Desmond was sure he was going to die. He had grown to accept this as fact over the course of the last twenty minutes. Trapped under layers and layers of shattered wooden floorings, broken stone foundations, and the corpses of people he’d once called his friends and neighbors, the young boy wasn’t sure when—or even if—the screaming outside would ever stop.

Tearstains traced down his cheeks, but his eyes had quickly dried out without any moisture reaching him in the crawlspace under the floorboards. The look on his mother’s face—crestfallen and so clearly hopeless but with a shaky and nervous smile, as if she was trying to stay confident for his sake—was seared into his mind. It was the last time he saw her, after all, before she replaced the floorboards above him and he was plunged into darkness.

He wasn’t sure what happened to her after that. He hoped she was safe, that she had somehow found Father and he was keeping the both of them safe. But...but he’d seen those things outside.

Those demons.

None of them were the same, even down to the slightest detail. Some were massive, almost as tall as his house, and had bulging muscles bigger than his body, while others were a fraction of his own height, with torn wings or dozens of tiny little limbs and vicious teeth. Huge, slitted eyes, snouts, fangs, forked teeth, blistering skin that were all shades of the rainbow, and even more vile things across their bodies that Desmond didn’t have time to process before the attack began.

They’d bursted through Calcheth’s outer walls like it was made of tissue paper. Desmond often heard the older boys talking about how the wall was made of the toughest stuff around—some type of stone whose name he couldn’t pronounce very well—and that it was so strong, not even a mage could bust it open.

And then the demons had ripped into it like the tender underbelly of one of Mrs. Rainhide’s pigs. In seconds, their glorious wall was reduced to rubble. And that’s when the screaming started.

From that point, Desmond couldn’t really remember much. He remembered lots of noise; townspeople screaming, the town guards yelling, and loudest of all: the roars of the demons. They were ear-shattering, like the sound of someone running chunks of gravel and hail against a metal sheet. They hurt his ears so much, he was certain that his eardrums had burst and began bleeding. He’d been wrong, but the ringing in his ears continued well after his mother had put a kitchen knife in his hands and shoved him into his hiding place. Even then, the sound did not leave his ears for a long time afterward.

It had been nearly an hour since then and he hadn’t heard from her or Father. Both his hands were clasped tightly around the handle of the knife, so much so that his fingers had paled and his palms were sweaty. Still, he was reluctant to let up in the slightest. If a demon suddenly ripped the floorboards out from above him, the paltry knife would be his only chance at survival.

Even though every demonic scream sounded closer and closer to him, he held onto the knife—no, the weapon. Even though he felt like he could hear a demon breathing right on top of his hiding place, he held onto his weapon as if it were his only remaining lifeline.

Desmond steeled himself. As much as he was afraid right now, he had to be brave. As much as he was on the teetering edge of despair right now, he had to stay focused. His mother wanted him to be safe. He would survive. He had to.

►⚉◄

It felt like an eternity before it was silent again. Desmond wasn’t sure if he slept, but he was at least certain that he hadn’t gotten any rest at all. He couldn’t tell how much time had passed either. All he knew was that the screams went on for what seemed like hours.

He could tell that it had crossed over from day to night as the crawlspace went from “just cramped” to “dark and claustrophobic”. Alongside that, he could no longer hear anything from outside. He hoped it meant that the raid had long since ended and that he could leave, but...he couldn’t be sure.

'...do demons sleep?' Desmond thought. He wasn't really sure; before the attack, he'd never even thought about them much and didn't really know anything about them. Today proved that most of the people in Calcheth were much the same.

'If they do...there might still be some around, sleeping outside. If I come out now...'

Desmond shook the thought away, sweat dripping down his brow as his grip on the kitchen knife tightened alongside his resolve. He would not sleep. If he slept, there was a chance he could be caught unawares in his sleep. He absolutely refused to let that happen. He wouldn’t even have the chance to use the knife his mother had given him and, for some reason, the thought of that scared him more than the thought of dying while he was fighting for his life.

‘But at the same time...I can’t leave either.’ Desmond thought to himself, a shiver running down his back.

The weight of the situation began to dawn on him further as he realized he had no idea how long he would be stuck in his hiding spot. His lungs were already beginning to suffer from the cramped, musky crawlspace, making it harder to breathe as the minutes went past.

If, when morning came, he heard more of the demons prowling Calcheth for any potential survivors, he’d know whether to be on edge or to try his luck at leaving.

