Time passed. Hours, minutes, days… He couldn’t tell. The cave slept under its blanket of darkness, its occupants slouching lazily in their rests. He and the skeletons had no entertainment but the aftermath of the battle at the half-devoured rat. Its fur was peeled open, revealing the festering festival inside. The coalants had won and were harvesting little pieces of venom-blackened flesh for their feast tonight. Or this afternoon. Or whatever time it was.

  High above, the red-eyed deepbat glared at him with vehement anger, as if he was rude for not having died already.

  He stank. But that was the least of his worries. He tried to think not of his agitated eye and shifted his focus to his arms instead. But they were covered in dragonmosquitoes’ and fleas’ bite marks that burned and itched, and he couldn’t scratch them. So, he turned his attention to his belly which groused in hunger as if shouting ‘don’t look at me’. His back and shoulders also ached from carrying his weight for so long. And as he’d guessed, his feet had turned into a feeding grounds for roaches, beetles, and ants, who stole nibbles and chomps whenever he closed his eyes to rest.

  The skeleton across him shifted. Skye squinted, maintaining his prejudiced opinion that dead bones weren’t supposed to move. When a large beetle clambered across the bony skull, going in and out of its slacking jaw, he sighed, glad for the reassurance of his sanity.

  He’d seen many cavers who’d gone mad after getting trapped in the Deeps. He’d reckoned the darkness and petrification were to blame for their lunacy, but there was a plethora of other factors as well. Starvation, dehydration, fatigue, fear, and desperation come to mind fast. Guilt and self-hate trod closely behind. But those were merely secondary to the main perpetrator. Collaterals. Side effects.

  He wished he had someone to speak with other than the voices in his head. They were obnoxious, telling him what a monumental fool he was to have cast his curse while chained.

  “Useless moron, coalbrained idiot, halfwit, stupid coward…”

  The insults went on and on, and he almost swore he heard them spoken out loud. Perhaps, he muttered them under his breath; there was no way to tell.

  Back during his days of prospecting, he’d sometimes discover a tiny gemcache with a single dim gem inside and cheer “gotcha!” or “you’re mine!”. As soon as his fingers caressed the gemstone, its shine would magnify. He’d thought it a self-defense mechanism to ward off predators, but he now knew the truth.

  That gem was lonely and felt glad that someone was finally there to free it.

  Skye’s inner light had gone so faint, he could barely see it himself.

  “Blathering madman,” the voice went on, harsh as always. “You don’t even deserve to be deepbat food. You should fall in the Scar. Let the Void take you and rid the world of your pointless presence. You deserve the curse…”

  Skye shook his head, settling the spinning cave into stillness. More time passed and anticipation piled in a corner in his head. It was time he tried to break free again.

  He turned to his arms where abrased and shredded skin formed ridges at the edges of his cuffs, enwrapping his wrists in scarlet bracelets. It was too tiring to move. Too demanding. Too painful.

  Too pointless.

  “Getting out of here, tasting food again, drinking water, breaking this sooting curse,” he repeated as he pulled in a never-ending mantra, mining energy from nothing.

  “Exposing the wardens, getting vengeance for Gideom, Basalt and Joshem, stopping their evil plans.”

  The deepbat fluttered and shrieked, slaying the calmness of the cave.

  “Meeting Rierana and Lyonel. Apologizing to everyone. Setting everything right. Seeing the sky. Seeing the sky. Seeing the sky. Seeing the sky…”

  He pulled on his chains, burying his pains in a deep part of his mind. One of the skeletons shifted again, and Skye searched for the bug responsible. He’d seen bones move before. They burned red, orange, and yellow, screaming in inexpressible agony.

  Was this cemetery a farm for elexii? Will the wardens use his bones to create a monster that will rampage across the city?

  “I can’t die here,” he said, his eye widening as he finally admitted it was a possibility. “I have to get out. I have wasted so much time.” He grunted, yanking harder at the cold, indifferent manacles.

  The elexos had danced to the rhythms of the clapping wardens as the blood of his friends was still warm; soon it’d dance atop Troqua’s charred ruins.

  “Let me go!” he screamed at his cuffs, unable to contain his despair anymore. He rang his bell until wetness ran down his nose, hoping it’d change something about the pegs.

  “Release me!”

  His chains clanked as they went taut, clinging to their roots.

