Silence stretched, heavy and stiff as the air in the cave.

  “Look what you did, Dee. You trounced his welly,” Jay chided. “It be alright, kid. It be not that bad bein’ here with us. Plenty of activity to be done here. You can count the bugs. Let ‘em walk over you face. You can watch ‘em fly. And hey, sometimes rats pass by!”

  Swaying back and forth, Skye focused on the hurt all over his body and how real it felt. His pain screamed he was real. The feelings storming inside him were real. His want to explore the world was real. His longing for his friends was real.

  He was real.

  “I’m hallucinating, I’m hallucinating, I’m hallucinating,” he repeated, trying to picture the skeletons as they once were. Still. Silent. Dead.

  “You be fine there, kid?” Jay asked. “You act like you’d done seen a ghost.”

  Skye gritted his teeth, clinging to the last traces of his sanity. His chains rattled angrily, biting down his wrists. They won’t budge. Why won’t they budge?

  Desperate, he slammed the back of his head against the wall. Softly at first. But hitting harder and harder, the wound atop his left eye throbbing with every strike. Yet he continued. If Emery’s blow had broken something inside his head, then maybe he’ll go round to being sane if he smacked it from the other side.

  “Jay, ya fool. Ya broke him!” Dee reprimanded.

  They still talked. Why? Why?

  “I didn’t do nothin’!” Jay replied. “It be you who broke ‘im.”

  Skye kept pounding as blood trickled down his neck.

  “That be bad!” Jay shook his head.

  “Maybe he’s hungry,” the baritone skeleton on the left rumbled. “I am.”

  “Ya can’t be hungry, ya unsatiable hog! Ya have no belly,” Dee snapped.

  “So what?” the left skeleton said. “You have no brains, but you think yourself wise.”

  “Boys, boys!” Jay shrilled. “The kid’ll kill himself! Do somethin’!”

  Numbness washed over Skye. He swung his head back, but the cave tilted like the deck of a sinking boat, and he thudded into empty air.

  “Hey!” Dee called. “Stop that, lad. If yer brains leaks out, we’d be stuck with a nitwit for eternity, and yer not that bright to begin with.”

  Chest heaving, Skye sagged. Blood ran across his cheek, stinging his good eye, tasting salty in his mouth.

  “Cut it out, Dee!” Jay hissed. “Would it revive you to be nice once in you death, man?”

  “I am nice,” Dee hissed back. “I’m the nicest man dead!”

  “Smile,” the skeleton with deep voice said.

  Numbness washed over Skye as he struggled to raise his head. Eerie expressions coated the skinless faces of his neighbors, their boney jaws pulled back, their eye sockets squinched. If he hadn’t been knocking on death’s door with his head for the past minute, he’d have screamed in terror.

  Jay waved, merrily jangling his chains. “Sorry if we scared you, kid. I be Jay. And these be Dee and Bob.”

  “Got any food?” Bob asked.

  “Oh, in the name of yer unused pelvis, would ya shut up about food?” Dee barked.

  “I’m hungry!” Bob complained.

  “We’re all hungry! I haven’t tasted anythin’ in centuries,” Dee replied.

  “H-how…” Skye stuttered, reconciling with the fact he spoke with animated skeletons. “How long have you all been here?”

  “Who knows?” Dee answered. “Time skitters when yer dead.”

  Jay cleared his throat. “I be not finished with introductions yet. There be also Ritsy, our newest member.” Skye searched around for the fourth skeleton. “Ritsy be the rat.”

  “Yo, what’s up? How y’all doin’?” the half-decomposed, pest-ridden rat said, raising its rotten head slightly to grin at Skye.

  Skye jolted back. He hadn’t expected the rat to speak, neither did he think anything could surprise him anymore.

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  “Then there’s him,” Dee said, pointing up. “We call him Redeyes.”

  The deepbat glared like a wraith planning retribution. “You are insane,” it accused in a deep, gruff voice.

  “I am not!” Skye shouted back.

  “Ignore him, he be a meany,” Jay said. “He be not one of us.”

  “Yeah, he’s alive and got them bloody wings,” Dee added. “Yet he lingers here for some reason. I’d bet my spine he’s spyin’ for those damned wardens.”

  Skye shook his head. “Hold up,” he said, turning to Dee. “Have you tried to escape?”

  “Every cursed day.” Dee extracted his left hand from its oversized manacle, pulling on his right. He huffed and groaned, then returned his hand to its cuffed position and shrugged. “See? These chains are more obstinate than me dead wife.”

  Skye blinked.

  “So,” Dee started. “Why’re ya blessing us with yer presence?”

  Skye licked his cracked lips. “I’m cursed. I feel like a ghost with unfinished business, but I don’t know what I need to do.”

  “Yeah, we noticed.” Dee said. “We’ve been in yer shoes before. I won’t lie; it doesn’t get easier.”

  “Hopefully you’ll be free of it soon,” Jay assured.

  “What do you mean?” Skye asked, confused.

  “Life’s a curse, lad. It is meaningless.” Dee shrugged. “Watchin’ ya struggle to escape made me bones soggy. And I get it. I too clung to life like an absolute boob.”

  “Agh, me three,” Jay sighed. “What be we fightin’ for?”

  Skye fumbled for an answer. “T-to be free!” he said, almost shouting.

  “We be free now,” Jay retorted. “No one can harm us. Nothing disturbs our rest.”

  “We don’t suffer failure,” Dee added. “Cause we have no goals, no worries.”

