edge of the otherwise railing-less platform. I begin channeling more magic into me.
“Jump and kick off of that!” I tell her pointing. Taking a deep breath, she does exactly as I ask without even questioning it. We rise into the air and she plants a boot against the wall, kicking off of the side and sending us flying out back towards the void, where there is no ground beneath us at all. She really didn’t even hesitate. Humans are complicated. If I didn’t have a plan, we’d both literally fall to our deaths and die now. I guess Madison would be fine though.
Raising my hands I make another wall in-front of us. Instinctively she kicks off of it in mid-air. Our bodies thud against the stone platform above us, as we tumble and roll to a stop having taken a shortcut. This time I’m on top, which isn’t as unusual as you might think, guy. Compromise is part of every healthy relationship, you know? I hold my cheeks, I think I’m blushing.
“They’re here,” says Madison. I look away, rising up to my feet and pulling the monk up. There’s no time for monkey-business now. Haha, get it? We look down across the span of the floor, down past the half an hours worth of platforms that we just bypassed, down towards the distant staircase that we entered from. Three silhouettes stand there and look up towards us from the distance. A horizontal white-magic platform begins to build itself up in-front of them. as they too create a short-cut to continue the chase, hot on our heels.
I grab her hand and pull onward as we continue to run away, as we continue to climb up higher towards the apex of the world.
Besides, I smile weakly as I feel her rough skin against mine. It’s not like we’re going to make it. I’m not stupid, guy. We’ve played this game before. You really think I expect to make it up seventy-nine floors in one body?
You, I and Madison know how this is going to end. Only one of us doesn’t. My fingers grasp hers tighter. She doesn’t need to know. I won’t let her. That’s what the hero would do, right? For as long as these feelings exist, I have to protect them.
Right?