I’ve been hearing gurgling noises come from outside for the past two or three days. It’s a bit hard to keep track of the time inside of a cupboard.
It’s not like I don’t know where these noises are coming from. There’s a monster in my house. I don’t know what it looks like, I don’t know where it is, but I just know it’s there. And it knows that I’m here too.
Or to be more accurate, it knows my sister is here. In the beginning of the catastrophe, I was hiding in this same cupboard that I share with her now. I already assumed my sister was dead, but when I heard her running and calling out my name, I had to help. I let her into the cupboard with me, but the monster was already hot on her tail. So it’s been here, waiting for us to reveal ourselves.
She shivers against my shoulder while I look out the small opening that I made in the cupboard, making sure of my surroundings. It’s not as if I can really get an accurate update on what’s going on, since it’s even darker out there than it is in here, but it’s something to do while time passes by.
There’s the occasional far-away screech, human or no, but other than that, it’s been decently peaceful. No fires or sounds of death. Just the sound of the sea splashing against the docks.
But this peace will not last long. At least, not for us. We’ll die somehow, either from starvation or just plain bad luck. It’s only a matter of time, and we both know it.
Eventually I’ll have to go out there, and it’ll always be sooner rather than later.
Or perhaps the Bronze Legion will come back for us and save us. They could be busy with saving the Rubica and Rasna folks- and so the least profitable of the towns would naturally come last.
We’ll be alright, won’t we? I’ll buy my sister meat pie when this is all over, and we’ll sit next to the sea while we eat. We’ll look back to this time and laugh. I shouldn’t jump to such drastic conclusions so soon.
A gurgling noise that did not come from my stomach or my sisters snaps me out of my food fantasies.
…
It’s been a week now. My clothes seem to have gotten bigger. My sisters breathes begin to get heavier. It makes me depressed to see her like this. I mean, I can’t really see her, but I can just tell. We’re both on our last legs.
I can still hear the gurgling, but it’s not so close by anymore. The monster must have decided we aren’t worth eating anymore. At the same time, though… I can’t help but fe-
“June…”
My sister speaks. These are the first words she’s said in who knows how long. It startles me enough to interrupt my thoughts.
I whisper back, “Sorry about this situation, Victoria. This is the best place I could find for the two of us. How do you feel?”
“I hate how you always say sorry.”, she answers.
“It’s better to apologize and avoid an argument than to waste time bickering.”
She yawns. “I’m too hungry for this. Father must have left in such a hurry that they forgot to restock the shelves.”
There is silence for a while. I then hear her feint snoring, and know she’s asleep.
“Even if he had enough, he wouldn’t have spent the money on us.”
Guilt stabs me in the chest. Eventually she’ll find out the truth. Wouldn’t death be better than knowing about such a depressing reality?
But reason knocks into me just as hard.
I’m such a selfish older brother. It isn’t as if I’m doing any favors to her by hiding the facts away for so long. It’s as if I’ve started to slowly take off a bandaid instead of rip it off completely.
So, as I think these things, some sort of twisted bravery builds up within my heart. I take another look out from the hole in the cupboard. There’s not a lot I can see, after all, it’s still very dark in my house. But I’ve already made up my mind on what I will do.
I open the cupboard and take a step out, and I carefully close it behind me. This is the first time in a while that I’ve been outside of the cupboard, so my legs buckle dangerously. My heart skips a beat as I carefully stop myself from falling to the ground. Any loud noises and I know that I’ll instantly be found out. That monster that was here earlier might still be in the house, or close by.
I carefully climb over the broken window, doing my best to avoid any shards. As soon as I step foot onto the familiar gravel streets of my home town, I cover my nose in disgust.
I can’t say I expected it to smell any better out here than it did in the cupboard, but this is much worse than I expected. I hope I can manage to find food that hasn’t spoilt already. It’s a pipe dream, but there’s hope. Maybe.
I stagger through the dark alleyways of Tiberia, ignoring my instincts, walking through the valley of the shadow of death.
I hold my breath as a giant monster lumbers past me. I can’t get a good look at it, but it’s glowing green eyes tell me all I need to know. They seem to have poor eyesight. Or perhaps not… the other monster was chasing my sister even through the darker alleyways, before. But at the moment, that fact doesn’t matter much.
Just keep quiet. Don’t move.
I grip the bag of fruits that may or may not be inedible tighter. The good thing is, the monster has passed by me. The bad thing is, it’s on my path.
I either have to follow it or wait for it to get out of sight, but both options have their own big problems that I don’t want to be forced to solve. I need to get home before Victoria wakes up.
Time waits for no one. I begin to feel desperate, and finally I decide it’s better to just follow the monster.
I quietly and carefully walk behind it. The monster moves slowly, which is frustrating, but I have to be patient. Eventually it will get off of my path, and I’ll be able to run back home.
