A few minutes into our rest, Rainen left to patrol the area. I didn’t stop him. Maybe he was fine and I worried for no reason. Or, maybe he was thinking too much to sleep. I wouldn’t know. Neither of us spoke a word since we returned to the room.

I spent that night thinking, thinking about the events of the day, of my mistakes, of the things I could have done better. He was right. I couldn’t defeat a goblin like he could, or hold my own like everyone else. I had all this magic but I didn’t know how to use it or how to control it. I couldn’t do anything but hurt other people.

I hurt him during our spar, and I hurt him again today.

Even though there was a light and he was right out there, walking around and checking for monsters, it felt like I was back home. The small, closed room. The cold, stiff bed. Scared and alone.

I quietly pulled out the journal. I didn't want Rainen to hear. He might've criticized me for bringing it instead of something useful, like a pouch or another weapon. But I needed it.

I couldn’t recall where I left off. In the library, I saw a few books with their edges bent as a sort of place marker. I’d run my fingers over the soft, smooth page only to be met with a crease. It didn’t detract from the contents, but I could never do that. Not with something so small and precious.

“Hey.” I heard a voice say from behind. It was hushed, barely audible in the silence of the dungeon. “Are you awake?”

There was hesitation there. I wasn’t sure what to do, so I didn’t respond. Whenever Mother or Father yelled at me for something I did wrong, they never came back like this. Did he have more to say? I tensed with the book in hand, cringing as my thumbs bit into the page.

After what felt like forever, I heard him slide down as he used the wall for support. I waited to search for where I left off. I looked over the page. It was one I'd read before.

‘11/16/500

I have done something foolish. It is my fault and mine alone. My worries about the veteran party that accompanied us came to pass. They abandoned us in the middle of an encounter, leaving us to deal with multiple minotaurs by ourselves.

We survived. However, in a lapse of judgment and vainglory, I urged us forward despite our insufficient numbers. Anita was injured, and I lashed out at Corbyn for voicing his concerns.

There is no excuse for my behavior.

I have failed as a party leader.

-Eamun Skychaser

----------------------------------------

I clasped my hands together and closed my eyes. I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to do it, but I silently made a wish.

Please let us both return to the academy alive.

Rainen was glancing at me when I finished. He spun around and I trailed behind him. His fire was larger and illuminated more of the area. He kept constant vigil, scanning the ground as he walked so no more incidents would happen.

The dungeon was long and winding. Its halls bent subtly, limiting our ability to gauge distances, and it added new paths at seemingly random intervals. Rainen handed me the paper stolen from the orcs, so I could draw a map as we explored.

I tried my best. It was crude and awkward but not unreadable. Maps appeared in some of the books I read, but I knew nothing about making them. All my drawings were based on guesses of how it might work.

One of the breaks in the side of the larger dungeon hall led to a room. Rainen held up a hand as he studied the ground. Thin layers of dust covered the ground enough for us to leave footprints.

“I think someone else might be here," Rainen said.

Who else would be teleported? Nula was pulled through the portal, right?

I shivered.

The thought that another student might be going through the same thing as us horrified me. What if they were alone? How would they survive?

No, I needed to calm down. Labyrinth shifts only affected things near the portal. At least, that’s what the journals said. Who else would have been taken?

“Do you think-” I paused. Would he be angry if I asked?

“What is it?”

“N-Nothing…”

He watched me for a moment. I squirmed on the inside but tried not to move. My body grew uncomfortably hot and I wanted to turn away, run away if possible.

“We’ll go this way,” he finally said. “If someone’s here, we should find them.”

I let out a relieved sigh as he went back to guiding the way. It shouldn’t have been such a big deal. All I was going to do was ask a question, but it just felt so heavy. Was it going to be like this whenever we talked about anything?

The room was twice as large as the one we slept in. The ebb and flowing flicker of the torches had much less impact due to there being so many of them. A set of descending steps led to a pyre. In front of it was a plaque with something engraved.

“Feed to me the bones of thy enemies,” Rainen read. “I’m glad it’s simple. It also means there are probably monsters here.”

Like Rainen, I suspected it. We were in a dungeon. A place where monsters seemed to naturally gravitate toward. It didn’t stop me from being a bit shaken by the confirmation.

“So any monster will do?” I asked.

“Probably. If I knew about this I would’ve taken the bones from one of the orcs.”

I tensed.

“Let’s go,” he said.

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It took a moment before I could relax again. Rather, the map distracted me. I drew the room and marked it with a fire symbol. We took more detours but most were empty or simply dead ends. The dungeon seemed to be one big circular hallway that looped back on itself with multiple branching paths.

“This way,” Rainen said as he went down a new break in the dungeon.

The room was a bit smaller than the one with the pyre but lit just as well. At the opposite end of the room was another hall with a faint light coming from further in. I let out a small squeal when I saw four tall humanoid statues tucked in the corners of the room. They held polearms similar to those of the academy’s guards but had the heads of an impish, snout-faced creature with pointed ears.

“We can rest here for a bit.”

“B-But the-”

He looked at me. I glanced at the statue and he followed my gaze.

“They won’t do anything,” he said. Then he added, "I just need a few seconds.”

Beads of sweat rolled down the sides of his face, and his shoulders heaved in a controlled effort to stabilize the strain he’d undergone. Rainen wiped away the sweat with his sleeve, stained by dirt and dust, before sitting with his back and head propped against the wall.

It’d been about three or so hours since we began exploring the dungeon. I felt a few aches, a bit of drowsiness, and exhaustion from the poor sleep, but most of the exertion from yesterday had faded. I didn’t realize he was so tired. He seemed like he could run for hours without breaking a sweat.

