All is quiet as I came back to my own reality, or what I believe is my own. The raty queen lay at my feet dead, drowned in a pool of blood. Bodies of other rats are scattered around the room. It is a scene of horror. All their blood mixes and mingles together, pooling under the bodies.
It's unnatural, this hunt, these monsters, even these visions. None of this should have been possible until I had come to this city; none of it was. Now, I've been taken into this new world of horror and tales beyond the wilds of my imagination. I'm trapped by some spell, cursed.
Why did I not listen to Lenora? Why did I leave her? I know that I will find her body somewhere in the city, probably in a pool of her own blood. I will never find my daughter or save her. She will die here. We will all die here.
My body trembles with the realization that this will be the end. Tears slowly trickle from my eyes. I want to collapse and give in under the pressure of these negative thoughts and emotions. I want nothing more than to drown myself in this pool of blood before me, saving myself from the pain and terror that lie before me on this journey.
I cannot do that.
"You will not do that. I now have your back, and we will make it through this.r You're stronger than I could have imagined and continue to get stronger." Those dark voices emerge from the shadows of my mind.
I should not trust this demon that dwells within me, though. What other choice do I have at this point? There is nothing else but either trust or death, and it seems I will not be allowed to die yet.
I look around the room for a way to the surface and see a metal ladder. The stone walls sweat, and some bricks protrude outward. There is no pretty architecture here, nothing comparable to that which paints the city above. This place is nothing more than a blank stone canvas.
Climbing the ladder, I see dim, faint light coming from small holes. There seems to be a manhole cover. I push onto it, but it does not budge. The weight is too great for me, and I cannot blow through it with fire, so I must find another way.
Surrounded by corpses, I have two other options. Either make my way back out of the sewer and into the forest to find another way into the city, or delve deeper. To go upwards, I must go deeper, so I rip a leg from the queen rat. Peeling away the flesh around the lower leg, I ignite the top into a torch and follow the narrow hall into oblivion.
Walking further, the hall narrows until my shoulders are touching the wall. The stones seem to cave in on me; there is nothing else. Stone and darkness. Deeper and deeper I delve until the hall begins to slant upward, gradually but enough to notice. I see small trails of water running towards the carnage that I created, but I still see no place to exit onto the surface.
Then, the hall begins to widen. The ceiling grows. Before I know it, I'm no longer in a sewer by a casam and the night sky is shining high above me. Wooden plank catwalks hang above, lingering in the distance with stone bridges wrapped in raw iron. Still, there is no light except for the rat's legs torch, which is beginning to run out of flesh for fuel. I'm awstruck, knowing that I am back in the city.
The City of Stars, Rapna.
I hate this city. I hate this hunt. Just seeing it now brings a sickness to my stomach and a fire to my heart. I know that I must find Evelyn, but I do not know where to look. I believe there is only one person besides the pope who may be able to give me the information that I am looking for. The question is, is that person friend or foe?
I do not know, but I cannot ask these questions. I must move; the moon may still hang high in the sky, but time is continuing to pass, which means the morning will be coming. The sun will chase the moon from the sky, and when that time comes. Evelyn's life will have been forfeit.
Time is not my friend, nor is it on my side.
A raven sits on an iron fence high above me, and it caws down to me like a friend. It's shiolette is nothing more than a blob of blackness tucked into the night sky, though I know it is the same raven that greeted me upon entering the city. The way it cocks its head at me is my sign. Hopefully, it is also a sign of good fortune.
As I walk the casm, I begin to splash through water. It is not deep but enough to wet my boot and the lower part of my pants with each step. I feel the stone beneath my feet; it's slick, so I am careful with each step that I take. Pillars of stone rise high into the sky before meeting with the raw fences that line the casm. I see a street light, lit with electric light, too dim to shine into the casm. Buildings begin to rise around, towering over me like gods. I am an ant in this city.
A ladder waits for me, leading up into the city through a break in the fence under a giant stone bridge that drips with sweat. Lamps light its side and iron lines its undercarriage, woven into geometric patterns that shine and reflect the light. The iron of the ladder is smooth and slick, but I take every step carefully, and I make it to the top without a second thought.
Finally, I'm back in this city of horror.