I don’t really understand what the point is…

Bub, you agreed to make it, and you did, so what’s the problem? Just put it on.

Haha, oh child, he’s a strange one, but you should keep your word.

I look down on my hour long arts and crafts project. It’s a large piece of bark, with 3 holes cut out of it. 2 for my eyes, and a larger one for my mouth and nose. Two pieces of rope run from the corners.

It’s the creepiest thing I think I have ever made. It’s a face mask with no concernable features. It’s like something someone would wear in a horror movie.

Bub, you want to make those rats uneasy. You need to keep them on their little toes. They won’t know what to expect when they see you in that mask.

So this is to play psychological games with the rats? Couldn’t we just… set up traps?

Bub, rats are smart little guys, it’s going to take days for any trap to work. Also, this mask, though crude it may be, helps channel the forest spirits and will help us in the coming fights.

Jeb, no offense to your culture, but we don’t need forest spirits, I just need to exterminate the rats. Wouldn’t it be better to practice swings or something than spend this time on the mask?

You wanted my help, so just do it already.

I pick up my horrible little mask and place it on my face. Even with the large cutout for the mouth and nose, the mask feels stuffy, and I can smell the damp, musty bark. I tighten the ropes and the mask is secure. My vision is definitely narrow, but moving my head around, it doesn’t seem to shift.

Wearing the mask makes me feel… calmer.

I collect my gear and open the front door to the Old Mill and see the owner there.

His eyes bulge a bit, but I just glance over him.

He speaks, but his voice sounds like he’s far away and in a tunnel, “... what the foock are yer doin now… yer are a creepy mother…”

Standing in the entryway I pay him no mind. I am suddenly aware of the flow of air. I can feel that there is air flowing from all but one of the doors. I walk towards that door, open it and go through.

It’s much darker, and I can feel the cool and dry air as I approach the stairs leading to what appears to be the basement.

“...fig’tin’ rats in t’at god forsakeeen mask… flower beds and t’is…”

His voice no longer reaches me as I descend.

Nearing the bottom of the stairs, I take another look around. The only source of light is behind me, from the late evening sun reaching through the upper floor and reflecting off of the walls and down the stairs. Everything is cast in long dark shadows. Standing still I hear the slight creak in my right shoulder as I breathe.

I stand longer and notice my ears and eyes are adjusting to the silence and dim light. The dark shadows have shapes emerge from them. Those shapes slowly become sacks and barrels. Shelves along the far wall become more visible.

*Ding*

*Ding*

*Ding*

My now pavlovian response to the dings no longer exists. I pay those noises with no heed.

I hear multiple… tiny shifting in weight. I hear tiny claws against the stone floor, not scurrying, but gently moving and adjusting. Slowly I hear the breathing. Many tiny breaths fill the space, all constant with a tremble, and two bodies breathing in deeply and calmly. The tiny breaths are hard to count, but there’s at least 2 dozen by the sounds of it.

I don’t know when it happened, but my dagger is in my hand and I can feel my hand tighten around it.

I do not move though

*Ding*

*Ding*

The blue tracking light fades into existence. The entire floor lights up gently, but there are clear defined tracks leading along the edges of the walls and objects.

I feel my knees start to protest. Rigidly standing on the stone steps are starting to cause a faint pain. I have no sense of time, how long have I been standing here?

I see a rat start to slowly inch out from behind a sack. I watch from the corner of my as it peeks out to look at me. It watches me for a minute or two before slowly sketiring out from the sack, and hugging the wall.

I feel a reflexive muscle spasm, but I hold and do not move.

Another rat, this time from behind a barrel on the other side pokes out and scampers across the far wall.

Again, a reflexive muscle spasm, but I do not move.

Soon, the rats seem to be moving about. They are providing a wide berth by hugging the wall and don’t approach me, but it gives me the opportunity to identify all the rats. Each one seems to have a different feature. Some have different angles on the snout, some of lighter patches on their fur, some with a limp, and some with crooked whiskers. Every 34 of the rats I saw were all distinct enough and captured in my memory.

