Soon I could see things buried in the sides of the tunnel. I saw jars pushed into the earth, like the ones often used to preserve jam. The light in here was coming from inside of them, not the minerals. There were images inside, each with their own feeble luminescence, and I could see the forms of people moving, talking, and just living their everyday lives. Once or twice I thought I saw my own face—or was it Lea’s?—inside one of those jars, but I was falling too fast to be sure. I saw other things: brass keys, the bones of a small dog, coils, beads, threads, pages from a book, a burnt polaroid…the more I looked at them, the sadder I became, and eventually I closed my eyes and allowed myself to be consumed by the sensation of the fall.
Then, little by little, that sensation weakened until I realized that I wasn’t falling anymore. I opened my eyes again and saw that I lay at the bottom of a cavern in the shadow of a pair of massive statues. They were wreathed in torches; a dramatic, flickering light that made their tortured faces almost come alive. The figures looked like ogres, but human in shape. Each held a spear and assaulted one another with their weapon, stabbing each other’s heart. The left one’s face looked mad with fright and the right one deeply miserable.
I rose to my feet, fixated on the statues. In between them was a pathway: the cavern went even deeper. I approached the statues, my dread increasing, half expecting them to burst to life and skewer me. With careful steps, I crossed under the portal they created with their curved arms and torsos and once again passed into darkness.
The temperature began to drop. I shivered, holding tightly to myself as the hairs on my arms and neck stood up. The further I went, the more intolerable it got. It seemed as though I was making my way through an arctic tundra. Fingers and toes stung with that painful sort of numbness only severe cold can bring.
Spotting another torch in the distance, I picked up my pace. It hung upon a brick wall and behind it I sensed a pounding disturbance. I screeched to a halt, but a little too late. A long, pale arm with black, decaying fingernails ripped through the solid brick and seized the front of my robe, pulled me against the wall and wrapped around my shoulders. As I tried to pull away, more hands exploded through the wall and grasped me from head to toe, swarming me with dirty, rotting fingernails and white, clammy skin—waterlogged skin. They bashed my cold-numbed limbs, creeping over every inch of my body, pulling me deeper and deeper into the walls until all I could feel was the surging of bones and flesh. I couldn’t breathe. Fingers were wiggling in my mouth, scratching at my eyes, digging into my ears, ripping out my hair.
I somehow reached the other side of this, and they thrust me away at once. I staggered forward, a bloody and beaten mess, only to crash into a set of rusty iron bars. Somehow I’d been trapped in a cage through the chaos of those surging hands. I could see beyond the bars that many other cages surrounded me, and inside of them all were people—people with kind eyes, young people, beautiful people, children and gentle old folks. But they all cowered in fear at the things moving between our cages, things that appeared monstrous to me. I, too, cringed and followed the examples of the other captives, moving as far away from the creatures outside of the cages as I could.
Through the lattice of my own fingers I dared to look upon the infernal beasts. They were horrific to behold, not quite animal, not quite human. They had attributes of primal things, of things that existed before names and understanding. I saw parts of insects, of crustaceans, of things from the dark places of the earth. Things that lived in total darkness and fed upon the detritus of life.
Yet they smiled and laughed like an intoxicated mob at a carnival, much like I had just an hour ago at Halloween parties. Some were half-formed, and others were torn apart, but all were reveling in the torment of the innocents behind the bars. I, too, had become one of many trapped victims. I was one more toy for the unlimited, curious cruelty of this world.
Things were burning somewhere close. There was screaming. Something was being roasted on a spit—something that once had eyes.
Will no one help them? Will no one help us?
