I was home alone when they came. My boys were trekking up Mount Kyanjin Ri in Nepal and I was getting a little staycation. No cooking, minimal cleaning, reading, writing and sleeping without being awakened by earthshaking snores or multiple visits to the bathroom that didn’t coincide with my own.

I always thought I would have a heart attack and die if someone broke into my home in the middle of the night. Alternatively, I saw myself grabbing the surprisingly sharp pocketknife I keep by the bed and shocking said invader with a nicely placed jab to the neck…or wherever my flying fist might land.

I did neither.

It was my third night alone and I was sleeping like a baby when a hand covered my mouth, startling me awake for the seconds it took another set of hands to put pressure on my carotid arteries. At least, I assume that’s what he did. All I know is one second I was ready to bite a hand and scream, the next I was waking up in what appeared to be a one-room cabin. I was laying on a cot, hands and feet bound, while seven men sat watching me.

“I hope you don’t think you can actually get a ransom for me. We own a small business. We don’t have major profits. We pay our bills and have no debt. That’s it. You seriously chose the wrong side of town. You know we live on the blue and pink-collar side of town, right? I mean, you saw our house. What were you thinking?”

I babble when I’m nervous. Needless to say, I was nervous.

“You have been chosen,” said the only un-bearded fellow.

You can imagine where my mind went but all I said was, “Is this some kind of religious thing?”

“No,” replied a different guy.

“Kind of,” said a third.

Right. “What have I been chosen for?”

“To kill us.”

I giggled, also a nervous habit. “Great. Give me a gun and the keys to a car.”

“It is not that simple.”

“Of course it isn’t.”

“We were sent here long ago as punishment. We had to live and suffer as you humans…”

“Whoa, what. Wait. You humans? Um, I am sure I don’t really want to know, but, if you are not human, what are you?”

“There is no word for us that you would understand.”

“Fallen angels?” I said, giggling again while my skin had goosebumps and a sheen of sweat.

“More like gods, than the angels that come to your mind.”

“Well, if you are gods, how did you get sent here?”

“We angered the Creator. Our punishment is eternal damnation. Eternal damnation is living and suffering as a human without end. We cannot die.”

“Then how am I supposed to kill you?

“It is the night of the seventh moon in the seventh year of the seventh century since we were relieved of all that made us gods and forced to be but men.”

“Okay.”

“On this night alone, and not again for another seven hundred of your years, the barriers between this plane and ours will open for seven hours – from now until dawn. In that time, if we are killed, we will finally throw off the chains of our earthly imprisonment and return to our true existence.”

“And if I kill you, I get to go home?”

“Yes.”

“So, give me a gun.”

“As I said, it is not that simple.”

“Yeah, I remember. So, what’s the deal?”

“We cannot just let you kill us. We must run away from you, and we have to try not to die. You have to catch us and stab us seven times with this dagger,” the un-bearded one said, pointing to a very pointy knife with a bejeweled handle that I hadn't noticed on the cot next to me.

“Well, I guess you’re stuck here because there is no way I can do that. Have you looked at yourselves lately?” They were seated, but it was obvious they were all in the over six feet, six pack, I eat steak for breakfast and bench-press your mom group.

’While the barriers are down, you will be able to tap into energies and powers you’ve never dreamed of. But you must figure it out on your own or else it would be considered cheating, and we will continue to rot in this hell.”

“Tell me how you really feel.”

“I did.”

“Oy. Anyway, I have never killed anyone, and it is not on my list of things to do. Couldn’t you take me home and get someone else to do it? Why not hire a contract killer or something.”

“We cannot hire someone. That would be cheating.”

“And this isn’t?”

They looked at each other.

“You have been chosen by the Creator.”

“You are fricking kidding me. You must have really pissed him, or her, off.”

“Clearly since we are here.”

“No, I mean, I am the last person in the world to choose to kill someone. Seriously.”

“If you do not kill us, you will die.”

“As I said, last person. I’ve been suicidal since I was 12. Get it over with. Just shoot me now.”

“You do not want to die.”

“Maybe, maybe not. But I definitely don’t want to stab seven men.”

“If you do not find and kill at least one of us an hour for the next seven hours, you will lose a finger each hour. If you do not kill us all by dawn, those you have killed will rise as we have ever done these last seven hundred years we have tried to die in the many wars that have plagued the earth, and you will be beheaded – by seven strokes of seven angry immortal men.”

“That sounds horribly painful.”

The only one who hadn’t spoken looked at me with haunted eyes and said, “It is.”

I wasn't certain we were talking about the same thing.

“Fine, I guess I have no choice. Untie me.”

They looked at each other with a sense of hope or dread, not sure which. “You must free yourself. And you must do it without one of your fingers.” As he said this, one moved quickly to flip me on my side and, using something that must have been made for cutting off fingers, he snipped off my pinkie.

I was still screaming when they left the cabin.

I wasted fifteen minutes of the first hour whimpering. Then I started to think. Okay, if the walls are down, so to speak, and those guys were supposedly like gods, I must be able to tap into some powerful energy.

Why would I be chosen? I thought. Well, because it had to be someone who didn’t want to kill, who had a healthy fear of a painful death if not death itself…what else? Maybe also someone who wanted to believe in other worlds and beings or varying layers of existence… who wasn’t power hungry.I suspect someone who sought power would have a field day figuring out what powers he could get tonight and how to hold on to them.

I just wanted to get home so I could see my boys again. I might even take off from work and hop on a plane like they’d wanted.

A half hour had gone by before I thought, so, if the walls are down, on this amalgamated plane, my pinkie is not gone and the bindings on me do not exist.

And it was so.

I took a deep breath. OMG, I thought. I wanted to think myself anywhere but there, but figured I would end up fingerless and headless, so instead, I grabbed the dagger and went out the door. I thought myself into the form of an owl, carrying the dagger in my claws. I flew above the surrounding forest and began my hunt.

I found the first within minutes. I landed in the branch above where he hid, retook a human form and landed a death blow before he knew I was there. And then I added the six to complete the seven stabs.

And yes, I meant “a human form.” Why take my normal, five foot seven, 120-pound form when I could be six foot six carrying two hundred fifty pounds of pure muscle?

I thought myself into owl form and set off to find the other six.

I found all but one within the first three hours, but I hunted all night for the seventh, flying miles of circles around the cabin. I finally flew back to the cabin to rest and think. As I was landing, I saw him through the window. He was sitting, looking at the door, a gun in his hand.

Hmmm, I thought. Either he doesn’t want to go back, or he has to make a good showing.

I flew up to the roof. I heard him speaking.

“I know you are near. I can feel you. You will not be able to kill me, and my brothers will come back, and we will have to stay here. We will take your head and we will have life still. I don’t want to return to the ether. I have grown to love this world. I do not want to leave it.”

Great.

I wondered how to get in the cabin without being seen. Then I thought, why go in the cabin? If there were no air in the cabin, he would suffocate and die. Bingo!

I could hear him choking from my perch on the roof. Within moments, there was silence.

I flew down and peeked in the window. He was on the floor, unmoving. I thought restraints onto his wrists, just in case, and removed the gun from the room. Then I entered, dagger at the ready. As I stabbed him for the seventh and last time, his body faded away or perhaps it was just me, for I found myself standing over my bed in my home. Alone.

The dagger was still in my hand.

"Wake up!"

The back of my head bangs against the steel wall of the converted truck container, as an enormous man in army fatigues yanks the potato sack from my head and shoulders. A second later, a cold bucket of ice water is thrown into my face. Some of the icy water goes into my mouth and I let out a sharp gasp. This elicits sarcastic laughter from the seven people gathered in the dimly lit room.

"Looks like she's alive," a second man, with a ruddy face, says around the cigarette in his mouth. He takes a step closer and blows the smoke from his cigarette in my general direction. His voice takes on a deep tone and he leans to almost stare into my eyes. "That's good. We need a live one."

Fear, as well as cold, causes my body to shiver violently. My clothes cling to my skin where the water has drenched them, and I hunch my shoulders to keep another shiver from taking hold. Finally, I find the courage to speak.

"What is this? Who are you? And what am I doing here?" I say through chattering teeth.

"Who we are does not matter," the enormous man says. My eyes roam to the hunting knife on his right hip.

"As to what you are doing here? You're about to find out," army fatigue man says with a devilish smile.

"Why? Why are you doing this," I yell; while yanking at the tape binding both wrists. "I don't even know you. Any of you! What reason do you have to do this?"

Fatigue man pulls back his right arm and smacks me hard across the face. I bite down hard on my tongue, the taste of blood filling my mouth.

"I was getting to that," army fatigue man says. The evil grin never quite leaves his face.

A tall woman, with stringy hair melts out of the shadows. Her eyes are extremely sunk in and she appears unwell. A meth addict perhaps? Hard to tell in the darkness enveloping the room.

"We're here to play a game," the woman says. Her eyes lock on mine and there is no mirth in them. Whatever this game, I know I will not enjoy it.

"The game is called win, lose, and die," the woman says through widely spaced teeth. "You either win, or you die. It's that simple."

Ruddy face man steps even closer to my chair of bondage. He leans down into my face. So close that I can smell his rancid breath and count every blackhead on his nose.

"The rules are very simple,"ruddy face says. He lets out another puff from his nearly expended cigarette. "As you can see, there are seven of us here...Not counting you. We're all terminal cancer patients. Some lung cancer, Sweet Nelly over there has pancreatic cancer, and I've got the ole melanoma. But don't go feeling too sorry for us. We don't want your pity. We're also all former soldiers. The best of the best until cancer got its hooks into us. That's why I say, we don't need your pity. None of us wants to leave this world groveling and on our knees. We want to leave this world as we are....As what we've always been...Soldiers. Warriors for the cause. And you're gonna help us do that! Or you'll die."

The stringy haired woman, named Sweet Nelly, comes to stand beside ruddy face. A glint of metal catches the candlelight and I realize she is holding a large knife similar to the one on fatigue man's hip. She expertly flips the knife in the air, catches it, and then slams it into the wood of the small table beside me. I glance at the knife before returning my gaze to her face.

"I don't think Ronald here is explaining the rules right. So let me simplify them a little more for you. This game is all about the hunt. You hunt us...We hunt you," Sweet Nelly says. She makes a show of glancing down at the watch on her nearly skeletal wrist.

"It's 10:37. That gives me just under thirty minutes to lay down the ground rules and leave you to work out some things. At 11 p.m., we're gonna head into the woods. And you're gonna do your best to hunt us down...One by one...And end our misery. You can use anything you find around here. Nothing is forbidden. Anything goes. You have until sunrise."

"What?" I cry and once again pull at my restraints. "I'm not hunting down anybody! You people are crazy. Cut me loose. I'm not playing your sick little game. I won't tell the authorities. I swear. But I'm not killing anyone."

The fatigue man backhands me. He places a booted foot on the edge of the chair and snarls into my face.

"I don't think your comprehending what we're saying," he says in a baritone growl. "You don't have a choice. You play the game...Or you die. You lose the game...You die. Those are the rules. You think we'd let you see our faces if we had any intention of letting you return to the real world while we're still alive? Think about it. You can't be that stupid!"

"Thank you, Charles...I've got this," Sweet Nelly says all too sweetly. At that moment, it becomes very clear who is the real mastermind behind this sick game.

"Like I said, you have until sunrise. And for every hour that all of us are still alive...You lose a finger," Sweet Nelly says with a sick smile. "One finger...Or one of us. Your choice."

"No...No...NO," I scream and pull furiously at my restraints. "No. Help! Help! Somebody help!"

It is Sweet Nelly who slaps me this time. My head rockets back and bangs against the metal wall yet again.

"Shut up! Just shut up!" Sweet Nelly yells into my face. "No one's gonna hear you out here. That's just stupid! Shut up!"

"No...You can't do this!" I scream back. I consider spitting in her face, but realize that would be a reckless move. Especially, with a knife jutting out of the table less than three feet from me. "You people are crazy! CRAZY!"

Ruddy face simply shrugs. "So what? Doesn't change anything," ruddy face says and pulls a pack of cigarettes from his front shirt pocket.

"But I'm just getting to the best part," Sweet Nelly states. Her eyes become narrow portals into the blackness of her evil soul, and she wrenches the knife from the wood of the table.

"You lose one of your fingers now. Think of it as an incentive. Your choice. Right pinky or left? Can't have you losing any opposable thumbs. Might make it hard to do a lot of things."

"Nooooo...," I am unable to keep the scream from my lips. "NOOOO!"

"Oh?" Nelly says. "Then, I'll choose."

Before I can bat an eyelash, ruddy face and fatigue man leap forward. A handkerchief is pressed against my nose and consciousness starts to slip away. Somewhere in the back of my mind, as I slip further and further down into unconsciousness, I feel a jolt of pain in my left hand. My left pinky. She is hacking off my left pinky.

11: 06 p.m.

Game time

I awaken sometime later, facedown on the floor. My restraints have been cut off and there is a bandage wrapped around my left hand. My left pinky is definitely gone. I spy it sitting in a mason jar of solution on the table where Sweet Nelly had plunged the hunting knife.

Climbing slowly to my feet, I glance around the room. The candle has almost completely burned down, but there is a stack of unlit candles in the corner. My mind races as I grab two candles and stick the wicks into the flame of the one left burning. Instantly, the light in the room grows brighter. I use the lit candles to assess what is around me.

I search through every cabinet, and in every nook, cranny, and corner of the truck container. My progress is hindered by the persistent pain in my left hand. It is only a five on a scale from 1-5. So, I can only guess that the area was numbed; or maybe I was drugged. Either way, when the nerves finally wake up; it's gonna hurt like a son of a meat biscuit. I need to get moving.

Staring at all of my treasures, I sit down on the floor to begin assembling my weapons. Tripwires, nets, arrows, spears, and the knife covered in my own blood I found in a drawer. Not a bad start. I've got only 41 minutes before the next finger comes off.

If they really want it. Let 'em come and get it!

End Part One

I walked home the usual way after a night out: on an isolated country road, which led to a forest. It was pitch black but I was not afraid. The area was safe.

Suddenly, a hand came out of nowhere and clamped my mouth. I felt myself being lifted into the air and bundled into a minivan. Before I could even catch a glimpse of my abductors, several hands held me down and a band was tied over my eyes. There was the screech of tyres and the van sped off.

The journey was quiet but long. The van drove through several road turnings, so that I did not know where I was. When we arrived at our destination, the same number of hands virtually pushed me out of the van and a hand clamped me on each side, dragging me towards a house. I heard a key turn into the lock. I was shoved through a corridor then virtually thrown onto the floor of a room.

Someone grabbed a chair and tied my hands and feet to it in a tight knot. I tried to struggle, but a boot clamped hard onto my foot.

"Stay still," said a gruff, male voice.

The blindfold was abruptly torn from my face. There were seven men in the room, all hard-faced, glaring at me with hate. I had never seen them before.

"You are the daughter of David Fielding, the oil magnate," the original man said. "Don't try to deny it because I know."

How on earth did he know?

"I will set you free on one condition: You will kill one of us every hour. If not, you will lose a finger per person that you do not kill, but not a thumb and if all seven of us are still alive at dawn, you will also lose your head. Literally, do you understand?"

I stared at them, as if they had gone insane. I had never heard such a proposition before. I had never even hurt anyone, let alone tried to kill them.

He indicated the clock on the wall.

"Eleven o'clock. Your time starts now."

He untied me and gave me a knife. I wanted to run out, away from this crazy place but I did not dare. There were seven of them and he seemed deadly serious.

I took the knife with trembling hands. One of them led me to the leader, as if afraid that I would try to escape. Then held me in a way that forbade any escape. I began stabbing the leader. I stabbed and stabbed, until he lay in a pool of blood and died. The others just looked impassively, as if the sight of a person being stabbed to death in front of them was nothing. Then, hour by hour, I did the same to all the others, until there was just me left in the room. The room was bathed in blood. My legs trembling, I walked out of the place without even turning back.

"This is Investigator Lance Flair with the Perdition Georgia Police Department. I am interviewing Mr. Johnathan Reid Austin in connection with several bodies recovered from the East Perdition Woods. The time now is eight o'clock on March seventh twenty twenty-four. Mr. Austin, before we begin I want you to read this piece of paper here, it's your Miranda Rights, after you have read these rights I'll need you to sign at the bottom stating that you understand and wish to speak to me today ok? I know it will be a little difficult with your hands and all but please sign as legibly as you can."

