Final Chapter of this initial rush. I plan to finish one tomorrow and hopefully one for the weekend.

I had fun writing this. Lots of fun imagery.

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Chapter 3: Monsters and Men

Day 34 Continued

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We stumbled through the dark until the group became Winded. I could have gone indefinitely between my frequent workouts and my improved breathing, but I wasn’t about to leave anyone. We’d lost enough for one day. The sounds and lights had remained with our little room, whether because the eye didn’t know where we had gone or because it was busy with Our brother. Our as of yet unnamed friend is in a bad way. Just like we had formed our little group, it seems he was close with the brother we left behind. I understood. We all knew going back would be suicide, if we could have even found the way. None of us had any defense against that debilitating sound. We walked for maybe five more minutes before we came across a vertical wall grate to a rough hewn rock room. I leaned against a wall and my arm reminded me of the burns I had suffered. My arms and legs were in bad shape and I knew the others had them as well.

Peaking through the grate I could see a reservoir of some sort, maybe a storage tank or draining area for the sewage. The light in the room was much lower than our prison, but after the tunnels it was plenty to see by. Harper crowded next to me to get a look, and after a few silent minutes we came to the conclusion the room was empty. Looking pale, Rabbit staggered from his position on the tunnel wall and prepared to repeat his performance from the room. We all looked away while he once again suffered for us. The sounds of retching were terrible. We waited for a few minutes and this time we splashed the remains of the grate and the floor underneath with the sewage water underfoot. Our unnamed brother marched through before I could, seemingly unconcerned for his own safety. I’m worried about his mental state.

At the other end of the reservoir or drain we came to a stone staircase. The tunnel was rough brick, but this room and the staircase seemed to be natural rock, a cave system of some sort. Wolf handed Rabbit off to me and Harper and took the lead. With his claws I figured it was the right move. Slowly we crept up the stairs until the light began to brighten. Walls smoothed and brightened and we came to the top of the stairs, where the cave walls abruptly stopped in favor of a wall the color of our own former prison. There was a door set in the wall, but no lock. Suddenly our sullen brother seemed to snap, and rushed the door. Bursting through, he turned left and continued running. We were too surprised to stop him, and after a few seconds we heard the familiar tone of an eye in the distance. Resigned, we hugged the wall out of the light of the passage until the sound faded. A weighty silence followed and Harper looked about ready to break.

“His name was Roger. Because he was always so agreeable. He had two friends among us. Stick you know. The other was Nod, and we left him in the room.” Harper stared daggers at us as he said it, and I fell to a new low. He was our brother, and I had never asked, never tried to something as simple as his name. It was only now that I realized Harper probably knew them all. Only Harper cared to get to know us, even the quite ones. Even me. We sat in silence after that for a long time. I think we all knew we were not going to find Stretch, or Roger, or Nod. It had been too long and all at once we realized how powerless we really were. Roger’s mad run made it obvious that the horror in our room was not alone. Even if we could get to the area where the experiments happened, we had no defense against the Eyes. Roger still had dust, but it would be dangerous to use without personal knowledge, and we had no idea how the Eyes did their trick anyways. No way to protect ourselves. I looked down at my little finger, feeling foolish for thinking we had a chance. If we were to keep those companions we had left, we needed to leave. After a period of bitter mourning for friends we only now acknowledged were truly gone, we slunk into the hallway with Wolf at the front once again. None of us would meet the eyes of the others. Every time we did we saw the face of those we were leaving behind.

We continued to walk. This floor didn’t seem overly large, but it was confusing. Each corner we came to we froze, terrified of what might be lurking mere feet away. Suddenly as we approached another identical intersection my friends slowed and staggered, falling to the ground. I had been unconsciously slowing my breathing after weeks of readiness, and avoided the same fate. I caught Rabbit and lightly set him down, and began to secrete oil on my little finger. If this gas came from something living I intended to go out fighting. After maybe a minute something peaked around the corner. Something with a terrible parody of my own face. It was maybe 3 feet tall, with thick legs and arms that dragged on the ground. Shaggy hair covered it’s entire body except it’s head, which was as bare as my own had once been. Its features mirrored my own except for the soulless unblinking eyes, bulging to twice the size of my own and littered with cataracts. It staggered towards us, seemingly unaware of me. I stood tense and dribbled some poison down my nail as it approached Wolf. It grabbed an arm and started to pull him back down the corridor. I ran forward and jabbed my finger at his face, and despite my noise the creature never batted an eye. I slammed into it and worked my finger into its mouth, where the poison would enter the blood quicker. It didn’t bite, it didn’t blink. It just shook a little, dropped Wolf and fell to the ground. I wiped my finger on it’s hair.

