POV: Charlie.

  The mineshaft was a vertical hole that pierced the ground. With the darkness encroaching from all sides at once. I felt myself falling for several breaths. Several heartbeats. Feeling cold, stale air rushing past. Like arms trying to push me away.

  And just like that, between one breath and the next, the air changed. It became hotter. Charged with lightning and a strange kind of energy I could not place. As if the arms who were trying to push me away were now dragging me closer. Closer. Closer…

  To the earth.

  To the things that waited in the shadows.

  To my doom.

  I coughed and realized that I could taste ash and dust in my mouth. That and the fact that I was still falling quickly.

  “Stop.” I tried to call out. But no one heard me.

  I tried to right myself mid-fall. To [Decelerate]. But the effort merely left me hanging there in the middle of nowhere like a fish caught in a hook. Seconds before some burly fisherman pulled me up and ate me whole.

  And the more I waited, the more I was sure there was something out there that had ensnared me. Some manner of horror that wanted to eat me body and soul.

  I breathed again and my breath misted in the air. Shining like diamond dust where the light of my power still shone. I blinked and wondered how my breath was misting when the air felt so suffocatingly hot. Then I felt like an idiot for wondering that, given the things I’d just seen topside.

  “Bloody Intruders.” I cursed. “Bloody Telepaths in general. I swear if I ever get the Type I won’t dip a single toe into these kinds of powers. You’d have to be mad and dangerous to dabble in things like these.”

  I blinked again and noted that the light being emitted by my ability was growing dimmer. As if some black fist of smoke was choking out the light. Trying to snuff it out.

  And then the air felt cold again. My back tingling as shivers ran through my spine. Little fingers made of ice tickling the soles of my feet as if playing out some prank.

  I looked down and was just able to make out little ghostly hands like the ones that had caressed Sully. So of course, I kicked them away until they were nothingness once more.

  “Damn it! Damn them all!” I cried out. Releasing my grip on myself and allowing my body to fall again.

  But instead of falling, I floated like a balloon. A sudden gust of wind sending me into an adjacent shaft. I cursed again, but my limbs weren’t able to catch any kind of stone to use as leverage. So I fell sideways instead of downwards.

  Stopping only when I reached something hot and wet.

  I turned my head slowly, trying to push more Psy into [Photon Bubble]. The ability drank up my energy and struggled harder against the oppressive nothingness all around me.

  That was when I saw him.

  He’d been a man, before the hooks got into him. One whose face I struggled to recognize. He wasn’t one of Whitmer’s enforcers, that much was for sure. But I knew him from somewhere. I knew that face. I just couldn’t recall who this man had been at this very moment.

  I traced my hands over his wounds and I felt the barbed spikes where they’d pierced the skin. As well as the sizzling pustules and open, weeping sores that surrounded each and every one of the wounds. If I hadn’t known better, I might have thought this man had been here for days. Enough time that his flesh had begun to rot away and enough time for his wounds to fester further.

  But then the bloody mess opened his eyes and stared at me and I realized he was still alive.

  “Holy Saturn…” The man pleaded. “Please… kill me… make the…pain…go away… kill… me… please…mercy…have… mercy…”

  “I’m not going to kill you.” I told him bluntly.

  Moving my hands over his wounds and applying power to [Regenerate Other].

  I felt his wounds begin to close. Slowly, at first, but then faster and faster. Strips of flesh knitting themselves together as the blood stopped flowing.

  The infected flesh did not heal however, and the more I healed him, the more the hooks seemed to get into his skin and muscles. The barbs seeming to move as if they were…

  “Holy (Gnome)! The barbs are moving!” I shouted.

  “Please… mercy… mercy…sir… kill…me…”

  I cringed away and only then began noticing the other things. Like the symbols drawn on his torso.

  ‘No. Not drawn. Carved. With a very large and very rusted knife.’