  Skye shook his head. The ribbon on his arm shook with the weight of hanging insects. He shouldn’t have to explain something so obvious as what’s cherishable about life. Perhaps in this indomitable darkness, these skeletons had forgotten what it meant to be alive.

  “No,” he said weakly. “No!” he repeated louder, trying to sound resolute but the word came out as a squeal instead. “I’ve seen the sky. I’ve had fun. There is more to life than just suffering. There’s love, rivalry, adventure. There’s happiness!”

  “A happy life?” Dee snorted. “There’s no such a thing.”

  “Name one happy person you know,” Bob challenged.

  “Dr. Stenser!” Skye blurted, remembering the doctor’s kind smile.

  Dee scoffed. “Lad, Stenser can’t afford an assistant or the ingredients he needs. That’s why the Medhars wanted you to work. Why Rierana gave up her dream of bein’ a chef and cleans floors instead.”

  “More so, Rierana be an only child cause Jella had three stillbirths,” Jay reminded.

  “And the doctor’s often threatened by gangs,” Bob added.

  Shame flushed through Skye. He’d lived under the Medhars’ roof for long, eating their food, giving nothing in return. “Lyonel, then?” he whispered. “Dray became a warden recently; he must be happy for his brother.”

  “Lyonel?” Bob chuckled. “The orphan who snivels and skulks whenever his parents are mentioned?”

  Skye’s throat tightened. He thought of all the people he’d met in Troqua. The laughter, the games, the hugs. But they were all distractions from a harsh reality.

  People wore joy like someone from the Coals might try on silk. They’d admire the softness, the colors, smile at their reflection in the mirror. But eventually, they’d take it off and pick up their old, dirty rags. Because nice things were not meant for creatures like them.

  “Turn off the light,” Dee started. “Switch off the heat, and watch the world revert to its natural state. Dark and cold.”

  “How about the rich folks on the surface?” Skye exclaimed. He’d seen their plenitude, attended their celebrations. They wanted for nothing.

  Dee tilted his head as if disappointed. “Lad,” he started, voice heavy with pity. “Those fat narcissists taste the same sorrow as everyone, though with a golden spoon. Sure, their beds are softer, foods richer, walls brighter. But it’s all pointless, and deep down, you know it.”

  He gestured at the ants celebrating over Ritsy. “See them, havin’ the time of their lives, eatin’, drinkin’, partyin’? That’s the rich, lad. And the rest, the dead ones? That’s us, workin’ ourselves to death for crumbs. Either way, we’re all ants. Small. Insignificant. Doesn’t matter who wins, who loses. At the end, everyone dies.”

  Each of Dee’s truths cut deep, hollowing Skye from the inside till he was a living chasm. He hadn’t noticed he’d started pulling at his chains again until the blood dripped off his shoulder.

  “It’s true!” Ritsy chimed in cheerfully. “Everybody ends up like me!”

  The cave seemed to shrink, the ceiling grinding lower, the walls pressing in. Skye heaved, unable to draw breath. He’d known this truth for a long time, but he’d refused to admit it, simply because he’d been one of the winning ants.

  “I want a life with purpose,” he croaked, barely keeping his eyes dry. “I want to give it meaning.”

  Jay shook his skull. “There be no such thing. Ask Redeyes; he be alive.”

  Skye turned to the bat.

  “Since all living organisms die and decay, nothing anyone feels or does has meaning,” Redeyes declared flatly.

  “See?” Jay said.

  Skye clenched his fists. “What about family and friends?” He pictured those closest to his heart. Or tried to. He couldn’t remember the colour of Lyonel’s eyes, or the way Rierana’s hair danced in the winds. He was losing them. “If they remembered me, they’d weep for my sake. They’d care. It’d matter.”

  Please, it must.

  “Look at Ritsy,” Dee said. “Say his rat parents are lookin’ for him. Say his rat friends are cryin’. Think that helps him now?”

  “I am not an ant!” Skye shouted, losing his temper. “I’m not a rat. And I’m not the same as you. I am alive. Human. I matter.”

  “Get off yer high horse, and face the truth, lad,” Dee spat. “What differences are ya talkin’ about?”

  Skye stuttered wordlessly, looking around the cave as all the bugs stopped to stare at him. “I have feelings, ambitions, wants.” He gritted his teeth, blinking back the sting in his eyes. “Those have value.”

  The bugs shook their head disappointed and moved on.

  “Animals have wants,” Bob said. “Redeyes here wants to feast on your flesh.”

  “That is a truth,” Redeyes agreed.

  The cave contracted faster, the walls contorting around Skye, catching, and crushing him from all sides like a rat in a stonebear’s jaws.

  “Accept it, lad,” Dee said sweetly. “Yer nothin’, and nothin’ ya will ever do will matter. And that is alright. That is life.”

  “There be nothin’ wrong with joinin’ us,” Jay added. “We’d keep each other company. Forever.”

  “I don’t want to be like you,” Skye whimpered, curling into a ball. “Stop. Just stop. Please… leave me alone.”

  He tried to hold his head together, to keep it from splitting. The cave was a small box now, barely enough to contain him.

  “Why’re ya torturin’ yourself, lad?” Dee asked. “Why fight so hard to prove ya exist, when there’s nothin’ to gain?”

  The cave shrunk into a fist-sized space, then to nothingness. Skye rocked back and forth, alone in silence, the world once more undisturbed.

  **********