The next morning I was still laying in bed having not slept the whole night. It turns out finding out that I hate my parents to the point that I would attack them on sight is quite a lot of baggage, and sorting through it all took a lot of time, all night in fact. And I would have kept on sorting through it if it wasn’t for the fact that Nars just walked in looking and smelling like he spent the night sleeping under a bar.

“Ok, now all of you come here and be quiet about it. Now… normally after the New Years, you would all help out cleaning on the surface, but the wardens from all the Zero work zones in the city got together and made a plan. East Zone and us, North Zone, will clean the sewers under the main entertainment sections. While your down there, the other zones will sweep everything into the sewers. So that means everyone is to work the North and NorthWest tunnels today,” Nars said all that in a raspy whisper then walked out of the kennels.

Unlike my usual routine, I’m not the first one out the door today to get food, but instead, I decide I am still not ready to face the day. So, I went and laid back down on my ‘bed’ for just a little bit longer.

After what felt like a few minutes, Lan nudges me with his foot and says, “Hey, if you’re going to get some food today you should probably leave soon,” then walks over to where he usually eats.

With no other choice, I get up and make my way over to the chow hall and back with what I, unfortunately, after yesterday's food, remember is just on the edge of being called edible. Today’s fair consisted of the ever-present green bread, red mush, and what do you know something squishy and aqua maybe? I’m not sure. I’m just glad I hid away those apples yesterday under my hay pile when I got back. And the best part is if I wait for everyone to leave before me I won’t have to give up any to Bur. I will have to ration it out to make sure they last a long as possible, but I will bring one with me today for Notch and the other Slimes I meet. They’ll probably like to eat something other than trash, sewage, or the green bread… looking at it now I’m not sure which is worse.

With all these happy thoughts I walk through the kennel doors and come face to face with Bur.

“Ah, good you’re the last one,” said Bur as he scraped all my brown stuff onto his tray and then waves me off.

Without looking back, I head back to the middle of the room and sit down to eat. Lan walks over and sits next to me in companionable silence.

“Want to work together today?” Lan asks when I’m about halfway done with my food.

“Sure that sounds great,” I say. I feel kind of excited about this because I’m still starved for some human interaction, so I readily agreed without much thought. I still eat slowly waiting for everyone else to leave before finally getting up and heading over to my pile. “Hey, keep this from Bur, and you can have one,” I say as I take out a bag of apples.

“Nice how’d you sneak that in here? I tried to bring some fruit in also, but Bur’s lackeys were checking everyone on the way in,” Lan says with a laugh.

“I was the first one back they probably didn’t see anything near me and assumed I didn’t bring anything back,” I answer with a smile. “But that’s not an answer to my question.”

“One apple for my silence seems a little steep. How about two?” says Lan with some cheek in his voice.

“Two it is, but then you have to keep one more secret later,” I say as I toss him two apples.

“Deal,” Lan says while deftly catching the apples.

I pocket one of the apples for the slimes, and we head over to the supply room then out into the NorthWest tunnels. On the way to the tunnel crossroad, sure enough, Notch is waiting for me on the ceiling like every day these last few months. When he senses me, he drops down to the floor. Which causes Lan to scream like a little girl, to my eminence delight.

“What the fuck…” Yell’s Lan after he catches his breath.

After I get my laughing under control, “This is the other secret I wanted you to keep. Meet Notch, I’ve been feeding him, and he’s taken a liking to me.” While explaining this, I break off half the apple for the little guy and toss it straight into his body. After the apple starts to dissolve Notch wiggles at me in thanks which makes me laugh some more. I have no idea how he can convey so much emotion in wiggles, but he somehow does it.

“You’ve been keeping a pet slime? I can’t believe you’ve been wasting your food on a slime. If you weren’t going to eat all your food, you should have given it to me. You wannabe Tamer,” Lan says in disbelief. Notch doesn’t seem to like being called a pet and wiggles at Lan angrily.

“I enjoy it so leave it be, plus you already promised to keep it a secret so just deal with it. Let’s go, I’m starting to get itchy,” I responded back with a little more bite to my words then I intended.

“Yeah, yeah, no need to get so touchy, I’ll keep my word about your little pet,” Lan waves off my response to another angry wiggle. ”Let’s go.”

“Let’s go, Notch,” I beckon towards the slime and follow after Lan into the North West tunnels.

After a few hours clearing out clogs and other such disgusting things, you find in the sewers with no real incidents except when I was standing under a utility hole cleaning when the Zeros above dumped their trash right onto my head. This, of course, caused great waves of laughter from Lan and a weird wiggle that I think was Notch laughing at me… or maybe asking if I was going to eat all of it… either way. Quite a bit of yelling up at the other Zeros and sulking at the embarrassment happened after that then we went back to work.

We get to the end of one the branching tunnels and a small clog when I yell back to Lan, “Hey, why don’t you go on and start heading back I’ll clear this up and follow.”

“You sure we could just finish faster if we worked together?” Asked Lan but by the looks of it, it was more from courtesy than a want to stay.

“Yeah I got it, there isn’t much room over here for two anyways. Just make sure to get me food if I’m not back in time for dinner,” I respond.

“Sounds good, see you in a bit,” Lan says while turning back the way we came and waving.

“Yeah, see ya,” I yell to Lan then in a quieter but cheerful voice I say to Notch, “Why don’t you take the other half of this apple and take off too. You can go and do whatever a slime like you does when he’s not following me around all day.”

Notch does his nod of a wiggle, and I toss the other apple right into him. After another happy wiggle, he goes on his way down back the way we came, and I get to work.

It only takes me a few minutes to clear the clog and start to head back towards the kennels. When I’m about halfway home, I begin to hear giggling and laughter down one of the side tunnels. Being curious I decided to find the source.

It didn’t take long until I came upon a scene that causes me to freeze in my tracks. There’s Bur with his girlfriend that I never bothered to learn the name of, and they are taking turns hitting Notch with their brooms while Bur’s lackeys watch and make sure he can’t escape.

“Ha, Look at the nasty slime try to get away get him, Bur, before he gets away,” Yells Bur's girlfriend while laughing and pointing.

“I got him, Eda he won’t get away until we’ve had our fun don’t worry,” says Bur with a wink towards his girlfriend and a vicious smile towards Notch.

“Hey, try and toss him into the air I want to see if I can hit his core like a ball,” Eda says excitedly.

Bur just nods with a smile and switches how he is holding the broom as to use the bristles to help throw it towards her. This action seems to wake me from my horror, and I run towards Bur with my broom, and before anyone can warn him or he can toss up Notch I smash my broom handle across his head. My handle breaks and happens to spin off and hit Eda in the face making her cry out as Bur falls to the ground.

Unfortunately, Bur isn’t knocked out just dazed, and before I can hit him again, he’s on his feet and turns towards me just as one of his lackeys tackles me to the ground. He storms towards me with more anger and hatred in his eyes then I have ever seen in anyone before. When he gets in front of me, his lackey gets off me.

“What in the fuck do you think you are doing? Did you just hit me in the head with a fucking broom and hit Eda?” each of these questions is yelled and punctuated with a kick in the stomach. “I am going to beat you half to death for this Nox.”

The kicks kept coming and not from just Bur now. It seemed everyone but Eda joined in for from the sound of it she was still crying in the corner. I tried to weather the beating and got up onto my hands and knees that’s when the last thing I say was a boot smashing into my nose then there was just pain then nothing… again.