The Moon Dwellers

“You filthy brat!” she screams, nearly bursting my eardrums and sending a splattering of spit into my eyes.

I can still feel the heat of the flames as they bite at my ropes. I hope the tethers are sufficiently weakened by the fire. They have to be.

I headbutt the woman right between the eyes, causing her to emit a shriek that should only belong to dark demons from the realm from which nightmares are born. She flops to the side and away from me.

Using every last ounce of strength I can muster, I strain at the bindings, trying to break them. Evidently I lingered in the fire longer than I thought—longer than I probably should have. The ropes break away easily, black and brittle from the flames, which are finally dying.

Scrambling to my feet, I pull away the remaining strands and search for my sword. The old woman is writhing on the cave floor, shrieking and shouting obscenities, clutching at her face. I find the swords crossed on the ground near Roc, next to our pack.

It’s as if I’ve never used my hands before—I’m unable to control them. They are trembling badly and it takes me more than a minute just to get a grip on my sword. Under normal conditions, cutting the ropes away from Roc would be a simple task, but I feel so shaky I’m afraid I might accidentally amputate an arm or a leg.

“Deep breaths,” Roc says, making me realize that I’m breathing in short, ragged huffs. I’m sure my face is wild, probably more crazy-looking than the old woman trying to cook us alive.

I take a deep breath. Then another. It helps. My hands stop shaking, my breathing returns to normal. “Thanks,” I say.

After cutting Roc’s hands free, I hand him the sword, letting him finish the job. The woman has grown surprisingly silent, lying motionless in a heap. When Roc is free, he hands me my sword, which I sheath, retrieves his own sword, and then shoulders the pack.

We’re about to leave when the woman suddenly screams, leaps to her feet with a speed and quickness that is almost supernatural, and charges us, her hands outstretched and curled into clawed hooks.

I scream, and Roc screams even louder, but more high pitched and girly. I’m getting pretty sick of the old woman’s antics, and am too tired to consider that she might still be dangerous, which is probably a good thing.

I push her. Hard. Right at the fire. She stumbles and falls into the flames, wailing the whole time. We don’t wait to see what will happen to her. Perhaps she is invulnerable to fire, able to sit in it like a warm bath. Or worse, maybe fire gives her strength, recharging her powers.

We run into the darkness, which becomes deeper as we get further from the fire. The space narrows and forms a tu

We should have kept ru

Skeletons: some fully intact and leaning against the wall; others broken and mangled, scattered on the floor; yet others mounted on the walls like trophies—here a skull, there a foot. It doesn’t take a genius to know they didn’t die from natural causes, that their flesh has been bitten off by ragged teeth.

If I hadn’t had so little to eat in the last couple of days I would throw up all over myself. Instead, I dry-heave, as my stomach pulses repeatedly, in an attempt to upchuck anything that is left in it. Roc is doing the same, bent over his knees, convulsing.

I spit out the little bile that has forced its way into my mouth, steal the light from Roc, and shine it further down the tu

“C’mon, man,” I say, flicking off the light and tugging at Roc’s elbow. Huddled together, we shuffle through the dark, until I’m sure we are far enough away from the…the stuff.

I turn the light on just in time to see that the tu

It isn’t until we’ve walked for a couple of hours that I feel safe again. Neither of us has spoken, lost in dark thoughts, reliving the horrors we’d just experienced.

Finally, Roc says, “All those people…” His voice sounds numb, like he still doesn’t really understand what we’d seen.

“Nothing we can do for them now.”

A few more minutes of silence, and then Roc says, “Tristan, I’m sorry about what I said. I was just scared, that’s all.”

I grit my teeth. As angry as I was when he questioned our pursuit of Adele, I have to admit that there is some truth to it, which makes me even angrier. I feel foolish. Stupid! “No, Roc. You’re right. I dragged you into this mess. And for what? For some girl I’ve never met, who probably doesn’t know me from you, who might even hate me! What the hell are we doing out here?”

Roc sighs. “I have thought that at times,” he says. “But then I think how noble it is that you’re following your heart, taking a risk, defying your father. I don’t know how it’s all going to end, but if we don’t go, we might regret it for the rest of our lives. I feel like maybe we’re meant to be doing this.”

Roc sounds so solemn as he speaks, as if our trek across the Moon Realm is a sacred quest and not just me chasing some girl with a pretty face, who happens to be an escaped convict and possibly dangerous. He also makes it sound like we’re in it together. It isn’t my quest, but his, too, and he is in it to the end with me. Given the argument we had just before we were about to be roasted on a spit, it’s a complete one-eighty for him.

“So we keep going?” I say.

“I was just trying to make you feel better,” Roc says with a smirk. “It’s not like we have another choice—can’t go back.”

He’s trying to downplay the wisdom in his words, but I know better. He isn’t just trying to make me feel better. He truly believes—like me—that we are meant to be on the path we are on, for better or worse. Better would be finding Adele and not having her slap me and walk away; worse would be falling into the evil clutches of a mad ca

But Roc’s words have more than just cemented my belief that we are doing the right thing. They also make me think about what we are doing and why. To this point, it has all been about finding Adele, keeping her safe, and potentially, if the fake suns and moons and stars of the Tri-Realms align, getting to know her. But now it feels like there is some deeper purpose to it all, one I want to explore.

“What did you mean when you said you thought we were meant to be doing this?” I ask as we continue walking.

Roc wrinkles up his face, squints his eyes. “I don’t know, it’s probably nothing, but…”

“What?”

“I just feel like we have a chance to make things better. You know, for everyone. I mean, the secrets your father is keeping from the moon and star dwellers, people should know that stuff.”

It’s been a while since Roc and I have spoken about my father’s secrets. Well, one particular secret really. I am one of only a handful of people that know, but I told Roc anyway. At first I was stu

“What’s that got to do with us?” I say.

“I don’t know. It kind of popped into my head just now. It just feels like we’re in the middle of something big, or at least something bigger than just a guy who likes a girl, or vice versa.”

“You think she likes me, too?”

“No…I mean, I don’t know, maybe. In any case, that’s not important. What’s important is what we do at the end of all of this, or maybe at the same time, whichever makes more sense. I think we need to tell people about what your dad is doing.”