Finally, I heard a larger rustle. One from an impossibly large rat. At this point I realized the light behind me was no more, but wasn’t sure how long I had been standing in darkness. My senses were honed towards the noise behind the barrel that rested beside the wall high shelf. It poked its head out and stared at me. We stared unblinkingly at each other. The rat was easily 3x the size of it’s brethren. It’s whiskers matted against its fur, and it’s large front teeth crooked. I could see scars along the back of its neck as it twists to look at me. It’s posture not of hostility but of curiosity.

After a couple minutes it comes waddling out. Instead of hugging the wall like the other rats, it makes a direct line across the floor towards a sack of grain. All my muscles become rigid. I instinctively know this will be my first target.

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The rat’s trajectory slowly approaches me. My grip tightens on my dagger. My muscles are screaming to be released.

As soon as the rat is within 3 meters of me, I explode and hurtle forwards. All my muscles spring into action immediately and I become airborne. With the lack of light, once I start flying, the room becomes a dark blur, the shapes blend and disappear into the darkness, but my memory has burnt them into place, almost overlaying them in my field of view to augment my understanding of this battleground. The rats were still marked with pale glowing lights. It was like I knew where each and every rat was, and a vague sense of where the other dire rat was.

Sailing from the stairs to the dire rat, dagger outstretched, I feel it sink into something soft, but still gave a little tug of resistance as it sliced through it. The dire rat let out a loud squeal in pain, instead of the silence I expected. Even with the change in expectations, I continued moving forwards and continued my current trajectory, slicing through a regular rat that had been scurrying along the far wall. A small vibration of a pop traveled up my dagger followed by a quiet wet clang. I could feel the dagger had gone through the rat's spine and hear that it tapped the stone wall. That’s at least one rat down.

*Ding*

The dire rat hadn’t been killed in that first kinetic explosion though. The initial attack had happened all too fast to process, but I think the dire rat had jumped, dodging the fatal blow I had been seeking to deliver. Instead of running away though, it had turned to watch me and let out a horrifying scream. It was a blood chilling scream, it sounded part beast and part human. A noise someone would make, filled with fear, anger, and pleading for help, as loud as they can in hopes of someone, anyone, helping them. It echoed in the stone basement. All the rats I had identified were making a hasty retreat before the scream. After the scream though, they had suddenly stopped dead in their tracks and they all slowly turned to stare at me. Their eyes had gone from soft dark orbs, to orbs of glowing red light.

I ready my dagger and crouch low. Muscles again waiting to blast off from the cool stone. The dire rat seemed to be dying from my slash, but clearly not fast enough. Most of the rats are in corners, so there is still a straight path leads to the stairs and the injured dire rat. It lets out another blood curdling scream and all 33 of the remaining rats charge me. Most start running to me in a straight line, but a few break out from the pack to try and block my exit to the stairs. Those few rats that broke out of the pack will be my next target.

My legs kick off of the cold stone floor and I leap towards the stairs again. It’s a little bit of distance covered in the air, but my instant speed was needed as a moment later a rat smashes into the wall where I just was. Keeping low I attack the rats that broke away from the group. In one stride, the dagger passed through a rat’s neck, the head soaring off into the dark. The light from the rat immediately fading. In the next stride, my dagger still extended from the swipe, I swept it across my front and plunged it into the rat coming up on my left side.

Two rats are now airborne leaping towards my face. One to my left and one to my right.

Swinging from the stabbed rat, I slice the airborne rat on my left, but the bone I hit alters the trajectory of my swing. The blade’s trajectory is now crooked and won’t be able to adjust in the few milliseconds I have, so instead of trying to dodge the ever approaching flying rat, I rotate the hilt and have my pummel and fist hit the flying rat. I feel the sharp tooth and claw against my hand, but feel the crunching of bone as I send the rat shooting off in the opposite direction. That’s four down.

I make it back to the stairs and look back. The floor seems to be a moving sea as the 30 remaining rats are charging with their glowing red eyes.

*Ding*

A quick glance to the Dire rat shows that it’s no longer glowing and looks to be dead. One of the closer rats climbed the step. My foot rocketed down from below and an audible crunch could be heard over the angry sea of rats. Five.

The stairs are making the fight much easier. Being only one step above the rats ment that any rat that tried to climb the step could be crushed with my foot, and the ones that jumped at me couldn’t get the height for my face, and made it easier to intercept with my fists.

Six.

Seven.