  “All right. All right don’t panic. I’m sure I can figure out some way to help you.” I told him. “In the meantime, do you remember seeing a woman around here? Maybe late thirty with a lazy eye and a mean scowl? Or do you remember seeing a bunch of boys and girls? Bit younger than me? Between 12 and 16?”

  “The orphans?” The man coughed out a glob of blood.

  It landed on my Symbiote but I was beyond caring.

  “Yes! Yes! That’s exactly it! Do you remember seeing them!?”

  “Brought… them… here.” The man gasped out.

  I froze in place. The air suddenly going back to feeling hot and oppressive again. While the shadows my light bubble created seemed to laugh and jeer at my expense.

  “Told to… follow… orders… ships…the ships…are sailing…soon. Need… iron… need more… iron… new draft… if not… have brother…”

  “Ah. I see.” I said coldly. Now stepping away from him. “So better a bunch of orphans than your brother, is that the way of it.”

  The man’s eyes saw me. For what appeared to be the first time.

  “Yes.” He admitted without preamble. “I did. I made… choice… I went…along…I took…them. Kill me…please. Holy Saturn… Make it end.”

  I spat a him and moved to leave.

  Only to find Sully and Borond waiting for me the second I turned around.

  The latter was visibly relieved to see me. The former looked concerned.

  “I hope you weren’t just about to leave him there.” Sully said. In a tone so casual you might have thought he was talking about the weather or a pair of new shoes.

  “What if I was?”

  “You mean, leaving aside the obvious moral implications? I dunno. I guess I hoped the fact that I could literally feel each and every one of his tortured, agonizing breaths might have swayed you to help him.”

  Sully’s eyes found me.

  “The ability is turned off right now, but I’ll be able to feel it after it comes back. Even after he dies, if he dies. I’ll feel every second of what he’s feeling. I can tell you right now it isn’t going to be fun.”

  “You probably feel things like that all the time.” I countered.

  “Oh I do. And I feel worse all the time as well.” He admitted. “I don’t think that makes the situation better though. In fact, I’d argue it’s a very good reason to try and do as much good as possible. I mean, what the (Gnome) Charlie? Is this how you thank people for helping you out all these months?”

  “Both of you are fucking crazy!” Borond shouted at us. “That guy’s the one who broke Shelby’s finger so I don’t care if he dies. But we have to keep moving! Sister Nina is around here somewhere and we need to save her! We need to save everyone!”

  “We will save them.” I assured him.

  Sully raised an eyebrow, but said nothing beyond that. Instead, he pushed his way past me and healed the man in seconds. Pushing the hooks out so cleanly you’d never have guessed they were barbed.

  He healed the rot in his flesh too, until he looked dirty, but otherwise as healthy as a man could be.

  The man in question patted himself with his newly healed hands. Small teardrops leaking from his eyes.

  “I’m… I’m alive.” He sobbed. “Thank Saturn.”

  He looked at Sully. Crying freely.

  “Thank you sir! Thank you so much! I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you!”

  “You can start by becoming a decent person who doesn’t go around kidnapping orphans to make them work in the mines. You bastard.” Borond snapped. Beating me to it by half a heartbeat.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  “I will!” The man promised. Bowing his head low. “I will! Oh praise Saturn! I’ll change for the better! You’ll see!”

  “I know you will.” Sully told him gently. The he hugged the bastard and held him tightly before telling him to hide and wait for it to be over.

  “Well then, shall we continue?” He asked afterwards.

  “Yes.” I nodded, crawling over to where the main shaft should have been.

  But, something odd happened.

  The shadows finally receded and my breath felt normal once more.

  No. That wasn’t it.

  It felt better than normal. I felt so much more alive all of the sudden. My face feeling flushed with warmth and happiness.

  I felt so… so… loved. At peace.

  As if all my problems had been destroyed and left behind. As if all the sadness had been gone from the world.

