PLANET AGAFRA - TOLLINDO CITY

Atty first. Always, Atty first.

Dion started patting down Atticus, looking for any signs of injury while Ember shouted into the hole in his other language. Dion would never forgive himself if his little brother was injured without him knowing. “You’re still okay?”

Atticus nodded. “The burning is almost gone now. Just a bit foggy.”

“Burning? What happened?”

“I’m not sure. There was so much mana in the air all at once, I felt like I was being burned alive.”

“Humans can’t feel mana. It was probably a panic attack.”

“I know what I felt, Dion.”

Dion held his hand up to stop Atticus in his tracks. This kind of conversation was a regular occurrence. “Let’s just focus on getting out of here. The important thing is you’re okay.” He knew Atticus would back down; he always did. If there was one thing that Dion inherited from his father, it was his stubbornness.

Out of the corner of his eye, Dion could see Ember crouch like he was getting ready to jump into the hole. “What are you doing? You can’t just jump in without a plan.” It was more of a way to divert the attention away from Atticus than it was Dion caring what Ember was doing.

“My plan is to dig Echo out,” Ember said, brows knitted together while he was balanced on the edge.

This far down, the exterior walls were still intact, but a lot of the interior had collapsed. Barely any light reached this floor, and the lower levels looked even darker. Dion couldn’t even accurately guess how far down the hole went, only being able to make out some vague shapes of the rubble below.

“That’s not enough of a plan. What if we can’t get back up from down there?” Dion objected, shaking his head.

“We?” Ember was even more confused.

“Were you planning to go alone?”

The crouching man looked a little conflicted and glanced at Atticus for a moment.

“Why?”

It wasn’t hard to gather what he meant. Atticus was safe, and the deep dark hole likely wasn’t. If Dion and Atticus followed him in, they would potentially end up in more danger.

That made Dion suddenly re-evaluate his actions. Why was he helping? They’d probably have left Dion and Atticus for dead to save themselves if the building hadn’t collapsed first. Neither of them had offered any assistance while Atty was out of commission. Ember hadn’t even asked for assistance when Dion threw the rope to him, that was something Dion decided to do all on his own.

“Well, I need to repay you for catching the rope when I fell?” The excuse sounded flimsy, even to Dion. The truth was, he wasn’t sure. It just felt like the right thing to do. Dion was no saint, but leaving someone to die when helping was an option just felt wrong.

The slow blink and continued confusion on Ember’s face still had Dion second-guessing himself.

“I didn’t do that.” Ember glanced at Atticus again.

“What Dion’s trying to say,” Atticus interrupted, “is that he wants to help. I do too. Besides, you might need more hands to move a lot of this debris. Some of those chunks look really big.”

An enormous smile immediately spread on Ember's face and he stood up, excitedly. “Alright! Last time Echo was trapped it took me days to dig alone.”

“This has happened before?” Atticus asked, surprised.

Ember shrugged. “Kind of. Collapses are common in asteroid mines.”

“Asteroid mines? Is that why your eyes are–”

“Atty!” Dion snapped. He’d always taught Atticus not to ask questions about appearances. Some people didn’t like having their physical features scrutinised. Dion had learned that the hard way when a metal fist landed hard in his stomach as a boy. The underbelly of society was crawling with strange shapes, sizes and colours, but nobody wanted to talk about it.

“My eyes?” There was no hostility in the question, just more genuine confusion. Dion wondered if this man had ever had a proper conversation with anyone in the worlds before. For someone fluent in at least two languages, Dion had expected Ember to be more socially aware.

The mana powder used in everyday life was mined from asteroids in belts on the furthest edges of the galaxy. Miners often developed health problems as a result of too much exposure to the dust in the air, such as mana poisoning, and even, Dion guessed, powder-lung. Most of these illnesses were incurable.

Atticus cleared his throat and fidgeted on the spot. “How are we going to get down there?”

“I still think we could make it if we jump in.”

Dion rolled his eyes and picked up the remainder of the tablecloth rope. “Or we could use this again.” There was still about half left. Despite the torn edge, the other pieces looked like they were still tied securely together.

“Okay, but that’s way less cool.” 

“He’s right, it would be less cool,” Atticus agreed.

With a very long inhale, Dion ignored them both and began tying the remnant of rope to a partially exposed support beam. The drop was walled in, so there was no chance of swinging this time. 

The longer Dion examined the wall, the more he could see the Dion-shaped spot on the wall where he’d initially hit after the fall. The fact that it was still standing after the solid impact was a good sign. The fact that Dion was still standing after the solid impact was also a good sign. What did Ember mean earlier when he said he didn’t grab the rope? 

“Are you going first?” Atticus asked, standing over Dion.

Dion nodded. “I’ll let you know if it’s safe.”

“Oh, take this!” Ember held out a small pistol, similar to the one Echo had been using. Dion didn’t need convincing. The siren had stopped, but that didn’t necessarily mean there were no more monsters. There was still a lot of muffled shouting from out in the street.

With the wall to anchor his feet, this descent was easier to manage. Dion’s body ached, but it didn’t take long for him to reach the end of the rope. Luckily, there wasn’t a long drop to solid ground.

