I was slung over Sean’s side-of-beef shoulder. The good Doctor had not yet restored my muscle control; I was getting used to it. And I could listen. It was very informative.

The three of us were in a dark, cool cave. I could see Sean’s feet, his overdeveloped calves and tiny, muscular rump. He was carrying me down a long set of rough-hewn stairs, something we’d been doing for some time now. Sean and the Doctor wore little LED headlamps; possibly obtained from Wish or Temu.

I had so many questions: What was this cave? Who had built the stairs? What had happened to Mandy? What WAS Mandy? What kind of tropical island had a friggin’ dungeon?

Occasionally Dr. Harrigan would make a joke. “Sorry all these rocks are down here, Owen. I wonder how that happened.” Or: “Coming up on the right is one of my favorite stone formations.” He said it for every formation. I couldn’t see what he was talking about.

But once he got the comedy out of the way, the two of them were talking and I wouldn’t have interrupted them if I could.

“What did you think you were doing there?” asked Dr. Harrigan.

“I was keeping discipline,” said Sean. “You saw, you saw! He could have killed me with that rock, over a damn…monster.”

“The Makers aren’t monsters. Walsh had the right idea. If you’d hurt it we’d have had real problems. And God forbid it was something like a copycat eel or an Ammonite Priestess.”

“He showed me disrespect! In front of everyone, and you said that the rules–”

“You would have gotten a lot of us killed. You need to think, Sean, and you never do, and you might have died.”

“Dad, you said–”

“Enough, Sean.”

Silence fell.

Dad.

We went down, down into the dark. I could see that to our left was an unworked stone wall. A cliff, possibly. To our right was a yawning empty blackness. Huge. This cave was an enormous underground chamber. Warm wind would rise up now and then. Once we passed what had to be a roaring waterfall; the mist was cool, pleasant, and then gone as we went down.

A sigh from Harrigan. “This is all for you, Sean. I need you to become a leader, and to get these people together. I’ve given you the framework here; but it’s a free for all, theoretically. You have obstacles I can help with. If Mandy comes back again, call me sooner.”

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Nothing from Sean. He did bump my head against the cave wall, though. Hilarious.

“Dad.” Sean was thinking. I could almost hear the thoughts struggling through the meat of his brain. “Dad. Do you really want me to be in charge?”

“Of course. You wanted to publicly punish insubordination, so here we are. I’m trying to help.”

More thought on Sean’s behalf. “Because sometimes it seems like…” He trailed off.

Dr. Harrigan didn’t prompt his son for more. We kept walking. It went on and on. And then, finally:

A crow cage. You see them in movies that feature castles and oppressive feudal governments. Usually there’s a skeleton in there. It’s a way to show that the local bad guys mean business. The stone stairs continued down into the dark, but we were stopping here.

I’d never seen one in a movie that looked like this, though; it was adorned with pearls, arabesques of silver and a lovely swirl added to the bars of the cage so the whole thing seemed to be a mere piece of fancy decoration. Odd to find that down here, but I guess Doc Harrigan works with what he has.

The circular door was open. Sean plunked me in, shut the door. My legs stuck out of the cage, swinging, and I could feel the stone floor beneath my cheap shoes. I could see upwards, thanks to my floppy neck. A heavy silver chain was attached to the top of the cage. It went up and up, disappearing into the dark.

I fought to control my breathing. Take it easy. Don’t give them anything. Listen, watch.

Doctor Jeff Harrigan held up his tablet computer. On it was an image of my face, the one where I stood in front of a forest fire. The text read OWEN WALSH.

Jeff Harrigan did something with his tablet and began making a video. I saw myself, loose and gangly, sprawled in the cage. Then he flipped the tablet and presumably the camera. “This is Owen Walsh; he’s here because he attacked and tried to kill another camper. The theme here is chaos; that doesn’t mean violence is allowed. It means we find our own way to independence and success as a group–”

“Then you should have told us that,” Sean said, to my surprise. “You didn’t tell anyone. How are we supposed to–”

“Quiet, Sean. Not in front of him. Now I have to start over. We’ll have a talk about the kind of organization you should be forming, but not now. Dammit…okay, I have to restart the app, it crashed.”

We waited.

After a bit, Harrigan started recording again. He made the speech about violence. He concluded: “Owen will be here when we get back. I guarantee he’ll be more of a team player, and that we’ll all benefit from what he has to say. Good luck, Owen.”

He elbowed Sean. “Good luck,” groused Sean.

Doc Harrigan brought out an absurdly ornate silver key. He stuck it into a confusingly decorated lock on the cage. A metallic click rang out, echoing through the cavern. Locked. Harrigan pocketed his key.

“Okay, not recording any more,” said Doctor Harrigan. “You’ll be able to move in about an hour, Owen. And don’t take this personally.”

He made eye contact with me. I poured all the anger and outrage I had into that look. If he was devastated by the psychic assault, he didn’t show it.

And the two of them turned and went back up the rough stairs. Their lights got smaller, their bickering fainter. I was here, in a cage, in the dark, and that was that.