"We have to split up."

I pressed myself against the wall, knees propped against my chest, making myself small. I wrapped my arms around my thighs, hugging myself because no one else would.

"But - but why?"

Kirk was looking at me, his large, blue eyes staring at my face, trying to understand my betrayal.

My eyes flicked to his ankle, red and swollen like an apple, making my stomach churn.

"Better odds that way. I run one way, and you run the other. One of us will escape... count on it."

I turned away from him, and his eyes that bore into me, burrowing through my lies. The alleyway we sat in was narrow, like a rabbit's trail. A few feet away, the crowds of the capital's Lower District bustled, unaware of the looming danger. Above them, the setting sun set the sky ablaze—the first warning.

"I have to go now, Kirk. Run as far as you can."

I got to my feet and walked towards the crowd, my hand brushing against the brick wall in a weak attempt to stay.

“Jacob… Jacob, please! Please don’t leave me. Not like this.”

He was sobbing, his breath shuddering as I took slow steps to the lip of the alley.

"Jacob… We’re friends, right?"

I didn't turn back. I didn't want him to see the tears running down my face. I smiled to myself and nodded.

"We were best friends."

# # #

When the orphanage closed last month, I was happy. Built near an ocean and split by a river, the weather in Luskaine's capital was mild, perfect for a new life on the cobblestone streets. Those were the good days. When I ran with a pack of boys from my orphanage, the few who didn't mind that I was an elf. The piles of trash that littered the Lower District became our castles, the forgotten alleyways our warm beds. Even the rats we caught tasted better than the gruel the orphanage poured into our bowls. It was a good life… until they started hunting us.

When night came to the streets of the Lower District, the howling of dogs followed. We would scatter like mice only to regroup and find one or more of us gone the next morning. Every night, the cycle repeated, thinning our herd. No matter how far we ran, the howls followed until it was only me and Kirk, my best friend.

I had to do it. He was slowing me down. They all slowed me down…

A pebble bit into my knee, drawing blood. Leaving Kirk behind had bought me a week, but over a month of running had worn down my shoe soles and blistered my feet. The howling dogs continued to hunt me in the night. When I slept in the day, they followed me in my dreams. There was no escape. The more I ran, the less I ate, the less I slept. Soon, I couldn't run. I couldn't walk. I could only crawl in an alleyway and wait to die.

When the howls came that night, relief washed over me. Sitting with my back against the alley’s dead end, I waited for the hunt to be over.

At the lip of the alleyway, the orange flame of a single torch cut through the darkness. As it drew closer, the sounds of panting dogs, rattling chains, and bickering men followed.

"Bout bloody time we caught this one."

"I almost feel sorry for him. He gave us a grand chase around the capital. Pitiful thing, isn't he?"

"That he is. Taking him is a mercy, Lord Severn."

"Hush! Don't say my name in front of the meat, and keep a firm grip on those chains. I don't want that accident with the last one happening again."

"The one with the big eyes? I swear I see his face in my dreams on the nights where I ain't piss drunk."

I imagined Kirk’s face—his large, innocent eyes, his broad smile—as we shared our dreams of being adopted together as brothers.

I left him. I left my best friend to die alone in an alleyway like this, and now… now it was my turn.

Uncontrollable sobbing wracked my body as wet, salty tears ran down my face.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Ah, is the meat crying? Look at me, boy. Look at me!"

I lifted my head. There were two men: a dumb-looking brute in a rough-spun tunic and a young man dressed in a long, black coat. His wide-brimmed hat and matching black bandana only revealed icy blue eyes and locks of curly blonde hair.

He knelt, almost meeting me at eye level.

"Your friends are dead, but hush now, don't worry. You'll get to join them. Live with them… underneath my home. Does that sound good? It’s much better than what someone like you deserves."

That only made me cry harder, the salty tears dribbling into my mouth.

"Stop. Crying!"

Pain exploded across my face before the sound of his slap echoed in the alleyway.

The young Lord wiped his dirty hand on a handkerchief before he stood up and turned away from me.

"Enough. Take him."

"B-But Lord... my hands are full!"

The brutish man shrugged. In one hand, he held a torch; in the other, he held chains connected to two hunting dogs. The hunting dogs were large, black-furred beasts with opaque red eyes that bulged out of their heads. Their long tongues lolled between rows of daggerlike teeth. Even resting on their haunches, they towered over me.

"Fine, hand over the torch."

As the Lord reached for the torch, a gust of wind swept through the alleyway, blowing out the light.

"Wuh was that!"