(I took a few minutes to read the paperwork, even though I was treated pretty quickly at the hospital, my hand felt dead through the gauze. I used my middle finger and thumb to grip the pen. The resulting scribble looked nothing like my signature but fuck it. I placed the pen down on the desk.)

"I'm ready."

"Ok, well we'll start at the beginning, walk me through that night."

Investigator Flair eased the digital recorder closer to me. A lump formed in my throat. My mouth felt unusually dry even though I'd been drinking water since I was placed in this room.

"Uh well, it was around eleven pm or so on March fifth, I remember it was the fifth because it was Friday and my relief came in late. I turned the keys over to him and got into my car. I usually park in the front of the office but for some reason or another, I parked in the back that day. When I got into my car, I didn't really notice at first but now that I think about it, I didn't have to unlock it. I should've seen that as a sign."

(Flair looked at me, his stoic expression was unwavering. I continued.)

"S-so I start my car then I hear a rustling in the backseat, before I could look back, some kind of cloth was shoved over my head! I felt the driver's side door open and I was dragged out. I remember being on the ground and then feeling something hard hit me on the side of the head. When I woke up, I was in a room but I didn't know where. I heard footsteps and whispers all around me. It felt like I was covered up for hours but I really couldn't give you an exact time. All I knew was that my head was throbbing and I was scared shitless! After a while, the sheet or cloth or whatever was pulled off of my head and I'm staring at three figures wearing red robes. Each one had a mask on, one was a smiley face, the other a frown, and the third was a straight face ya know? Like one of those emoji faces with a straight line for a mouth?"

(He nodded.)

"The Smiley face one told me that they had a task for me. He, I mean, I'm not sure if it was male or female, they all had garbled and distorted voices like some kind of voice-over type thing. The Frowney took over and said that I was to kill seven people. The straight said that these people want to commit suicide but they don't dare to do it themselves. The three of them would finish each other's sentences with Smiley saying something kinda positive, Frowney telling me the dark aspect of whatever that was, and Straight providing the basic facts."

Investigator Flair wrote a note on his pad. "Did they tell you why they chose you or was this random?"

"Oh no! They made it clear that my selection was intentional! Smiley said they were on a mission to make people appreciate life. Frowney said the ones who don't should and would be eradicated. Straight told me that they had watched me for months and wanted to determine whether I cherished my life or not. See, I tried to harm myself a few times in the past, I was unsuccessful each time though."

"Yeah, I've read about the attempts. Three times right?"

(I thought there was some kind of violation with the investigator having that information but I was in no position to play lawyer at the moment.)

"Yes, well...no. It was five times maybe six? On one occasion I tried to shoot myself but the gun jammed. Nobody was home for that one so it went unreported. On the other occasions, either a friend or someone was around and got there in enough time to save me. They spoke about that too."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, Straight said they knew about my suicide attempts. ALL of them! He said that the three of them were unsure if I really wanted to kill myself or if I did so for the attention because like I said, there was always someone there to take care of me when I tried. Frowney told me plainly that they didn't like me 'riding the fence' with my life and wanted to put my death wish to the test."

"I understand, let's switch the focus a second. I understand that they had you in some type of room. Could you describe it?"

"Not really, I mean, It seemed like a basement or dungeon. Concrete walls and concrete floors. There was a toilet to the right of me and a standing shower next to that. There was a single light dangling above my head, however the rest of the room was lit with candles. I could see figures behind the three who spoke to me, they had masks on too."

"None of the other people spoke to you?"

"Not at the time no. They just stood there watching me. Straight told me that the seven people behind them were my targets. He stated that I had till dawn to complete my mission or I would pay with my own life. Frowney said that for every hour that passed without a life being taken, I would lose a finger. As you can see." I raised my hands. Pain shot through my arms like bullets.

"I tried reasoning with them, tried to convince them that I wouldn't take another person's life. My problems were my problems, other people shouldn't have to suffer because of me. Straight told me that my problems WERE other people's problems. Each time a friend or family member had to take me to the hospital or watch over me throughout the night I was affecting their lives as well. I never thought about it like that until he said it."

"Ok, continue with the night, after all your protests; you still did what you did. What changed?"

"Straight backed away from me and handed a pair of shears to one of the figures in the shadows. That's when Smiley and Frowney held me down in the chair! I-I knew some bad shit was going to happen but....my finger!?"

"The unknown figure cut your finger off?"

"Fuckin' right they did! Frowney said it was to prove that this was no prank. I needed to end these lives or they would make due on their promise. I was angry, no; I was pissed! I never felt that kinda pain before! You don't know what it does to your mind! The blood, the pain, and the sight of your pinky finger cut at the knuckle lying on the floor! That's when the 'game' began."

"So this unknown figure cuts off your finger, I understand that but how did you get free?"

"I said that's when the game began right!? That's what I meant! Smiley, Frowney, and Straight exited through a sliding door that I hadn't noticed before along with six of the other figures. The asshole that cut my finger stayed. He cut the ties off of my wrists himself and placed the shears in my hand. He drew a knife from the inside of this robe and motioned for me to stand up. No lie sir, I knew what was about to happen and still fought with myself about taking another life, missing finger and all; but the guy came at me as soon as I got to my feet!"

"How did you know the person was male?"

"Well, like I said, the guy came at me and swung at my face, he knicked my cheek right here. I took a swing at him with the shears just to keep him away from me but it didn't work, he kept coming. I kept backing and he kept coming. I knew he wouldn't stop until I was dead or he was. I tried reasoning with him by saying that this was all senseless and we could leave here together. He only said three words, 'Only one leaves.' After that, he lunged at me! I just closed my eyes and arched the shears downward."

"And you killed him?"

"You knew I had no choice, the man came at me, and I swung blindly. When I opened my eyes the shears were buried in the side of his head, just above the left temple. He let out no sound. It was just a cracking wet thud. He stood there for a second or two, stumbled forward, and collapsed onto his face. I turned him over and pulled the blades out. A little blood shot out onto my face as you can see. I pulled the mask off and confirmed it was a man."

"James Shreeveport."

"Who?"

"James Shreveport, he's the only person matching the description of those wounds. His family reported him missing a week ago. Like you, he's attempted suicide a few times. His family said he joined some sort of religious cult a few days before his disappearance.

"Oh, well, I didn't know him. After he was dead; Smiley's voice came over a loudspeaker congratulating me on my first "Victory of Life". A door opened across the room from the chair I was held hostage in. I could feel the cold night air and hear leaves bristling. I saw that the door led outdoors."

"So you left?"

"Fuck yeah, I did! Did you think I would stay there with lunatics and get killed? I ran like my life depended on it, armed with the knife I took from that Shreveport guy. The shears were too heavy; when I got outside though I couldn't tell one direction from the next. I was surrounded by woods. I just picked a direction and continued to run. After about a mile or two going God knows where I entered a clearing. I could see the moon clearly in the sky along with the Little Dipper, ya know? The constellation? So I knew I was running south because I could see that I was running away from it through the clearing. I wasn't sure, but I think Smiley's voice boomed through a speaker somewhere. I think the whole place was rigged with sound equipment. No matter where I ran, I could hear their words and instructions clearly.

He congratulated me once again on my survival and reminded me that the game was still on. The kills still needed to be completed. I didn't know at the time where any of the other figured people were. I knew that those assholes were serious so I had to play."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning I was going to find them and do what I had to do! The first guy showed me that he was committed to this bullshit so why not me? I was bleeding from my finger, tired, scared, and with the night air; I was freezing."

"So how did you survive the night? How did you find the rest?"

"Well, the second person came to me just like the first. I was in the clearing resting behind a tree and nursing my finger. I packed it with some mud and stuff to at least stop the blood flow. I don't know anything about first aid but I knew I wanted to keep as much of MY blood inside of MY body as I could. Well, while I was there; I heard footsteps in the distance. I got quiet and kept my body low, when the person walked close enough, I jumped out and started to swing! I heard a shriek and something hit me hard in the ribs. That was when I noticed this person had a bat."

"A baseball bat?"

"Yeah, but this bat was studded with small nails but the pointed parts weren't sticking out. It was more like the nails were just driven in and only the flat part of the nails were exposed. Either way, it hurt like hell!"

"This person was robbed as well?"

"Yeah, all of them still wore the robes. After the initial hit, I went to the ground, I knew the studded ends broke the skin but I also knew that this person wasn't gonna just let me kill them. They waited for me to stand and took another swing at me. I tried to block it with my arm but they hit me almost in the same spot. I heard a CRACK and found it hard to breathe. I swung at them again with the knife but I could never get in range. With every jab or lunge, they would just move out of the way and hit me! The whole thing reminded me of a boxing match where this one fighter didn't have the arm's length of his opponent. The guy was getting his ass kicked until he faked a dive."

"Faked a dive? Explain."

"He pretended to go down, he stumbled a bit after getting hit hard in the jaw. The other fighter thought it was gonna be a knockout and dropped his guard. The short-armed boxer staggered close enough to his opponent to land two quick jabs and a strong right! The combo knocked his opponent out cold. I decided to do the same! During one attack the figure hit me square in the spine! For a second, my body really did give out, I thought I was going down! I fell to my knees and started breathing harder than I really needed to. The figure stood over me and raised the bat above their head. Then she spoke."

"She?"

"Yeah, she. She said, "On a bent knee for me again Johnny?" Mr. Flair, I never knew what a person meant when they say 'their blood ran cold' but mine did. I KNEW that voice. I gripped the knife tight and jumped right at her. Two jabs and a strong right. She screamed and fell back against a tree with the knife sticking out of the side of her mouth. I snatched the mask off without giving a thought to the knife. There she sat...Jazmine."

"Jazmine Rhodes. I believe you two had a history."

"We had a lot of history. We were together for seven years. We did everything together! Clubs, parties, whatever! We just had fun. I proposed to her a few days before her birthday."

"I guess she refused?"

"Yeah, like I said, we did everything together. I was big into pills back then and she never touched a drug before meeting me. You can say I was the reason she got hooked. The parties just seemed better then! The colors were brighter the music made more sense, I mean; everything is enhanced when you're rollin'. When I proposed to her we were sitting in my living room. I brought out this ring I had bought from a pawn shop a few weeks prior and was nervous as all hell. I worked up the nerve and dropped to one knee out of the blue on her.

She had already become a full-on addict during those days. Our relationship had gotten rocky and she flat-out said that I was toxic and she needed to be surrounded with clean people to get her life back on track. She left me there with a stupid look on her face. She didn't return my calls or texts. I went by places she used to hang out and spoke to mutual friends with no luck. One person told me a few months later that she moved away but didn't know where...all this time later and there she was in front of me."

"Did she say anything or justify why she attacked you?"

"We sat there for a while. Thin, sporadic squirts of blood shot from her cheek. Through the blood filling her mouth, she told me that she blamed me for her addiction. She told me that her friends and family separated themselves from her...she was alone. So I guess she did whatever with whoever to earn money. One night, she realized she had nothing and decided to end it. She took all the pills she had saved and lay in her bathroom waiting for death. Three figures drug her from wherever hole she was living in and brought her to the same place they brought me. The three figures gave her the same ultimatum they gave me. She agreed to the terms and lived through her "session." I also noticed she wasn't missing any fingers. Jazmine told me that she suggested my name for an upcoming "session" because I needed to learn if I valued my life or not and that she was proud of me. She smiled, let out a small "I love you" and that was it. Jazmine was dead. I-I'm sorry...can I?"

"Yeah, I'll step out a moment and get you some tissue. Meanwhile, you sit tight and compose yourself. We have a lot more to discuss."

"Yeah, I understand."

"This is Investigator Flair ending the interview briefly with Johnathan Austin Reid at ten twenty on March seventh, twenty twenty-four."

(As Investigator Flair left the room, the vision of Jazmine sitting in front of that tree spun around my mind like a looped movie reel. What have I done to her? Her once beautiful face was withered and thin from years of drug abuse. I remembered kneeling down in front of her telling her I loved her too and kissing her softly on parched cracked lips. Tears oozed down my face in slow streams. I may have survived the night, but at what cost? Flair entered the room again, a box of tissue a bottle of water, and a small bag of off-brand chips in his hands. He sat them in front of me. After adjusting his notepad and taking his seat, he turned on the recorder again.)

"This is Investigator Flair with the Perdition, Georgia Police Department. This is a continuation of case number twenty-four, zero, zero zero, twenty-five. The time now is ten thirty-two on March seventh twenty twenty-four. Mr. Johnathan Austin Reid, are you ready to continue sir?"

"Yeah, sure."

"Alright, so I understand that Jazmine had died due to her injuries. I know that must've been very difficult to go through and you have my sincerest condolences."

"Thank you. It's still tough, I mean this whole thing happened just a few days ago."

"Yes sir, I know. Did you do anything with her body?"

"No, I left her there. I still had a deadline so I couldn't waste too much time. I knew whoever I came into contact with next would have the advantage. I was losing blood from my hand and the beating I took from Jaz with the bat..."

"Ok, you left her there. Did you stay in that general area?"

"No, I picked another direction and started walking. I couldn't run, my ribs and back were killing me. I placed the knife in my waistband and took Jazmine's bat. After about a half hour or so I came across a pretty shitty-looking shack. Of course, I approached the place slowly. Even though I was cold I still knew people wanted me dead. As I approached the front door I heard two voices inside. Initially, I couldn't hear what they spoke about so I inched around until I found some semblance of a window and remained quiet. There were two men inside. One said to the other 'Oh shit! He took out the chick!" They both seemed shocked I guess. I heard a short 'CHIRP' sound followed by another voice. The voice of Frowney. He told the guys that even though five followers remained, they needn't rest on the assurance that I would be killed by someone else. He stopped for a second then said; "You two have a guest outside."

My heart dropped to my feet then! I didn't have a plan but I knew at that moment the deck was stacked against me. There were cameras or something keeping track of me. Those fuckin' people could find me any time they wanted meanwhile I had to search blindly in a forest for them! After Frowney signed off and wished them luck, I ran toward the front door and waited with my back against the wall. I gripped the bat so tight that I could see the veins in my hands. As soon as the door opened one of them came out shouting. I swung in an upward arch like my life depended on it...fuck. I guess my life depends on it at that moment. I hit that man...hard. I heard a loud 'crunch' sound followed by a slight gurgling. I tried to pull the bat back to ready myself for the next guy but the bat was embedded so deep into the first guy's face I couldn't pull it out! He fell backward pulling me inside with him as I struggled to free the bat. Guy number two came straight at me with no hesitation. He was a big fuckin' guy, sir. I didn't see his weapons until he picked me up and struck me in the chest."

"He....lifted you?"

"Like I weighed nothin'! He lifted me and hit me square in the chest. The air left my body and I felt like I flew back two or three feet! I was barely able to catch my breath before he was back on me. I tried to go for the bat but it was still lodged in the first guy's face. A strong punch landed against my chin that rocked the fuck outta me. See this gap between my teeth here? I had a tooth there! That asshole knocked it out! My vision got blurry and I felt like I was going to be out cold with another solid hit like that. I figured I would use the same technique I used against

Jazmine.

I lunged at him using the knife I kept, striking him two times in the stomach then tried to go to the face. Do you believe he blocked the knife with his hand?! He didn't catch the blade, he let the blade embed itself into his palm when he blocked it from going into his face! I damn near shit myself! I stood back and just watched as he pulled it from his hand; that's when I noticed the knucks. It was no wonder why his punches felt like bricks, he had brass knuckles on. He threw the knife on the ground and approached me...no, it was more like he stalked me. I eased back and he pushed forward. I swear that bastard enjoyed the moment. Once he backed me into a corner he swung hard, a straight right but thank God I ducked in enough time, or else you would be recovering my body along with the others. His fist went straight through the wall of the shack and for a moment he was stuck. I took that instant to make a get the knife.

Once I picked it up, I made a mad dash for the guy and jumped on his back. I think I stabbed him at least six or seven times in the back before he flung me off and got his arm free. I tried to run passed him to the door of the shack, I was nearly there before I felt a hard jerk. He had a fistful of my shirt collar and pulled me back in. He spun me with ease and struck me again two times in my ribs then another one across the face. There was a crunch in my cheek, I saw stars and the scene around me started to go dark. I thought; 'this is it, this is how I die."

"It seems like he had you done for. What happened?"

