Calm; Decay Volume 1: Who Killed Cock Robin?

8 - Teke x Teke - 8

Ashra could not be certain at what moment he passed out. The tall man had helped him out of the corridor beneath the city, bringing the true stars above back into focus. Ashra had concentrated on those narrowing points of light, fighting unconsciousness with the feeling that he should be grateful to see anything beyond the tunneling catacomb.

"You didn't tell me your name," Ashra had muttered, leaning into the tall man. The air was warm. Ashra worried that he may be suffering from blood loss, anemia making the skin of the tall man too hot as he held onto his shoulder.

"It's Agile, rhymes with 'fragile,' but you should take it easy. You're dead on your feet. Sorry, bad choice of words."

"It's... okay." Ashra fought the demand for rest. He could not afford to trust this man simply because he had saved his life. This was no place of reprieve; he could not let his guard down for even a minute.

And then he woke up.

Pale sunlight poured through a dirty window, causing Ashra to pull the blanket over his head. The light was too bright. It hurt his addled brain.

Blankets?

Ashra pushed the patchy quilt aside, a gasp of pain breaking from his throat as the spasm in his shoulder rocked his aching body. Feeling for the damage left by the spiders and Robin's whip, Ashra first noticed that his hands had been wrapped in liberally applied layers of gauze.

What is this?

The wrapping hardly looked sterile, but managed to relieve the pain in his palms where the spear had separated his skin. Ashra discovered on further inspection that the gauze extended past his hands, growing like moss across his chest, around his back, and even covering part of his stomach.

A low murmur reverberated through the thin walls. Ashra lay still in the bed, listening for any distinguishable words. He was only somewhat accustomed to the accent of Decayers—a mixture of forgotten languages stratified into layers of idioms that had ingrained themselves into universal Passerinian. Ashra could understand his neighbors from the Decay Belt well enough, but they had often spent the majority of their lives in the Calm Channel, integrating slowly and carefully into the tranquil side of the world.

"Imma wake 'im," said a small voice from outside the door. Ashra stiffened, ready to spring from the bed. With his good hand, he childishly pulled the blanket over himself, the thought of exposure oddly unsettling.

"Na na, 'e could be danger." The voice was a perfect mirror of the first, matching its cadence and tone precisely.

Was someone talking to themselves?

The door creaked open. Apprehensive, Ashra tucked the covers over his head, pretending to be asleep. If they were going to interrogate him, string him up, or hold him hostage, then he was going to prolong that encounter as long as possible.

"Na na, you souldn't wake 'im! You make 'em cranky and Gas'll be mad."

The incomprehensible words were matched by the patter of too many feet for a single person. The mental picture of more spiders filled his mind, their skull faces swollen to the size of humans. The bed leaned under the weight of one of those legs.

"Back off!" Ashra threw the covers from his body, his back rising up the brick wall as he pushed away from the many legs closing in on him.

"Ah!"

"Na!"

Exclamations of shock rang out, startling Ashra's already jumpy heart.

Two pairs of eyes looked at Ashra, one set wide and worried, the other narrowed and angry. The eyes belonged to a set of children, the strangest Ashra had ever seen.