by GR Griffin
Everyone could see it and hear it: the cracking in the General’s voice. Deep bags lined his eyes from a lack of sleep. The terrible departure of his wife and family had left his soul in pieces. He was no soldier, no mighty commander of troops, but a simple worker who used to earn just enough money to keep his family fed. He had experience in handling team efforts, making him the only man eligible for the stripes.
Leaving the wounded scout in the delicate hands of the field medics, Juhi made eye contact with the one shred of family he had left: his only son, sitting by himself metres away. Zeus was the one good thing left in this world. If anything bad happened to him, then Juhi would probably crumble to pieces.
He saw the despair lining his son and he knew that neither of them would ever be the same.
Nothing would ever be the same.
Zeus looked back, but his father was not what he was seeing.
His grandmother knelt by her husband’s side. Gazing upwards with pleading eyes.
Dunmore. He resembled a cauldron. Always could have done more. The reluctant one of the bunch broke the silence. “We’re surrounded,” he cried, backing against a tree. “Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. The gods have forsaken us.”
As mad and raving as Dunmore’s words were, they were painfully true to every monster within the camp. The worst of their fears had come true. The humans had them surrounded and the net was tightening. No salvation to either the north, south, east, or west. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. The human armies would march on them and, with their forged steel and arcane arts, finish what they started.
Clutching his knees tightly against his chest and rocking back and forth, Dunmore continued his panic-stricken rambling. “It’s over, we’re doomed! They will find us, and kill us one by one! No hope! No—”
Commander Rex was on him in a moment, dragging Dunmore to his feet and delivering a backhand to his cheek, shutting him up. A hollow ring sounded, it probably hurt Rex more than it did Dunmore.
As a bulldog, Rex was literally born a fighter. Short, but packed under his fat lay muscle that made him appear taller. It was odd that a man of his stature would wear chainmail as opposed to plating, however, this was down to his preference to prefer movement. “Hold your tongue, coward,” he snarled directly into Dunmore’s cowering features.
The cauldron monster sank back to the ground, holding his face in shame.
“We’ll think of something,” Rex said more gently, stepping closer to the general. “Not enough time to build a boat, even a basic one. These woods provide some degree of cover, but there’s no way of hiding a group this large.” He turned to face General Juhi. “If all else fails the best we can hope for is to form a last stand here and hope that one of us takes down one of them.”
General Juhi said nothing, but silently nodded his head once, rather meekly. He walked out from the trees and onto the beach. It was as if he had given up, deep down, and he had decided to make this moment count while he could. He gazed upon the low hanging sun as if he were seeing it for the first time. Not actually seeing it, but witnessing its significance to the world, like discovering the meaning of life.
Zeus had no room for ideals in his gloomy land although he wished he could disconnect himself from it. He was stuck in reality and he hated it. It was one thing to be told that his very existence was a mistake, that he was insignificant and powerless and worthless. However, it was another thing entirely to have those assumptions confirmed, by the humans who they were unable to stop.
All the monsters needed was for one human to fall. A single soul. Then the monster who claimed that soul would turn the tide in an instant, making the humans flee in terror. Yet not a single human life was lost, more than what could be said for the thousands of monsters turned to dust.
The human standing above them. A man in a farmer’s robe. An indescribable look in his eyes. A pitchfork held high. The prongs coated with dust.
No matter what Zeus did, the memory would not leave his head. It enraged him to no end. He stood up and the memory rose with him. He walked a few steps across the woods and the memory followed.
The human roared as he drove the pitchfork down.
He snatched a stick off the ground and broke it in half against a tree, but the memory was not so easily frightened. He grabbed a rock and flung it high, breaking another branch, but the memory was not so easily thrown away. He sprinted off, but the memory was faster than him.
The rest of the memory was a blur. He could not remember the pitchfork striking his grandfather, or grandmother, or mother, like the event was so traumatic that he had already stricken in from his mind as a defence mechanism. He did remember the pain in which he saw his father in, and the sounds of his sobs as he held his son tight.
He sprinted deeper into the woods, past trees left and right, ignoring the pain in his stomach and the blisters on his feet. No matter where he went or what he did, what was done was done, and there was nothing he could do about it. He stumbled and fell on one knee, cheekbone pressed against gritty bark. In the brief period of rest, the pain caught up to him, slower that the one in his head.
Zeus was a peculiar child, in that he had never cried, not even when he was born. Whenever he wanted something, he would always give subtle hints in which his parents picked up on. When he fell as a toddler learning to walk, he always picked himself up without so much as a whimper. Whenever he nicked himself on something sharp, he would simply stare of the fresh injury with mystery as if waiting for it to heal naturally.
As his cheek was pressed against the tree’s rough skin, he clenched his eyes shut and tried to will tears into his eyes. If there was any reason to let out his emotions, it was now. He replayed the scene over and over and over and over… and yet not a single drop formed beneath his eyelids.
Zeus…
His eyes opened. Was that his name he had heard? The voice sounded so close and yet so far away. So strange and yet familiar.
Where are you, Zeus…?
That voice. Sounded like a woman’s. So calm. So serene. Attached to the lips of a beautiful woman. But there was no one there. He pulled himself up. The ache of starvation leaving him again.