An arching swipe of my dagger catches three airborne rats. If they were just a bit more intelligent, this would be a problem. Ten.

The step starts to get a bit slippery and the main body of the rat hoard is closing in, I step up another step.

I get the ones following me up the stairs.

Eleven.

Twelve.

The rats that are jumping at me are a bit harder to get to now, as they are a bit too low for my swinging.

Thirteen.

A loud pop comes from my right shoulder. My grip weakens on the dagger and arm becomes a bit limp. I had been using my left hand for balance, but now I use my left hand to reach around to my now limp right hand to retrieve the dagger from it’s slackened grip. My hands are slick with rat blood and finally releasing my grip on the dagger, blood has gotten on to the hilt now. The dagger feels both the slippery hilt and unwieldy now that I can’t get a comfortable grip. I climb up another step.

Without my hands for balance, and climbing up high enough for no leaping attacks, I crouch and start playing what I could only describe as a bloody whack-a-mole.

Fourteen.

Fifteen.

Sixteen.

Seventeen.

There’s too many, I squat jump up another step and keep stabbing.

Eighteen

Ninteen

*Ding*

Twenty.

There’s only 2 or three more steps to go.

Twenty-One.

I go to hop up another step, but my slick boots kick out from underneath me and I twist awkwardly in the air to try and stabilize me. It fails and I start to fall down the stairs. My dagger goes flying, partially because of the blood and sweat on the hilt, and partially because I didn’t want to accidentally stab myself as I fell down the stairs. My left shoulder hits the first stair. Crunching and popping could be heard, some from the rat corpses, some from the live rats that were caught underneath me, and I am sure, some from myself as I tumble down and hit every step on the way down.

*Ding*

At the bottom of the stairs I try to right myself and end up stumbling towards the barrel and shelf. My left arm seems to be as useless as my right now. Unable to lift either arm now, I wedge myself against the wall and shelf. I count four remaining rats, all of them charging me head on. Lifting my left boot I am able to crush the first one, and kicked the second one away to buy more time. The third one clutches my stationary right boot. I plant my left foot down and start shaking my right foot but can’t loosen the rat. I smash the fourth one with my right foot, but the clinging rat is making its way up to my knee and I can feel it’s claws digging into my flesh through my pants as it climbs up to my knee. A quick turn towards the shelf, I smash my knee into the shelf and a warmth spreads down my leg followed by another dull pain. The one I had kicked got back into range of my boot. Using my left foot, I slam it down and hear the final crunch of this nightmare.

*Ding*

Holy Fuck. I think that’s all of them.

I try to put weight on my right leg without the help of the wall and shelf, and it’s not very good. I start to leave my little alcove of death and limp out, but as soon as I pass in front of the shelf, I see just a ball of fur dart towards my face.

Fuck, the other dire rat.

The dire rat had climbed the shelf during the fight and lept onto my mask when I tried walking past. It’s teeth gnashing furiously at my eyes, but thankfully it’s teeth were too large for my small eye slots, but it’s claws were piercing and tearing at my mouth as it tried to keep it’s perch on my mask. Swinging my head back and forth to loosen it wasn’t providing any relief as it clutched harder onto my lips.

Not being able to reach my face with my arms no longer to reach above my shoulders, I bite down hard on whatever my teeth can grab. I feel two leathery toes or claws separate and land on my tongue. Floating in a bit of blood, most likely mine and the dire rat’s. The dire rat shrieks but does not let go and I spit out the toes and blood against its belly. Shaking my head now harder, the mask loosens and travels a couple meters away with the dire rat on top of it. The mask hits the stone and breaks apart . Suddenly all the fatigue that’s been built up in the fight hits me hard. All my muscles suddenly give out. My legs start shaking, straining to keep me up as the rat bellows and charges at me. I have lost my cool, I have no more swift movements and quick plans. I see the rat do a little hop, it’s posture shifts. It looks like it’s readying itself for a large leap towards me once it hits the ground. Just before it lands it’s little hop, a glint of sword swings down, severing it’s head. The momentum of the body topples the head over the top of the sword, and the head continues it’s trajectory unobstructed, bouncing oddly as it’s snout and skull hits the floor, eventually hitting my left boot.

*Ding*

The shadow says something but I don’t make it out. I slump back against the shelf and wall, and pass out.