Within a wide battlefield of men, my blade flashes to draw buckets of blood. A grin tears at my cheeks as I stand unparalleled. A snake crawls along the flats of my radiant blade, the greatest blade. All fall down around me. Man after man. A rain of gore.
Turning around to slash another, the wide battlefield gives way to the narrow of an amphitheater. Five great warriors face me, donned with axes, shining armor, brimming with magic. Behind them looms a massive stage filled to the brim with people. A balcony cuts the stage in half, and from there my king proudly smiles down at me.
After all five lay dismembered at my feet, I smile broadly at my King, and I turn to receive my applause. The theater however, is gone, and my king sits at his heightened throne looking down at me.
His pride is gone, leaving bitter disappointment.
He points behind me at a floating green stone. In front of it, the ground is malformed into a small shapeless lump of stone centered between four big burrows.
I raise my arms and start to focus.
I feel the power within me and my soul seems clear, but as I try to grasp the earth a sickness whelms up in the depth of my throat. I see my hands deform. Nails changing into claws. Grey fur protrudes from my pale skin. I lose focus, a thousand burning spears soar through the air to punish me for my failure, piercing my head as I fall down screaming.
I see a bright light.
---
The light stone flashed into my now open eyes. After a second it stopped and gave off a soft blue hue, which indicated morning, apparently. Slowly, I got up, trying to shake off the dream, and with it, my desire for more sleep. I put on the brown leather pants and vest, took my spear, and after taking a piss down a deep hole carved into a fortunate wall, I made my way to the meeting room, figuring I’d be the first of the bunch of rats.
Rats.
I remembered the sight of the scars on my hands disappearing under a layer of gray fur and shuddered. That’s right. I wasn’t a rat. Sometimes it really felt like I was; strange instincts, urges and fur considered. But my heart... that was human, and that reflected in my view of my world. I think. At least, I started to see the other rats as overgrown pets. Until they talked that is. Looks deceived, cruelly, because all of them were as human as I was, and no doubt had just as much difficulty adjusting to this blessing, these strange sudden visions, these memories.
Bart used to be a city guard, truly.
Brynn an adventurer.
And King… Well, who really knew?
I walked through the long second path to the green room, expecting the room to be empty. ‘Good morning, Anite.’ I heard a polite woman’s voice say. I looked at Clementine’s formal smile. No… what did Brynn call her again, the acronym she hates? Clemy! So Clemy wished me a good morning and I resented her for it. She wore a black pair of pants and a neat, buttoned shirt that would’ve felt misplaced in the Labyrinth if it weren’t for the bright pink ribbon she wore around her neck like a tie of sorts. All clothing paled in comparison to that ribbon.
‘Our liege is still taking his time to wake up. Until then, you can partake in breakfast.’ She waved to the additional room where mother's carcass was stored, apparently taking her position very seriously.
The secratary arriving before me was already weird, but apparently another rat, dressed like the others in a tan pair of pants and a vest made from mother’s fur, was already eating on the other side of the big, green lit room. It was the weird guy, I think, the one always hacking away at the wall without talking. He glanced at me with empty eyes and continued with his breakfast, not uttering a word.
I entered the cramped space. Slightly uneasy, I faced what was left of the behemoth of a rat we called our parent. she had reduced in size quite a lot. She was now completely skinned and her fur and leather had been turned into clothing and beds. Some pieces of her hide still lay in a pile next to her. We had also been eating from her for a long while, so of two massive paws you could already see the bone stripped clean and a big bloodless gash ran through her belly from which we could suck her life’s juice to quench our thirst.
Because my lizard had started to go bad between the time I lost consciousness and returned from the last exploration, I took some of the smaller rats that lay beside mother and drank some of her blood from the gaping wound in her stomach. With my meal secured, I sat down somewhere and started skinning the two rats with the stone point of my spear. It went a bit clumsy because of the long shaft, but soon enough I was eating my bloody, raw meal, wondering if I would have enjoyed it the same in my previous life.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
The other rats started flowing in. Unexpectedly, Brynn was next. There was a depressed look on her face as Clemy carefully motioned her towards the food. Brynn picked up some rats and slowly moved to an empty space, sulking. Next up were Tess and Amethyst who started chatting away with Clemy in awe of her new pink accessory. They wore similar clothing to that weird kid. Tan pants and a vest sewn from mother, giving barely any way to differentiate the three with their jet-black fur and eyes. Almost immediately after, Bart stormed in, ignoring the secratary, searching the room and finally resting his eyes on me.