Below my feet was a heap of bones, and between them through the sockets and ribs crawled dark things. I could see some of my fellow victims being heaved into a pit of white-hot flame. Nothing was spatial, just terrible images, stretching on forever in this disproportionate expanse that wouldn’t apply to the rules of scientific structure. And some victims were drowning. The drowning, the drowning was the worst, sinking deeper into black water, coughing sputtering, choking. Some music grew loud now, off-tune and grinding into my ears, and the more I looked around, the more I came to understand that all of this was happening inside of one, huge being: one living entity with parts of his body caved out and turned into structures and—
You’re losing it, Sarah, rang a voice from inside of my head. It wasn’t my voice, though it sounded so similar. None of this is real. The longer you look, the deeper it goes, and soon you’ll become a part of it for good. I could feel electricity course within the region of my chest, and it cleared my mind, washing away the ache and horror from witnessing so much suffering. And then they were coming at me again, with their wild eyes and sharp teeth and weapons raised.
“STOP!” I screamed, and drove my dagger into the ground. When the knife’s point hit the pile of bones, the dagger broke apart, exploding into a thousand shards of light and tearing apart the hellish vision before me.
It wiped the chaos from existence in one brilliant conflagration of light that burned my eyes. When the luminous flash faded, I could feel I was standing just above the deepest part of the City now. I could feel it working and turning and moving and changing beneath my feet, yet all I could see was that I was inside a little sphere of silvery metal and that he was there with me.
He was sleeping, in a bed also made from that shining, bright metal as he lay among sheets of gossamer and silk. He looked peaceful, unaware of where he was or what was happening around him—or because of him. But he also looked sad, as if he was dreaming of a happier time that he knew, in the far reaches of his mind, was his ruined paradise.
“Stephen,” I said as I drew near him, his face and features so familiar to me. He looked just as he did when I’d last seen him in the hospital, the same dark, unkempt hair, the same pale skin and sharp features. It was that face that always made Lea light up when she saw him coming up the driveway. He wouldn’t wake when I said his name, so I sat beside him on the bed and shook his shoulder. With some effort he began to stir and opened his eyes.
“Lea, Lea,” he whispered, rising and clutching my shoulders, eyes alight with rapture. “Oh, God, I had such a terrible dream!”
“Stephen, look closer,” I said. “It’s me, not Lea.”
“What?” He squinted at my face. “No, no it’s you. I know it’s you. It’s got to be.”
“No, wake up, look at me,” I said, taking his face in my hands and staring into his eyes. “See? Not Lea.”
“You…you’re right,” he breathed, and I sighed as I lowered my hands and gave him a sad smile.
“Sarah. But this is—” He looked around and started to get his bearings, memories clearly coming back to him. “This is Unreal City, isn’t it? Only we’re—”
“Below it,” I finished for him and once again I had his attention. “You’ve been trapped down here for months, Stephen. You can’t wake up. You’re in a coma.”
He couldn’t seem to digest this. “No, no, this can’t be right. This can’t be Unreal City if you’re here, unless Lea told you? She wanted to from the beginning, you know, but I made her promise not to. This place was supposed to be for us.” He sounded distasteful at the thought, but my chest seized with emotion. My sister had wanted to share this with me….
“No, Stephen,” I heard my voice warble and steeled it with all my might. “Can’t you remember what happened?”
A wave of darkness passed over his face and he dropped his eyes to the gossamer bedspread. “The last thing I remember is—is we were in town. That
asshole from school—Isaac—was following me around, shouting things at me, threatening me, and I was mad. Lea made him go away and we walked all night talking about it. I was still upset and then I saw him again and—”
“That was back in June. It’s almost November now,” I said quietly, throat catching as I thought of what I had to say next. I knew how it felt to have that kind of weight just thrown onto you. I’d heard it from a stranger, a policeman who came and went as if he were the one that had taken Lea from us. It was unthinkable to have someone you hardly knew deliver the news that the most important part of your life had just been erased…to have that person see you screaming, to have that person witness you fall to pieces bit by bit. “You’ve been sleeping.”
“That long?” He seemed stunned.
It was hard to believe Stephen had done this. I knew he’d had a rough time in school, but he was always so gentle with Lea and my family. Yes, he’d been into weird stuff, things that made my parents’ eyebrows raise when Lea told them about him, but I always thought it was just a front. I never thought he’d had it in him to be so malicious.