  I crawled then, not realizing that I had stopped for a brief second. I put one hand in front of the other over and over again so that I got closer and closer to that wonderful feeling.

  I expected to see… actually I had no idea what I expected. Maybe the mine shaft? It had been here a moment ago? Right?

  Instead, I found myself in what must have been a palace’s grounds. The tunnel leading to a garden filled with flowers. All of whom had a smell that was so intoxicating that I felt my mind reeling from the pleasure. My eyes watering on their own as my nose burned. But it was a happy sort of burn. One I suspected would stick with me forever. One that I hoped would stick with me forever.

  The sensation was one of being wrapped in a hot dry towel during a snow storm. One of being shielded by someone reliable. One of being loved and appreciated.

  I inhaled and felt myself reaching for that garden. My fingers grasping the air as if to try and snag away more of the scent.

  I felt full. Satisfied. The very memory of hunger vanishing from my mind. As if I had never known a day with an empty belly. In fact, each new breath felt as though I were tasting a succulent meal. Perfectly roasted meats and juice vegetables. Spicy sauces and indulgent sweets.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about them. Enjoying the tantalizing feeling.

  I grasped for more and found that the food materialized in my hand without me having to find it.

  I ate a bite. The two. Then ten in quick succession. My fingers moving at blinding speeds as I tried to shove more and more of the morsels down my throat.

  I felt sleepy and comforted. The distant sound of a loving lullaby reaching out to grasp me and bundle me in a soft, clean blanket.

  I felt the rays of the sun once more. And I had the greatest urge to let go. To nap here and bask in the sunlight and the aromas and the aftertaste of so many delicious foods.

  I felt Borond next to me and I knew he was feeling that way too.

  I took his hand and crawled forwards, until we were both able to stand.

  It was so beautiful. So very, very beautiful.

  In the distance, was the house of a prince. Tall windows glittering like diamonds as the scent of a lakeside breeze wafted over from the direction of the sunset.

  And the sun…

  The sun here felt so clean. So pure. So full of righteous wrath.

  I felt safe. I felt happy and content. I felt as though nothing would ever hurt me again.

  I felt…

  I felt a whack hitting me over my head and I turned to see Borond staring at the scene in front of me. Awestruck.

  And behind him, Sully. Looking annoyed.

  “This is the wrong way.” He said with a weary sigh.

  “Whaa…?”

  He hit me again.

  “This isn’t the enemy’s realm. This is my realm. The (Gnome)ing realm of Pandemonium is (Gnome)ing itself up the (Gnome). Again. It tends to do this a lot when the Veil gets eroded to this degree. Let’s go.”

  He grabbed me and Borond and dragged us away. Taking us back to the main mine shaft and back towards the drop.

  Sully grabbed us both like sacks of potatoes and dropped down. Spreading his wings to slow his descent as his right arm kept me pinned down.

  And just like that, the feeling of happiness left me. Leaving the rest of the world, of reality, feeling hollow and drained by comparison.

  Smells suddenly came at me like punches and each one was more rancid and disgusting than the last. Noises no longer sounded like sweet lullabies that promised comfort and I felt myself cringing every time another displaced pebble struck the wall or the ground far below us. I licked my lips and found that all the tastes I could remember now felt as if I’d been eating dry sand. I blinked and the world didn’t lose that feeling of… of emptiness.

  As if all the colors had been sucked away even through the darkness. I tried thinking of the town and all the colored rooftops and walls were gray and lifeless in my memory. I tried thinking of the orphanage and I could not remember the colors on the old roof shingles to save my life. I tried thinking of my siblings, of Sister Nina. But… but…

  But I could not even recall what she’d looked like. Her voice melding with a thousand others to sound like a complete stranger in the back of my mind.

  “What… what did you do?”

  “Hmn?” Sully asked. “I didn’t do anything. What are you talking about?”

  “That place…”

  “I already told you, that was my realm. Not the kinda place you’re likely to find your siblings in.”

