Tucson Arizona wasn’t REALLY home, logistically or career-wise, but for the past three years it had certainly felt like it. What was meant to be a short pit stop on the way to somewhere better, somewhere bigger, had turned into a hesitant lull in Digory’s life. A breath of time spent away from career chasing, working for a small environmental consulting company had made him realize how exhausted he really was. How exhausted he’d been for a long time.
Sitting at his little desk in the office, surrounded by friendly faces who greeted him every day, life became so much more simple. Just work the data, analyze that LiDAR scan, remove that layer, recommend collecting data with that equipment, life was so much easier when he didn’t have to go anywhere. When he didn’t have to worry about being the best, working at the best firm, making the most money, going to grad school. The idea of potentially buying in to the small employee owned company was almost too tempting.
He sighed and leaned back in his chair, rubbing his eyes.
“It’s getting late. You know it’s ok to leave it to tomorrow for once.” Chris, the other GIS consultant joked. He was a pot bellied middle aged man, glasses, red scruffy beard, had a whole hippie nerd vibe going one. The type of man you take trips up to Flagstaff with, to hit up the Cider and Mead Festival, or go camping with. He was assigned to his own project, one with a fair amount of work, but the man was old enough to take his time with it and not allow himself to be bullied by the higher ups.
Digory took a moment, rubbing his whole face. “Uhhhm… yeah.. I think I’ll do that. I think the alignment was off on the last pass, it’s giving me gaps in the data.” He slides out of his chair, gingerly stepping down the short stool he used for ease of access, and onto the floor. Sliding on his heavy denim jacket he said, “I’ll see if I can salvage what I got, if not I might have to recommend another pass at it, maybe on a less windy day.”
“Have a goodnight, man! Careful on those roads, there’s a monsoon rolling in.” Chris gave him a wave as he headed out.
Digory made his way out of the office, stopping briefly to bid Christa, the new field tech, a goodnight. She gave him a wave, not overly friendly, but not exactly dismissive either. She seems like the type to need a bit of time to get comfortable with people.
Wind buffeted him as Digory stepped outside. Small flecks of water speckled his face and round glasses, forcing a smile from his lips. The normal brilliant reds and oranges of the Arizona evening sky was covered in dark gray clouds. Normally that would be dreary, but in Arizona a rainy day was something special.
He rushed to his car and reached up, tugging open the door. Digory gingerly hauled himself up into his Jeep, using the steering wheel to pull himself into place. He closed the door and breathed, enjoying the sound of the rain on his roof. Chris had once questioned him owning a Jeep. The car was indeed pretty tall, it seemed like a poor choice for a little person, but Digory had just laughed it off. Truth was he spent a lot more time in the field than Chris, and he felt more comfortable in something that could handle the roads. He always used his own car for work, if he was needed out in the field he didn’t want to spend fifteen minutes in the morning switching out his pedal extenders into a company car.
Digory glanced down at the passenger seat. The mail he had collected this morning sat idle next to him. At the top of the stack words printed on an envelope read Boston University. Part of him wanted to reach down and grab it, to open it and finally get his answer. Was he a failure? Was he success? Was he going to have to finally leave Tucson Arizona and start living the life he was supposed to be living right now?
Digory pulled his eyes forward and started up his car. Later. He’d read it later.
Rain poured down now, flooding the streets of Tucson, windshield wipers beating hard against the downpour. Somehow it was relaxing, although it really shouldn’t be, no one in Tucson knows how to drive in the rain. As he meandered his way through the busy roads, his windshield wipers beating at a steady pace, Digory busied himself flipping through a Spotify playlist.
“No more tears! No more cryin-”
Skip.
The car in front of him sped through a puddle, drenching the sidewalk.
“Me dejas sin palabra-as… suddenly I’m not as fluent as i used to bee-”
Skip.
Something to his side drew his attention. Digory glanced out his side window briefly enough to notice a face staring at him from inside the car next to him. She had dark skin, dark brown hair, and wide violet eyes. Something in them made him uneasy. When he glanced back she was gone.
“Moooon ri-ver… wider than a mile-”
Digory glanced down at his phone. He hadn’t heard this song in a long time. He didn’t even know it was on this playlist. Something about it was relaxing, accompanied by the rain.