Come to me, Zeus… she whispered. Find me…
He did not know why, but he followed the voice. Ignoring any possibility that it might have been the humans, lying in wait to catch them one by one. He did not run this time, but walked. Carefully stepping over thick roots and under branches. He followed the voice that beckoned him onwards. Onwards to where?
He travelled until he came across an outcrop of rocks from what looked like an abandoned quarry. There was nothing to explain it, but he needed to climb to the top. He found a place where he could get a foothold and some hanging vines to climb up with. He reached the peak and carefully walked around the edge, avoiding the accumulation of wet, sickly moss in the centre. He had reached the eastern outskirts of the woods, managing to make out the horizon between the remaining trees.
That voice had guided them there. However, as he gazed out, he feared that the trail had gone cold. She was not speaking to him anymore and he could see no sign from his vantage point.
“Zeus,” someone snapped from behind him. Zeus swung around and found Overseer Eden, the living scarecrow, glaring at him from the foot on the rocks. “What do you think you’re doing running out here all by yourself? Foolish boy.” He impatiently waved toward himself, commanding Zeus to come to him. “Get down from there before someone sees you!”
The cub stood his ground, giving the overseer a blank look before glancing around the expanse once more, trying to locate the source of the voice.
Eden huffed an irritated sigh before clambering up. “I am not in the mood to be playing these games with you,” he grumbled as he reached the top at the opposite side. “Get over here this instant!”
Zeus grunted and took one step toward the Overseer, over the patch of moss, which bent and groaned upon taking his weight.
There you are.
> The next step Zeus took collapsed on him. The moss gave out, revealing it to be planks of rotten timber. The cub fell down into the abandoned quarry, plunging into darkness. His last sight of the overseer captured the moment his features switched from anger to shock. The mouth of light above shrank as he fell. His right leg struck a jutting rock, sending him spiralling onto his side in a shallow puddle of stagnant water, almost jolting his shoulder out. The crash was not the end of it, as he was hit with the remainders of debris and smothered in a cloud of dust.
Zeus curled up and waited for it all to pass, then slowly raised his head. He coughed, hacking ripples into the filthy water. He opened his eyes and the circle of light quivered, jumping in and out of focus. Everywhere hurt, his leg was on fire and the other half of his body ran cold, submerged in the water. As he tried to move the foot, the resulting pang made him draw a painful breath, inhaling lingering dust particles that irritated his throat. He exhaled another bout of coughing.
The circle of light encompassing him darkened. “Zeus! Are you okay?” Overseer Eden shouted. “Zeus!”
Zeus painfully rolled onto his back. The opening above was the same size as the sun in the sky. He raised his other arm – the one that did not hurt as much – and went to shout something like ‘yes’ or ‘I’m alive’ or ‘I’m okay’, but it came out as another fit of hacking. It might have not been a clear response, but it at least indicated to Eden that Zeus was still alive.
“Just… just hang on, okay?” The indecisiveness was thick in Eden’s voice, sounding more afraid than worried. Most likely due to the fact that it was the General’s son. If anything bad happened to Zeus, then Eden was surely a dead monster – not that it made much difference in their present situation. “I’ll go get help!”
Overseer Eden moved away from the hole and his scurrying steps dissipated into the distance. Zeus was alone, lying on his back; freezing, starving, and hurt.
As the water soaked into his back and back of head, Zeus wished that he had never been born. All he could do was control his breathing, which was attempting to escape him. A drop of water landed on his tunic once every second, soaking into the thick material.
He could not move. He knew nothing but the pain coursing through his body, radiating from his possibly broken leg.
Was this what it felt like to have ‘fallen down’?
It was like his body was crumbling apart, his soul preparing to shatter at any moment. Perhaps this was for the best. Soon, he would be far away from this accursed nightmare and back in the arms of his mother once more.
Zeus…
There she was again, whispering to his very dying soul. It seemed to flow through his body, rejuvenating his soul and filling the cracks. He lifted his head.
Oh, Zeus, you’re hurt…
It was coming from the cave ahead that was shrouded in black. Empty with the hollow echo of air against rock. He sat up, avoiding placing any kind of pressure on his bad leg, still aggravating the damage done.
Let me help you.
Placing all his weight onto his good leg, he got up, slamming his uninjured arm against the wall for support. As he went to step forward, he tested his numb foot on the floor. It twitched with agony upon putting the lightest pressure on it. He let it hover an inch off the ground, swallowed hard, inhaled deeply, then pushed himself forward on it. For that split-second that his foot brunt his entire weight, it sent stabbing pain shooting up it. He could not support himself on his good leg fast enough.
Step by agonising step, he ventured deeper within. Blind. In and out, his breath became the only sound.
There is no need for you to be afraid…
How did she know? Zeus acted like he was not afraid, except that a unique case of fear brewed in the pit of his stomach. In the dark, he was vulnerable to whatever lay hidden within. At any moment, the cave could collapse, or a well-placed trap could go off, or his next step could send him falling down a pit into the Underworld.