‘Anite! It worked!’ He exclaimed, to the annoyance of Brynn who was clearly not enjoying her morning. Neither was I, to be honest. Yet he sprinted towards me, glee painted across his face. It was almost hard to be upset with him. This was the happiest I had seen him be for a while.
‘What… worked?’
‘The balm and needle.’ He answered, enthusiastically showing off the crusts on his arm. ‘Brynn was right! I thought she was just messing with us.’
‘That’s… actually, pretty amazing. I didn’t think it would help that much, if at all.’
‘Right? Though the wound on my back still aches a lot, my arms seem almost healed up. It really helped that Amethyst sewed the wounds on my arm, I think.’
‘Oh yea, hey buddy. Did you see your room yet?’
Bart sat down, still brimming with happiness.
‘Yeah, Amethyst showed me right after patching me up.’
‘Well anyway, good that you’re better. We wouldn’t want you to slow us out there.’
Bart’s smile faltered.
‘What do you mean?’
‘It would be bad if your wounds slowed us down when we’re going into the labyrinth today. We’re going to have to move faster at some point if we still want to discover places we haven’t explored.’
'...'
'...'
’I’m going back… tomorrow?’
‘What did you think you were going to do, guard a stone wall?' Bart asked, and you could see him visibly process the words. His face went from confusion to denial and finally, dismay. After getting himself some food, the empty expression from yesterday had returned by the time he sat himself beside me.
I thought what I said was self-evident.
I did!
‘What’s with Clementine?’ He asked finally, without his earlier energy.
‘Brynn gave her the ribbon, for some reason. There must be a reason.’ I answered, still pondering the green eyed archer's eery motives.
‘No, I mean why is she acting like that?’ He shook his head, dispassionately, as the words forced themselves through the downfaced corners of his snout.
‘Oh, that’s right. You weren’t here last night. Uhm… she’s King’s steward now, supposedly.’
‘That kind of makes sense, she did always seem enthusiastic about our majesty.’ He said with a hint of sarcasm in his voice. I gave him an incredulous look.
‘I distinctly remember you kneeling in front of him, begging for forgiveness after I acted rudely.’
He choked awkwardly.
‘The guy is scary! But that we call him King doesn’t mean he is a king. Tribe leader maybe, but king? No. We’re hardly enough people to be a social gathering, let alone a kingdom.’
‘Speaking of him.’
The big guy entered the room, or shifted into it. It was unsettling to see the huge, four-eyed rat move into the room, especially since he didn’t move a muscle while doing so. The earth just carried him inside the room and most of the rats tightened up. For all Bart’s big talk, he still stood at attention. As did Clementine, with a dutiful grin.
‘If you would all seize your activities, our majesty has several announcements regarding today.’ She stated.
The big guy cleared his throat and the girl stepped aside. Slowly his maw separated, rows of sharp fangs moving aside for his rough, guttural voice to scrape through.
‘Very well, Clementine. Today will not be globally the same as yesterday. The differences being that all business will go through Clementine from now on so I can work without being disturbed every thirty minutes. I'm sure you're pleased with our new abode. Now, we can finally go about our duties with a certain decorum of dignity, and spend our nights in privacy. You may notice a basin of sorts in your rooms, I demand you to use it if you need to urinate. The hole leads to an underground cavern. I will add several rooms that I deem necessary as well as work on some personal projects, on this day. Besides that, I expect you to continue your earlier tasks and report potential results to Clementine. You are hereby dismissed.’
And like that he moved back into his own room, Clemy running after him to serve him some food. Nobody made a ruckus or particularly seemed to care, they simply seemed relieved. The two girls continued their talk, mentioning that they did not understand their ruler's odd actions, and the weird guy sighed, eating the remainder of his meal. Only Bart seemed to care about the news as his face lost all trace of hope. From behind us we could hear menacing whispers.
‘One of us. One of us.’ Rang a spooky female whisper behind us, and Bart’s whiskers drooped.
Our assassin friend shuffled between us with rediscovered energy. She glanced at Bart.
‘Goo~d, you’re healed. Great, that means we can just go, without arguing.’ She stated. Bart winced.