Seeing the horrid creature with our face had shaken me deeply. I curled up against the wall and shook quietly. I knew the eyes had looked like a bigger version of my own, but I had assumed they were directly linked with the researcher who made us. I now realized we weren’t the first or only time he had used his own DNA. In a very real way, that thing was a brother too. I hoped it hadn’t felt pain. I hoped it was never aware at all. I got up, grabbed it’s arm and pulled it back around the corner. It was so light. When my brothers woke up, I did not want them to see. I looked down at my finger again. It was not what I had made it for, but it had saved my brothers all the same. With a new sense of purpose I guarded them while they slept.

After maybe ten minutes Harper woke up, and the others shortly after him. He of course asked what had happened, but I only answered vaguely. “Another monster.” Wolf looked at me, but thankfully he must have seen something in my eyes, because he didn’t pursue it. When we passed the corner I took the side closest to the body and did my best to obscure the view as we passed. We continued on until we found another door. I took the lead from Wolf and cautiously opened it. Inside was a simple chair and three blank white walls. On the fourth hung a large mirror. Looking in the mirror, I saw my face for the first time in a quite a while. My hair had grown out to around two inches, a little shorter than the others. What struck my most about my reflection was my eyes. Not dark or emotionless like those in my memories, but still somehow dimmer than before. I hoped I was just in shock. Maybe if we survived long enough to rest, maybe if could listen to Harper sing I could make a face like I did before. So short a life, but it felt like years had passed since Stick left us. I turned to the others and saw they were also taking measured looks at their features. Rabbit looked like he would be sick when he saw his sunken chest and acid chapped lips. I suddenly realized how long we’d been walking, and slumped back in the chair.

As soon as my back hit the chair, the lights went out. The formally mirrored surface of the wall revealed itself to be a window into another room. Harper let out a low shout. Eyes wide I took in the sight on the other side of the wall. It was our room! No, the grate was intact, but it was definitely the twin of the area we were raised. Suddenly it was obvious how we were observed when the eyes weren’t around. At first glance it appeared this one was empty. It was a complicated feeling. I wouldn’t wish our life on anyone, but it would have been nice to know we weren’t alone.

Just as I had that thought, a face appeared in front of the glass. Just like before it mirrored my own. Could it see us? It tilted its head as if questioning or searching for something. And then I noticed the eyes. It was an almost perfect clone, and this room was darker than ours had been so I hadn’t noticed immediately. Where my brothers and I had soft brown-green eyes, the one before us had compound eyes, like an insect. That would have been horrible enough, but I realized with a shock that rather than an iridescent sheen, every one of the hundreds of tiny photo-receptors was a small version of our own iris. The lower part of its face stretched forward on muscles not meant for a human face, four inches, five inches and it kissed the glass, opening to reveal a tongueless mouth full of fleshy brown needles. Harper was shaking and Wolf stared in horror. How many more of us were there? What other terrible torture had that demon submitted his own flesh and blood to? Shakily I stood up and the lights came back on, returning the wall to its mirror finish. I couldn’t help but notice that as the glass faded to mirror my face was superimposed on the fly man. With another shudder I exited the room, not even waiting for the others to join me. That was enough. I’d had enough. My breathing might keep me walking longer than the rest, but emotionally I was spent. Even if he was an emotionless doll, how could he do something like this? How much must he hate himself? Harper grabbed my shoulder and with a long, raspy sigh I continued down the hallway. This was hell, but at least I wasn’t alone.

One of the hallways was twice as wide as those wed come across so far. After a short discussion we decided to follow it. It made sense that a larger corridor would be more likely to lead out. Doors became more frequent, but all looked like the interior doors we’d entered so far. If something came we’d have no choice but to pick one and hide, but after the fly there was no way I’d enter one by choice. We had walked for hours at this point, and though I was becoming more and more confident that this place wasn’t hosting a legion of the eye things, I also knew we wouldn’t be able to sleep until we had left this place. Another hour of walking and I had to support Harper. His burns were as bad as my own and his muscles weren’t nearly as developed. Wolf was doing better, but even he didn’t have my endless oxygen supply and was breathing heavily. We came to a fork in the passageway and as the turn came into view we gasped as one at the sight.

