The Belly of the Beast

Ch. 48, Ghost Town

Exploring Level N felt like exploring a town for ghosts. Everything was orderly and neat, if dusty. Despite his disapproving tone, I was glad Dagger was here. Something felt wrong about this place. It didn't make sense... Why lie to these people? Why promise them a future? It was almost like they wanted them to come easily. The thought was so disturbing I immediately turned to Dagger.

"So, Dag, maybe while we're here we could get to know each other a bit?"

Dagger opened a door, peered inside at an empty room, and walked on, not answering me.

But now the words wouldn't stop, a nervous flow. "You know, maybe while we're here we could pick up some new matching clothes. Red's getting old. Maybe green. I've never worn pink, but I think it might be your color." Nothing. Not even a smile. "And while we're talking, you might as well tell me what you did to get thrown into the trials in the first place? Pushed a big red button? Punched a couple orphans?"

"I killed the only person who ever loved me. My crime was unlisted because I entered the Trials myself."

I stopped, shocked into silence.

He kept walking down the dark path, voice taunting when he called over his shoulder. "Still want to be friends, Z?"

I watched him walk away, trying to process those words. I killed the only person who ever loved me. He killed them, as in, an accident? Or in cold blood? Did that change what I thought of him? Should it? I decided to focus on the second part of what he'd said: he chose to enter the Trials. Which meant he was either incredibly stupid or... no. That was the only explanation. My partner was crazy. Maybe we were more alike than I'd thought.

I caught up to him. "I still want to be friends."

"Why?" He spun to face me, voice raw and eyes accusing.

I stepped back, startled by the sudden show of emotion. "Why not?"

"I just... don't understand you." He gestured to the empty rooms. "Why didn't you let me kill Shadow? Why do you care what happened to these people?" He swallowed, fist clenched as he stared away from me, and I could physically see him trying to regain control. Finally he looked back up at me, the coldness settled back in place like a mask. "Why didn't you just let me die in that pit? You could have been the only survivor. Why try to save any of us?"

I paused. "Shouldn't we care about each other?"

"I'm not your letter."

"Maybe hating people because they're a different letter is stupid," I snapped at him. He looked surprised, but I was out of patience. "You ever think that's what the Top wants? To set us all against each other, so we don't realize they've got everything and we've got nothing? First with letters, and then with trials. You want to know why I want to be friends? Maybe because right now, the two of us have no one else."

He stared at me, unblinking and I took a slow deep breath, and crossed my arms. "Look Dagger, if being my friend is too much to ask, fine, but you're the one who found me. You're the one who asked to be my partner. What I'm proposing is an agreement: We don't kill each other and we watch each other's backs. Can you handle that?"

Dagger paused, and then slowly held out a hand. I hesitated, trying to read some sort of trick in his eyes, but they were serious as always. So I reached out and shook his hand, forbidding myself to blush at the contact.

Then he cleared his throat, and dropped my hand. "Though maybe we could think of something a little more casual than partner? Acquaintance? Permanent passer-by?" And there it was, a slight rise of his lips, a crease at the edge of his eyes.

Dagger just told a joke. Bloody Beast, maybe we both really are dead.

"Dag, you wound me," I said, but I couldn't quite bury my own smile.

It took another hour, but eventually we found a door that led out of the massive town room, and into dark corridors. The automatic lights were less frequent, and I worried we wouldn't be able to find our way when Dagger exclaimed, "Look!"

My heart skipped a beat, and I spun in a circle, knife raised. "What? What is it?"

But he only pointed at a door before us. "A guard station. It should have flashlights."

I breathed again. "Oh. Right." I waited in the corridor while Dagger dug out some flashlights and dehydrated food from the "guard station", which really was more of a large closet stashed with supplies. He didn't find any weapons, and Iguessed the guards had taken them when they left. I resisted the urge to ask him how he knew about the guard station, instead adding it to my mental tally of proof Dagger was a disgraced guard. Together we ate more food than I usually ate in several days, but neither of us suggested saving any of it.

"Alright," I said as I ate through the last of the food, "Since we are now officially partners, I think I'm entitled to know one thing about you." Besides the fact that you killed the only person who loved you. Might need to circle back on that one later.

He paused, and I was sure he wouldn't answer, or would tell me something stupid, but instead he surprised me.

"I wanted to be a librarian when I was little," he said.

I opened my mouth to laugh, snapped it closed, opened it again to ask him if guards were allowed to choose different jobs, decided against it, and then finally said, "Why a librarian?"

He shrugged. "I don't know... All those books about other worlds, where they didn't have letters, or levels... People could just roam free." He gave a short, humorless laugh. "Stupid, I know."

"No, it's not stupid. I mean, it's a little stupid, but my best friend Xyla and I ran an illegal book trading business. We had a bunch of different hiding compartments across the Belly, and worked out a whole system to move them before the guards could ever find them."

He shook his head, with a slight smile."Even your version of a librarian sounds cooler than mine."

I laughed, and he smiled, a look that completely changed his face. He was handsome, sure, when scowling, but with a smile, his eyes crinkled... Nope. Not going there. "We were lucky we never got caught. It was maybe the one illegal activity that was Xyla's idea and not mine. She was always a better planner than me." My smile faded as I thought of Xyla.

"Where is she now?"

It was my turn to shrug and look away. "Yana was Xyla's assigned engineering partner, and Yana was thrown in the Pit... they took Xyla away." A dark thought I hadn't wanted to voice rose now. Xyla was young and beautiful, what if they'd spared her the Letter Trial because they had wanted her for something else? I didn't want to think that. Wherever she was, I would find her. I would save her with the help of Androcles. "I don't know where they took her. But I'm going to find her."

"Maybe they needed a librarian on another level?"

His words were a peace offering, and I smiled at the ridiculous, impossible thought. "Yeah, maybe... she would have been good at that."

We left the guards station, continuing on our increasingly meandering search of the level. Automatic lights flickered before us as we walked. A few of them no longer worked, leading us from light to darkness and back, so that I was grateful for the flashlights. We used them to search odd corners, empty rooms, even though I wasn't sure what we searched for.

Instead, I felt certain that we would know it when we saw it and the riddle would reveal itself.

I was both right and wrong.

I knew it when I saw it. But it wasn't the ending I was expecting, or the one I wanted.

My flashlight pooled on the ground and then up to a set of two huge curved double doors. Dagger stopped beside me, our lights meeting on the door.

Chains held them closed.