"He left me alone. At least for a moment. He went to the shack's entrance. I couldn't quite see him for a second or two but I heard a squishing, sucking sound like the sound of a plunger unclogging a drain. He came back in with my bat in hand. His buddy's flesh drooped off the nail studs, dripping congealing blood onto the floor as he approached me. I tried to stand but stumbled back down. The room was spinning around me. He placed the studded end of the bat under my chin and lifted my head to meet his gaze. All I saw was the fabric of the mask at first. He removed the mask with his free hand.

"He revealed himself to you with no provocation?"

"That's right, the dude was Hispanic. He had a really thick beard and mustache I hadn't noticed that he didn't speak the entire time he was beating the shit outta me. Probably because his mouth was sewn shut! I don't know if he did it himself or someone did it but they were shut tight with what looked like fishing wire. He lifted the bat high and brought it down on my thigh. I never screamed in my life as loudly as I did then. When he lifted the bat again, my flesh joined the chunks of meat that were already on it. He brought it down again and again! Each time I was on the verge of passing out, he would inflict a new injury which would bring me out of it. I didn't know what to do really. The knife was too far out of reach, he was using the bat on me and I couldn't see the knucks but I assumed he put them in his pocket. All I could think of was the bat. He swung down the last time and I just.....grabbed it!

The studs sunk into my palms, unexpectedly; when he pulled back, his strength was enough to get me standing upright. I wrapped my good leg around his and pushed forward. We both fell back and as expected, the pain shot through every part of me. Blood gushed from my legs making the floor of the shack slick. The bat came free of his grip and skittered toward the knife. I was able to grab the bat hilt and lift it above my head. I planned on giving that motherfucker every ounce of strength I had left. A sharp feeling in my leg seemed to lock me up! He had grabbed my thigh...hard. As hard as it was, I fought through the searing pain and brought the bat down. He let out a muffled sound when I struck. I could see a visible dent in his forehead when I brought the bat up again. He was fucked up for sure but not dead, stunned at that point really. I stood as best as I could and from my upright position, I brought the bat down on him again, this time across the throat, cracking what I assumed to be his windpipe. I watched him gurgle and grasp his throat. Since he had his mouth wired shut, he couldn't open it to allow for any excess air. I made sure he had none.

I searched his pockets and as expected, the knuckles were there. I put one on my good hand and straddled him. I still remember the look on his face when I, looming over him came into his focus. I slammed my reinforced fist into his nose, shattering it on impact. I did it again and again for every strike on my leg he gave me. Fuck it, I kept going until I was exhausted. I didn't bother looking at what was left of him. In the back of my mind, I knew I was still on a time crunch. I tore a strip off of his shirt and wrapped my leg. I got the bat, my knife, and now a set of brass knuckles added to my little arsenal. I hobbled out of the shack and left the two bodies there."

(Inv. Flair leaned back in his seat and surveyed my face. My injuries were legit, he knew that, but for some reason, I felt he didn't believe my story. Without encouragement from him, I continued.)

"S-so I walked er, attempted to walk as best as I could through the woods. The unseen intercoms made an audible pop in the distance. Smiley's voice boomed from the speakers congratulating me on another victory. After that Straight took over and announced that all other 'players' could find me in the northwest section of the compound! As I said, this whole thing was set for whoever participating to fail! I was supposed to be finding them, but I'm the one being hunted! I could hear leaves crunching at multiple distances, some were close and some were further away. One thing I knew was that my location was their goal. I couldn't run and if I returned to the shack I may have been able to take on one of them but there would've been no way of escape. As best as I could I tried to conceal myself in the surrounding woodline and wait for my next attacker.

It didn't take long for someone to come around. The figure approached the shack carefully, I mean, rightfully so. As far as they knew I had killed four people. I saw the person enter and I suppose they searched the place in case I was still inside. A few minutes later they reemerged. They reached into their pocket and pulled out a flashlight. I tried to ease away and put some distance between me and the woodline but it was no good. Like I said, with the injuries and all; I bled everywhere and they knew that. They simply put the light on my blood trail and walked straight toward me. As I backed away leaves and branches crunched beneath my feet. I cursed a bit to myself, knowing I had just given away my location. Seconds later something flew passed my face and struck a tree, embedding itself. Naturally, I tried to run and as I turned another object struck me on my right shoulder blade here...see? I fell forward turning just enough so that I could land on my side. I could feel the blood running across my back. I managed to pull out the object with more effort than I should have expended. It was a hatchet.

Using a nearby tree, I pulled myself upright. I lost a lot of blood Sir and to be honest, I was losing hope of making it through the night. The figure stalked me as I tried to flee. Clutching my shoulder, I glanced back to see the guy wrench another hatchet free from a tree. That must've been what flew passed my face earlier. I could hear him laughing. Laughing! Their goal was to make me 'appreciate' life right? Then why actually try to kill me?! None of that night made sense...It still doesn't. My legs felt like rubber but I still tried to get the fuck outta away. I could hear the leaves crumpling faster and faster. The guy was running toward me! He caught up to me with ease pushing me from behind onto the ground face first. A twig jabbed me in the eye making me for a minute or two. He leaned down, grabbed my injured shoulder, and turned me over. This guy didn't wait to make a grand reveal, he took his mask off immediately. It was fuckin' Charlie!

"Charlie Brock right? You're former coworker?"

"One in the fuckin' same! My relief from earlier that night. He laid everything out for me. See, he knew about my suicidal thoughts also and on some occasions, he served as a listening ear for whenever I was going through something. He tells me that he was with this group of "life changers" a little bit after Jazmine joined. He said that through regular chit-chat he found out that Jazmine and I dated plus all of the things I put her through, which pissed him off. The reason he was late to relieve me that night was due to he making plans with the group. He was one of the ones that snatched me out of my car that night!

At that moment, he pinned me to the ground. I couldn't resist much. My body hurt everywhere and I was losing every ounce of fight I had in me. Charlie told me that although he knew the rules of this game, he didn't give a shit because he hated me for ruining Jazmine's life. He forced my right arm down, knowing that I couldn't move it much because of my shoulder. I remember exactly what he said then, like a song tune that you heard once but for some reason your brain can't forget it.

He said, "You owe us three Johnny!"

"What did you owe?"

"Fingers. I had to kill one person per hour. How was I supposed to keep track of their times of death? So he did it! Right there with my hand pinned down, he cut three fingers off my right hand. That's how I ended up like this. I cried out in pain, I told him I was sorry, I pleaded with him to let me go, but I saw nothing but hatred looking back at me. He placed my bloodied fingers into his shirt pocket.

"Proof." He said.

"I don't know if you would call it survival instinct or what but while he did that, I was

able to put my left hand in my pocket."

"I'm guessing that's where you placed the knucks right?"

"Yes sir! I clutched them tight and went right across his damn jaw! Dazed, he began to fall to one side of me, I rolled over on top of him and started hammering down punches. Each punch I landed, blood shot from my hands and his face. I wanted to beat his face into mush like the last guy but I was getting weaker by the second and he knew it.

I don't know how long the other people were there. I just knew that one minute I was beating Charlie with every bit of strength I got, to be being grappled by a completely different person. I was lifted and shoved against a tree. I tried fighting but got a punch to the ribs for my effort. Before I blacked out, I saw a figure helping Charlie up. Three figures stood in front of me...all laughing."

"They didn't kill you then? It seemed like the perfect opportunity. You were there, unconscious and one hundred percent defenseless."

"That's the point I'm making. These people weren't trying to make me appreciate life. That was a ruse. I think they were just a bunch of sick assholes that enjoyed bringing others pain. They woke me up God knows how much longer afterward. I was propped up against a tree with a hatchet to my throat. When everything came into focus, I saw that the others had already removed their masks. Charlie had me up against the three with the blade at my neck. Standing in front of him was a stocky muscular guy, I suppose he was the one that took me off of Charlie; and some chick. I didn't recognize them."

"So, why did Charlie and his associates let you live? Did they say?"

"Well, Charlie was vocal. He wanted to kill me but the female said they had to "abide by the rules of the game." I didn't bother asking about the rules set for them. All I knew was that if I lived, they had to die."

"So what did you do?"

"Charlie was always a hothead. Couldn't keep his temper under control for shit, plus he hated being told what to do. Once he started talking back to the female his guard dropped and he turned and to face her. As soon as he turned back to face me I headbutted him. I tried to put my whole head through his face! When he staggered back clutching his nose, I saw that the chick was carrying a damn crossbow. A crossbow!? I remember thinking to myself (who the fuck do these people think they are?) I saw her raise the weapon I grabbed Charlie and pulled him toward me. She fired an arrow that went through Charlie's back, out his chest, and lodged itself in the left side of my chest.

At this point, I don't know if my body suffered through so much pain that I was in a temporary shock or what, but, for a few moments I felt nothing. My mind kinda went into autopilot.

Using Charlie as a shield or battering ram, I pushed him into the stocky guy. I took one of his hatchets and launched it at the female while she tried to reload and caught her on the cheek. She stumbled back a bit but was able to maintain her focus. She fired another arrow but struck a tree. I had to close the distance on her, if not I was fucked. I snatched the arrow from the tree, got to her as quickly as I could, and jammed it as far as I could in her eye. She let out a scream as we fell to the ground together. Within seconds the stocky guy was on me, he grabbed a handful of my hair and pulled me off of the woman but I held on to that arrow. I swung back quite a few times to get him off me, stabbing him in the upper thighs in the process. The moment I broke free I spun to face him, grabbed him by the neck, pulled him close, and shoved the arrow up from the bottom of his chin to the roof of his skull. He gurgled a bit and staggered awkwardly before collapsing on top of Charlie. My body had reached its limit and I passed out. Next thing I know I'm in a hospital bed with you looking down at me."

"Yes, we got word of an individual with multiple injuries, and unformed police came to the hospital to do an Injured Person's Report. However, due to the extent of your injuries, it's clear that there was more to you than a slip-and-fall kind of thing. I gotta admit, that is one hell of a story Mr. Austin."

"Look, I know it sounds insane and it is! I mean look at me! Nobody would want to do this to themselves right?"

"I agree with you there, no sane person would want to do what's been done to you. Anyway, what's going to happen now is we're going to turn you over to Dr. Foley. You remember him right? Yeah? Well, he's going to monitor you for a few days, traumatic events like these can do horrors to the mind. Do you understand?"

"Yeah, I understand. Will I be charged with anything?"

"It's still an ongoing investigation and I can't say just yet. Just talk to the doctor and I'll be in touch."

"Ok, uh, thank you Mr. Flair...for listening at least. Bye."

"This is Investigator Lance Flair ending the interview with Mr. Johnathan Reid Austin at midnight on March eighth, twenty twenty-four."

EPILOGUE:

(The recorder continues. The interview door opens, closes, and opens again.)

"So Lance, are ya chargin' the kid or not?"

(Sigh) "I'm gonna have to Dave, if not with multiple counts of murder then involuntary manslaughter. Look at these files. He's been in Doc Foley's care for years now. See this? Jazmine Rhodes. The night watchman of a halfway house she'd been living in found her in the garden behind the place. As you know, she was in a relationship with our suspect for years. Both of them fought addiction but more importantly, she was his rock. She helped him work through his suicidal tendencies.

Now this person is James Shreveport. Mr. Austin claims to not know him right? We did some digging and found out that on October tenth he was instrumental in Austin's survival after a drug overdose. Day laborers found the guy in a warehouse with multiple puncture wounds in his chest.

Here's a picture of Rosie Hernandez. The "big fuckin' guy" as he put it. He's an EMT with Perdition Georgia Medical Services. He provided CPR and other lifesaving techniques to Austin during his most recent trip to the hospital along with Jacob Wyatt who drove the ambulance. Both of them were discovered by a group of kids playing in the woods. Both were bludgeoned with an unknown blunt weapon inside of Hernandez's hunting cabin.

Finally, we have Charlie Brock, William Roberts, and Alicia Knight. Their location was called in by a passerby in the alley behind a nightclub called "The Woodz." I was called in personally for that crime scene and it looks like they were ambushed. Multiple puncture marks with, at the time, an unknown object. Later it was determined to be.."

"An arrow."

"Nailed it. Alicia is on the Perdition Technical College Archery team, second best from what I gather. Here's the thing, Charlie was Austin's coworker but that was years ago. He's the one who sold Austin the gun that jammed in his attempted suicide. One thing Austin said was correct, Charlie was dating Jazmine at the time of their deaths. Roberts and Knight are friends with Charlie and those two are a couple. They lived in the apartment under Austin. One time, he tried to drown himself in his bathtub. The water overflowed and seeped through the floorboards into their apartment. They notified management who opened Austin's door and found him in the tub. From what I read, he coded then. However, he was revived in that ride he took with Hernandez and Wyatt. Austin's been under Dr. Foley's care ever since."

"What about his injuries Lance? Nobody would do that to themselves."

"Actually yeah! Dr. Foley couldn't give me all the details, ya know doctor-patient confidentiality, but he made it clear that self-mutilation was something Austin did regularly; especially in high-stress moments. For example, killing people that prevented you from doing the one thing you wanted to do...die.

As for his knockout story, he's right about that to a degree. Austin did wake up in his apartment. The apartment he lived in before he was placed under Foley's care. Security cameras at the place got him walking right into the foyer, covered in blood. He used the elevator to the third floor and left bloody prints all over the buttons. Hell; he even broke into his old place and left plenty of evidence in there as well. Luckily, the apartment had been vacant for a while. Police got called to the scene for a possible burglary and found him sleeping like a baby on the floor covered in blood and dirt. The rest you know, we had to get him medical treatment and when he was alright enough to speak, we brought him in here. Oh, there was one tidbit of information that Dr. Foley provided that I thought was interesting."

"And that would be?"

"Austin found comfort in bonding with some rescue dogs at Foley's facility. The Doc keeps them there for the patients to interact with and ease stress. One is a basset hound, another is Jack Russell which seems excited all the time and the third is a bulldog with a tail cropped so short it doesn't wag. Wanna know their names?"

"You can't be serious Lance. I'm guessing the basset is Frowney, the Jack is Smiley and the bulldog-"

"Straight. That's right."

"Damn! Well, you know they will go with insanity. Any lawyer worth the ink on their degree will use that."

"Above my pay grade man! All I know is that I have seven murders and the lead suspect confessing to it all right here. Aw shit! This thing is still recording!"

Click.

He doesn’t feel any pain initially. Just shock, as the finger is cut from his hand and lies on the dirty barn floor separate from the rest of his body. But the shock is quickly replaced, and he screams. A scream that hasn’t emanated from the back of his throat since he was a boy, and his older brother locked him in the basement for six hours as he went out drinking with his friends. Darkness and cold, and all the monsters that kids imagine in their heads to the point where the distinction between those fears and reality begin to run perpendicular. The noises, the sounds, the foundation of the house are all ghosts who have been waiting for a moment alone with a ten year old boy who is locked, without sight, and without hope.

But now he sees true evil standing inches away from his face, smiling with crooked teeth and an emptiness in his eyes that make him feel cold, helpless, like there are no succession of words in the English language, or any language for that matter, that could get him out of this. He’s here, wherever here is.

And the man talks to him in riddles. He presents himself as a God or a brother, or son, or emissary. He talks about a God who enjoys death, hunting, enjoys blood that soaks into the dirt until it can’t, and then floods the earth. He’s speaking about man. The duality of man. The breaking of man’s spirit, and how many things a man will do that he swore he’d never do. How many ways he can make a man question his faith, his judgment, and his whole world. He tells Peter to simply call him, the God, for that is what he is playing.

“These eight behind me, know this is just the beginning,” the God says, as he grabs the finger from the floor and taps Peter on the forehead with it. Then he points to a row of four men and four women standing behind him in dirty clothes. Dirty white clothes, streaked with dirt and mud, and their faces, the same.

The God takes a knife from the back of his pants, and stands up slowly, a crack of his knee is heard. The screaming has stopped, but now the pain begins to throb like a speed induced heartbeat. The heartbeat that’s about to come out of his throat any time now.

“Faith is broken too easily. We believe until someone gets sick, and then we blame. We believe until we lose love, then we blame. We believe until we’re robbed of our humanity, one limb at a time,” The God holds the finger up, and smiles. “And then we blame. But these folks here are believers. Their spirit cannot be crushed. It cannot be broken. And a faith that absolute, deserves divine reward. And tonight they shall receive it.”