A shadow crossed his expression as more of his memories returned. “He’s dead, isn’t he? Isaac? I ordered Elk to kill him, to kill them all, all the ones who were making good people’s lives miserable. He really did it, didn’t he?”
“Y-yes, Stephen, your familiar has hurt, well, a lot of people now. He’s sick, I think, that’s why I came here, to try and help him and you. Why did you do it? Why?”
“Because I’d had enough of their bullshit!” he shouted with such fury that I finally glimpsed the part of him that was capable of such an act. Something in his eyes changed in that moment. “They break people down for fun. They ruin people’s lives, picking off the weak ones just because they can, just because they’re bored.” Stephen was frantic now, rambling and shivering with fervid rage.
“They made my life unbearable, so full of shame and hate and—it was all I could remember. They started on me when I was a kid, just a kid. I was hounded, degraded—cornered and attacked. And trash like Isaac—he didn’t deserve to live. Not after what he put me and everyone else he targeted through. Him and that bastard Poe. That sadistic fuck. He tried to hurt me. He came to my garden and threatened us. Called Lea things—horrible things. You would’ve done the same if you’d heard.” Stephen’s eyes were wild and I shrunk back from him. This wasn’t the same boy I’d known, not at all. His ranting grew into a manic, screaming tirade.
“And I know it wasn’t just them, either, there are thousands of them. They torture all the people who they don’t see as equal and I thought—I thought who will help them? Of course it had to be me. I could put a stop to them for good. Bring justice, free all the innocent people Isaac tormented. And rid Unreal City of filth like Poe. I had the power to make this world better, to get the bad guys. I thought I could be a hero and I’d been thinking about it for a while. After Isaac found us that night and started talking to Lea the way he did I just—”
“But did you have to kill them, Stephen?” I couldn’t stop myself, and instantly regretted it. Stephen’s eyes grew very wide and he stepped closer, an accusatory finger pointed at me.
“See that’s the problem with this world, that’s just it. You’re the problem. No one understands. You don’t know what I’ve been through. My first memory is of getting sand thrown in my face in kindergarten. They just picked me. They thought the way I reacted was funny, they thought my anger and pain and terror was funny. So they kept it up, and it got worse and worse through the years. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been beat up for entertainment, degraded—for their amusement! I couldn’t leave my house without feeling scared for my safety and it was a game to them!” He was shrieking now and poking me hard. I slapped his hand away, but he grabbed me by the front of my shirt.
“And you want to know why you’re the problem, Sarah? You want to know why?”
“Let me go! Stop it, Stephen!”
“Because every time I went to someone like you for help—a teacher, my parents, a counselor, a campus supervisor, the police—anyone who had the power to stop them they would do…nothing. Sure, they give it a token try because they had to, but they never saved me. They always came back to laugh at me. They kept me in my cage. Those monsters got away with what they did because they were good at keeping their hands clean. No one but Lea would help me! No one. And they got away with it!”
As I beheld all the fury and anguish within his desperate eyes, my brain made a connection. That hell-scape I’d seen, the one I’d broken with my knife, wasn’t Unreal City itself. It was still Stephen’s garden. Those creatures swarming with all those vile displays of cruelty—those were his demons. That was how he felt almost every day of his life. His life had gone that far out of his control, and he’d been given unlimited power—the power to finally stop all that pain. I could almost understand him. I knew then what to say, how I could get through to him.
“I’m sorry, Stephen, I’m sorry that happened to you. I can feel why you’d want to see them pay for what they did to you. But you have to know that’s not what she would’ve wanted. That’s not what she wanted, was it? She—” I pressed gently, trying to jog his memory. From the look of despair that coursed through his expression I figured the memory of that night was starting to come back. He let me go, his anger deflating.
“No, she tried to stop him, she—she—and Aoife was yowling too and—”
“Who?”
“Lea’s familiar, she looks like a white cat with bright blue eyes. You must’ve seen her now if Lea told you…she must’ve brought you here, that’s why you’re here and Lea is—” Stephen was starting to sound frantic and I held up my hand to stop him.