Immediately upon turning the corner the white sanitary walls of the hallway became the jagged obsidian of a cave once again. But where the reservoir room had been merely big, this cavern was enormous. Within a few hundred feet all light died, and we could see neither the walls nor the ceiling. I wondered that there was no door, no security. Was this a dead end? But if nothing else it was dark, and I would feel much safer letting my guard down here than in the brightly lit, enclosed corridors of the facility behind us. Harper needed to sleep. We all did, and it didn’t seem we’d be exiting this place today. I practically dragged him across the uneven ground until the light of the hallway faded from view, and then another couple hundred steps for good measure. I was utterly spent. I backed up to Harper, who was already out cold. After a minute Wolf’s questing hand grabbed my shoulder and he and Rabbit lowered themselves against us as well. Four brothers slept back to back in the endless dark.

Day 35

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I woke before the others and stretched a bit, back still against three sleeping bodies. I was worried that if we lost contact I might never find them again. The endless black was maddening. If only I could see. For a second I remembered the fly thing, its horrid eyes superimposed over my own. I shuddered involuntarily and felt Wolf jerk a little against my back before settling again. I thought back again on yesterdays events. On what a man with the same genes as me was capable of. I didn’t even know his name. Why were our implanted memories so vague? I knew many of his skills, his academic knowledge. I knew words and how to walk, I knew more about dust than I was comfortable with. Why couldn’t I remember any names, or family, or cities? I hadn’t so much as an inkling who first kissed the man. Had he had parents? If we ever got outside, what then? I had almost no real societal knowledge. For all I knew what he was doing here was considered normal, and we’d be returned as soon as we entered a town. I brushed this aside as unlikely. I had seen the fear and confusion in his victim’s eyes, and I didn’t think his actions were any more acceptable in the outside world than they were to us. That brought up another unique problem of our situation. We had his face, all four of us. If he was a criminal of some sort, we would be hunted in his place. But all that was for much later. Right now we only had to focus on getting out.

Behind me I heard Wolf’s stomach rumble. I sighed lightly.

“Are you awake?” Wolf asked, whispering to avoid waking Harper and Rabbit.

“Yeah.” I almost turned to look at him, and then realized how ridiculous it would be in the void.

“We’ll need water today. Food too. Harper and Rabbit are in worse shape than us, and they won’t heal without it.”

I’d been thinking on that. For a second I lamented not making use of the sleep creature’s body, then gagged. I felt guilty for even thinking it.

“I still think this cavern is the closest to an exit we’ve seen, and outside our prison we haven’t seen any food. I say we keep going. We can carry Harper and Rabbit when we need to.”

“Doc, I’ve been thinking. Do you know which way we came from?”

“50%?” We sat silently until Harper woke up. It seemed like an eternity.

After filling Harper in on our shaky plans and shaking Rabbit, we stood up and started walking, hands on shoulders to remain in contact. I picked our direction as I felt more sure than the others about where we’d entered the cave. After a while Harper had to rest, and Wolf carried him for the next stretch. We had been at it for an indeterminate amount of time, and we’d yet to even reach a wall. I was lost in my own thoughts and didn’t realize how long Wolf had been shouldering Harper. With a thud I lost contact with them and heard Wolf and Harper shout in pain and Rabbit gasp. Scrambling along the floor I reached out, desperate to regain contact. My knees and arm scraped and bled on the uneven rock surface. “Harper?” I heard a groan to my right.

“Doc!” Harper’s voice, maybe ten steps away. There must have been a drop in the floor where they fell. I slowly slid down until I reached them. Harper and Rabbit seemed alright, but Wolf was now breathing heavily and not answering to his name. I felt something wet around his hairline. We sat there and waited, hoping he’d regain consciousness. This was not good. I had a lot of knowledge about head injuries, and in a well lit area with a clean surface I may have been some help. Here I was just a lost child with three starving and injured brothers.

Maybe I could make a change? I would have taken those fly eyes in a heartbeat if it meant a chance to get Wolf to safety. Harper still had a goldmine of dust, but without the knowledge to use it he’d end up maimed or worse. I closed my eyes and looked inward towards my own supply. My Dust was a little brighter, but nowhere near enough to do anything beneficial. I pressed on, knowing there was nothing more to see but unable to give up.

