Chapter Seven: The Centipedes mausoleum.

  Silence, after the screaming, was a different kind of terror. It was the sound of the Kholkis gathering its power, our hearts bumping, trying to warm us from the cold feeling. We were broken shapes of exhaustion: four human-shaped shivers piled on the living ice of a nightmare. The taste of blood in my mouth was metallic, my nose had stopped bleeding, but the emptiness lay in my head.

  The big man was the first to break the quiet. “They’re coming back,” he grunted, his eyes narrowing where the guards had disappeared. He stated it, but it was a death sentence. We had not died as intended; they might not be coming to rescue us. In the ledger of the Mill, we were now just slaves who had run away from slavery.

  Han sighed, his eyes drifted toward Feng, shivering in the cold. He called out to him in his usual voice with the hint of shivering teeth from the cold.

  “Feng, you do realize that we are no longer slaves, right?” Hearing Han’s words, Feng stared down his eyes filled with regret and guilt. He was ashamed of himself for being a coward. He loved his life, which was precious even if it meant living in control and with no freedom; his will to live was undoubtedly alive.

  Feng’s eyes lay on the snowy surface. He listened and knew the guards were coming back. It was his choice now whether he wanted to live as a free human or be a slave. Feng spoke in a whisper.

  “They will catch us sooner or later…”

  “We are dead either way.” Yes, Han was right. We were dead weights. Finally, Feng’s footsteps came closer, joining us, but deep within his heart, he was still scared of the future.

  “I'll be blaming you if I die, Han,” his voice sounded disappointed.

  I looked around and saw there was no place to hide. It was a completely open field and we couldn't escape. The cave was further, and it was hard to drag the beast and also because our chains were binding the kholkis we couldn't move further. I thought for a moment, trying to find a way, before I saw a big rock, and I said to the big man.

  "Baldy, can you lift that stone? I've a plan we need to break the shackles."

  Baldy? Hearing this term, I saw an annoyed look on the big man whose eyes twitched slightly. "I have a name, young boy, and it's Grig." Grig a weird name, probably because it was an unfamiliar and foreign name. So this world also had different continents.

  "Okay, Grig, try breaking my shackles." When I said this, I felt a small hint of hesitation in his face. I couldn't quite understand the reason, he didn't move his eyes, locked on me.

  "How do I trust that you won't sprint the moment you're free?” He asked, Now I know the reason for his hesitation. He had a point, and I could have thought the same. We were both strangers. Grig spoke once again.

  “You're quick, you are clever. What stops you from running away?” his voice was skeptical.

  The woman huddled her arms wrapped around herself, lifted her head, her eyes filled with resigned fury. She said her voice sounded desperate.

  "We die if we stay, we might die if he runs away, stop counting, we have to hurry, it's not time to worry about potential betrayal.”

  Han put his hand on Grig’s shoulder, his voice solemn, filled with reassurance.

  “Grig, if he wanted to run away, he could have run away instead of helping us to hold kholkis. If it's not for him, we might have gotten killed by it. Isn't that enough reason to pay back?” A valid point, I thought, “Wait, I could have run away instead of showing the stupidity of trying to fight this?” I think it wasn't a bad idea when I got the trust.

  "They're right,” my voice muffled. “I won't run away if you don't trust me, you can break your shackle first, but do it quickly, they are close." We could hear the voice; they could reach us anytime.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  The standoff lasted a few seconds, then Grig lurched towards the stone and picked it up. With a curse dissolved into the air, he wrapped his scarred hands around the large stone; he stood in front of me. Right now, it was his choice: who do you trust the most when the only currency is a chance?

  The stone came down on my shackles with a crash that echoed in the snow plain. A shower of snow stung my face, and the iron band around my ankle shattered. I was free from the beast now, with another loud thud, Grig broke the chain tied to my wrist. I stumbled back from the sudden movement.

  At this moment, when my chain broke, the bracer was still on my wrist, but no longer chained, and then I noticed that something was off when I looked at Kholkis. It was now sleeping a slight exhaustion on a predator and a calamity, and now the realization hit me colder than a blizzard.

  "It slept..." I realised my plan to use it as a weapon against them had evaporated we couldn't drag it, and we couldn't take the risk of waking up Kholkis because now the situation was certain to stand against us, but still I had to find another option, at least for escape.

  "Bal- I mean Grig, now break the shackle of your and this.... This-" I gestured toward her, finding a way to address her before the woman spoke, he eyes staring at the distant figures emerging from the snow.

  "Elara," another foreign name, Grig nodded, and with another loud thrust, it broke the chains of the woman, and then his hand moved toward Han and Feng. Grig silently said to come, and they did, and he quickly broke the chains.

  “I appreciate your efforts, Grig, but you have to hurry and break your too,” Han said, his voice hinting a worry.