“Lea’s dead, Stephen. She died trying to stop you,” I whispered, taking his hand as I saw his face go white. “That’s why you shut down. You’ve been down here, unable to accept that.”
“No!” His scream shook the very walls and it was like a tremor had moved the ground. I almost lost my balance and fell off the bed, but steadied myself, keeping my eyes fixed on him. I could tell by the tears sliding down his cheeks that he knew it was true; he just didn’t know what to say. “No, this…this can’t be…this wasn’t the way it was supposed to happen. I—” He stopped, his eyes turning cold and severe. “I don’t believe you.”
“Stephen, please—”
“ELK!” he cried to the ceiling. He called the name of his familiar again and again, and for a moment I thought it was all in vain until I spotted a drip of viscous water coming from the top of the sphere we were trapped inside. I shrunk back from the pool the drips were forming on the floor, terrified to be trapped in this small space with the Antler-Man.
Stephen watched my aversion with intense, searching eyes. Bit by bit, drop by drop, Elk formed until he stood above us, tall and crooked with the tips of his antlers pushing up against the inner curves of the sphere. For the longest, tensest of moments, Stephen was at a loss for words.
“Elk. Elk what happened to you? You changed. You…you’re different. You look like you’re rotting. What’ve you done, Elk?” Stephen murmured.
“Your bidding. I’ve done your bidding. Purge the world of the undeserving. Find her. I’ve brought her to you. See? See? Won’t you feed me now? I’m dying master, I’m dying!”
“No, no!” Stephen cried, throwing the bed sheets off and standing. He was hardly half his familiar’s height. “You’ve ruined everything. You murdered her!”
“She decided her own fate. She stepped in the way. Suicide. There was nothing I could do to prevent it,” he breathed through his fetid hole of a throat. “It was you that brought about this undoing of lives. I was merely the tool in your hand.”
“You’ll pay for what you did! You’ll pay, you’ll pay!” he raged at the familiar and went to throw a punch. I cried out and tried to catch his arm, but was too late to stop him.
The familiar put up its tree branch hands and caught his
fist before it could connect. Stephen yelped as his familiar’s hands curled around him, his finger-like appendages snaking around Stephen’s arms like roots, spreading over his entire body. He was screaming as the familiar leaned forward and lifted the boy into the air. The creature’s mouth opened wide and he tilted his head back as it stretched wider.
He swallowed his master. Elk’s skin bulged outward to fit Stephen’s body inside his emaciated form. I stumbled backward, stunned. Stephen’s wriggling form was melting bit by bit inside the familiar’s engorged belly as pools of water dripped from its mouth and out the hole of the vat.
As the creature digested Stephen and the thrashing within his belly stopped, Elk’s body began to transform. He sprouted several leg-like limbs from the top of his back and his hair grew like weeds. A snout formed, lined with fangs, and those little pinhole eyes became great, bulging spheres of dark yellow, red, and green. This was no longer Elk. The being roared at me and I shrunk back as its many legs curled around the sides of the room.
I was awed by the sight of it—so terrible and full of hatred and anger. There was nothing I could do, nowhere I could run. My diamond knife had broken and disappeared. I was weak here, crushed by the pressure of being so deep under the ground. There was no exit this deep under the City. I couldn’t get out.
I can’t fight this. I can’t even fend it off. There’s no way around it. Bolts of understanding shot through me and I stared at the revolting sight, but I already understood what I needed to do to get out of this. There’s no way around it, and if I can’t run from it, and I can’t kill it, then I just have to go through it.
I knew analyzing it would stop me in my tracks, and without hesitation I leapt up, reaching for its jaws. It snarled at me, hooked its teeth into my arms, and—just as I suspected—began to suck me down its throat. I squeezed my eyes shut and felt myself slide down the stinking, slimy chute into its stomach. I became completely submerged in the fluid—I was drowning, disappearing, being assimilated.
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