We both winced and shuddered as the agonized screams echoed around the cavern. Valerie sped up her pace, prioritizing distance over stealth as she struggled to haul me away from the elevator.

  My heart pounded in my chest, but I silently approved of her plan. The wolf-man had already sealed their fate, we were just using that to our advantage. His death was not our fault.

  It wasn’t our fault.

  I took a deep, but silent breath to calm myself, and focused on Valerie.

  While I couldn’t see Valerie’s face, I could feel her trembling beneath me. Though whether that was from guilt at leaving them to die, simple terror, or maybe just from the strain of carrying my useless body, I did not know.

  The lack of light made it hard to gauge the distance we traveled, but judging by the fading sound, I think we were in the clear at the moment.

  Valerie must have come to the same conclusion, because her steps slowed to a halt and she helped me down. I couldn’t see her while the darkness was still obscuring everything, but she sounded winded, her breath coming in and out in deep cycles.

  I was amazed at Valerie’s endurance, but she didn’t have unlimited stamina like a hero would in video games. If this were a story, she’d definitely be the main character.

  With how weak I was, I would just be a side character that dies off soon to spur her into a revenge plot or something.

  But this was not the time to be wallowing in my helplessness. I may be weak, but my brain still worked. I needed to think of ways I could help Valerie.

  But what could I do? Listen as they hunted us, before tearing us apart?

  That actually wasn’t a bad idea, I could listen and warn Valerie if they were pursuing while she focused on escaping.

  I closed my eyes and took in the surrounding atmosphere, the soft clunking of Valerie’s boots, her labored breathing, a steady plink of water dripping.

  But otherwise? Silence…

  I blinked.

  The screams had stopped.

  I doubted we traveled far enough to be out of range. That only left one other option. They were dead.

  But thankfully, I didn’t hear the creatures pursuing, likely distracted devouring the corpses of the wolf-man and the dwarf.

  May their souls rest in peace.

  ———

  I didn’t know how long we fled, but it felt like hours had passed by as we moved quickly through the darkness. Valerie had found a wall, and we had followed its twists and turns.

  I could tell Valerie was struggling. Her sweaty muscles trembled from exertion. I spoke up after she stumbled the second time in under a minute.

  “We haven’t heard anything following, Valerie.” I whispered in her ear. “You need a break. We don’t know how far we still have to go.”

  If there even was other people down here.

  But I left that part unsaid.

  “I think I’ll take you up on that.” Valerie huffed after a moment, moving to set me down against the wall. “But we won’t stop long.”

  She finished putting me down before joining me on the cold stone. Her breathing slowly calming.

  “Do you know what’s down here?” I asked, breaking the silence surrounding us.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Valerie was quiet for a moment. But eventually answered.

  “The lower realms is a city beneath the upper realms. It’s a cesspit filled with criminals and mob bosses. It had an official name once, but the locals just call it the Undercity. I know that we sometimes hired mercenaries from the Undercity to work for the Ordon Corporation and that other Corporations have done the same. But I don’t know much more than that.”

  I was quiet as I digested that information. It was honestly starting to sound like a video game I’d played back on Earth. A game where the corporations owned almost everything, the middle class was basically non-existent, and the poor were abused in many various ways.

  A game I loved to play, but I would not want to live in. A world where the strong took everything from the weak.

  My blood started to boil as I was reminded once again of my own frailty, my inability to fight against those cyber-enhanced guards as they dragged us to our fate. I hated feeling helpless, and never wanted to experience that again.

  If there was a way to get stronger, I would take it.

  “Alright, it’s time to go,” Valerie interrupted my thoughts as she stood and held out her hands. “We can’t stay here. If we are lucky, we should make it to the Undercity proper. It may be a cesspit, but it’s still safer than here.”

  I took her hand as she positioned me on her back once again, assisting her as much as I could.

  “Wait, is that a light up ahead?”

  I looked around and blinked against the darkness. I looked around, hope spreading through me that this nightmare might be over soon.

  A barely perceivable speck of light hovered in the distance, highlighting a brownish gray stone wall. It was an artificial light!

  “Yes! It’s a light!” I whispered excitedly as Valerie sped up, mirroring my excitement.

  The faint light in the distance promising a reprieve from the suffocating darkness I’d grown accustomed to.

  I could already feel myself starting to relax as it drew closer.

  *C-click…*

  We both froze at the familiar, terrifying echo. Our hopes instantly crumbling into cold fear.

  We shouldn’t have stopped to rest, I’d made a stupid mistake to think we had been safe.

  My eyes flicked to the distant light, gauging the distance. But it was too far.

  We wouldn’t make it, not with my frail form slowing Valerie’s already exhausted body.

  But maybe she could reach it on her own…

  “Val-”

  “Don’t say it!” Her sharp tone cut me off. “I just got you back, I’m not leaving you behind.”

  I winced and closed my mouth. I was touched that she felt that way, but I might not even be her sister anymore. I didn’t want her dying for me.

  No, I owed it to whoever Nyxia was, to do whatever I could to protect her older sister Valerie.

  I tried to hold down my rising panic as I racked my brain to come up with something, anything I could do to help, but with the clicking growing steadily closer I was having trouble concentrating.

  The light in the distance was giving off enough luminescence to just barely make out our immediate surroundings. I could see scrap metal, old wires, digging equipment, among various other useless items, but nothing either of us could use as a weapon.

  Something heavy and blunt slammed into me, throwing me from Valerie’s back and causing her to stumble and fall as I crashed into a heap of scrap. I felt something puncture through my forearm and screamed in pain.

  I barely registered a second scream coming from Valerie and forced myself to look up through the haze of pain and shock.

  The monster was towering over Valerie’s prone form.

  Its body was a mass of thick, jagged, overlapping plates of chitin the color of rusted iron that seemed to absorb what little light remained. Its six long legs were jointed like a spiders, clicking as they moved across the debris, each of them tipped with dangerously curved claws that were still dripping blood from the creatures last victim.

  Its triangular head was a twisted nightmare of compound-eyes and bloody spikes, with two vicious looking mandibles that clicked together as if anticipating a delicious meal.

  She brought her arm up in an attempt to defend herself against its attack just as its jaws clamped down. Blood spattered across her face followed by a sickening crack that echoed throughout the tunnels as her arm snapped in two, causing her to cry out in agony.

  The monster ignored her pain and yanked its head back, tearing her arm off completely.

  I just lay there, pale and in shock, watching blood drip from my sister’s severed arm.

  I knew I needed to find a way to help. I needed to do Something. But my body wouldn’t listen. I was too weak. Helpless… Useless…

  I was reminded of the pain in my arm and looked down to see a long piece of rebar sticking roughly three feet out of my arm, and then an idea struck me.

  I could use its own momentum against it.

  I grasped the scrap metal protruding from my arm and forced it downward, ignoring the pain as I angled it toward the monster. And sucked in a deep breath.

  “HEY, DIRT BAG! OVER HERE!”

  I felt a pang of fear as my shout had its intended effect, drawing the gaze of the malevolent creature away from Valerie. Its cold eyes seemed to lock onto mine as it let out a bloodcurdling screech.

  The monster charged, its legs a blur of movement.

  I only had a second to react as I adjusted the point of the metal rod in-between two of its heavy plates of chitin as its full weight fell upon the improvised weapon. With a sickening squelch, it penetrated right between its chitin and into supple flesh.

  The monster shrieked, a sound like grinding metal and shattering glass.

  Before it eventually crumpled in on itself, its movements going still.

  I breathed heavily as the tunnel went silent, save for the sound of my ragged breathing and Valerie’s whimpering sobs as she clutched her severed stump.