Until then, though...he just had to wait. He could wait as long as he needed to. As long as it meant he would get to live at the end of it all.

►⚉◄

When light eventually peaked its way back into the crawlspace, Desmond heard noise from above. It wasn’t the demonic screams from before; in fact, he didn’t know what it was. It could’ve been large, lumbering footsteps, or it could’ve just been rubble falling over somewhere near him.

Whatever it was, though, Desmond wasn’t tempted to take a chance to find out. He clutched the knife closer to his chest and let out a tense sigh he wasn’t aware he was holding in. His legs were starting to cramp from the almost fetal position he was lying in, and he’d long since almost began to lose feeling in his fingers from holding onto the knife for so long. Similarly, his chest hurt with each heaving breath. He’d never been the healthiest child and now he was afraid his poor health would serve to be his downfall.

The dust and mildew of the crawlspace tickled his nose and irritated his lungs. A quiet cough slipped out of him, but he was quick to cover his mouth with his palm, eyes wide in fear. He gazed upward toward the floorboards above, sitting in waiting for the telltale sound of a demon shrieking at the prey it’d found hiding under the floor.

Desmond sat in tense, stressful silence for ages. He heard more footsteps—or maybe it was just more rubble falling—and held his breath, fearful of the demon that could potentially be prowling over him. The thought of a demon standing in the ruins of his home; standing over him and looking down at the boy’s obvious hiding place and deviously plotting his demise made Desmond break out into a cold sweat. His shallow breaths got quicker as another noise—closer this time—crashed near him.

His heart was beating out of his chest as he imagined the demon getting closer and closer, reaching a large, scaled hand down toward the floorboards and gripping the cover to his hiding space, ripping it off just to find him lying in the small, confined space like a sardine, ripe for a midday snack.

Another crashing sound—even closer than before—echoed out loud nearby. Desmond’s cold sweat and hoarse breaths only grew more strenuous as he clasped his eyes shut in suspense. Any second now, his cover would be blown and he’d be forced to fight for his life.

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But nothing happened. Desmond’s world remained shrouded in darkness.

The boy sat in waiting for what felt like a lifetime before he slowly opened his eyes in disbelief.

‘I’m...alive.’ Desmond thought, incredulous. His grip on the knife loosened, and he sat up as much as he could and craned an ear outward, trying to pick up any other noises. He didn’t hear the lumbering footsteps of a demon, nor did he hear the flapping of wings.

Instead, all he heard was the soft breeze, rustling leaves in the far distance. In fact, he was surprised by just how...little he heard in general. Calcheth was on the smaller side, but it always had its fair share of noise throughout the day. Whether it be from the other kids outside, playing in the streets or the hustle and bustle of the commerce district, where people like the Rainhide’s sold their farms’ produce, Calcheth always had something going on.

And now...it was silent. It felt...wrong. Like a tangible part of Desmond’s world and his understanding of existence had just been torn away from him.

Desmond’s chest began to ache and his breathing sped up again. He realized, someplace off in the back of his head, that he was beginning to panic, but he couldn’t waste time thinking about that. He needed to get out. His claustrophobia was beginning to encroach on him, his elbows knocking against the walls and the crawlspace feeling smaller and smaller as it seemed to squeeze down on him.

“Oh, no no no no no!” Desmond whimpered. He couldn’t stay here anymore. He fumbled and let the knife fall onto the ground beside him as he leaned up, put his palms against the cover over the crawlspace and pushed.

Only to be met with resistance.

“...what?” Desmond’s eyes widened in fear as he tried again, again, and again to push the cover up and out of the way, but to no avail. Something must’ve fallen over and blocked the exit. Tears welled up in Desmond’s eyes as he continued to push and shove against the cover holding him in, turning on his side as much as he could to slam his shoulder upwards with as much strength as he could muster which, admittedly, wasn’t much.

He could feel it give a little at each push, but it wasn’t enough to clear whatever it was that was boxing him in. He stopped to catch his breath, his chest heaving from the effort, as his eyes darted across the false floor that held him in.

It dipped at the bottom, over his bottom half, but actually bent upwards above his head, letting in trace amounts of light that shined down in his eyes if he turned his head to face it. But he could see. Desmond felt a giddy smile spread across his face, but it was short lived.

Whatever was laying atop the crawlspace, it only extended over the bottom half of it. If he could find a way to wedge the top half of the removable floor open, he would be able to crawl out. But...