Ski-
A bold of lightning smashed into the road in front of him, ripping through the air and sending chunks of asphalt flying, one piece scattering across the hood of the car, flying off the roof.
“Holy shit!-”
He tried to swerve but time seemed to slow, the world stretched in a vomit inducing pull until finally it tore open across the path of the lightning. Cars on either side of Digory skidded and spun, he could hear them smashing into light posts and other cars, the screams of pedestrians seeming to slow and warp as the tear yawned towards him, pulling him in.
It was as though he had slipped on some black ice, both him and his vehicle slid through the gaping portal and he found himself careening through a massive medieval dining hall. Tables and chairs flipped, solid wood smashing against the metal of his car, sending tableware and people flying as he slammed on the brakes.
“Oh sh-shit! Get out of the waaaay!” Digory punched his fist into the horn of his car, the sound sending guests in the dining hall scurrying to the sides, shrieking in terror, although a few were sent flying over the hood of the car. “Get the fuck out of the waaaay!”
“What in the nine hells is that thing?!”
“WE’RE UNDER ATTACK!”
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“WHAT IS THAT THING?!”
Digory skidded sideways and finally smashed into the wall at the far side of the room with a crunch and a loud pop, as one of his tires blew. His heart beat a million miles an hour, panicked breaths filling his chest as he stared wide eyed ahead of him for a moment before furiously pushing open his door with his legs.
“Wh- what- i-is everyone alright?! What is-...” he stopped, gaping at the scene in front of him.
There was blood everywhere. At first a stab of panic ran through him as he wondered if he had caused the bloody sight before him, but further analysis replaced panic with a creeping dread. The tables, those that remained standing, had bodies piled atop them, their throats open and gushing, puss caked around their open wounds. The air smelled stale, thick with iron and rotting meat. And the men, if you could call them that, of everything in the room, they were the worst to look upon.
Nearly all of them were in royal attire, like something out of the 1700s, their dresses and coats poofed out in flamboyant styles from their feathered hats down to their tights and gilded shoe buckles. Their faces were a grotesque display, many with teeth and mandibles, covered in gore. For the ones wearing the most resplendent gowns, their faces were drawn out into long proboscises, like that of a mosquito, their eyes swollen, pupils dilated in hunger. At the head of the hall, surrounded by two men in armor, a strikingly regal figure stood. His dress was that of a military man, with a long coat and a white cravat. His face was covered in a chitinous growth, which although jagged and ghastly to look at, had a strange symmetry to it, like some kind of horrific death mask. The holes where his eyes ought to be were dark, making it impossible to tell if he even had eyes.
The whole room looked at Digory, shocked expressions plastered across every one of their viscera encrusted faces. Finally the one in military uniform spoke up through his chitin clad maw.
“Is that a… dwarf?”
For some reason that was all it took to snap Digory out of his shock. He turned abruptly and ran for the stairs at the far end. Nearly tumbling down the spiral staircase, he heard shouts behind him.
“Wha- ge- get HIM!”
Sounds of his pursuers echoed through the stone building, his heart beat fast in his ears. Careening down the last few steps Digory slammed into the far wall and booked it down the hall at the base of the steps, passing a group of stunned guards and ghastly ladies of the court who paused their casual conversation to watch the stranger zip past them.
“Madre mia! What is that thing?”
“Oh it’s probably one of the menu items escaping again, Gallego has a most obscure sense of humor.”
Digory dashed through an open courtyard area, the roof of which had been covered. The skin of some massive animal, fastened with bolts and nails, had been stretched over the whole of it, ensuring no light entered. The fur above him was littered with cobwebs and he could make out the tiny movement of creatures nesting in the thick wool high above him. He slipped past openings in the gnarled roots and vines of an ill-maintained garden as the voices of his pursuers passed him by. He crawled on his hands and knees through the courtyard, thorns ripping at his denim jacket. Not a single green leaf could be found, but strangely the vines he crawled through were blooming all the same, a deep violet flower speckled the whole garden.
Huddling in amongst the tangled brambles, Digory finally lay still, mind reeling from the insanity of the predicament he found himself in. He had been somehow transported, how was entirely a mystery, but like in some terribly written creepypasta he had somehow clipped out of the map. Slipped through reality’s seams and found himself in a world entirely not his own.