As Dion’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, he could make out the shape of something that vaguely resembled crab legs. With a start, he drew the pistol and pointed at it. The ambient light of the mana gauge was enough to reveal that it was not, in fact, a monster, but a broken pole of some kind.

He let his heart calm down before he called back up, “Safe. Come down.”

Atticus descended first, followed closely by Ember. Atticus had also been given a pistol and Ember was carrying a piece of bent metal instead.

The pit was so dark that it was hard to see which parts of the ground were solid, and which parts were made up of loose gravel. 

“It’s so dark down here, how are we supposed to find anything?” Dion grumbled mostly to himself as he tripped on a large chunk of concrete.

“I know, right?” Ember agreed, walking slowly ahead, “Imagine if one of those things was down here too.”

Dion didn’t want to imagine it. Dion didn’t want anything to do with those things ever again. He made a mental note to never come back to Agafra. Yesterday’s Children were probably not going to open another gate anytime soon, but with the dust, the heat and the precarious integrity of the infrastructure, monsters just added one extra ‘no thank you’ to the ever-growing list of reasons to leave.

“Echo?” Ember called into the gloom. The sound, aptly, echoed around the empty darkness. He was not in the least bit cautious as he casually strolled around in the dark. Unfortunately, Ember was probably the most qualified to explore dark, enclosed spaces that were potentially crawling with monsters.

The sound of shifting rubble made Dion’s heart pound again. If there was another collapse, it would be game over for everyone. He cursed himself for actively trying to be a hero. They should have just left like Ember expected them to.

Taktaktak.

All three of them stopped. The sound was similar to a clicking pen. A muffled voice followed, but Dion couldn’t make out where it came from. He didn’t think the hotel felt this large when they were outside. It was like something out of a horror game.

Ember suddenly picked up the pace, changing direction around a corner. It vaguely reminded Dion of a dog picking up a scent. As they ran, Dion could see a faint glow from underneath a large piece of wall. 

“Help me lift it,” Ember said, jamming the bent metal under the slab. Dion and Atticus joined on either side of him, pushing up with their bare hands. It shifted easily with the three of them working together.

Echo wriggled out of the gap before he lay on the ground behind them. Dion didn’t understand the word he was shouting, but from the way Echo repeated it, he guessed it was probably a vulgar word.

SKREE!

The sound reverberated so loudly in the darkness Dion almost thought it came from right beside him. He pictured the gnarly, grotesque teeth and shivered. The dim light of the mana gauges only lit up a small area. Anything deeper in the darkness was still a mystery.

“I think we should run,” Atticus suggested.

There were no arguments. All four of them sprinted back toward the light that filtered through the hole in the ceiling. Atticus slipped on the gravel, and Dion barely had enough time to catch him by the arm to stop him from falling.

Taktaktaktaktaktaktak!

Dion pulled Atticus harder than he had meant to toward the rope. Those monsters were fast. He risked a look into the darkness and saw glints of something wet. Another shiver ran down his spine and he aimed the pistol.

Laser shots flew past Dion’s head, hitting their mark, judging by the smell of seafood. Dion took his own shots, hoping that they were just as effective. He could barely see the thing, it was moving too fast and the mana gauge was nearly empty.

SKREEEEEEEEEE! Taktaktaktaktaktaktak!

“DION!” Atticus called.

Dion turned and ran toward the rope again. Echo was already at the top, aiming into the hole with his own gun, while Ember was climbing the rope. Atticus was still at the bottom, waiting for Dion.

“Climb!” Dion shouted just a moment before a large leg landed beside him. He could feel the thing’s hot breath on his back. Every part of his nervous system was screaming at him as he pushed himself harder.

Atticus hesitated but started climbing when Echo started shooting at the creature from overhead.

Unfortunately, Dion was in the way of the main body, and with such skinny legs, the monster was hard to hit. Shots zipped past his head several times and Dion wasn’t sure if Echo was a really good shot or if Dion was just unbelievably lucky to not get hit.

Wetness splashed onto the side of Dion’s face. His stomach churned. It smelled like pungent fish.

Dion reached the rope at roughly the same time that Atticus had reached the top. He barely had time to grab the rope before Echo had emptied the rest of the mana gauge into the monster. The thing fell to the ground so close to Dion that one of the jutting, jagged teeth pierced his jacket and grazed his arm.

“I thought you were going to die for a minute there,” Echo said, a little bit too cheerfully for Dion’s liking.

Without a word, Dion scaled the rope, gritting his teeth the whole way. There were so many emotions swirling around his head at that moment. Atticus helped to pull him back up over the edge, where Dion took the time to remember how to breathe normally again.

“How do we get out from here?” Atticus asked, looking around.

Echo shrugged, “I was going to take the stairs.”

“It’s so dark in there. What if there are more of those things?” Atticus asked, screwing up his nose.

“We could use the flashlights?” Ember suggested.

Dion glared at Ember. “Flashlights?”

“Yeah!” Ember flicked a switch on the pistol Atticus was holding. “All of the pistols have one, just in case it’s too dark to see.”

The breath Dion took through his nose was the deepest he’d ever taken in his life.