As I meditated, a leg brushed against my bloody knee. For an instant my world exploded with lights. “What?!” I fell back on my hands from the shock and the lights disappeared. What had happened? Was my dust back? I turned inward again and saw the same pale lights. What had that light been. It couldn’t be skin contact, I’d been sitting next to Harper every time I’d used dust in the past. I sat back up and my hand touched the ground. I winced in pain. I was still bleeding. There was something there. “Harper?”

“What was that light?” There was shock in his voice.

“I think I just saw your dust.” I heard Rabbit breathe in deep over in Wolf’s direction. “How?”

I scraped my hand against the ground to break any scabbing and well around for Harper’s upper arm. I worked around it until I felt a scratch, and suddenly I felt the light again. I closed my eyes and could see two lights, one dim, one bright.

“This is how he did it. This is how he planned to make us change.” How he made the eyes, the sleepers. That terrible bug man. He took his own genetic infants and linked with them, changed them from within their own bodies. It was horrible, to think of being violated like that. To have your own blood used against you. But isn’t that what he was best at?

This could save us, but could I do it? Yes. To save Wolf, and Harper, and Rabbit. Or to save myself. If I changed him to suit our needs, was I any different than the monster that put us here? Harper breathed deep, and I heard Rabbit approach us. I felt his hand fumble for my shoulder.

“Do it.” There was joy in Harper’s voice.

“Finally I’m able to help you all. I’ve been nothing but dead weight and it needs to end.”

“You could die. Do you think I could bear being the one that causes that? We have no idea how this works.” I remembered the Sleeper, the Eye. Things with the faces of my friends seemed to fill the shadows.

“If you don’t we die here anyways. Please. Let me help.” Rabbit gripped my shoulder in agreement. And though I was near frozen with dread I dived into the soul of my closest friend. One chance.

I’d had an idea when I was checking my own dust. A change that could allow us to navigate the darkness. The only problem was that I’d never worked on anyone else before. Was the process the same? Just visualize and work through the steps? It was the only lead I had. I began to visualize what I had in mind. A tapetum lucidum. It's a reflective membrane under the retina seen in many nocturnal animals. A biological mirror, reflecting light back into the eye to effectively double the brightness of low-light environments. I wasn’t sure if there was any light to see here, but it was the smallest change I could think of, and the one I was most sure wouldn’t kill my brother outright. I had first considered echolocation. It didn’t require any light at all to work, but although altering his vocal chords seemed doable, the necessary changes to the brain to interpret the sounds would almost definitely leave him a vegetable.

Having picked my poison, I focused on pushing the task to the brighter grouping of dust, but nothing happened. Could I have been wrong? No pressure, no recognition at all. Was I on the wrong track? Maybe blood contact only allowed one to see the dust, but not interact. But no, this had to work. If not then we might as well lie down wait. I thought about what I’d learned of dust. It sits in you, waiting to take conscious direction. Our creator had intended us to undergo whatever changes he chose, and this was likely done with clones because sharing the same genetics made it easier. Maybe genetics wasn’t enough? What if I gave my dust the instructions and pushed it over to his side?

I tried again, starting with some of my own dust, and instructing it to merge with the brighter cloud in Harper. It shot off from towards his cloud, and when it hit it the whole cloud pulsed, absorbing it. I tried again, and this time I could feel his cloud listening. It was harder than before, like trying to explain a concept to someone who doesn’t speak the same language, but slowly I got my intended change across. A third of the went dark, and I felt Harper pull away with a sharp intake of breath. Back in the dark, I sat and waited for him to recover. The screaming was terrible, and I cursed myself over and over again as I waited to see the result. After the longest wait of my life, the screams turned to heavy breathes and then to silence.

“Anything?” Rabbit practically whispers. If I didn’t know better I’d think my friend was half our age.

“I haven’t opened my eyes yet.” We wait in the dark again. And after a long beat he gasps.

“What?”

“Light.”

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I have to admit, I was so excited to write in the monsters and the mad dash that I completely omitted Rabbit from this chapter initially. Just forgot about him. He sure is a quiet one. I’ll have to have a future chapter about him and Harper as an apology. I think they’d get along well and they haven’t had much of a chance to talk yet.

These are fairly long for web novel chapters, how is the length and pacing for you guys so far? This chapter could have logically been split into corridor and cave chapters, do you like the longer format or should I cut it up?