The God grabs the knife and walks to the far end of the row. There’s a man with a shaggy beard of matte black, with white strands down the middle, under his chin ,and eyes that are staring straight ahead, no fear that Peter can see.

The God rubs the man’s hair, and kisses him on the lips. A deep one, and he slips his tongue into the man’s mouth before slitting his throat and watching him drop to his knees.

“You see this?” The God says, “This woman next to him is his sister. They shared a womb, and shared their 37 years on this planet together. Not a single evening spent apart. Now, this would crush you,no?”

Peter is panting now, and he can feel acid and bile climbing up his stomach, slowly but surely. His eyes water, pushing out and down his cheeks and oxygen refuses to enter his body. He feels like he's on the moon, or another planet. He feels like he’s in the dark basement, and everything is closing in on him. The world is closing in on him.

“This would crush you, no?” The God repeats. And Peter nods his head. It would crush him. He’s already lost his faith. Most of his faith left with his finger, and the rest just exited the strangers throat. Spilled on the barn floor. Liquidated.

“Now look at her?”

He does.

“Nothing. She cannot be shaken because her faith cannot be shaken. That is divine faith, sir. Faith is the belief in something that you cannot see. It is the belief in something no matter what goes wrong on this planet. If you believe, and you have faith, it isn’t a matter of what can keep it. It’s a matter of what can break it. And for these here, the answer is simple. Nothing. Now, let me ask you? How is your faith since losing your finger, and watching this man die?

Peter’s jaw feels wired shout, and he stares.

“You must answer before we begin our game of faith.”

He tries to speak, but his throat is dry and closed and at first the words come out in an unintelligible croak.

“Try again,” The God says.

“I-I still have faith.” He doesn't know why he says that, but he does. A last feeble attempt at rebellion.

“Do you?”

“Yes”

“Well we will see at the end of this evening, whether you lose your faith, or your head. Because sir, you cannot keep them both.” And he laughs. “Follow me my loyal servants.” He says and opens a large steel door, and allows the remaining seven to leave.

“Start running.”

And they take off. The God closes the door, and returns to the nine fingered man. Returns to Peter.

He leans down in front of him, his finger still in hand. He looks around, and up at the steel rafters and around the old barn, like he’s deep in thought. Peter is shaking, and now the pain is deep, and he feels sick, drenched with sweat. The God hauls a black lighter from his breast pocket and lights it. “We’ll need to cauterize that wound before I explain what’s going to happen.”

“Please, no. God, no.” He sobs like a helpless child. “Please.”

The God grabs his hand in his, and his grip is tight, and mean, like he could tear his arm from the rest of his body without trouble. His hands are calloused and rough, and his knuckles have strands of dark hair. He smells like turpentine, mixed with sweat, and other God awful scents that make him feel sick.

He holds the flame from the lighter, and stares into the man’s eyes as he places the flame on the open wound. The nine fingered man screams with primality, like an animal. Screams loud. And after five seconds, the God takes the lighter away, and Peter finally throws up in front of him, before falling in the puddle. The God stands up, and drops the knife that he used to cut his finger, to the ground, inches from his face. A splash of vomit, hits his cheek and crawls down.

“God has asked me to find you, Peter. He’s asked me to find you, and see if you’re worth saving.”

“W-why me?” He says weakly. “Wh-y me?”

“Well now, isn’t that a question, Peter. Isn’t that a question. It is five minutes to 11,” The God looks at his watch. “At 11, we will start a game of faith. A religious experience, if you will. That is if you want to live. Do you want that, sir?”

He looks down, and Peter nods his head, slowly rising from the puddle of bile, and chunks of previous meals. He’s on his knees, his face caked in slime, tears in his eyes, but now obedient. No longer screaming, no longer hoping. He’s listening.

“The seven out in the field want to die, Peter. They want to because death is but just the beginning. They’re happy to die at your hands, Peter. So, you will have to kill them. They will make a game of it. They will run, and they will hide. They know these woods, and these fields, and the river’s edge. They know the grass, the wheat, the pebbles on the shore. They know it all. So they will make a game of it. And you sir, will have the evening to kill all seven. And every hour, you will lose another finger, if the seven are not dead. Do you understand?”

Peter stares at him, stares into his eyes to see if he can find any humanity, to see if there’s anything at all except an empty void. And there’s none. This man, this thing, this God, can not be bartered or bribed. There is nothing in this world that will keep him from doing this. Nothing. Seven people, he thinks. Jesus, this has to be a dream. Seven people. Kill seven people before the sun rises or lose fingers, and then his life. Kill or be killed. Either way, he know he’s royally fucked.

Peter, finding strength he didn’t know existed, stands up slowly, and grabs the knife beside him. The God smiles, like he’s two steps ahead at all times.

“I know what you’re thinking, Peter. Kill me and make a run for it.” He laughs. “You don’t know where you are, but I'll tell you this you're far away from home. And the seven have been instructed to hunt you down if you do not begin your hunt. Like I said, they know every inch of this land. For this is our home.” And he rubs Peter’s shoulder, and looks back at his watch. “Let the hunt begin.”

Peter drags his feet, and opens the door as a soft breeze feels like heaven on his skin. He closes his eyes, and sucks the clean air, deep into his lungs. This could be beautiful, he thinks, a world away from the world. And when his eyes open, he hears the rustling of footsteps, and soft giggles from the women, and bird calling from the men. Leaves crackling under foot, and the water streaming until it forks into a river, and leaves this place behind.

He walks with the knife, the grip sticking to his palm, trying to accept that this is reality and not a horrid dream. But it’s too vivid, much too vivid. For a moment before the hunt, he thinks about taking the knife and slicing his jugular. He saw on a crime show once that ear to ear would do the trick. It would be long and deep enough to end his life in a matter of seconds. His wife was gone, his kids gone, finger gone. Was this world worth the pain?

He takes the knife, and gets down on his knees. He holds it just under the left earlobe, hands shaking, eyes again closed, clenching his teeth. Can he end his own life? Can he actually do it?

Then the loud noises from the woods snap him out of his intrusive trance, and Peter realizes he can’t.

And if he can’t end his own life, then he needs to try and rationalize the taking of these lives. Tell himself that the people out here want to die. Is that murder? Murder is the taking of a life, but what if the life is handed to you. Then were you really taking it?

Not fully convinced, not even close, He gets up, and heads left into the dark woods of maple trees, birch trees, oak, and pine, towering high above, planted hundreds of years ago in some cases. Life that was here long before people massacred this world, and many would still live to see people become the massacred.

In the darkness of the woods, he’s reminded of the basement. Darkness like thick cement walls, impossible to escape. He breathes as deeply as he can. Telling himself there’s air in here. That darkness doesn’t devour oxygen, just light. Just illusions.

Giggling. Two voices. One says, “Are you going to send us home? We’re so excited to go home, mister. We can hardly wait. We’re trying to hide, sir, but please find us soon. Please, we can’t wait to go home.”

And they both giggle, and he can hear jumping like schoolyard children finding out the cute boy wanted to take them to the spring dance. Jumping, ecstatic. Is it murder, if they are giving you their life? Begging you to?

He can’t see, and he holds his hand in front of his face, searching. The giggling, the laughter getting closer, and then one grabs him by his shoulders, and yells inches in his face.

“TAKE US HOME! TAKE US HOME!”

Her breath decrepit and dying, and she laughs maniacally. Peter screams, and a reflex sends the knife straight into her stomach. She gasps, surprised, and then she smiles. Teeth as dark as coal, with matching eyes, and she falls. And as she falls, she whispers, “

"Thank you,” And the other giggles, “Yay, yay, yay! She’s going home. Me next! Me next, mister!”

“Oh Christ,” Peter says, hands shaking. “Jesus Christ, what the hell is this?”

Then something hits him in the side of the head. It hurts, like a small piece of wood. A branch, maybe.

“Me next, mister. Come on, don’t lose your stomach now.” And she giggles, and he knows that after this, if he makes it through this, that those giggles will never leave. That every time he’s in the darkness of his bedroom, he will hear them. “Me next,” and laughter, and he’ll go crazy, he knows it now, he’ll go fucking insane.

Another piece of wood hits him in the side of head, now he’s bleeding above his left eyebrow, and he can feel the warm blood snaking down the side of his face. And then another hit in the same spot, a rock, a small rock and it stings so badly, and he screams,

“FUCK!”

And then the woman appears in front of him, “Me next!” and he tackles her to the forest floor, the crunch of dead leaves under the weight of her body, and he slits her throat. And then he falls on his back, and cries like a child.

“I can’t do this. Jesus, I can’t do this anymore.” And he cries, uncontrollable sobs, and he screams loudly, and the echo is answered only by the sound of the remaining five.

He stares up at the darkness of the towering trees, and hears the breeze, and again wonders if the knife to his own throat is the better option. Then he thinks maybe this crazy fucking cult is right, maybe there is something better because God knows it can’t get much worse than this.

Then his feet are taken. Two men, each with one foot in hand, drags him through the forest. Both of them cawing like crows. “CAW! CAW CAW!” and they drag him over rocks, and branches, and brambles. He screams, his back bleeding through his shirt from the rough ground, bleeding and his head is smashed off the side of a round boulder, before he exits the wooded area, and is dragged through the rocks of the river’s edge and into the water.

His head is held under, and then pulled up, “CAW! CAW” and then put under again. Then pulled up, “CAW! CAW!” then back under. He screams, and inhales cold lake water deep into his lungs, and when they pull him up again, they throw him to the pebbles, and he tries to breathe, but the water is caught deep in his lungs, like the whole world is a ziploc bag placed over his head. He wants to live. He knows at that moment, if air will return to his lungs, he will kill these two fucks. He wants to live.

And then he throws up water, that splashes on the rock in front of him, and some hits his face. And it’s a revelation. This is a religious experience, he thinks. And he looks at the two men in front of him. Both in long white clothing, like Scrooge’s pajamas.

Smiling delinquent, insane smiles, knowing that they did their job. If they wanted to be killed by the hands of another, then they needed to dig deep inside of his soul, and pull out his heart. Create a killer. And they could see in his eyes that that’s exactly what they’d done.

And they close their eyes, as Peter lunges at them, taking them both down and stabbing at both of their chests. A dozen times each, and he’s sweating, and they’re laughing. They hold each other's hands, and look into each other's eyes, and one says,

“See you on the other side, my brother.” And the other smiles before his life is cut out of him.

Four down three to go.

He lies by the water, and in the exhaustion of the game, closes his eyes. Like cement.

And when he wakes, two fingers are gone. Blood leaks heavily from them, and he can feel heat. Heat behind him. A small fire, made with two logs crossed like an x among the stones, and he knows what it's for. The blood loss is making his head light, and the water is salt, as good as poison, and he will do more damage if he drimks it.

He crawls to the fire, holding his left wrist, which now consists of a thumb, and a pinky, and nothing else. He places it in the fire, and again falls unconscious. When he wakes, his head throbs like a construction crew on the largest highway on the planet is fitted directly inside his skull, and they’re all working the jackhammer. A river of water next to him, but it would kill him, and wasn’t that God’s great joke.

He doesn’t know how long he’s out, but he’s sure it doesn’t matter. He needs to get up before he can again hunt. He needs to get up.

“You’re doing well.” The God says. “Three more, and you’ll have your life.”

He cranes his head to the right, and sees the God in the water up to his waist, wading his hands.

“That time you were only out for 20 minutes. You still have time.”

“I’m going to die.” Peter says weakly.

“It’s not God’s will, my son. You will live, if you decide to finish your work. That I promise you.”

And he closes his eyes again, “I will finish the job,” he says weakly, and when he openss them, The God is gone.

He pushes himself to his knees, and then to his feet and heads back towards the woods.

The sun rises above the water, and Peter looks at it. He dreamed about Melissa sitting on the hood of his car, smoking cigarettes with a black leather skirt. So many years ago, God she was beautiful. And he dreamed about his son being born, cutting the umbilical cord, and holding him and whispering in his ears that he’d never let him go.

His left hand is wrapped in gauze, and it looks like there are no fingers left. But he’s alive, at least he thinks he is.

He gets to his feet, and walks through the woods, and as he exits, there are seven bodies lying in a row in the open field next to the barn. By the door of the barn, The God claps slowly.

“I did it?”

“You did.”

“Only lost four fingers.”

“Not bad.”

And he looks at their faces, there is peace in them.

“Is this real?”

“It is.”

“How do you know?”

“Because that’s my home. I’m here to find those who are in need. Do you want a home?”

He looks at The God, or the man, or whoever, or whatever he was. And before he can speak his head is bobbing slowly up and down, and he’s on his knees. Crying.

The God walks up to him and places his hand on his shoulder.

“I’ll need a new congregation. Would you like to join me on a recruitment mission?”

“I would. And then I’ll get to go home?”

“You will, son. You will join them in due time.”

I've accepted my fate by now. I have no illusions of what I am. At this point, I have chosen to become an assassin. A killer. A monster that people can use at their will. Am I proud of it? Not entirely. But I don't lie and tell myself that I am simply a good person doing the will of bad people.

I have six targets left, one finger already gone. If I imagine them as targets and not people, that makes it easier. Easier to kill them. I don't deserve being able to soothe my conscience. But I will if that makes my assignment easier.

Five left. The sixth target didn't scream, didn't beg for their life. He just watched me with sad, pitying eyes. He pitied me, the person who was going to end his life. Daniel Hargrove. No children, no wife. Nobody to miss.

I got Four and Five down this hour. They tried to run away, which was a bit irritating. A game of cat and mouse. Well, if they wanted to play, then we'll play. My gun aim has gotten better, unfortunately for them.

I have thirty minutes, and one target left. I hate the last name on my list. Hate the thing I'm going to do to her. Liliana, my clever older sister. I don't know what she could've done to draw my captors' attention. I knock on the door, partially hoping she won't answer. Will I really kill my sister to ensure my life? I already know the answer to that, which is why I hate the second the door opens.

"Hello?" My sister meets my eyes, hers widening in surprise. We haven't talked in years since Mom died.

"Lil," I whisper, hating the tremble in my voice. "I've missed you," I tell her. Her eyes get watery and she pulls me into a hug. Before I know it, I'm sitting in her living room, drinking coffee. Only, she doesn't expect what's in hers. She pales, looking sickly. She chokes on her saliva, and now I'm done.

Branwell addresses me with pride. "Good job. You will be part of our revolution. You will go by Volatile."

I nod my head, saying nothing. I killed the human part of me when I killed my sister. Now I am Volatile. Now I am a willing weapon to be unleashed on unsuspecting victims.Volatile. I guess the name suits me.

“Life is not about what's fair. It's about who hunts and is hunted.” The voice rang out from above us. Light burned my eyes as the bag was taken off and I saw an old man with a black turtleneck staring smugly at me from behind a wood podium. On each of his flanks stood a pair of guards holding an MP-5 in their hand. On his left flank stood a man who looked to be thirty. Tears streamed down his face as the old man turned his gaze toward him. He smiled as he stared at him.

“I don't mean this metaphorically. You have one goal while you're here. Find the other seven contestants, and kill them all before daybreak. Once you've done that, I can promise you a reward of seventy million dollars will be wired to your bank account, tax free. If you fail, however, and there's more than one person still alive by dawn then I'll show you what consequences will await.” The old man faced us as he picked up a kukri from beneath the podium. The other man cried harder as he started to beg. If he spoke English I couldn't tell. As he lifted his hands to defend himself I could only see two nubs protruding from his arms where hands had once been. They were still bloody as the old man brought the knife down. I heard a sickening crack as the blade broke bone. The old man raised the knife again. The man’s cries became wails of pain. I looked away at the last minute but I could hear the sound of wet crunching as the knife bit deeply. I looked at the old man again as he held the knife triumphantly in the air. Blood dripped from the blade to the ebony wooden handle and then onto the fringes of his sleeves. I felt a pit in my stomach as I was brought up from my knees. The ropes they tied my hands with were cut loose as another security guard, dressed in the same green polo and black slacks handed me a knife. I'd never held one in real life before as I felt its weight in my hand. The serrated back gave me a sickening feeling as I touched it, thinking what I'd have to do. The guard pointed me to the forest and motioned for me to go. The air was thick with humidity and so hot. It felt like being wrapped in a wet blanket as I pushed my lungs to breathe this wretched air. I knew my goal wouldn't be simple.