Rainen winced as he extended his leg out, letting his foot hang sideways as he held onto his right arm.

I sat down with a few feet of space between us. The statues were convenient sources for my attention, just like the map was when we walked through the dungeon. They didn’t move like the ones Skychaser and his party fought, but I couldn’t take my eyes away from them. There was nowhere else to look.

Rainen’s labored breaths soon calmed.

“How… How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Me?”

“There’s no one else.”

Was he asking me how I was feeling right now? What if he was asking me how I felt about yesterday? Wait, no. Then he would have just said that, right? Did he mean to ask about the statues or was I making some kind of face?

I pulled on my braid. It was coming loose.

“Uh…”

This had to be a common way of greeting people. I think I heard it a few times in the academy. Skychaser also said he’d check up on his party after a fight. Was this what he asked them?

“I-I-I’m feeling fine…”

It wasn’t a lie, I think. I wasn't hurt. Everything on the outside was fine.

He nodded. “Yeah, that’s good. Did you need some water?”

“O-Oh, no. I still have some. Th-Thank you.”

The conversation ended there and silence retook the room. I had about a quarter of my canteen left while Rainen’s looked about half full. I took a small sip in the morning but tried to conserve it so I wouldn’t have to leech off his. Even with all my efforts, I couldn't stop myself from drinking the last of it there. Rainen also drank from his, though I couldn't tell how much was left.

I quickly hid the canteen, so he wouldn't notice I was out. We left the strange statues, to my relief, and explored the lit path. A staircase led further down to another hall. At the end of it was a portal.

“Damn,” Rainen said. “Let’s mark this place and come back later if we don’t find anything.”

“What’s wrong?”

“If this is like door labyrinths, some portals are only one way. We could end up somewhere worse than here with no way back and I’m not in any shape to handle that.”

I pinched myself for immediately getting self-conscious. He didn’t seem like the kind of person to say that as a way to guilt someone. It was a matter-of-fact statement. At least, that’s what I told myself.

After walking past the creepy statue room, we went back to mapping out the rest of the dungeon. Around halfway through, we saw signs of life in the form of four bedrolls. “If we wait here for them, do you think they’ll be coming back?” Rainen asked. The question was probably rhetorical from the way he searched them.

The upper half of the bedrolls were pulled at the seams, bunched, and wrinkled. A pair of shoes were left behind with one knocked onto its side as well as a bent sword caked in blood. Rainen handled it carefully, holding it up to the light. The blood was still fresh.

They were attacked, but by what, we weren’t sure. Red-colored blood was no giveaway nor was the lack of bodies. At least it meant the adventurers weren’t killed. If they had run our way, we would have seen them unless it was in that short time we took a rest.

“Let’s hurry. They might still be fighting.” He pulled out his knife and handed it to me.

“D-Don’t you need this?”

“I have more,” he said, pushing it into my hand.

“B-But without your sword-”

“I still have a weapon for each hand. Plus, I lost your staff back there. It only makes sense I give you something to protect yourself with.”

How many knives do you have?

We followed their faint trail at a quick pace, one too fast for me to update the map. Rainen didn’t care and urged me to keep my guard up. He paused to think when we came across a break in the dungeon but kept to the main hall. Drops of blood confirmed that we were on the right track.

Around the other end of the dungeon, halfway through the circle if ours was used as the reference point, the path opened into four halls as large as the one we’d been following, despite still circling back on itself. Tall and sturdy doors blocked off the path that would’ve cut straight through the ring-like labyrinth.

If we had gone through that way, we would have had to turn around, unless the way to open the doors was on that side.

A quiet grunt sounded out from the middle path. “T-This one,” I said, pointing. “I heard something.”

“Uh, good catch,” he said, somewhat awkwardly.

The middle chamber was roughly three times as large as the statue room. Looking up, I couldn’t even begin to imagine the ceiling. The light didn’t reach that far. My skin stood on end at the combination of the sudden temperature drop and lack of light.

Thick, wet, meaty sounds permeated the darkness. It was followed by occasional grunts and muted tearing. Rainen snuffed out the fire and we let our eyes adjust. We stood on an elevated part of the room. As I peered down, I saw how the torchlight disappeared suddenly. There were three levels and we were on the highest one.

Rainen suddenly dropped down a layer.

“W-What are you doing?” I whispered.

“Checking it out,” he whispered back. He had landed quietly. Despite how he rested it back when we took a break, it seemed to have mostly healed. “Just stay there.”

I watched as his form distorted the further away he got from me. The shadows played with my eyes, twisting his outline and streaking imaginary lines of movement. He stood so still I would have wondered if he was even there if not for the flicker that reflected off the white academy clothing.

The darkness of the dungeon was deeper and much more suffocating than the moonless nights I knew but didn’t feel anywhere as cruel. Partly because there was someone here with me.

Rainen came back.

“What did you see?”

His face was grim, “A monster. It was feeding. We need to leave.”

“F-Feeding? That means…”

It could have been another monster. They killed each other all the time, like the halora and the orcs. Skychaser sometimes mentioned how he and his party waited for a fight between monsters to be over before finishing the rest off. So, I hoped that’s what it was this time. But something about Rainen told me it wasn’t the case.

Rainen grabbed the ledge, pushing himself up. His right arm gave in, and he fell with a muffled grunt. He shooed me back when I tried to grab him. His torso was already over and a quick kick brought him up.

“A-”

“I’m fine,” he whispered. He frowned. “What’s wrong?”

Oh, gods.

Behind him, I saw a clawed hand grasp the ledge.