  “What do you want of me? Why are you doing this? Just let go of me! Let me go! Let me go! Let me go! LET ME GO! Letmegoletmegoletmego! LET ME GOOOO! Let me go! Let me go! Let me go! Let me go…”

  He looked up, his echo still screaming after he’d stopped. And as he stared at the jagged, rocks of the cave, he remembered faintly the night Gideom found him dying alone.

  The world was cold, the stones rough. The tunnel he’d run through was too narrow, clawing his skin with every step. He couldn’t breathe. Didn’t know where he was headed. Could see nothing but ghosts shifting in the darkness. He ran and ran and ran till his feet were a bloody mess and his body brimmed with scars. He searched for an exit—no, he searched for the sky… where someone waited. That someone had something important to say. Something Skye needed to hear. He couldn’t remember what, but he desperately needed to reach that person. He burned and only they could douse the flames.

  Stolen story; please report.

  He turned toward the door. To the three faint rays of light leaking through the cracks. He should cast his curse again least his screams summon the wardens. But he didn’t know if he feared that anymore.

  If he could convince them to release his hands, if only for a moment, he could use his curse to escape. If they deemed that too dangerous and fed him enough to survive while they planned how to extract his secrets, he’d simply suffer longer.

  “Worthless child,” the voice in his mind sneered. “Whenever threatened you wail like a babe instead of searching for solutions.”

  “What am I supposed to do?” he asked, but the voice didn’t answer.

  If the wardens came, they might torment him. If he kept quiet, he’d die.

  He struggled to come up with ideas while his empty stomach churned, and nausea overtook his senses. His head flashed with burning heat as if he was afire, and his limps went cold as if he’d been dipped in ice. The skeleton on his left caught a fly and chewed on it, and the one to his right nodded as if enjoying fast-paced music. The deepbat flew to hang on a closer stalactite, its eyes glaring red.

  Skye felt like he’d been running for hours, his heart beating faster and faster, almost bursting out of his chest.

  “I am here!” he said softly. “I’m in the dungeon!” he repeated, louder.

  His bell appeared, ready to sing, but he withheld its clapper.

  “I’m inside the dungeon!” he shouted. “I’m down here!”

  A moment passed and the little rays of light remained undisturbed.

  “I’m here! I’m here! I’m here!” he yelled, over and over, until his sound became a painful rasp, then he yelled some more.

  No response.

  “Please, I’m in the dungeon! Emery! Chief Emery!”

  Silence.

  He racked his brain. Who else might visit the library? Dray hadn’t come during his stay, and he didn’t know many wardens by name.

  “Dray, please! I’m Lyonel’s friend,” he called anyway. “Emery! Chief Akunai! Mirio! Ficar! Anyone… I’m here…”

  None came.

  His breathing grew ragged as he yelled on, his dry mouth crackling as he forced it to shout. Sweat raced across his face as his throat tightened, starving him of air. And in that moment, he saw a fourth skeleton in his place, resting against his chains, its fight finally concluded.

  The world spun and the skeleton across him scratched its head as it studied him with black eyeholes. Another retrieved a long worm from its ear with bony fingers and flicked it away.

  Skye would die here, hurt, and filthy and alone, like these three men had died before. And after the insects had devoured his guts and ingested his flesh, he’d be gone, and no one would know he ever existed.

  “Dr. Stenser! Rierana! Lyonel! Miss Jella! Nakais! Billiam! Mr. Karn! Mr. Farkle! Anyone!”

  No one answered.

  “Mom! Dad!” his voice cracked, fading away. “I don’t know what to do…”

  Breathing fast, he called the names of every person he’d ever seen or heard of. He made up names and called them too. He leaned forward, tugging at his aching arms, his shouts ringing off the lifeless walls of the cave. He had to escape this dungeon whatever it cost. It hurt to move, more to pull. So what if he tore his arms off?

  “Oh, would ya shut yer trap, ya bloody whelp. Nobody’s comin’ for ya,” a voice, heinous like a discordant trumpet, said.

  Skye flinched, his eye darting around the cavern. Trembling, he squeezed his tears dry, daring a smile. At last, someone heard his pleas.

  “Where are you?” he asked the darkness. “Please, I need your help. My arms hurt and I’m trapped.”

  “I’m here, ya bubbleheaded buffoon. Right across ya.”

  No person sat across Skye except the skeletons. They were all very inanimate, like skeletons were ought to be. Searching, he forced his breathing to settle. He needed his wits about him to convince this visitor to unlock his cuffs. He couldn’t break apart now.