Everyone wanted to survive. Everyone needed to kill. The moon was almost at its highest point when I entered, so I knew I didn't have much time. I stopped to listen to the sounds of the woods, and sure enough I heard the sounds of twigs snapping. It wasn't too far from me. Less than a hundred yards. I walked quickly, taking care to avoid the twigs my prey so carelessly stepped on, until I saw him. I sat and watched as he hacked vines and small trees from his way. Using all his energy to do so. I felt like a leopard hunting an unaware monkey as I closed the gap. He was bigger than me by almost a whole foot and seemed to be dressed in a uniform, but it was too dark to see what it was. When I was within touching distance, I stabbed him in the back. Just below the shoulder blade and through the ribs. I could hear the soft grunt he made before he fell onto the forest floor, lifeless. I wiped the blade off on his uniform as I continued the hunt. One down, six to go. Not all of them would be so careless. I brushed the thought from my head as I continued along.

I walked for some time before I heard it. The sound of crunching twigs behind me. I turned around to see a shining blade ark past me and end up buried in a tree. I turned toward the direction it came from to see a petite woman staring at me. Clearly she was in shock that her ambush had failed. I moved first. I hit her with a left hand punch to the jaw as I brought my knife up. I moved quicker than she did and stabbed her in the gut. Her eyes stared at me as the light left them.

“For what it's worth, I'm truly sorry.” I whispered to her as I twisted the blade. The blood was inky black in the moonlight. After what felt like a minute, she dropped to the ground and I pulled my knife from her almost like a macabre version of the sword in the stone before I wiped the blade on her clothes and continued on with my little adventure. I tried not to think about her eyes as I proceeded. She'd been the one who tried to ambush me, kill me. I defended myself. What about the man? The thought bounced around in my head like a DVD screensaver. She was lucky, I figured. Not everyone got to see the face of who killed them. To know who they died for. Who did they die for? The thought rang out accusingly. I tried to think what the correct answer to that question would be. No answer that I could think of seemed right. It seemed that without hesitation I just took the knife and permission to kill and abandoned all morals. No. Here morals didn't matter. The first casualty of war is innocence. The voice reminded me. I ignored it as I traipsed onward. The moon hung low in the sky with the echoes of dawn haunting the other side. I walked further looking for the others. I walked until I reached a large tree almost as wide as I was tall. I reached out to touch it as I heard leaves rustle above me. I looked up to see the pale face of a man above me. He jumped from the branches, knife in hand as he roared a vicious scream.

“I DON'T WANT TO DIE!” He shouted as he came down, knife in hand. His aim was slightly off and instead of hitting my neck, his knife was lodged in the lower part of my right arm. The pain was like nothing I'd ever experienced. It was both hot and cold at the same time as blood poured profusely from my arm. I looked at him as I switched the knife to my left hand. His eyes were wild with rage and bloodlust. He jerked to pull the knife from me and I jerked back in kind. I slashed him across the face and blood flowed freely across his cheek. I made a feint to the left and as he dodged right I was able to push the blade through his neck. He clawed at it like a ravening beast before he fell to the ground. Dawn was now on us as I heard the sounds of footsteps and shouting. Guards had rushed to me in a matter of minutes with the old man, in a dark blue turtleneck this time, following behind. His wispy gray hair fluttered in the slight breeze as he stared at me and looked at the dead man.

“There can only be one. Congratulations.” He said as he spat on the corpse.

He motioned for me to follow him as a pair of guards set their rifles down and picked up the corpse. Now that I was close to the old man, I could see that he was a very frail figure. His shrunken stature made him stand almost a full five feet tall and his sweater seemed to cover his frail body but I could see by his movements that he was nothing more than a bag of bones. He looked over to me and narrowed his steely gray eyes.

“While we get our accomodations ready for tonight's ceremony, I'd like to tell you a story. About myself and this island.”

“I don't really care, I just wanna go home.” The old man glared at me. I felt a cold pressure at the base of my neck as his eyes turned away.

“My name is Clinton Moghrie, and I'm one of the wealthiest people in the world. When I was twenty-five, I didn't have that. In fact, I worked for a failing bank at the time and I was sent to talk to a prospective client. Needless to say the plane I was on didn't make it. In fact, it went down just two nautical miles from shore of this island.” He said as he pointed to the east.

“Yeah, I remember now, they found you on this island about a week after the plane was lost. You were the only survivor. New Oz Airlines flight 171.” I said, interrupting the man.

“That's right, but that's not the important part of the story. I wasn't originally the only survivor. There were eight of us, just like your group. When I landed on the island I heard a voice speaking in a long forgotten language and it told me to kill the others, just like I told you. This island is home to a god as forgotten as its language, a remnant of a world before ours. There was a time before Creation. Before Jehovah made the universe, another entity lived. It was not a god. No, it was something that's existed in the shadows of Creation since before Mankind was even a stray thought in Jehovah's mind. After Creation and the Fall, this thing lurked in the shadows and built a cult around itself. It gathered power, watched and waited. It has a name, one descended from its forgotten language. It calls itself Yolbaoth. Every year around September we organize The Hunt.” He said, his eyes boring straight into my soul.

“Who are ‘we’ and why is The Hunt so important to this thing.” The old man started chuckling and hit himself in the forehead.

“We are the Members of the Forgotten Order. The Hunt is important to Yolbaoth because it allows him to gain more power. In return for us doing this and creating another acolyte, which would be you in this case. It grants us wealth and success.”

So you kill people for money?”

“No, in a successful Hunt, the acolyte kills people for our success. In an unsuccessful one, we hunt them down and kill them all. Yolbaoth needs the Hunt because it cannot leave this island. You can think of this place as the Island that God Forgot. Jehovah doesn't exist here. A portion of His domain that not even He has control over.” He said with a slight smirk.

“I don't think that's right. There's nowhere you can hide in this universe and not be accessible to God. I want to get out of here.” I said, feeling cold dread creeping into the back of my throat. The old man stared at me and gestured to a white yacht.

“Pity you won't stay for dinner.” He said before he started laughing. I jumped onto the boat as the engines came to life. On the far horizon above the setting sun were a bank of thick black clouds. I watched the island start to get smaller as a massive wave crashed by us. From where we were it was easily 30 feet and growing. By the time it hit the island, it stood as tall as a skyscraper. Even from nearly a mile away I could hear the sounds of screams as the water crashed onto the island. The event took merely seconds but felt much longer and by the time it was finished, there wasn't a trace of the island except for shards of wood and bits of scattered trash.

In the grip of terror, I clutch the knife, its weight a cruel reminder of the grim task before me. With each passing second, the ultimatum echoes in my mind, driving home the stark reality of my predicament. As the pain of losing a finger sears through me, a primal instinct for survival surges within, propelling me forward into the abyss of the night. Every step is fraught with dread, every shadow a potential threat, yet amidst the darkness, a flicker of determination ignites. With each heartbeat, I wrestle with the harrowing choice before me, grappling with the unthinkable notion of taking a life to save my own. But as the hours slip away, the relentless march of time spurs me on, a testament to the unyielding strength of self-preservation in the face of unimaginable horror.

“Oh no,” Marcus said, as The-Dread-and-Sore-Amaze unclouded his eyes. “I didn’t try to be here, or should I have tried? What have I done, or what am I supposed to do now? Of course, I can’t tell gods what to do, and they know me, but I’m not prepared for what they want.”

Marcus attempted to hide his nakedness from the elderly woman dressing him in a tunic. Silently, she buckled the sheath around his waist, tied on his sandals, pierced his ear and lower lip with a needle, and inserted rings. The elderly woman wrapped Marcus’ hands around a double-handed knife hilt. Then the elderly woman left.

Two people stood on either side of The-Dread-and-Sore-Amaze, and five more completed the circle around Marcus. A burning cage lit the group.

The-Dread-and-Sore-Amaze put the words in his head, including You are on Calospelegna. Winning the labor might resolve the nations’ conflicts and settle the divine rivalries. Won’t such things improve your life? Remember my words. Speak your mind without fear of divine retribution.

To Marcus’ surprise, the words came out coherently and he mentioned things he was unaware he thought. Among other sentences, he said, “I’ve been assertive today, to the lady who wanted me to reglaze her vase after I fired it. I’ve never killed anybody, and I’ve never fought anybody, but I have been beaten up. I couldn’t survive a fight if I had all my fingers. I try to believe the gods know best, but why choose me?”

You believe equally in every god and goddess, and they have never shown you favor, The-Dread-and-Sore-Amaze said.

“But I was healed in the Djebu River.”

Anybody may be healed there, regardless of divine favor. Sheath your knife.

Marcus did.

Behind Marcus, The-Dread-and-Sore-Amaze parted the two halves of their body. He shut his eyes. Then the Sore-Amaze took Marcus’ arm.

Cringing, Marcus squealed and shrieked, “Please, I am a potter, and I need my fingers. Couldn’t I keep my fingers?”

The Dread bit each finger, excluding the thumb, at the base: one completely off and to puncture the other seven. When its mouth muffled Marcus’ screams, he lost control of his bladder.

A man laughed at him, interrupted by a woman yelling, “He is the most pathetic one yet, but not laughable.”

“It is an involuntary response to fear,” another man said.

But the Dread just left a ring of stinging teeth marks around Marcus’ neck.

While The-Dread-and-Sore-Amaze rejoined bodies, Marcus squeaked at the stumps of his missing left index finger. Rapidly, whiteness covered the healed stump and redness spread up the middle finger’s knuckle.

Unsheathe your knife. Look at your knife. Turn your knife over.

Marcus stared at the spinning, flipping green and brown stone in the knife’s hilt. One side of the blade was black and engraved with symbols. On the white side, clearer than a polished bronze mirror, and smoother than a pool, the blade reflected the red puncture marks circling his pustule-scarred neck. And it was definitely a knife, not a dagger—good for general household purposes and sturdy for traveling.

Take the phoenix torch. With two of its eight legs, The-Dread-and-Sore-Amaze pointed to the burning cage.

The phoenix cage on a torch handle weighed several pounds, but Marcus carried it comfortably, to his surprise. It strapped to his back. Marcus worried about catching fire, but the flames left him unharmed and pleasantly warm.

The-Dread-and-Sore-Amaze said, Look at the warriors. The fighter must kill one or more warriors by dawn. If the fighter fails to kill one or more warriors by dawn, I shall bite off the fighter’s head. I shall deliver his headless body home and his soul shall go to the afterlife. If the fighter fails to kill one warrior per hour, I shall bite off one finger: index fingers, middle fingers, ring fingers, or pinkies. If the fighter does not kill the seven warriors by dawn, I shall transform him into an animal. The transfigured animals participate.

The warriors were struck fatally in war. The fighter faces one warrior from seven nations, and the fighter cannot fight a warrior from his own. One warrior came from Lydan, one from Phahmese, one from Nesatope, one from Jadikira, one from Giruppik, one from Gelumnia, and one from Svalug. One warrior was struck by poison, one by fire, one by trampling horses, one by drowning, one by a spear through his back, one by disease, and one by starvation.

The labor lasts from the eleventh hour past the meridian to the next morning when in the customary time and place, the Sky-God raises the sun fully over the horizon. Therefore, the labor has begun. The rules cannot change during the labor.

You have all that you require. Depart now.

One warrior moved deliberately, while two met, kissed, and went in opposite directions. Two warriors supported a third to some distance away, then the third sat, the first walked straight ahead, and the second went elsewhere. The air cracked earsplittingly, and a horse galloped. The-Dread-and-Sore-Amaze departed last.

Marcus ran in the direction he faced, sure to find a warrior in the general vicinity. His sandals fit like he had already broken them in. The phoenix torch hardly swung and despite its brightness, his eyes adjusted to the dark.

He reached a cliff. Darkness and fog obscured the ground, but the moon and stars shone brightly in a perfectly cloudless sky. Marcus worried Calospelegna was on Oridocia, above the cloud bank, and below the rarely seen deities’ dwellings. Whoever climbed the holy mountain became sick; Marcus felt healthy.

Marcus climbed down a knotted rope onto a ledge just wide enough for his foot and smeared with bird droppings. He intended to search the caves systematically and act on whatever he found.

Marcus slipped into a shallow cave full of birds. The first one he saw had its back to him, marked with a woman’s face and neck.

“Please, don’t attack us! The-Dread-and-Sore-Amaze transformed us into birds,” another bird cawed.

Marcus shrunk into the open air. He heard a crack and a man’s shout. Somebody grabbed one of Marcus’ arms and he passed out. Twisting awkwardly, the person pulled him aboard clutching him, apparently oblivious to the bird’s tiltings. Marcus was quite aware of it—his stomach and bowels emptied. The bird leveled and glided.

Now Marcus saw that the man’s back ended with birds’ legs and, wings sprouted from his sides. Because he wore armor, Marcus found the first warrior. He whimpered.

“Hold on to me, and I will hold on to you, and we will land momentarily.”

And Marcus realized the warrior saved his life. Therefore, Marcus needed to give him help, a great present, or to save his life, or do a difficult favor, or else divine favor could not salvage his reputation.

The warrior landed in a cave, unstrapped Marcus’ torch, and lowered Marcus onto a nest.

“Are you hurt?” the warrior asked.

Marcus shook his head.

“Do you remember your name?”

Marcus nodded. He realized he heard the man’s native language in his right ear and a translation in his left ear, from which the earring hung. The warrior had a matching pair.

“What is your name?” the warrior asked, smiling.

“Marcus,” he squeaked.

“Flying sometimes makes me sick, too.” The warrior propped the torch outside the cave entrance and crouched by Marcus again. He opened a circular section of armor, which revealed tin tubes.

“…Speared through the back…” Marcus said.

“Yes, and the bird wings and legs allow me to move.”

“And I’m supposed to fight you, but should I now?” Marcus asked.

Marcus remembered The-Dread-and-Sore-Amaze’s words: The warrior shall give the fighter opportunity to fight.

“I intervened because falling off a cliff would be a dumb, embarrassing way to lose. I am not hospitable,” the warrior said.

The warrior can save the fighter from accidental death.

“Why could you not prepare for warfare or defend yourself?” the warrior asked.

“I had the plague and water settled on my brain.” Marcus showed the bald, sunken trepanning scar on his head. “My mother thought training would hurt me. I attended school for a few years, and she let me learn acrobatics, swimming, and running, and I played in caves.”

“And rock climbing was safer because a rock could not punch your scar.”

“I suppose, but it worried her, too.”

“Now we must fight, and I suspect you would not want to kill a man in his own home,” the warrior said.

“I won’t be able to anywhere,” Marcus said.

The warrior and Marcus walked a few hundred yards from the cliffside. Since the warrior was unarmed, Marcus set down the knife. The warrior removed his battered armor, showing raw, minor wounds. A green and brown stone decorated his belt.

Marcus jogged in a circle, forcing the warrior to waddle. Then Marcus was on his back in the dirt with the warrior’s talon on his chest; the warrior bent like a curious pigeon.

“You told the truth about your fighting experience,” the warrior said.

“I don’t know why she picked me,” Marcus said, straining his neck to escape.

“Never mind. An untrained, drunk, old man with an ordinary object can be as dangerous and lethal as a well-trained, experienced warrior like myself.” The warrior sighed. “I don’t want to fight like a monster, but it seems I have no choice.”

Marcus picked up the knife and checked his left middle finger’s red second knuckle.

The warrior’s wings cracked, and his talons brushed Marcus’ hair. Another crack and the warrior was a hundred feet higher. After another swoop, Marcus hung from the warrior’s talons, a few feet off the ground.

“I thought you wanted to survive,” the warrior said, perplexed.

“I didn’t know this would happen!” Marcus screeched.

He dropped a few feet before hitting a boulder. Marcus curled up to shield himself from the warrior’s earth-gouging talons. He raised the knife overhead as a warning and ducked. The warrior’s entrails splattered. Immediately, Marcus’ neck stopped stinging and the puncture holes turned white.

He scrambled out from beneath the warrior’s tailwings.

“Why didn’t you think the knife was a warning? Don’t birds have sharp eyesight?” Marcus asked.

The participant cannot kill himself.

He heard The-Dread-and-Sore-Amaze’s instructions, Marcus thought.

“Your eyes were human,” Marcus said.

The warrior came here of his own free will, equally willing to survive or die without divine intercession. the warrior wants the selected fighter to earn his life. The warrior willingly faces defeat, whether he dies honorably, by murder, or in another situation.