  The words came spilling out before I could stop them or even think about them, but once they were out, I realized I meant them.

  “Take me back.”

  “What?”

  “Take us back.” Borond echoed me. Tears falling from the corners of his eyes.

  “I felt so good. So nice. So safe. So happy. Please sir. Take me back. I’ll do anything.”

  Sully looked at him as though he’d just asked to be allowed to marry a gnome.

  “Kid, what the (Gnome) are you on about?”

  “The place felt so nice sir. Please take me back.” Borond repeated. Pleading with upturned eyes.

  Sully looked perturbed.

  Then he shook his head.

  “Not gonna happen kid. Trust me. That’s no place for you just yet. Maybe when you’re older. Much older. Like, after you’ve lived a long healthy life and raised a family and done all the things people do to feel fulfilled. Then you can go. But not before.”

  “Sully.” I pleaded as well. Not caring about how I sounded.

  “Please take me back. Sir. I’ll… I’ll do anything you want. I just need to feel that once more. Just one more time and I’ll be better. Just…”

  I froze as I stared into Sully’s eyes.

  They were wide with shock and his mouth was hanging open. As if he truly could not believe what he was hearing.

  ‘This isn’t a trick.’ I realized. ‘He didn’t show me that place to try and convince me. He never meant for me to see it.’

  But now I had and I could not forget.

  “Take me back.” I pleaded.

  “Dude! What the (Gnome)!? No! I’m not going to do that! What the (Gnome) is wrong with you!? You know what that place is and you sure as (Gnome) know what kind of things live there! And what kind of people end up there! You cannot be…!”

  “I’ll say yes.”

  He stopped. Eyes popping out of their sockets.

  “I’ll agree to…”

  “Are you (Gnome)ing me!? After all this time! All the people who’ve (Gnome)ing died and this is what it took to convince you!? Are you…! No. No! You hear me!? No. What the (Gnome) kind of bull(Gnome) is this!? No! You’ve learnt nothing! And I have no use for someone! Okay. That came out wrong.”

  He took a deep breath.

  “I need you, to be better. Charlie. Not worse. I already have an unlimited supply of Intruders doped up on my [Presence]. What I need from you is a friend. An ally. Not a slave.”

  He looked torn up. His face twisting with sadness.

  “I’ve made far too many slaves by accident when I was little. I never want that again. Now…”

  His outline seemed to explode. Until it became everything.

  Everything.

  The darkness, the rushing air, the walls, the floor far below us and the sky above us.

  The wooden cabin and the town and all the people in the town.

  The very moon and the stars and the crashing waves on the shore.

  The morning sun on the other side of the world.

  “Forget.”

  He spoke and the sensations faded from my mind. I recalled that they had been there, but not what they’d entailed. Not how I felt in that place.

  I still cried though. Some part of me. Of my spirit, could not forget. And it mourned the loss as if a piece of me had bee gouged out.

  Nevertheless, I knew this was what had to be done. I saw how much I’d almost lost.

  How much of myself had been eroded in those few moments.

  “Thank you.” I managed as we landed.

  “Don’t mention it.” Sully answered. A trace of tension still evident on his tone.

  We walked together after that. The others joining us soon thereafter.

  “He-Hey Sully!” Henry called out next to me. Scratching his arm violently with an empty expression on his face.

  “Say, do you think you could, uh. Open up a portal or something for me to spend some time on…”

  “Forget.” Sully repeated and Henry stopped. Blinking a few times.

  “So, uh, hey…” Vince came up from the side.

  “Forget.”

  I shuddered and determined to run ahead. Trying to find another adjacent shaft.

  We came across three more guards after that. And four more people who looked to be members of the press gangs. One after another. All of them hanging on hooks like the one we’d rescued before.

  Sully healed them all with a stern expression and told them to move along. They did so and I kept running.