‘...How am I supposed to be able to do that?’ He lamented. All he had on him was the kitchen knife his mother gave him, and he doubted he could just...cut through the wooden floor. Even if the knife was sharp enough, which he really didn’t think it was, the edge would probably go blunt before he was even a fraction of the way through the wood.

‘...well, the floors of the house are pretty old. I think I remember Father mentioning getting them replaced because bugs kept eating them up from the inside...’

Desmond froze, his eyes widening in recognition.

‘That’s it!’ He thought to himself. Carefully scooching to the side, the boy was able to reach down and grab the handle of the knife again, picking it up with both hands and bringing it close to his face to look at it. It was pretty sharp, but he could see nicks across the blade where it had already been damaged.

‘It probably won’t last very long if I just start hacking at the wood...’ He pulled the knife away, and turned instead to the floorboards above him, squinting as he studied them. ‘...but if I can spot any weak points in the wood and just focus on cutting those, I can save myself a lot of effort.’

Desmond sat up as much as he could, then reached up and began running his fingers over the floorboards, trying to find anything he could consider a weak spot; Spots where bugs had eaten through the wood, or even just places where the wood had splintered from age. As simple as it sounded, though...

‘...I have no idea what I’m looking for.’ Desmond very quickly discovered that he was most definitely not cut out to be a woodworker. ‘All this wood looks the same!’

The boy grit his teeth, however, and continued to investigate to the best of his ability. As fruitless as it felt, it was the only option he could think of that would even give him a chance of getting out of here.

And so he focused, laying the knife down gently over the thin fabric of his shirt so that he could use both hands to scour the wooden floorboards with his fingertips. He would run them along the grain of the dark brown wood, feeling for indentations or irregularities. Considering he didn’t really know what it was supposed to feel like, though, it was safe to say that he was really just feeling the wood and trying to notice literally anything.

After feeling up one plank of the floorboard for an extended period of time, Desmond was able to come to the conclusion that he felt like an idiot. No matter how stupid it felt, though, he kept at it; moving onto the next plank, then the next, and the next, and the next. Each time he moved on, he spent even longer studying the new plank, hoping that it would shed some light on the one that came before it. Once he reached the end of the floorboards above him, he’d start over from the beginning all over again; hoping that whatever information he’d picked up on the last run would help him in the new one.

Eventually, he was able to pick up and notice small scuffs and marks on the undersides of the planks; spots that he became able to identify as termite holes in the planks, and slight but noticeably weaker sections of strands of wood inside the planks where they’d splintered and begun to break because of internal damage, either from the bugs or just from the wood being old.

It had been ages since he had started. Before, the light from above the floorboard shined down through the cracks and hit him in the eyes at just the right angle. Now, that light was practically gone, and Desmond could no longer tell what time of day it was outside. If he wasn’t so incredibly focused on the task at hand, he would’ve found it ridiculous to think about the fact that he’d been studying wooden floorboards for what was probably hours now.

Desmond was finishing up another loop around the floorboard planks—moving from the most damaged one at the end to the most structurally sound of the planks that covered the crawlspace at the beginning—when a sound suddenly shook him out of his focus. It was like dozens of glass panes shattering all at once; like the boys down the street had gotten carried away and thrown their magball through the neighbors’ window again, but on a much grander scale. It was so loud and sudden that his immediate reaction was to coo about which of the boys would be in trouble this time.

Then reality caught up with him and he shot up in surprise, ramming his head into the floorboards with a resounding cry of pain. As he sniffled and nursed both his forehead and his bruised ego, a voice resounded in his head, giving him pause.

[Progression Begun! You have become awakened to the Nexus Heart!]

[Welcome, Desmond Whitechapel!]

Race: Human

Age: 8

Class: Village Boy - Lv. 1

Generic Skills:

⦓Study⦔ - Lv. 1

Stats:

Stat Points Available: [0]

Strength: 5

Finesse: 5

Endurance: 5

Insight: 5

Self: 5

Personal Skills:

None

Available Skill Slots: [6]

[Generic Skill: ⦓Study⦔ has leveled up to Lv. 2!]

[Additional EXP has been awarded for leveling a Generic Skill!]

Desmond froze, looking up at the floorboards but not really looking at them as he processed the words that had just echoed throughout his mind.

On his face, he wore an expression of both awe and utter disbelief.

“...What?”