Shaking, Marcus smeared the gore with his hands, then handfuls of grass and dirt. He made his way to the warrior’s cave, where he washed his face and emptied his ear of something unspeakably disgusting. Then Marcus examined his neck with the clean knife. I have my head and will have one finger.

When the fighter wins the labor, if the transformed animals have survived, I shall break the spell and send them home. If the fighter dies during the labor or after being transformed into an animal, I shall deliver his human body home and his soul shall go to the afterlife.

For safety, hoping the rules allowed it, Marcus brought the warrior’s waterskins to the Calospelegnan caves. He remembered, If a rule does not forbid something, it is allowed.

He marked his route with the phoenix torch. He followed instructions his mother gave him as a boy: If the ground shook or rocks fell, or he encountered water, he left. As usual, he occasionally ignored the instruction that he could not climb to a stopping place higher than the height of his raised arms.

He assumed the warriors lived near the surface, but he found signs of animal and human habitation in deep, dark caverns and passages. For what seemed like hours he only heard water dripping, his movements, the phoenix’s fiery sounds and rustling, and his heartbeat. Talking to the phoenix soothed him.

“I can’t remember being very scared of caves,” Marcus said.

The knife chipped a stalactite, accidentally. Marcus pushed the knife into the floor to the hilt, like a shovel into frosty hard-packed clay earth. His two-handed tug sent him and the knife backward. Marcus embedded it in the cave wall and hung from it; the knife felt secure however he moved. He spelunked much faster, digging handholds and footholds.

While he explored, The-Dread-and-Sore-Amaze’s instructions popped into Marcus’ head, and he considered his situation.

I won’t die sitting in a cave overnight. An animal could find the way out or be unable to reach it. They will find me if I am supposed to participate.

Marcus’ red left middle finger turned black and stopped stinging. Redness quickly spread over the webbing between his middle and ring fingers and went slowly up his left ring finger. He wondered if the color changes damaged his fingers, but they moved normally. The coloration tracked time and kills.

Though he dreaded losing a finger, he also worried about killing again. He wondered if it was possible; his ability surprised him.

When his ring finger was nearly red, he rested—losing a finger while actively spelunking sounded foolish. He expected to travel more slowly afterward.

The-Dread-and-the-Sore-Amaze took his left ring finger. Watching his reddening pinkie finger, Marcus remembered, The loss of a finger weakens the fighter and alters his behavior, and self-preservation becomes harder.

Marcus thought, Completing the labors with two thumbs and one finger would have done the same thing! Even thinking the thought was risky under the circumstances until he remembered he could say what he wanted. What could a two-fingered potter do, especially when the fingers were on his non-dominant hand?

The fighter has opportunity to retain all fingers but one.

I’ve wasted too much time…But I don’t want to fight again…

Marcus spelunked to a warm passageway. Voices echoed in the distance, and he smelled old and new smoke. He laboriously read an inscription near a clearly tooled ceiling opening: “The fighter cannot enter the Palace.”

Thinking the warriors might exit the Palace, and looking for an easier route out, Marcus explored the nooks and crannies. He paused. Though he wanted to run from the lion, he sidled down the passageway.

Out of the corner of his eye, Marcus saw the roaring and bleating lion fly on eagle wings. The monster had a goat’s head on its back and a snake’s tail. He bolted, begging the monster to understand his point of view.

A flying griffin, the lion-goat-snake monster, and a bull with eagle wings forced Marcus into a crevice. A lion-bat hybrid crawled overhead.

Stone crunched overhead and a rope ladder fell around his neck. Marcus screamed.

“They understand you have lost your way, and they want you to escape,” an elderly woman said.

Marcus untangled himself from the ladder, strapped the phoenix torch to his back, and climbed up.

“Let me move the stone back for you,” Marcus croaked.

Instead, she stood on the stone, and it blocked the entry. Her earring and lip ring shone.

The elderly woman led Marcus to a cave full of boulders, stalactites, and stalagmites. She perched herself on a boulder.

“Leave the cavern by a different route than the one entered,” she said.

Marcus found a rectangular even crack, and within the rectangle, there was an intentionally carved and coincidentally scarred and bloodstained boulder with a slot.

“Is this the door?” Marcus asked.

“I can’t help you further,” the elderly woman said.

Marcus slid the knife into the slot, although it seemed silly. The wall thunked and rotated and something fastened over the knife’s handle. Rather than have his hands crushed off, or lose the knife, he pressed against the rotating wall. When the door stopped moving, the floor turned upside down, but in a few seconds, without rotating again, he felt like standing upright on his feet.

The steep tunnel opened to a cavern with three other entrances and a sphinx sitting in the middle.

“I always find one when I’m busy!” Marcus checked his left pinkie, red past the second knuckle.

The sphinx stretched and yawned.

“Listen, Marcus of Lucopoli,” the sphinx said.

“Huh?” Marcus tried to slice through a door bolt, but the knife just scraped off.

“Answer my riddle correctly and I shall open the door. Answer my riddle incorrectly and I shall not.” The sphinx recited the riddle that The-Dread-and-Sore-Amaze put in his head, which ended with: “What am I?”

Automatically, Marcus rattled off a common Lucopolitan solution: “The correct answer to the riddle.”

The sphinx hissed and batted Marcus, who stepped away from the doors.

“I answered it!” He spun around. “It works against—” Marcus choked on the last word.

Marcus had never seen a scorpion tail on a sphinx before, nor heard of one, nor imagined a sphinx with vulture wings.

“You’re the Lucopolitan warrior?” Marcus asked.

The creature opened the door and chased Marcus to it. He stepped from a floor onto a wall, but his nose broke his fall.

“Is this a trick?” Marcus asked the shut door. “I have to find my way out and fight you, don’t I?”

All attempts to open the door failed.

A warrior wouldn’t let me leave, but…I need my ring finger…Or I could save my right hand and become an animal.

But being transfigured into an animal bothered him, so Marcus ran down the tunnel.

A window in the door showed a bright feast hall, in which several dozen people of various social statuses sat at a richly laid table. More people rested on floor cushions, and even more on the floor, and all eating bread, meat, wine, and all kinds of good things.

He knocked. The generous host might let him stay until dawn (Marcus theorized about fighting and lacked determination), or maybe offer him a bath.

“You are welcome here,” the host called.

Marcus stepped through the doorway into a frosty, damp, dim feast hall with empty dishes, and full of dead bodies. He stepped back and saw the same thing, and wished for another way out.

The host urged him to enter. Marcus picked his way through the others; only their clothing styles and hair length indicated their sex.

“Sit here by me and rest,” the host said.

“I don’t have much time…”

His and the hosts’ breaths showed, and they shivered.

“Set the torch in the bracket.”

Marcus did. The host wore a cloak fastened with a green and brown pin, and he had an earring and lip ring—Marcus wondered if he looted a warrior. Other fighters probably fought before Marcus’ turn on Calospelegna.

“You must have been in battle. You must be exhausted and should spend the night here. Would you like a bath before you dine?” the host asked.

“Thank you, but…I will take one…when I get home.”

“Agnus! I am Unata, a Prince of Gelumnia, and we have already seen each other once. Please, sit.”

Marcus did. Agnus was the elderly woman; an earring and lip ring hung from her face.

“Let the guest wash his hands, and then serve the food,” Unata said.

Unata’s physical appearance made Marcus weirdly uneasy. To avoid looking at the host, Marcus picked up a black and white bowl. Don’t waste time. It doesn’t matter. He examined it from all angles. “Gelumnia…"

“The-Dread-and-Sore-Amaze preserved the others from starvation.”

Marcus felt like he had not eaten for a day or two.

“Drink from my cup,” Unata said.

Agnus handed a heavy golden cup to Marcus, who held it in both hands, worrying about damaging it, and wondering why he deserved it. The stem and base were gold and the bowl was another material with natural markings and edges filed smooth. Reluctantly, Marcus tilted the cup to drink, and blood stained the inside of the cup. Shrieking and falling off his stool, Marcus, dropped the skull cup. The phoenix torch toppled onto the preserved people. He wiped his hands on his tunic and hastily righted the phoenix torch. The preserved Gelumnians seemed all right.

“I…” he almost said, Fainted, but decided, under the circumstances, the cup was more than a trophy. “…I have never drunk blood before. Please excuse me.”

“Of course, and I usually wouldn’t.” The warrior lowered himself into his chair again. “Agnus, please help him up. I’m afraid I am too weak to help you up.”

“I’d rather stand.” Marcus leaned against a wall.

“It is my own skull and blood. If you had drunk it, you would have felt better.”

Women brought in serving dishes. Dashing to the door, Marcus tripped on a Gelumnian.

“Eat, though you need not accept my hospitality, but you may be too weak to return and fight me,” Unata said.

“Nothing fights starvation except food…and you are too weak to be a warrior,” Marcus said. “…You starved.” He thought, Why do the deities want me to fight a prince?

“Eat your fill.” Unata’s face was filling out and he sat straighter. “Agnus, help him to the table. I hope you like Gelumnian food.”

Agnus obeyed and scurried from the room. Unata began telling his story.

Leaning on the table, Marcus shuddered and squeezed his eyes shut—the first bowl resembled his grandmother’s chicken feet stew (his favorite), except the cook substituted whole human feet. He said, “I’m never eating chicken feet stew again, and if I look at the rest, I won’t eat anything again.” And he cared little about saying so aloud. Marcus experienced short hunger before and rarely found nothing to eat. Unata’s food smelled better than anything he imagined.

Marcus tried to identify what, other than cannibalizing Unata, was wrong with the dishes.

Along with fresh bread, sweets, and all kinds of vegetables and spices, he caught a strong whiff of outhouse, but not cooked liver and kidneys. Every woman Marcus knew (on the rare occasions they afforded it) cooked cut-up meat and offal, but Unata’s serving dishes contained whole cuts, which he thought suited a wealthy man.

Marcus developed scurvy. His belt slipped; adjusting it meant falling. When he clutched his stomach and hunched over, he knocked the phoenix torch onto the table. Unata muffled a painful moan. The knife jabbed Marcus’ thigh, but he was fine.

Marcus mustered the energy to pick up the torch with both hands. Don’t worry about putting out the fire, he thought. Then his knees gave out and he rolled to his back.

His trepanning scar and others reopened, which confused him. Marcus wondered if the starvation warrior and disease warrior attacked together.

“I can’t kill a starving man,” Marcus said, as Unata lifted him to the stool. He isn’t starving, Marcus thought.

But the food smelled so good, that Marcus hauled himself upright. Maybe eating an olive would be fine if it did not touch the liver. He considered the dishes burnt by the phoenix torch more appetizing than before. And the other meat and organs were raw.

Despite knowing cannibalizing was wrong, Marcus longed to eat. He doubted he could stop himself.

“I can’t eat it…And I can’t kill you slowly like this.”

He found the beating heart in a covered bowl. Unata pushed him down, but Marcus brought the dish with him. He stabbed the heart, and Unata crumpled like a blanket.

Marcus felt less hungry, possibly from disgust. Stumbling through the door and another tunnel, he realized he had forgotten the phoenix torch, but he could not tolerate Unata’s feast hall any longer.

The door opened to a torch-lit garden lush with various plants, and a large fountain splashed out of sight. He tightened his belt and sandals and explored as far as the fountain. The irrigated garden also held cushioned benches and extremely life-like statues.

The walk to the fountain exhausted Marcus. The pool was large enough to swim in; aquatic plants decorated the fountain itself.

Beyond the fountain, out of sight, a woman sang a bawdy sailor song to a lyre’s tune.

Marcus thought, The music will send me to sleep, or I might find giant scorpions and spiders. Or the diseased warrior is malarial. Now he thought about it, since he arrived, he had not seen any live animals, including nocturnal or sleeping ones, or insects and fish. He wondered if fighters became monstrous animals, like the ones in the cave.

Too grimy for a bench, Marcus rested in long grass, somewhere between sleeping and waking.

A splash jolted him. Marcus jumped into the draining pool after a person floating face-down in the water. Marcus swam quickly to her, turned her face up, and towed her to the edge. Unusually, she wore a purple veil over her face, in addition to the normal, optional cap. Under a purple robe, her purple dress covered her hands and feet.

Marcus climbed onto the edge and grabbed the woman’s hands to pull her up. Like a crocodile, the woman flipped Marcus into the water.

He surfaced and spit water; she stood on the pool’s edge, drying her face.

“You were drowning?” Marcus asked.

“You coped well with the apparent situation and worked so hard, I did not want to interrupt you.” She spoke his language with a thick accent.

Marcus shivered on the wet gravel.

“What was the—You’re—Alisha, Queen of Lydan.”

“Is it not easy to lose one’s place here?” Her gold jewelry clinked on the stones.

“I want to go home, and I didn’t want to come here.”

“You know how to leave.”

“But I don’t.”

“Your six or seven fingers contradict that,” Alisha said.

Marcus realized The-Dread-and-Sore-Amaze had taken his left pinkie while he slept. His right index finger steadily turned red. Six, he thought.

“Please don’t be upset,” Marcus said.

“My mood does not matter to you, but who have you defeated?” Alisha asked.

“The…flying birdman—”

“Belkish.”

“…him, Belkish, and the Gelumnian Unata.”

“I am not upset regarding the death of Unata. I took your knife while you slept, but you may have it again.”

“What?”

The knife plunked into the water. Marcus concentrated on the knife and avoiding the draining whirlpools but caught occasional glimpses of undressing Alisha. He attributed her odd appearance to shadows and water distortion. The knife glinted on the surface.

“My knife floats?” He ducked underwater again due to Alisha’s apparent nakedness.

Alisha pulled him up by the collar. “Do you not know my ship burned? I drowned. When I washed up on shore, my armor could not be removed,” Alisha said, hauling Marcus out of the pool. “Fight or leave my garden.”

Shiny bronze marked her forearms, legs, and wet hair. Bronze scales covered her torso and hips, and a white linen pattern showed where her tunic ended. Brown, leathery strips ran over her cheeks, chin, feet, and ankles. The marks showed which pieces of armor she attempted to remove. But her body moved as if she was naked.

“Fight or leave my garden!” Alisha yelled.

Marcus shoved her into the water but winded himself on the raised edge. Water gushed from Alisha’s mouth and nose. He stared at her dangling eyeball, but she popped it in, and it swiveled to face him. Marcus lacked the breath to whimper.

Alisha gurgled, “Have you stayed because a six-fingered potter from a poor family will starve and not support his wife and baby?”

“I didn’t want to fight anybody,” Marcus said, backing away. “I shouldn’t have been watching a lady swim, but you could have drowned again…You can’t drown again…And you are a warrior, but a lady, too…in a private garden. It doesn’t matter here?”

Alisha sighed and folded her arms. “If you do not fight or run in ten seconds, I shall remove everything I wear.”

Marcus scrambled up to run and skinned his knee. A few steps later, Alisha threw him and herself into the draining pool.

Alisha, who tended to swear and grunt, often dodged his pummels, slashings, and stabbings. The armor fused to her skin protected her like normal armor, and his knife scored it. Marcus aimed for light brown fleshy areas.

In water shallow enough to stand in, Alisha choked Marcus and restrained his legs. Marcus stabbed through her hand; his knife’s point stopped against his hand. With her other hand, she twisted it away. She grabbed Marcus’ arm, but he sliced her elbow to the bone.

Wading away from the billowing blood, Marcus thought, I can’t kill her! He said, “Let me stop the bleeding…What will the Lydanites do?”

Alisha squeezed the artery. “The Lydanites believe I am still dead.”

Her hand relaxed by the time Marcus dragged her from the pool. He held the already dry knife blade to her mouth, but she had stopped breathing. While Marcus arranged her in a more-or-less straight position and patted her dry, her fish-eaten armored appearance changed to a skin-like one. She removed all her jewelry except for her earring, lip ring, and a green and brown stone on a tight, bronze necklace. He covered her with the purple robe.

Marcus felt vaguely guilty over thinking about his own problems while Alisha died. I will have one finger on my right hand…he thought. The redness advanced up his right index finger.

He dipped his knife experimentally in the water; the water flowed from the smallest details. Cautiously, then harder, he pressed the knife point against his arm. It felt sharp but did not cut him, or leave a red or white mark.

