“We have got to stop meeting like this. What, with you drunk on pain and cosmic confusion, and me being…well, me—it’s highly inconvenient, Namonai.” Consciousness slips through my tenuous grasp on reality, slithering around me like an eel. Or a snake? It definitely feels slimy. While the rest of my body slowly regains pinpricks of feeling, my eyes blink open to soft light, and dark tentacles wrapped around my shoulders. I let out a low groan of frustration, and Mutovinatum nods with what I can only assume is mock sympathy.

“Yes, yes, I know, everything hurts. But that can all get better if you let me help you,” he says. I try to recoil from the darkness pressing against me, but my body doesn’t get the memo. “And I know you said you weren’t interested before, but maybe now that you see what you’re up against…”

“No,” I mutter. I manage to sit myself up straighter and look at where Mutovinatum’s eyes would normally be. I try to muster up force behind my next words, but they still come out as a wheeze, each breath shaking my lungs like dead leaves. “Leave me alone.”

“That isn’t what you really want, and you know it,” Mutovinatum coos. I start to sidle out from underneath him, but he’s everywhere, suffocating me with his presence. “I can make this all better Namonai. You just have to let me in.”

“You’re already in!” I shout in exasperation. My head throbs splinters of pain through the pathways in my brain, and I can’t tell whether it’s from being knocked out, or the reverberations of my own voice. Shit, am I dehydrated? “I just want you out.”

“You don’t mean that,” Mutovinatum says with a small pout, which looks more threatening than his smile.

“Wha—of course I mean it!” Immediately my vocal cords snap taught from the strain of being so loud. “Ouch! Goddammit!” I half-wheeze past the pain. I shake my head, trying to clear the swimming visions in front of me. The world twists upside down, tilting and swirling like a top. “You’re a pest,” I spit. “A leeching, parasitic whore. And,” I lean in close enough to smell the decay in each of his hyperventilated breaths, “the thought of sharing the same space as you makes me want to eat my own skin.” Mutovinatum’s mouth hangs open for a brief second, either from his shock, or his mounting desire to devour me. In his defense, I am quite delicious.

“Things are a little heated right now,” he replies. “You’ve said some things you don’t mean, and I don’t want to say anything I’ll regret. Why don’t you leave, and we’ll talk later when we’ve both had a chance to cool off.”

“What do you think this is?! I’m never coming back.”

Mutovinatum remains silent for a brief moment. Without looking at me, he speaks in a low, sharp tone. “You have to sleep eventually, Namonai. You can’t escape your own mind. Now,” I open my mouth to reply, but he has already planted a firm hand on my chest. “Leave.”

||||||||||

I suck in air, filled with the stench of dirt and disease. It smells like shit, and tastes worse going into my lungs, but it’s real air.

“That bastard got the last word,” I gasp. My words cut like razors across my parched throat. “I can’t believe this shit.” After I get past the overwhelming stench of my current exotic locale, my other senses begin to adjust. Unfortunately for me, it still feels like Malor. No pleasure cruises for me. I shift off my back, feeling the dirt sift through my fingers, sharp rocks nicking my skin. When I finally bring my eyes up from the ground, they come face-to-face with a wide-eyed, dirty face. Well, snout is more accurate.

With this nightmarish image, comes an equally nightmarish revelation: there are hands on me. Multiple pairs of clawed, dirty, disgusting hands covered in dirt gripping my clothes tightly. Which, it so happens, are only halfway on.

My brain spins through a multitude of incomplete thoughts in a second:

I’m in Malor, but where exactly? Underground, maybe?

Who are these people? Doesn’t matter, what do they want? Doesn’t matter, they’re trying to take from you.

Take what?

Rape. They’re going to rape you. No. YES. They are.

They’re going to kill you after. You won’t live through this. They. Are going. To kill you.

There are so many of them, but they’re not all the same. They all look like prisoners. Underground prison? Fight ring? These couple with their hands on you, they’re the bold ones.

You’re in prison again, Namonai. You’re back again. Goddammit! Goddamn this shit! You said you’d never go back, and here are you are, repeating yourself.

Prisoner. You’re a prisoner. So are they. Stop jacking around, drop the smile, and do something.

They’re going to rape you. They’re going to kill you. They might eat you. So move.

And then I was moving.

Reality swarms in with a rush of color, and my eardrums pop. I immediately scramble forward, tackling the snouted reptilian near my face. He hisses in shock, and I grab his skull before he can get his hands underneath me. I slam his head against the ground and grab his tongue when he shrieks in pain. Twisting as I stand, I pull hard, and throw the severed tongue at his partner.

“What the shit!” the greasy-haired woman yells as she quickly backpedals away. I take a running start and slide against her feat, knocking her over. I palm a fist-sized rock and crack it against her skull. The dirt eagerly soaks up the blood slithering across the ground. I crush the ridge of her nose into her face, and raise it up again.

Someone kicks me off the girl and I whirl to smack them with the stone. A third large man grabs my wrist and knocks me flat with a single blow. I try to crawl forward but the reptilian is up, and his heel crashes into my jaw. The dull shimmer of a worn blade glints in my peripheral vision moments before I feel the weight of the large man on me. I start screaming.

The loud cries echo through the relative silence, absorbed by the masses of immobile onlookers. Dirt wedges underneath my fingernails—the scents of earth and shit and piss nearly gag me. The big man tries to wrap a callused palm over my mouth, and I bite through his pinky.

Hot blood gushes into my mouth and I spit it out as he rolls off of me, crying. I scramble to my feet in time to avoid being kicked in the face by the reptilian. He swings his knife at me and I dance backward, tripping over the woman’s corpse. He lunges forward and I roll away, then spring at him. I land on top of him and wrestle the knife away, cracking him in the temple with my shin as I stand. Within seconds, I’ve slit the big man’s throat, wetting the dirt once more.

The silent crowd looks on, tension in their shoulders and jaws. I scoop up the severed reptilian tongue and don’t hesitate to pop it in my mouth, visibly chewing and swallowing. A few onlookers recoil, while most of them shift their gazes to the lizard man staggering to his feet.

I let him shuffle towards me, hissing and gasping past the blood gurgling in his mouth. He makes a wild swing at me with one of his claws and I shift to the side, snapping his leg sideways at the knee. He screams and crumples onto his one good leg. I look at the crowd, and then toss the knife aside.

I wet my lips with my tongue and speak for the first time. “Watch.” I slam my knee against his snout. He lands sprawled on his back and I plant a boot on his open jaw. I grip his lower jaw in my hand and wrench hard. There’s an earsplitting squeal followed by a sharp snap, and the reptilian stops moving, his severed jaw in my hand. I sit down next to the corpses and slip the knife back into my hand, prying the lizard teeth out one by one. After a few moments, the fellow prisoners begin to disperse, whispering amongst themselves.