  “Please hurry, I’ve been here for days.”

  “Oh, quit yer whinin’. Yer givin’ me a skullache,“ the skeleton across him said.

  Skye pulled back, jingling his chains. He blinked repeatedly, reassuring himself that he couldn’t have seen that bony jaw move just now.

  “Stop it, Dee,” the skeleton to Skye’s right said. Just cause some rat ate you heart, that don’t give you no excuse to be heartless.”

  Skye jumped, hitting the wall behind, yelping in both shock and pain. The skeletons spoke; he was sure of it. The one on the right shifted, facing the one in the middle.

  “Hah, I’ve always been heartless,” the skeleton in the middle said. “Dee the deadly, they’d call me, and bloody accurate a name it was,” it continued, the sound emanating from its tongueless, fleshless mouth. “I’ve killed more men with these hands than ya have bones. And now, look at me, a skelly in chains.” He ended his speech with a melancholy flip of arms, rattling his shackles.

  Skye leaned forward, trying to force his second eye to open. “How are you talking?”

  “We’re people like ya, fool,” the middle skeleton said. “Well, dead people. But ya’ll get there eventually. Everybody does.”

  Skye rang his bell, hoping it’d end this nightmarish vision.

  The skeleton on the left picked its nose.

  “Stop scarin’ him, Dee. He be gone through enough. Let him die in peace,” the skeleton on the right said.

  “I’m not going to die. I’ll make it out alive!” Skye shouted, immediately feeling like a fool for arguing with dead people.

  Dee laughed. Skye felt more an idiot applying the name to the skeleton.

  “Wasn’t this bollocks what ya used to scream when ya still had flesh, Jay?” Dee asked.

  Jay made a sound of disgust. “Ergh! Don’t remind me of those horrible days. Flesh and blood and sinew and intestines and… and… what be that filthy brown stuff that comes out your end?”

  “Shit,” the skeleton on the far left said in a deep baritone.

  “Yeah, shits. That be the worst. Ew,” Jay cringed. “You fleshy folks have that stuffs in you all the time and you don’t mind. And I’m like, hello? Do you realize how disgustin’ you be right now? Some folks feel sad when they lose their fleshy bits, but hohoho, not me. No, sir, I love my ivory shine. And between you and me, I be glad they put you over there by the wall and not near me. Cause I don’t want a neighbour so full of those itty-bitty shitty chunks.”

  Skye remembered to breathe at last, licking his cracked lips. His head trauma must be worse than he’d expected.

  “Shut up,” he commanded coldly. “Don’t speak anymore.”

  “Don’t speak no more? Why?” asked Jay. “Do you ears get sore when you hear too many words? I don’t remember mine ever doin’ that.”

  “I said shut up!” Skye shouted, growing agitated. Only madmen spoke to spirits, and he wasn’t mad.

  He wasn’t mad.

  “Oh, stop right there, ya bratty grump. Who ya think ya are, speakin’ to us like that?” Dee growled.

  “You are not real!” Skye shouted.

  “Oh, that’s filthy rich comin’ from ya, Skye,” Dee shouted back.

  Skye frowned, wondering how the skeleton learned his name.

  “Are ya real, Skye? Wanderin’ around, callin’ yourself a name that ain’t yers?” Dee continued.

  Skye’s jaw slackened, the fight fleeing from him. It was true. ‘Skye’ wasn’t his real name. He didn’t know who he was.

  “When we were alive, we did things, loved folks, they remembered us till they died,” Dee said. “Nobody knows ya and ya matter to no one in this world. And worst of it all, ya can’t affect anythin’ in any way. Even yer shits disappear!

  “Therefore, ya don’t exist. Yer the one who’s not real, Skye.”

  Insects crawled over Skye’s bare feet again.

  He didn’t bother to push them away, staring at Dee’s void eyes. The skeleton wasn’t qualified to make such a statement, neither did he have the right to assume such a tone with Skye.

  But he wasn’t wrong.

  To be real is to leave a mark on the world. On your home. Or even on the mind of a single person. Skye left nothing; his curse wiped every action he took. Every conversation he made. Anything he affected returned to its original state, as if declaring he’s…

  “Not real?” he whispered. “I’m… not here?”

  All this time, his struggles had been for naught. He’d expended so much energy trying to prove that he, a fantasy, existed in a world that didn’t care.