Come closer…
Suddenly, his open paw came into contact with a wall in front of him. A barrier of moist earth, blocking his path, each touch sounded and felt soggy.
And yet their feelings told them that this was not a dead end.
Zeus began to claw away at the mud with his hands, digging a small entry. Loose traces of soil slid from the top, slicking his arms dirty and cold. A slight wriggling between his fingers suggested a thick density of earthworms within; he could not tell in the pitch black.
Closer, Zeus…
He dug frantically, tossing mud and soil everywhere, getting most of it onto himself.
He stopped.
Something was glowing at the end of the one foot deep hole.
Zeus reached in and, with one final strike, knocked the rest of the debris away. He reached the other side and was greeted with a flat surface of glowing, grey stone that illuminated the silver in his eyes. He made out several weathered markings on the surface; he had no idea what they meant.
It appeared to be some kind of pillar, buried deep within the earth. It blazed with magic the likes he, and probably everybody else for that matter, had never seen before.
Zeus.
Spellbound, the cub reached through to touch it.
Zeus.
Closer.
Zeus.
The fingertips were millimetres away.
* * *
“Emperor Zeus.”
He snapped back to reality and turned to find both General Leigh and Advisor Rickard standing there – one noticeably calmer that the other.
“What is it?” Zeus asked, irritated that he had been both broken from his thoughts and caught off-guard.
Rickard was already sweating profusely. “We bring you urgent news, my lord,” he said, then turned to Leigh, expecting him to continue.
Fortunately for Master Scribe Rickard, he did. “Several points of news, actually,” he stated. “Firstly, the human had been spotted three hours ago in Parfocorse. Our soldiers gave chase, but the target evaded capture.” Leigh stopped for a second as he noticed Zeus grip the armrest of his bench. Rickard let out the subtlest of winces. “The entire town was cordoned and searched, but they have found no sign of the human. They believe the human may have escaped on-board one of the trains, however, it is unclear as to which one.”
“Around the time the human was spotted,” Zeus asked, “how many of those trains were heading north?”
“According to the list, there were roughly seven departures with only one was heading in that direction, sir.”
Scribe Rickard hesitated before he spoke up. “But that train leads through the Shattered Zone. There’s not a chance that the human would be foolish enough…”
“It was on that train,” Zeus said without making eye-contact, keeping it straight forward on the foot of the Obelisk. Rickard failed to understand, his words degrading into a murmur lodged in the dam of his throat. “For it to appear in Parfocorse, it would had to have travelled north. It only makes sense that it keeps going to that direction.” He stroked his chin in thought. His entire empire, inch by inch, ran through his mind. “Winter’s Edge. That is where the human would have disembarked.”
Rickard faced the ground and shook his head. “No… no, that makes no sense – with all due respect, my lord. The only place they can go from there is Ice Island. That place is a dead zone – nobody has ever returned from there in years. Why would anyone—?”
“Haze.”
Rickard’s head snapped up at that word. “Haze? Professor Haze?”
“It makes perfect sense. The human is attempting to reach the Forest, where the old professor is hiding.” His gaze remained glued to the Obelisk, to the jagged markings at its foot. If there was anyone who remotely came close to deciphering the truth behind it, it was Haze. He left the castle decades ago, vanishing deep within the Forest, and since then, any and all attempts to locate him were futile, like he had disappeared off the face of the Outerworld. “The old monster will not show himself to me o
r my men, but I’m sure he will to the human.”
“But how would the human know to go there?”
General Leigh suggested, “Most likely someone told them. There are many defectors within the Plain-plain; they must have stumbled upon one of them.”
Rickard switched back and forth between both the ruler and the general, unsure as which one to address his next statement to. “R-regardless, all who enter Ice Island never return. We’ve surely lost the human child forever. Need I remind you of our own squad went send in to deal with this matter?”
Zeus raised a hand in sharp interruption. “We remember on our own, Scribe.” There was frustration laced in his voice. “None have ever made it through that island… yet. Perhaps it, the human, will be the first to pull through.”
“If the human does, my liege,” the general said, “our soldiers will be waiting.”
The same amount of confidence Leigh did not inhibit the lion emperor, not after the soldiers’ failings from yesterday and today. “What other news do you bring?” asked Zeus. “Do you also bring word of the criminal who destroyed Bjornliege Manor?”
Scribe Rickard glanced down at his clipboard. “Our scouts are still tracking the one named Undyne. Reports show that she has exited the Oasis and is now within the Plain-plain, most likely trying to track the human’s movements. She moves around quickly, I may add.”
“I have taken the liberty of electing Colonel Fischer to personally catch her,” Leigh added with nothing short but a hint of pride. “She will not fail.”
Colonel Fischer: head of the ranged division and one of the Monster Military’s best troops. Just as dangerous from a distance as she was up-close and personal. She mixed a strong aspiration to achieve results with a composed demeanour and infallible discipline, especially after insisting that her skills were more useful with the troops as opposed to commanding them from behind closed doors.
Without complimenting that decision, Zeus moved to the next pressing issue: “And the ‘special guest’ over in A. Town? I trust you bring word of her detainment.”
Both the general and scribe started with silence, as both tried to determine which would be the one to break the news to their leader.