An amount of time that feels like an eternity passes by. The monster is still on the same path that I came from. At this point I begin to worry. Victoria could already be awake at this point, and she might try to find me on her own. Or maybe not, but her being awake with me being gone is bad enough.
Like me, she could be overwhelmed by worry before finally deciding to leave her hiding spot and try to find me. It’s just a matter of time, and I can’t let that happen- especially not now.
I grit my teeth. However, in my frustration, an idea comes to mind. It’s simple and wouldn’t take much effort, but I could use it to solve the current problem.
Opening the bag of fruits, I take out two apples and throw one of them at the monster and the other into a shop. The first one I threw missed the monster but landed nearby it, capturing it’s attention, and the second one I threw managed to break off a few pieces of weak glass from the windows of the shop.
It runs towards the shop at alarming speeds. It must have been saving its energy just incase someone like me showed up. I stand at ease, and I run past the shop and into the alleyway I came from to my house.
…
I come back in through the window. and knock on the cupboard.
“Victoria! I brought food!”
There is no answer. My mind immediately goes to the worst case scenario.
I swing the cupboard doors open, to find my sister curled up into a ball. I let out a sigh of relief. She’s okay, just in deep sleep. I pat her head and put the apples into the drawer below our cupboard, for storage.
As I do this, I feel a cool breeze come upon my neck. A faint but close gurgling noise.
My legs give out immediately. Dread fills my soul. My death will be quick, I can tell. I should have been more careful.
My mind goes to my sister. She’s still asleep, and I’ve already opened the cupboard. The monster knows about both of us now.
After me, she’ll be next. My head turns to my sister in the cupboard, and I yell at the top of my lungs, “RUN! VICTORIA, RUN!”
The monster kicks me in the back, and I slam into the ground. My arm feels broken.
My sister freezes in fear, maybe too afraid to move. At least, if we both die and end up in the same place, she can’t say I didn’t try to save her.
It roars, and lifts up it’s foot to stomp on me. I can feel the air moving out of the way as it prepares to turn my head into a pulp.
I have so many regrets. I wish I could have seen my sister grow up and get married, I wish I could have bought a house in Rubica, I wish I could have been able to chase legends and myths like the Legendary Heroes and their great tales you’ll only ever be able to read on the news. Maybe I could have even been a sailor.
Time seems to slow down as I wait for death.
…
…
No… time isn’t slowing down. The monster is struggling to move, twitching. It’s stuck in the position to stomp on me, but it seems paralyzed.
I turn over and notice the entire top half of its body is completely severed. It’s on fire.
“Are you alright, kid?”
As I slowly start to rise up and look at my savior, I see an almost ethereal being. His face glows and fire shines from his back like the wings of a bird. He has a warm and welcoming demeanor, one that makes me feel like everything will be alright. The fire on his back is not threatening or burning, in fact, it seems to calm my nerves.
An angel?
“Who are…”, I begin to say, but before I can finish my sentence I black out.
I wake up beside a campfire. My sister is laughing on the other side, holding a turkey leg in her hand. It’s windy, and the sky is still stuck in a permanent ominous gloom, but for some reason I feel fuzzy inside.
There is a man sitting next to my sister, talking about the time he once punched a white eyes in the nose while rescuing castaways. He has a friendly demeanor- he seems like the type of person other people would take advantage of. But at the same time I can sense some sort of seriousness in his voice… it’s hard to explain, even in my mind.
He has bright blond hair and blue eyes, with healthy white skin, and an eyepatch covering his other eye. A dark green cloak covers his back and he wears red wanderer gear. He must be an adventurer.
“…And after that happened, I’m sure- quite sure that I was never attacked by another shark again!”, he says, waving his hands around in an exaggerated motion.
My sister laughs, and so does the man. I feel a bit strange for being suspicious of him, and so I stop myself from telling my sister to be careful around the man. After all, we owe him our lives.
I get up. “Excuse me, sir. Thank you for saving us.”
He laughs. “Haha, it was no problem! A real man never ignores a cry for help! And don’t be so formal, just call me Simon.”
Simon gets up and hands me plate of mushroom soup. The best food I’ve even come so close to touching in months. Even before this catastrophe, my sister and I weren’t really well fed.
Tears begin to roll down my face.
“Thank you… thank you so much.”
Victoria gives me a curious look. Right, this must be the first time she’s ever seen me cry tears of joy.
“Don’t worry about it, kid. Eat up, we’ve got places to be. Soon, this place’ll be filled to the brim with Atlanteans, just like Rubica. We’ve gotta go.”, he says, giving me a confident smile.
Atlanteans. I assume that’s what those monsters are called. The man gets up, and imbues his sword in fire.
This feeling in my soul. Hope. Courage burns in my heart as brightly as the sword Simon holds.
“Where are we going, Simon?”, I ask.
He points his sword upwards.
“The sky.”
…
…
End. Sorry for the long wait. I’ve just been getting side tracked lately, so… yeah.
