Trigger Warning: Death, Blood

  (Dyn)

  The cospyer poi Dyn, giving an order to Abs-for-days. Without knowing their actual names, he resorted to assigning them niames.

  Abs-for-days gave a curt nod to the bossy cospyer and looked Dyn up and down—sizing him up. The iion of Abs’ speech suggested a question, but Dyn wasn’t sure—they were still speaking Sindarin, Welsh, or whatever. He stared at the stone side of Abs’ face; it moved seamlessly as he spoke. When their versation ended, Abs snatched Dyn’s free wrist, and the cospyer left them both.

  Now, he was being led around by the other wrist. Abs spoke one blunt word. It could have been “move”, “go”, “e”, or “follow”—but it sure as hell wasn’t “please”. Then Abs marched him down the hall.

  Dyn eled his inner petunt child, dragging his feet and pulling against Abs’ grip, but it was no use. The skin around his wrist grew angry and red from his attempts. Abs was deceptively strong for someone who had barely been on their feet just minutes ago. Dyn fucked around and found out, quickly learning that he shouldn’t have. Abs stopped, turned around, and, without a word, bent down to pick Dyn up like a sack of potatoes.

  “Oh my.” The maook Dyn by surprise.

  They proceeded down the hallway, with the elf carrying him over his shoulder as if he were ay-pound woman—not a two-hundred-something-pound man.

  Dyn wasn’t sure exactly how much he weighed these days. The st time he checked, he’d been around two hundred and fifty pounds, but he stopped weighing himself after that—less depressing that way.

  His improvised toga wasn’t doing much to defend his dignity in this position. Face flushed with embarrassment and nothing else to do, Dyn noticed the floor e of wood he’d never seen before. It was a deep, glossy purple—like an eggpnt.

  Straining to look higher, he saw the walls were bck with a, repeating gold design. Every few feet, a painting hung on the wall. By the third or fourth painting, Dyn realized they all depicted the same woman.

  “What the…” Dyn muttered, trying to get a better look at the subject.

  The paintings depicted a beautiful woman with sharp features, wearing a bck velvet coat with ornate gold trim. Her fair skin trasted with her glossy raven hair, cut short on top with long sideburns and bangs just above her eyebrows. A glowing emerald tiara rested atop her head, and her long, pointed ears pleted the regal look. Her imperious expression suggested Dyn wasn’t even worthy of looking at her portrait.

  “What iar Trek fanfi…?” Dyn muttered aloud. Rolling thunder answered unintelligently. ‘Seriously, what kind of vention is this?’ he wondered, but that question would have to wait, along with what their “Princess Spock” obsession was all about.

  They reached the end of the hallway, where it forked into two other paths. Curved elevator doors stood directly ahead.

  ‘Fancy.’

  Abs stopped a him down, pointing a fi him—likely telling him to behave. At least, that’s what Dyn assumed. He sighed in relief—they hadn’t run into anyone else while his ass was hanging out. Abs pced his hand on a small stone sb beside the curved sliding doors, uttering a phrase.

  Ding! The elevator chimed, opening to reveal a small circur room that might fit half a dozen people. The floor was a dark stone, with embedded, glowing fractal ruhat pulsated between and white.

  They both stepped ianding in the middle as the doors closed behind them. At first, Dyn’s curiosity took over as he gnced around the cool, circur elevator. But when the walls moved, sliding upwards—that curiosity quickly turo horror—there were no actual walls on this OSHA-viotirap.

  The world around him spun, and his stomach lurched as if it were trying to escape through his throat. His breath came in quick gasps, heart thudding wildly in his chest. He squeezed his eyes shut, hoping that would calm the siiion. It didn’t. He felt as though he were free-falling, with nothing to grasp onto but the solid, unyielding form of Abs-for-days.

  Dyn tched onto the shirtless elf, hugging him tightly as the disk tis dest into the depths of hell. Blood-curdling screeches echoed the entire way down. This wasn’t aor—it was a goddamerror tube.

  Ding. The terror tube chimed and opehe shirtless elf spped at Dyn, trying to cover his mouth and stop the screaming, then shoved him out. Dyn fell silent as he took in his new surroundings.

  The air smelled faintly of mildew and hay scattered across the floor. Dyn had lost all sense of time while screaming—he couldn’t even guess how deep underground they were. Encased in smooth stone walls, he realized he was in an actual dungeon. A shiver ran down his spine as the cold, damp atmosphere set in.

  Rows of empty cells lined one wall. Abs grabbed Dyn’s arm, guiding him into his own cell. It had two benches, one on each side of the small space. Two buckets sat in the er—one half-filled with water, the other empty and smelling foul.

  ‘No bars?’ Dyn thought. That seemed like an ht.

  Abs forced Dyn down onto a bench before walking over to aone sb across the room. He pced his hand on it. Dyn gnced around, momentarily thinking he could escape—until the loud etal smmed that hope shut. His heart jumped into his throat as the bars shot up from the ground like jagged teeth, sealing him in. The sheer speed of it made him flinch backward, and for a moment, he could only stare at the gleamial noing him.

  “Holy shit!” Dyn jumped baearly soiling himself again. “Someone could get hurt with those.”