  Sometimes coming across more walking corpses that oozed pus and rot. I stared at their shadowed outlines every time. Half recalling little tingles from some forgotten dream. But then I saw the festering wounds and the grey-purple flesh rotting off yellowed, spotted bones and I managed to avert my eyes each time.

  And then…

  And then we found the main chamber.

  The deepest section of the mine.

  A stone slab had been placed in the middle, with dirty, rusted, iron chains leading to two sets of manacles wrapped tightly around the edges.

  On either side of the chamber were children. Both my own siblings and others I did not recognize. Their breaths coming in ragged and faint. Cold gusts of air swirling about them.

  Further back, Sister Nina and a dozen other women were all crammed inside a spike cage that barely looked big enough for two people.

  Their arms were bleeding. As were their legs. Red droplets falling to the floor with steady plat, plat, plats.

  None of them were breathing.

  ‘Ah.’ I thought. ‘So this is what Sully was trying to warn me about. Yeah. I think I understand where he was coming from now.’

  I looked at them. Then at the hooded men crowded near that cage. Just as they were looking at me.

  “Honestly…” I began. “I don’t know what I was expecting. But it definitely wasn’t you. Fat man.”

  Whitmer Junior had the gall to look around. As if it wasn’t immediately obvious who I was referring to.

  Then he squinted and I realized he had no Psy whatsoever and therefore was as blind as a mole down here without those candles near him.

  “Who goes there?” Another hooded man asked. “Show yourself!”

  “Bugger that you moron! Send the risen after him!”

  “Oh! Right. Risen! After him!”

  Bones trembled at the feet of the altar. Coming together as echoing laughter rang out.

  Intruders slipped in. Still laughing.

  Then Sully stepped beside me.

  Then he smiled and waved.

  The Intruders’ empty bony sockets turned to him and then they promptly left their bones and fled back to whatever black pit they’d spawned from.

  The hooded men noted the bones collapsing and stared down at them. Then at the altar.

  “There’s no way all those sacrifices got expended that quickly.” The skinny one said.

  “Maybe the plagues haven’t spread as quickly as we thought.” Another one quipped.

  “Nonsense!” Whitmer Junior protested. “I poisoned all the wells myself! And the water pumps! There’s no way the people above us aren’t…”

  He stopped talking then.

  A sad side-effect of me rushing up and kicking in his ribcage.

  After that, I straightened my hand and pierced the chest of another man and then followed that up by kicking a third.

  By the time the fourth was dead, Whitmer Junior had somehow contrived to stand. Somehow.

  His hands trembled as he held on to a tall candlestick and he quickly began to murmur some incoherent words.

  And then the body of Sister Nina started trembling. Coming to life as Intruders wore her and the other women as suits.

  “How long have they been dead?” I asked. Not really expecting an answer.

  “Wha?” The fat man wheezed. “That’s what you’re asking about?”

  He looked genuinely confused. As if asking about the dead women would never have occurred to him.

  “A few hours or something. Wait, why am I answering? Spirits of disease! Honor thy word! Kill mine enemies and let their soiled blood flow!”

  The bodies started moving. Throwing themselves against their own bindings and then bending the cage’s bars with inhuman strength.

  “Sully. I… I don’t know if Intruders can feel pain.”

  “They most definitely can.” He confirmed.

  “Right. Please. Don’t let them get away.” I was trembling. Holding on to Borond as he stared at the candles burning near the bars.

  “I won’t.” He promised.

  “I… I don’t want to kill him.” I said then. “Death is too good for him. For me. She’s dead, and it’s all my fault. If I’d said yes when we first got here…”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  His voice was solemn and calm.

  Like a ripple across a still lake.

  But it was enough. I walked over to my siblings with trembling hands and freed them all one by one.

  As I heard Sully’s footsteps nearing Whitmer.

  Then I heard a gurgling sound. The sound of air being choked out of someone.

  And the words.

  “Suffer me now.”