Digory clutched his hand to his chest. For some reason a part of him, a very unreasonable part of him, knew this was his fault, that he would never have transported here if he hadn’t been such a stupid failure. All he’d wanted was a year or two to himself, a simpler life than what had been allowed him. This is what you get you stupid bastard. You could have gone to grad school, you could have just followed the path in front of you, but instead you strayed from the path to waste away in Tucson goddamn Arizona and then inexplicably get wrapped up in all of this!
The whole situation seemed so absurd, like a fever dream or a bundle of weed-brained logic made reality, but fear made it impossible to dismiss any of it.
Two voices could be heard, one Digory recognized as the commander from the banquet hall. He carefully peered through the thick brambles at them.
“He… has not been found.”
“A-ah- Capitán Marcel. No, I’m afraid he escaped, h-he is after all quite small!” The other man, dressed in a noble attire, stammered out his response, clutching uncomfortably at his velvet doublet. “We’ll continue the search, until dawn if we must.”
Marcel let out a gentle sigh, a hollow sound from inside his death mask. “Ensure a guard is posted outside the Duquesa’s chamber, I won’t have some nonsense affair such as this disturb her. This is afterall a delicate time for a gentlewoman.”
He leaned forward, steadying himself against a pillar.
“Capitán! Ah… perhaps you ought to eat-”
“The Duquesa!” Marcel grabbed the other man’s doublet, shoving him back, his voice dripping with frustration.
“Y-yes! Of course, with all haste, Capitán.” The noble rushed off, climbing a set of stairs at the far end of the courtyard.
The Capitán breathed for a moment, then gently sat himself down on a bench in the courtyard. Even in his diminished moment, he struck a regal figure amongst the violet flowers.
Digory backed up slowly, careful not to make a sound. For a while he waited for Marcel to move, his steady deep breaths contrasting with Digory’s shallow silent ones. When it became apparent that the Capitán was not going to leave, Digory gingerly made his way towards the opposite end of the garden. It felt like hours winding his way through the overgrown tangled brambles but he finally made it, checking one last time to see that Marcel was still at his place on the bench, before gently slipping out of the courtyard and down a dark, seemingly empty hallway.
Digory breathed a sigh of relief. Wincing at every tap of his work boots on the stone floor, he made his way through the dark, the only light burning from strangely red torches mounted on the walls, a stark contrast to the brightly lit dining area he had arrived in.
Occasionally a group of guards would pass by hurriedly searching for him, and Digory would have to make use of his smaller stature and hide behind some armored fixture or debris. The farther he got from the main banquet hall, the more the castle seemed to fall apart. Dried blood stained the floors, clearly months old, broken halberds and discarded items littered the corners and the crevices of the castle, seemingly pushed aside by its current residents. His inner archaeologist kicked in, purely out of habit, and he began to piece together the scene.
It seemed the banquet hall was an area still in use, as indicated by the fresh blood on its tables, yet clean floors, not the mention the alterations made to the courtyard area, those were clearly not original. The rest of the castle by contrast was largely unoccupied, signs of a struggle, as well as the alterations indicate perhaps its current residents were not its builders, or if they were i could be that some event greatly impacted their occupation.
Breaking down what he saw in front of him strangely helped, Digory’s breathing slowed and he was able to creep along through the vacant hallways at a steadier pace. For now, he would head away from any signs of occupation, if the castle’s current residents weren’t occupying the whole complex, it may be that they aren’t as familiar with its more obscure parts. With any luck Digory could slip out of some window or maybe find a passage leading out-
He stopped. The tapping of his work boots on the floor had become strangely muffled. Digory kneeled down and examined the floor in the low light.
A strange, soft silk covered the floors, woven between cracks in the formerly regal flooring. He touched it with the tip of a finger and marveled at how soft it was. Like the silk of a tarantula nest, although none of the desert species he had encountered out in the field wove nests quite as thick as this.
The webbing began to hum and Digory snatched his hand back, looking up in the direction of the vibrations. A voice, aetherial and sweet, yet with an odd mocking tone, hummed out from behind a heavy wooden door.
“Moooon ri-ver… wider than a mile-”