  Ding. The terror tube chimed again, and the doors opened. Anonian cospyer stepped out, carrying a familiar limp body over their shoulder. This one was shorter and more lithe thahers Dyn had seen earlier, with bronze scales and shades of dark gree the impression this one was female, though he couldn’t be sure—and there was no one around to correct him.

  Two horns curled back from the top of her head like a ram’s. Over her bodysuit, she wore the same bck fantasy attire as the others. She opened his cell and dropped the dead body o him—it was the same woman from before.

  Dyn tried a different approach. “I want to speak to my wyer.” He was almost certain this was all a dream—but still wao figure it out.

  Both cospyers ignored him, sitting down at a small wooden table nearby. Abs pulled a deck of cards from his pocket, and they started a game.

  ‘Where are the first responders? There should be police, fire, and rescue all over this pce. Hell, where’s Homend Security?’ Thoughts raced through Dyn’s mind, but he hadn’t heard a single siren since he arrived.

  “You ’t keep me here. I didn’t kill that dy,” Dyn protested, immediately realizing how guilty that made him sound.

  His brain was being an asshole for dreaming all of this up. And why the hell would it i a nguage he didn’t know?

  After a moment of introspe, Dyn wondered, ‘Maybe this is the afterlife? If so, 0/10—do not reend. Okay, 1/10, being able to see without gsses again is a ouch.’

  The female cospyer made a ent toward Dyn with a vulgar iion.

  Dyn tauhe scary-looking woman. “e over here and say that again—Oh shit.” Dyn watched her kick the chair back as she stood. “Oh fuck.”

  She marched right up to the bars, stuck her long ween them, aed herself, sylble for sylble—slowing it down so he could hear every word.

  “Oh sure, you uand me,” Dyn muttered. “Because that’s fair.”

  She scoffed and rolled her eyes with impressive realism. Dyn had to admit, the animatronics were truly impeccable. Narrowing her eyes, she growled something so foul that even Abs looked disturbed.

  Abs got up, scooting his chair back before walking over and pnting himself between them. He pced a hand on her shoulder and spoke calmly. She threw her head back, ughing—and Dyn suspected it wasn’t the cheerful kind. It had the vibe of someone who’d either lost their grip on sanity, or had simply reached their limit—or both.

  Abs pced a hand on her bad gently guided her back to their card game, waiting at the table.

  “That’s right,” Dyn said, but before he could stop himself, added, “You better walk away.” He wihe sed he got the words out. ‘Goddamnit, Dyn.’ And that was the moment he knew—he fucked up.

  Abs’ jaw went sck. He g her and shook his head, silently pleading for her to ighe idiot. She tried to shove him aside as he ed an arm around her waist, holding her back. Abs earned a stomp on his foot and an elbow to his stomach for his efforts. She broke free of his hold and stormed toward Dyn.

  Abs bolted to the terror tube and spped the sb to summon it in a frantic rush. Ding!

  Dyn watched as she stalked toward his cell, using the sb to lower the bars. They made a grinding noise as they sank into the floor, stopping with a uhunk.

  The furious woman took a knee, drawing a pink crystal dagger from her boot. If she wao threaten him, it was w—Dy very threatened. She lu him, gripping his throat with her free hand, and squeezed.

  ‘Shit, she’s strong.’ Dyn thought, uo speak as she crushed his throat.

  He raised both hands, trying to pry himself free of her grip—a mistake. She took the opening and pluhe dagger into his stomach. His breath hitched on the first strike.

  ‘Am I going to die?’ he asked himself.

  She ripped the dagger out and plu ba again. Dyn still couldn’t breathe. The sed strike tore into his innards, slig through him. Darkness crept into the edges of his vision as the ambient cold sapped away his strength with every stab.

  Dyn could feel it. ‘I’m going to die,’ he thought.

  Blood soaked through his toga, mixing with the green stains Abs had left earlier. Dyn’s arms grew sluggish, uo keep up with the relentless dagger strikes.

  She released her grip on his throat, shoving him back before stepping away to admire her work. Something about his blood caught her attention. Curiosity flickered across her face as she squi the red streaks.

  Dyn colpsed, clutg his stomach, a futile attempt to keep his innards where they belonged. He half expected the white lizard-man from before to step out of the terror tube and heal him, just so they could ti him.

  The murderous Argonian cospyer seemed to multiply in front of him as his vision blurred. Dyn gnced down at his trembling, bloodstained hands and his ruioga.

  ‘That’s a lot of blood… too much,’ Dyn thought.

  His thoughts drifted to the dead woman beside him, realizing he’d soon join her. His dying brain was doing a terrible job. This wasn’t how he was supposed to die. Where was his peaceful ending?

  Something tore inside him with every shallow breath. Where were his aors and old friends to wele him into the afterlife? All he had was this dead woman beside him—a stranger he didn’t even know.

  He stared at her bnk, lifeless face, feeling a strange sense of kinship with this nameless corpse. They were both just bodies now—waiting for the iable. He’d never felt so utterly helpless, so disected from everything. The thought of dying alone weighed heavily on him. But maybe his time in the waking world , and his brain had given him as long as it could.

  The lizard-man never came. Numb and exhausted, Dyn closed his eyes for just a minute. In that moment, his heart, drained and struggling, finally gave out—Dyn died.