Alisha had piled her gold jewelry (some beaded or set with gems) on the ground, and Marcus considered bringing it with him. He heard stories of Alisha’s wealth, and anybody willing to soak solid purple clothes could afford to. Of course, if Marcus took the clothing and most of the jewelry to Lucopoli, he would be arrested under suspicion of theft. Even the plainest items, the earrings, were risky. Warriors looted each other’s armor and weapons, which hardly fit Marcus’ predicament. Why steal if I will turn into an animal for years? he thought.

Marcus found Alisha’s tent and wrapped up in a sweet-smelling blanket but found sitting on her bed, stool, or even the ground impossible. Alisha left one of her cosmetics jars open on its side. She owned the lyre and a weaving stand. Marcus had never seen a mirror before, let alone a freestanding full-length one. He hardly recognized his pustule-scarred face.

I can’t stay in her home, and I need my fingers.

Marcus took a torch and behind ivy, found a door in the obsidian wall. Then he returned to the pool.

I’ll take the jewelry and ask to keep it. If I can’t, I will give it back. Marcus wrapped the jewelry in purple cloth and tied it to his belt.

Most wounds Unata inflicted on Marcus healed, but Marcus’ weight loss remained, and his scabs healed quite quickly. In the feast hall, he felt sick, which meant the diseased warrior already attacked him. How can he attack me if I feel better? Marcus thought. If he found shelter from the wind, far from the feast hall and garden, he might recover, or avoid another attack. The diseased warrior’s possible attack and the horror of Unata’s feast hall overruled wishing to speak to the phoenix.

As Marcus searched for shelter, a riddle repeated in his head:

I am flat and raised, and rough and smooth. I float, but I am heavier than stone. I am clean but have been in filth. One of my parts is sharp and dull. I turn myself, but you cannot turn me. I can be seen through but cannot be seen into. I represent nine figures and more. What am I?

In a grove, he held the knife to the torchlight. The closest tree whacked him with her branch and the others shooed him, saying:

“If you hide here, he will eat our bark.”

“It doesn’t hurt us much, but it is quite ugly.”

“We don’t like to upset him.”

Out of the trees’ range, Marcus broke up the riddle. He was fairly sure the correct answer was “the knife.” Will the riddle monster eat me if I don’t answer him completely? he thought. But The-Dread-and-Sore-Amaze gave it to me….

Marcus flicked, twisted, and otherwise failed to move the knife’s stone—until he turned his entire body. Reflecting seemed different than seeing into or seeing through. The deities oversaw everything, but his labors preoccupied them—that worried and alarmed him, though he also expected it constantly in his normal life.

With the deities’ symbols, the blade showed seven figures. Although the Three-Eyed Goddess and the Two-Headed Deity of Life and Death were the patrons of the shown cities, the knife’s engravings showed different ones. Marcus recognized a couple of symbols as foreign, but forgot which deities they represented, or if the deities belonged to his religion. If the knife’s design included general, vague symbolism, the green and brown stone represented the Three-Eyed Goddess’ hazel eyes. Black and white referred to the Two-Headed-Deity-of-Life-and-Death. The knife’s black, engraved sides symbolized the Death-Head due to the warrior’s deaths, and the white, mirror-like side the Life-Head, showed that the nations would live. “And more” referred to the deity parting into the Goddess of Life and the God of Death. Alternatively, “and more” meant the mirror reflected anybody’s face.

A rider on a headless horse approached, then Marcus noticed the rider’s hips joined a horse’s body and legs. He also either had donkey ears or a unique helmet plume.

“…Trampled to death…” running Marcus panted.

His knife’s stone pointed to the horse warrior, who raced Marcus at a trot, then a walk, occasionally whacking him with the flat. Rarely, Marcus slashed or stabbed, and less often, wounded him.

With a stitch in his side, Marcus slowed to a walk. He gouged the horse warrior’s sword, but the horse warrior kicked Marcus’ ribs. He tossed the torch and knife in opposite directions. Marcus scrambled for his knife.

Continuous lightning, without thunder or rain, distracted Marcus and the rider. Ball lightning drifted around them, and ozone and sulfur filled the air.

The warrior thrust the spear through Marcus’ tunic, intentionally missing his flesh. Marcus chopped the spear in two and picked up the bottom part.

A ball of lightning rolled down the warrior’s sword. The warrior and Marcus’ hair stood on end, then a lightning bolt struck the ground a few feet away. The warrior shouted and reared.

Marcus dropped the spear half, blanket, and jewelry, bolting and shouting, “I’m sorry for stealing! And I’m sorry for burning the torch! What…Do you want me to do…Do you want it back and how am I supposed to do that?”

The walking horse warrior mocked Marcus, who identified the language as Nesatopic. He knew most of the horse’s vulgar vocabulary and the translation reached his ear.

“It scared you, too!” Marcus snapped as if a comment like that ever helped him.

Marcus sprinted to a rocky outcrop, but the horse warrior reached it first. A face-flattening wind blew.

A bird screeched overhead, then the phoenix torch clanged off the horse warrior’s helmet. The warrior collapsed.

A few seconds later, the blanket gusted after Marcus into the smoky outcrop. He called, “Thank you!” The torch, spear, and jewelry clattered off the rocks, and the wind calmed, but Marcus had already tumbled down a flight of stairs.

Stones in the cave’s wall burned and smoked, which alarmed Marcus. Still, he preferred an underground fire to the horse warrior. Cautiously, Marcus retrieved the phoenix torch; the horse warrior had left.

His knife’s stone oscillated from a dim passage to various parts of the ceiling. I don’t want to meet another warrior, he thought.

He had killed Alisha for fear of drowning or choking, and he attacked the horse warrior simply to escape. The next time, he worried he would intentionally fight the warrior, and expected it soon: nearly the entire index finger on his right, dominant hand was red. Why had The-Dread-and-Sore-Amaze bitten off his left ring finger instead of the left middle finger? Now he constantly, involuntarily made the worst gesture known to the Crescent Sea. Don’t complain about having fingers, he thought.

The dim passageway contained an out-of-reach stone staircase. Marcus lowered it with a knife slot, and it swiveled to a lintel.

He followed the burning stones to a crumbling structure built into the caves. Because it resembled a temple, Marcus found a good shelter if he could not kill more warriors.

It can’t be a temple, he thought. The rules indicated deities rarely interacted with people on Calospelegna, but Marcus believed the deities should have temples, the fighters, warriors, and preserved people lived on the holy mountain, and they needed to worship.

One oversized man supported the tilting, cracked ceiling; his spear or stylus propped up the doorway. Marcus passed a line of bronze, burning, oil-filled lamps: life-sized people with lifelike expressions leading sacrificial animals or bearing bronze spelt or molten bronze. Marcus thought molten bronze was impossible, especially without a heat source. At the altar, the lamps depicted a priest sacrificing a young woman. Human sacrifice was a known religious practice around the Crescent Sea, but people like himself rarely witnessed it. Due to the sacrifice and unfamiliar features, he worried he found a mystery religion forbidden to him. The deities wanted me to come here, he told himself. Marcus thought the patron deity sent The-Dread-and-Sore-Amaze to preserve the priest, sacrifices, and warrior from something, possibly another deity.

“I’m not involving myself. I won’t fight in a temple,” Marcus called.

Against the deities’ wishes, Marcus longed to return to his old life. Those on Calospelegna can leave when the seven warriors are defeated.

Because he killed the chosen warriors of three deities, according to the warriors’ and deities’ wishes, he worried about the other deities’ reactions. Though he remembered, If the fighter survives the labor on Calospelegna, he shall not be subject to divine reaction, he wondered if the deities’ plan included every deity in the pantheon. What about the divine creatures, like The-Dread-and-Sore-Amaze?

Then he realized the deities could not heal his hands or mysteriously alter them like they changed the warriors’ bodies. Marcus had not thought of physical modification until that moment; the refusal disappointed him anyway.

The fighter shall be provided for during the labor. If the deities decide unanimously, the fighter may receive divine assistance. In extraordinary circumstances, the deities may reach a compromise.

Marcus believed that of everywhere in the known world, Oridocia was the most likely place to find divine assistance. Thoroughly, he searched the building for something providential.

Every lamp except the warrior’s lit the building’s interior. The warrior’s lamp held a solid, smooth, yellow substance and a wick. The illegible bronze tablet at the lamp’s pedestal shared letters with Marcus’ language.

The wall over the trapdoor was fresh, dried clay, easy to rehydrate and rewrite, the other temple’s paintings, permanent. While Marcus examined the drying comparison chart of deities’ symbols, a trap door opened. His knife slowed and stopped him. But he almost lost the knife. So, Marcus slid onwards, clutching the knife.

Hissing and shouting snakewomen lined the walls and galleries; Marcus assumed they had been preserved, but he stared at them—until several snakes carried an armless, legless woman towards him. Closer, he identified her as the warrioress: Two snakes came from the warrioress’ right forearm and one each from her right knee, left shoulder, and left foot.

Marcus seriously considered spelunking up the slide, but the warrioress dragged him to the center of the warm cavern. Her legs’ snakes held her upright, as steady and still as legs, and the warrioress’ arms coiled firmly around him like rope, at arm’s length. The warrioress wore the green and brown stone on a leather band around her human upper arm, over a mended and patched tunic-like garment.

Positive Ogdolia would understand his predicament, he noticed the average snakewoman flattened one breast more than the other, was of child-rearing age, and had white human skin and unfamiliar clothes.

No! Please, don’t be Svalug!

He spotted a few more snakelets (one nursing) and a complete absence of men or snakemen.

Svalug women!

Marcus lied, “I can’t have children! Men in my family never have children! Not on my father’s side or mother’s side! We can’t!”

Marcus’ ear interpreted the warrioress’ words as the unsarcastic sentences, “Congratulations on your baby. Go home to your wife and baby.”

Snakeskin scarred her black hair and the rest of her pale body, at least what little Marcus saw. Snakeskin replaced one ear. Her right, human eye was deep brown and her snake-eye yellow. The snakeskin was tan with yellow, black, and reddish-brown markings, and the snakes’ eyes were yellow.

A few months ago, Marcus read on the bulletin board that, the year before, the Svalug tribal queen poisoned herself to avoid capture. He bungled her name.

“Katarami. Kah-TAHR-amee. Katarami,” she said. “Mzia, prepare him.”

Mzia roughly bit Marcus’ left arm, cut open the bite, sucked the venom out, and washed and bandaged it. She held his nose until he drank a body-temperature, bloody, herby potion that burned his mouth, throat, and stomach. Both Mzia and Katarami had an earring and lip ring.

The treatment baffled him, but he worried about voicing objections.

Marcus drew his knife and stabbed Katarami, hoping to escape. The single spurt of blood burned his skin. She crushed his hand until he dropped his knife, then she handed it to Mzia.

“We do not fight yet,” Katarami said. “I am crying from the wound. You do not make me cry.”

The deep stab wound had already stopped bleeding, apparently without treatment.

I need a plan…She’ll kill me.

Katarami explained that the snakewomen’s poison was the antidote to hers and vice-versa, which confused her. Fighters required her and Mzia’s early intervention—Katarami grew more powerful than predicted.

Through the explanation, Katarami stopped crying, and white, leathery skin grew over the stab wound. Marcus expected a snake to burst out at any moment.

She isn’t a snake, he thought. Longing to run, Marcus told himself, I need my right fingers.

“Fight now!” Katarami shouted.

The snakewomen and snakelets quieted. Mzia tossed Marcus’ knife to him, and he fumbled it, as Katarami’s snakes slithered away. She sat cross-legged with other snakewomen.

Katarami’s snakes half-surrounded Marcus; she controlled them like arms and legs, and she required at least one stationary snake to stand upright. He wished he had two whole hands and the phoenix torch to brandish at the snakes on one side while knifing with the other hand. When Marcus attacked one side, Katarami tended to bite or coil around the opposite side. Still, Marcus half-severed her shoulder snake, and he ducked the two or three spurts of blood.

Her snakes constricted him, but eyes shut, and head turned aside, Marcus plunged the knife into her chest. Katarami’s coils relaxed. He wriggled his arms free, then Katarami knocked him down as she fell.

Through a closed mouth, Marcus yelled “Get off!” Katarami bit his back as he fought free.

“Please stop. I don’t want to cut your head off,” Marcus gasped wheezily. He attempted to wipe his face clean on a sweating arm and cautiously squinted.

Katarami’s mouth and the remaining snakes hissed at him. Like lizard eggs half-dug up, a white growth covered her heart and shoulder; Marcus expected a baby snake to burst out any moment. Either run now or cut her neck and run, he thought. But he doubted he could chop off a head.

Marcus grabbed the larger snake from her right forearm and slashed through it. The snakehead’s fangs embedded in his arm, but he kept a slippery grip on the smaller one and pried out the head. He yanked the smaller snake towards him. Clumsily, Marcus slashed her shoulder and throat to the spinal cord and a snake’s head drooped mid-bite.

The watching snakewomen quieted further. They will kill me, Marcus thought.

“Please don’t kill me,” he called.

Katarami’s mouth and snakes hissed in unison, and Mzia hurried to listen. She completely ignored Marcus, which relieved him. Then Mzia left, calling, “Do not tend her wounds. Follow him, if necessary, but do not kill him.”

Marcus untangled himself and crawled out of Katarami’s reach. Something kept her snakes alive and functional, but Katarami’s human body became limp and still. Her snakes fought independently, but he dodged them and stepped on one just enough to immobilize it.

Though he longed to escape, he rolled Katarami over and checked the wounds. Her clotted neck lacked a leathery growth. Marcus slit her neck, heart, and the leathery growths over her snakish stumps. A minute later, they stayed open, and her snakes had weakened.

In severe pain, Marcus hobbled from the cavern. The scorpion-tailed monster galloped down a passageway, so Marcus dodged into a room—full of baskets holding snake eggs. He crouched behind a boulder.

“Hold arrows!” Mzia ordered, and others echoed.

“Marcus of Lucopoli, leave the nursery!” Mzia said.

“I know four…five…two Marcuses, three Marcoses, and two nicknames, so who do you mean?” Marcus asked.

“The Marcus of Lucopoli who is a potter.”

“Marcus of Lucopoli cannot be a potter,” Marcus quavered.

“Look in front of you. Walk. Turn when I say. For every child you step on, I will remove an organ.”

Walking, Marcus said, “I haven’t stepped on children. I didn’t mean to disturb your…eggs…”

Soon, Marcus became too dizzy and weak to drag himself further, and he fainted.

Marcus vaguely remembered what happened next and drifted in and out of consciousness. Mzia bit him, easily made him drink the potion again, and the scorpion-tailed monster stung his upper back and buttocks. People carried him to a well-lit cave and moved around him, sponging, and bandaging the bites.

Agnus and somebody else balanced wheezing Marcus upright. He folded to the stone floor.

“Well, you’ll hold yourself up in a minute.” Agnus creaked to the floor and propped him up. “Open your eyes. Count your fingers aloud, not your thumbs.”

Marcus squinted at the hands Agnus held up and mumbled, including his thumbs, “One…two…three…four…five…No!” According to his black right middle finger and his reddening right ring finger showed approximately an hour passed since he entered the Svalug women’s cavern. His right ring finger was red halfway to the second knuckle.

“Close enough for now.” Agnus laid his hands down. “You’d’ve’d six, but Katarami hasn’t died. You’d’ve died if Mzia and the Winged Manticore hadn’t gotten you, and if Katarami hadn’t sent them to you. So many fighters died after fighting the snakewomen, The-Dread-and-Sore-Amaze turned the Sphinx into a Winged Manticore to cure them.”

“Do I have to kill him?” Marcus asked.

“Who?” Agnus asked.

Marcus pointed to the Winged Manticore. “I don’t want to. And isn’t he Lucopolitan?”

“No! Don’t kill him! He is not a warrior!”

“Good.”

“The Lucopolitan warrior carries Calospelegna on his back, so he won’t help you. Us preserved ones have very specific instructions.”

“From the caverns? But how long has it happened?”

“Longer than you’ve been here. You can’t stay with us anymore,” Agnus said.

“…But I’m too weak to fight now…”

Agnus and another woman silently hustled Marcus to the three-way passageway. Marcus’ knife and phoenix torch seemed heavier than before. Every part of his body hurt, and he struggled to breathe, but his legs steadied during the walk.

Marcus leaned against the wall to chase his breath; it refused to be caught. Considering the night’s events, of course, he felt sick. But his ribs ached and his breathing hurt. His bandages numbed his bites, or so Agnus claimed.