"Shh! Quiet. I hear footsteps."

The soft crunch of flat leather soles on stone echoed in the alleyway. As each step grew closer, I held my breath.

How many monsters are there in the dark?

The alleyway exploded in silvery moonlight, and I got my answer. The two men stepped back from the light, and the woman holding it in her black-gloved hand.

She wore a floor-length, pleated skirt the colour of blood and a matching waist-long jacket with a hood to cover her hair. Most bizarre was her face, concealed from forehead to collarbone by a mask of red stocking.

"And what are you supposed to be?"

She answered by stepping closer.

"My Lord?"

"Stay back and mind your business!"

The young Lord moved in front of the brute, hand at his side sword.

"Last warning!"

The woman raised her right hand, letting what looked like a piece of the moon float above us. She buried that same hand into the folds of her pleated skirt and pulled out a knife with an odd, forward-bent blade.

She took another step closer.

The hunting dogs whimpered. In front of her, we were all prey.

"I warned you!"

The Lord pulled out his sword and made it bleed. Impossible droplets of blood poured from the metallic surface, pooling at his feet.

She stepped closer.

He swung his sword in an upward, diagonal slash, making droplets of blood arch off the blade in a thin stream.

With a twist of her hips, she turned side face. The arc of blood brushed past her, slicing off the top corner of the alleyway and sending roof tiles falling.

She stepped closer.

I shook my head.

This couldn’t be real. I must be dreaming.

The young Lord swung his sword again in a downward, diagonal slash closer to the ground, sending another arc of blood her way.

The woman in red danced around the attack, raising the wicked knife in her right hand.

"Enough!"

The man swung his sword to the side, sending out an arc of blood that should have cut the woman in half at the waist.

She jumped—higher than the arc of blood, higher than the two men who stared at her in disbelief. Silhouetted by the moonlight above, she floated to the ground, landing beside the young Lord. In one smooth motion, she wrapped her right arm around the man's sword arm, passed her knife to her left hand, and levelled it to his neck.

"Wait! Wait. Please. I can pay. I have- AHCKK!"

The young Lord was cut off as the knife’s blade ran across his throat. He fell like a sack of potatoes, the sound muted by my pounding heart.

The hunting dogs looked around, the red cloud lifting from their eyes. They whined at the sight of their dead master and yanked themselves free from the brutish man's grip. The man chased after them, running past the woman. He almost made it to the lip of the alley before the strange knife buried itself in his back.

The knife pulled itself free and flew like a boomerang back into the woman's waiting hand.

She let out an exasperated sigh, wiping the blunt edge of the knife in the crook of her elbow. The fabric absorbed the blood like a sponge.

"I didn't want to kill a noble tonight," the woman said to no one in particular.

She turned to me, and I tried to press myself through the wall.

She stepped closer.

Wait, isn't this what I wanted? To die.

I forced myself to take deep breaths as she continued to step closer. She stopped when I was just within her arm’s reach.

The woman’s left knife hand fidgeted, hungry for more blood.

She grabbed her left hand with her right and took a deep breath, the exhale making her shoulders slump.

Behind her, there was movement. I leaned onto my elbow to see the young Lord rise to his feet.

He turned to me, his dead, glassy eyes staring. The blood that spilled down his throat rolled up into his gaping knife wound.

I pointed at the man, wordless terror gripping my tongue. My eyes bulged at the woman whose head was tilted up, lost in thought.

A stream of blood shot from the wound across the young Lord's neck.

The woman crouched a split second before the stream pierced the back of her head. Instead, it bit into the wall above me, raining clumps of rock on my head, followed by a shower of blood. The force of the stream knocked the young Lord on his back and covered the woman, the alleyway and me with his blood.

Staring out at a world turned red, I sat stunned.

Was this how the world looked to her?

The oddity of the situation outweighed my fear of the woman crouched in front of me.

My relief returned, a tranquil calm covering me like warm moss.

I closed my eyes.

I was ready now—ready to see Kirk and all the other friends I’d lost over the month-long hunt, ready to join them in the sea of souls beneath our feet.

"Do you want to come with me?"

My eyes snapped open, staring at the woman's red-veiled face.

"What?!"

"The guards are coming. You can wait for them, or… you can come with me."

She stabbed her knife into the cobblestone.

"Choose. I don't have all night."

I leaned on my elbow again, catching sight of the bodies of the two men who hunted down me and my friends.

"Can you teach me how to do that?"

She giggled, a more girlish laugh than I expected.

"If you can keep up."