  Grig's own shackle was left behind when I heard a loud voice from behind us. The same tall man was on his horse, and the horse was elegant and majestic, with eyes sharp like a warrior's. A warrior who definitely wasn't suited for a madman. The man jumped out of his horse, his boots making a digging sound in the snow field.

  The man stared at us, his expression was one of profound disappointment, as if we had failed our purpose. "Is he going to kill us just by staring? If yes, then what's taking so long? I don't have any energy for this bullshit." The thought was reckless, born of exhaustion, but offcourse I didn't say anything. It was foolish to say this to someone who is holding a spear taller than me.

  Han glared at the guard quietly, his expression was determined to take his freedom back, while Feng was clearly on the verge of breaking down, he was prepared to beg for his life, a moment showing the two sides of a coin, one who goes after freedom like a free wind and the other was a fire that extinguished and couldn't be ignited again.

  The tall man's gaze swept over us and the sleeping Kholkis, then to our shattered chains.

  “Survived? Didn't expect to see such a sight, the beast sleeping that indeed saved you.” He let out a short hunouless laugh almost disgusting to feel as a joke “Let it be then at least we got our five slaves back” My instinct screamed to run into nothingness of the snow, but I stopped them I realised that running away would only mean suicide they can easily caught me and worse was to left behind Han, Elara, Grig, Feng. I didn't want to be a pathetic person who left anyone just to survive, even if it was my goal. It wasn't out of kindness but because I knew his situation. I had done this before, I remembered that paranoid man I had left behind, that had been a cold necessity, but this time it was different; they had fought beside me and knew exactly what guards ‘Disappointment’ would turn into if I left them behind.

  “Grig,” I whispered, my eyes locked with the guards. “Hurry up, break the chain on your leg. We can break the hand one later. It's time to run."

  Grig hesitated for a second, the stone still held high. His eyes darted from me to the guard. The tall man hadn’t moved, but his hand rested on the hilt of his sword. He was giving us a cruel moment to see what we’d do.

  “Do it,” Elara urged, her voice tight. “We’re dead if we go back now. You heard him. We are surprises… Surprises get made example of.”

  Grig’s jaw tightened. He brought the stone down and smashed it into the chains on his leg; fortunately, it broke in just one hit. The chain connecting his ankles shattered the metal sound echoed.

  In that same moment, the guard’s patience snapped, and he shouted to his followers. “Take them now!” he barked, and the other guards… four of them, on foot… surged forward to catch us. We had the time of a heartbeat. A single, frozen moment. I quickly shouted.

  “Run!!” And we ran.

  We were running in the field of snow, the white solid ground but it wasn't enough to slow down our desperate sprint. My eyes scanned around to find a place, and I remembered the cave. I looked at the place and pointed toward it to run through it, shouting a wordless command, and I saw inside, there were many different paths. It was a perfect place to run seven paths. We entered in cave and quickly took the first path. It was a beautiful path filled with artificial arts. I was surprised by this, yet I didn't have the time to examine it. But when I was going to enter for a glimpse, I saw a weird mark. The pattern was somewhere I had seen before, then it went out of my sight

  As we moved further with three of the slaves with me. Yes, Feng was left behind. He was froze and couldn't run away. I saw a flash of regret in the face of Han as he was running away. Grig was also worried; he was certainly not a cold-hearted guy, and I knew it now through his expression and how much he had gone through to help.

  Han’s pacing was inconsistent; he was thinking of something guilt had washed over him. “Tch, why were you foolish?” He remembered the moment he started running for a second. He looked behind Feng with fear on his face when he looked at Han, a silent acceptance of fear.

  “We might never meet again but if we do then I'll apologise for leaving you behind but the world is cruel and for someone like you would never understand begging for saving your life won't work in any way you have to fight for your rights I hope your wish stays and you live.” His thoughts were filled with regret to leave his comrade behind.

  “This is not get-” before I could speak, my words died… Stopped in my throat, feet skidded to a halt. Elara and Grig crashed into my back, their breath catching. My eyes were widened by the sight.

  “That was really a bad idea to enter here..... Right?” In my line of sight was a centipede made of bone and decaying flesh. Each part of the centipede was a bump of spine and cartilage that was turning yellow. It was covered in a thin layer of wet stuff that looked like skin that was rotting flesh, like a blanket, and behind it was an exit. Interestingly, there was no initial attack, and I couldn't determine the reason. In world three, Ji Tang behaved similarly and did not attack at first, but this time the situation was different.

  The trio of slaves beside me looked tense. Elara let out a soft trapped sound, and Grig’s hand tightened around his fabric. Han stared at the Centipede its eyes were hollow, a dark void in its eye as if sucking our souls out into a void and devouring light. We were frozen, caught between this creature and the guards, then I heard footsteps echoing from the cave entrance. Footsteps scraped to a halt not much farther before I heard the tall guard's cold and final commanding voice.

  “Close it off, this cave is going to be their grave.”