He wished The-Dread-and-Sore-Amaze took his fingers from left to right, rather than the most recently fully reddened one. Then he could just hide until dawn, keeping his right hand intact. Even a trained fighter could not kill the other three in the time remaining: one hour at the earliest and two hours at the latest.

It's too late to save my hands, but the deities want me to fight, Marcus thought.

He determined that every lethal wound he gave a warrior was quite different from the wound from which The-Dread-and-Sore-Amaze preserved him. Also, wounding the preserved part hardly affected the warrior, and, if the wound fell on a preserved part, the warrior survived an imaginably lethal injury—the monstrous elements functioned as armor. Marcus hated planning how to kill, and it disgusted him, but to kill a warrior quickly, he needed to attack the most human spots. Confident in finding a warrior if he went in the direction his knife’s stone pointed, Marcus limped down a passageway.

He came to a carved rolling stone with an incomplete machine. Marcus manipulated his knife in the slot until a metal bar emerged from the stone and completed the handle—the wrong shape for hand-turning. As Marcus pedaled, the stone rolled aside.

Marcus went into a stuffy chamber lit with oil lamps. He walked slowly from necessity, which saved him from drop-offs. Too weak to hold up the phoenix torch except to mark his route, it scraped the floor.

The venom continuously wore off, but Marcus felt feverish and shaky, both reasonable aftereffects of his recent activities.

Marcus found many dead-ends, but one had an inscription with backward letters. Marcus’ knife reflected them, and he read, Find the door. Marcus’ knife quickly cut through the thin wall.

He stepped into a corridor with a grooved wall, and, experimentally, Marcus pressed his foot to it. His foot stuck to the wall. He steadied himself with his knife and then raised his other foot to the wall. Stones ground and the walls shook. Some stones lowered, while others rose.

The groove ended facing a wall with a passage too high to jump. Marcus uncomfortably walked on the ceiling. He pulled himself into it, and, to his relief, he felt like standing the right way up.

An inscription over the door read: The fighter cures the disease.

The door had a deep recess with five fingerholes, clearly hand-shaped. He scraped dried gore from the fingerholds. Holding his knife between his palms, forming one complete hand, slid his knife into the slot. If he made a fist or raised or lowered his hand, sharp spikes and a wobbly stone would ruin them.

When the door opened, a recognizable smell wafted down the tunnel: plague.

I can’t kill it. I can’t reach the River Djebu. Then Marcus wondered if only his knife killed warriors.

Doctors knew that, inexplicably, an immune person in direct contact with the plague spread it to a healthy person. Until Marcus healed, his friends’ parents worried about his buboes bursting and infecting their children. If he stood close enough to smell it, he risked carrying the plague to Ogdolia and his baby. Maybe he could purge his lungs and bathe before going home.

Apparently sleeping, though the plague caused days-long insomnia, plague victims lay on beds and the floor, dribbling pus, cerebrospinal fluid, urine, vomit, and diarrhea.

As Marcus splashed and shuffled through similar rooms, his mouth was so dry, he thought it absorbed the water before it reached his throat. He suddenly needed to urinate in an overflowing bucket. Then he forced himself to continue walking. Sweat soaked Marcus and his teeth chattered. Despite double vision, he recognized the furnishings from his trip to Phahmese.

A hydrocephalic, pustule-covered Phahmesian man lay on a bed in an otherwise empty room. He wore a linen skirt and a belt with a green and brown stone; he also had an earring and lip ring.

Marcus felt for the disease warrior’s weak, rapid heart. The warrior held Marcus’ hand to his chest and his red down-turned eyes fixed on him. Probably from Marcus’ dizziness, the room spun. He tasted barley gruel and felt as anxious as he had when, aged six, he contracted the plague. Why am I sick again? he thought.

“You are immune. Please, tend the sick with me,” the disease warrior said.

“No, but I want to,” Marcus said. “…I should…”

“But you love your wife, and she—”

“She is in Lucopoli.”

“She came here for treatment, for she is near death.”

The disease warrior pointed to the bed, where infected Ogdolia lay under a sheet. Marcus rushed to her. Ogdolia’s long, black, curly hair had been cut to her scalp and one side of her head shaved clean for trepanning. Pus dripped into the freshly sewn cut.

“Unfortunately, the pus from her head entered her brain, and she will likely die soon,” the disease warrior said.

Marcus believed him; the complication terrified his mother. He whispered comforting things to her, but also thought, But she couldn’t become so ill in a few hours! Hydrocephaly developed after a few days. “Don’t believe him,” he whispered.

“Don’t you know, unfortunately, mothers spread the plague to their unborn and nursing babies?”

“Yes, but it isn’t normal…” Marcus felt Ogdolia’s fever long before he touched her forehead.

“It often happens, but, fortunately, we have a treatment.”

Marcus sniffed the pus on his hand.

“Perhaps extracting the baby will save your child, but, unfortunately, your wife will likely die.”

“How did she come here?” Marcus asked, gently turning over Ogdolia’s hand.

His wife burned her finger while cooking supper; the burn appeared as he examined the spot.

“She came with other plague victims,” the doctor said.

The-Dread-and-Sore-Amaze brought everybody here, Marcus thought. “I’m hallucinating her. And I don’t want to spread the plague.”

The disease warrior felt Marcus’ forehead with a hot hand. “Your fever is too low to cause hallucinations.”

“Don’t involve her and our baby!” Marcus found the warrior’s heart again. “They have nothing to do with my situation! …And I shouldn’t spread the plague.”

“Of course, I will treat her, but, unfortunately, she may—”

Marcus slid the dagger through the man’s heart and blood trickled down Marcus’ arm. The gruel taste disappeared. Scared he doomed Ogdolia and their baby, he looked at the thankfully empty bed. All plaguey bodily fluids disappeared.

Returning to the passageway required all of Marcus’ effort. The stone pointed down the remaining passageway, but he slumped to the floor.

I can’t participate as a sick, lame animal…

Throughout the night, Marcus had worried that the shock of The-Dread-and-Sore-Amaze taking him would hurt Ogdolia or the baby. A potential life without them was awful, and if he lost more fingers, he doubted he could support himself, let alone them. Having the maximum number of fingers prevented future suffering. By fighting, Marcus gave himself the opportunity to save at least one finger, maybe more.

And if he sat longer, he would fall asleep. Marcus forced himself up and followed the passage, which led to Belkish’s cave.

He wandered around Calospelegna. When Marcus encountered the warrior, he said, “I can’t kill you outright, and you have suffered too much to attempt a battle.” His earring and lip ring marked him as a warrior.

Marcus’ symptoms had faded somewhat, but he was too exhausted to reply. Eventually, his knife’s stone pointed to the rock outcrop, where he collapsed. Involuntarily and immediately, Marcus fell asleep.

The warrior prodded Marcus at an awkward angle with his spear. Marcus scrunched up, but then he lunged forward and stabbed the warrior’s thigh. The warrior limped circles around the outcrop.

Marcus checked his right pinkie, red to the fingernail. He worried about tracking time with totally red fingers. Katarami’s death also complicated matters: unless he fought her again, he expected to lose one finger from his dominant hand. Guiltily, he thought she might die.

Scared of the horse warrior, Marcus decided to find the fire warrior.

The fire warrior’s wick was out of reach, but Marcus figured out that his stylus or spear functioned as a lamplighter. Quickly, the beeswax melted into floor groves. The ceiling and the warrior’s slab lowered, and Marcus crouched underneath. The alternative was retreating, and he doubted, if another route existed, he had the strength to find it.

The warrior, glowing red-hot, stopped in a dark and silent room with a slightly tilted floor. Tin dripped onto the slightly tilted floor. Marcus cut a foothold and inserted his knife in a slot—but his right pinkie disappeared. He stood up, then snatched his knife from the approaching tin. The bronze deformed.

The webbing between his white left index finger and olive thumb reddened. Marcus expected to fight two or three more warriors, but all his fingers had either been taken or turned red and kept. Oh no…he thought. Marcus realized how much his red fingers encouraged him.

“They can be taken? But I saved them!”

Marcus carved deep footholds in the wall and three fingerholds for his left hand. Wobbling, with his right hand, he activated his knife key. One stone in each wall slid aside and ice-cold water poured through them. A vent in each wall let in fresh air.

“It has an exit somewhere, and the water probably opens it,” Marcus told himself.

A red mound with a black crust illuminated the steamy room, but as the water rose, the light faded. The steaming phoenix objected to the water; Marcus quavered comforting things. Though the water warmed, Marcus swam to the pouring ice-cold water, worried about the temperature increasing. He coughed from sulfur fumes.

Marcus swam on his back to the grinding stone and into the passage. Regretfully, he held his breath, unstrapped the phoenix, and entered the passage. The phoenix sank underwater and extinguished.

The passage tilted up, then down into a half-filled chamber. The red and black mass followed him, occasionally shedding a floating, gray substance. Marcus wedged himself into a corner. Ice-cold, filthy, smelly water flooded the chamber, but just as water reached the ceiling, it drained.

The water brought him to a drain partly filled with ice-cold water and ice chunks. Though he inhaled some water, he survived. Now the red and black mass resembled a person, and whether it was a Winged Manticore-like situation or the fire warrior, it scared and confused Marcus. The warriors are supposed to be human, he thought.

He swam toward the light but bumped his head on the ice. He cut an air hole in it. While making a large hole to escape through, he lost his knife. When he found it, he lost the air hole and cut a new one. It was the thickest ice he had ever seen.

Meanwhile, the fire warrior oozed into Alisha’s pool, like thick mud, and swam near the surface, melting the ice, slightly warming the water, and breaking free of the pumice. Marcus watched him for a few seconds.

Get out of the water, Marcus thought.

Marcus cut a new air hole and attempted to widen it, clutching his knife in both numb hands. He struggled to stay afloat. The fire warrior brought Marcus’ pathetic stabs. Heat radiated off the fire warrior.

Then the fire warrior took a deep breath and submerged again to knock the remaining pumice from his charred body. On the sixth try, Marcus clambered out of the pool.

“Leave the water before the lightning hits it!” Marcus called. “…It isn’t…normal lightning…”

The fire warrior floated by Alisha’s body, talking to her, and periodically dunking himself and rolling over. His charred burns began healing into severe burns.

Marcus warmed suspiciously quickly. I don’t know how to kill him, Marcus thought. Also, he found himself incapable of moving—until the fire warrior swam towards him with his knife. Marcus backed into a rosebush.

The fire warrior tossed Marcus’ knife into the bush, asking a question in a language very similar to Marcus’.

“Please repeat it. I didn’t hear it,” Marcus said, staring at the fire warrior’s green and brown teeth. Gold tinted his lips and ear.

He recognized some words in the question and his ear filled in the rest: “Why did you cut Alisha in such a manner?”

“I don’t know how to kill people! I didn’t want to, but she was drowning me.”

“I hope I won’t avenge her. If I killed you from revenge, I would not give you opportunity to earn your life, and I would not be killing for our purpose.”

“I can’t fight you,” Marcus said. “But…The last time I stabbed you, it didn’t work, so I want to escape…”

I will overheat…And I can’t survive another battle, he thought, finding the knife.

The fire warrior returned to Alisha. Feeling like a low-life, Marcus jumped onto him and stabbed him twice in the back. The fire warrior sunk and bobbed to the surface.

Once recovered from the cold shock, Marcus hobbled to the garden door.

The sky dimmed and, suddenly, the sun swooped over the horizon. Lightning abruptly halted. A total eclipse darkened the sky. It hurt his eyes and, because watching an eclipse was bad luck, he focused on his two-thirds red thumb. The sun emerged, flashed closer and northward, and then darkness fell again.

I’m supposed to be an animal, Marcus thought.

The Winged Manticore landed beside Marcus, who squeaked and brandished his knife.

“What’s wrong with the sun?” Marcus quavered, as lightning resumed.

“A deity other than the Sky-God moved it. The Sky-God intervened to save the world. The deities are discussing the situation. At the moment, I must examine Anaxeus, a scribe and warrior from Jadikira.”

The Winged Manticore padded to the pool and Marcus followed beyond stinging range.

“Please, let me keep my fingers,” Marcus said.

“I do not decide.”

The Winged Manticore grudgingly entered the water and pushed Anaxeus to the edge, then wrangled him onto the gravel, forbidding help from Marcus. He examined the body briefly, while Marcus paced to keep warm.

“Anaxeus is quite dead,” the Winged Manticore said, approaching him. “You shall keep a finger. You need only worry about one more finger and warrior.”

“I can’t fight more,” Marcus said.

“It is your decision.” The Winged Manticore had a lip ring, and his earring tangled in his mane.

“Do they truly want to be here and fight me?”

“Oh, yes. They have various reasons and motivations, but I cannot discuss specifics with the fighter. I may say that you killed Thones and Katarami in the same hour, and no other fighter has killed two in one hour.”

“Who was Thones?”

“Thones was a soldier and doctor present at the first outbreak of plague, in Bekhet. Katarami led the Svalug tribe. Belkish began a civil war in the Empire of Giruppik. A volcanic eruption destroyed Anaxeus’ home long ago, and the nursery rhyme Insula Peninsula comes from it. I believe you know the other warriors’ stories.”

“What about the horse-man warrior?”

“I cannot discuss him yet.”

“Agnus, the other preserved Lucopolitans, and some warriors have been dead for years, but how can they be alive?” Marcus said.

“The deities resurrected them, and they are very alive. Every warrior shall die and go to the afterlife.”

Like a cat, the Winged Manticore quietly groomed himself dry and clean.

Marcus worried about what would happen when other nations discovered he killed their people. He wondered about Ogdolia’s reaction to the night; she might understand.

Marcus’ right thumb reddened, and his left thumb turned white. He kept his other four fingers.

“But I can’t work anymore,” Marcus said. He barely held the knife.

A couple minutes later, Marcus asked, "Is the correct answer my knife?"

"Yes," the Winged Manticore said.

Finally, The Dread-and-the-Sore-Amaze appeared to Marcus. The deities have reached a compromise due to extraordinary circumstances. Marcus shall become a boar, and the sun shall finish rising in a customary manner. Manticore, send for Agnus.

The Winged Manticore flew away, while Marcus begged for his fingers.

He dropped to his hands and feet, and two of his lower teeth jutted over his lip. His two front cloven hooves missed half of each, but he wobbled like a piglet. His normal squeaks and squeals became pig-like. Agnus approached.

Open your mouth, The-Dread-and-Sore-Amaze said to Marcus.

Agnus set his knife in Marcus’ open mouth and lashed it to his tusks.

Continue with the labor, The-Dread-and-Sore-Amaze said.

Marcus practiced walking and moving faster around Calospelegna. White, red, and black colored his front hooves, which had one clove each.

Marcus correctly assumed the horse warrior would find him, and Marcus dreaded dying. The horse warrior moved at a pace difficult for him to match. The spear hardly wounded Marcus.

He dodged between the horse warrior’s legs and stopped but failed to trip the horse warrior. As the warrior twisted and turned, looking for him, Marcus sliced through a leg; the horse warrior kicked him and lost his balance.

Marcus charged the struggling horse warrior’s back. He stopped just short of goring with his tusks. A boar body was too unwieldy to attack the warrior face-to-face. But the horse warrior turned over and blocked his knife with his spear, so Marcus ran behind his back. Marcus cut through the spear and plunged his knife into the horse warrior’s side at approximately chest height. He easily shook free of the horse warrior, who gurgled, unable to stop two more attacks. Then Marcus backed out of a spear’s reach.

The horse warrior’s clothing resembled a horse blanket, and Marcus had seen a green and brown stone fastening it at the belly. So, Marcus knew he defeated the last warrior.

The-Dread-and-Sore-Amaze descended and restored Marcus’ human form, which felt much better. The red on his thumb stopped spreading, which relieved Marcus—now he stopped worrying about keeping his fingers.

“Who was the horse warrior?” Marcus asked.

He was Klonos of Nesatope, The-Dread-and-Sore-Amaze said.

But he won games and fought many battles, Marcus thought. …He lost an army at the Battle of Natyline.

You completed the labor and defeated the seven warriors.

“But more than eight nations live around the Crescent Sea, and I don’t know how many more live beyond it. We have more than eight gods, too. Why did killing the seven warriors help the situation?” Marcus asked.

The deities chose the nations for specific purposes and with reasons mortals might not understand. Great changes may come to your life. I shall carry you home now.