“It’s a dark day, Igor, one of Toprak’s darkest.”

“Darker than the government only financing our broadcast if we present to the people of Toprak in English, officially mandated by our saviours in the southern states?” Igor monotones.

“Igor, I know better than to get started on that with you.” Yurik chuckles “I’m talking about a real problem here, something that is felt dearly by every single citizen in Toprak. The limiting of Alcohol. How in these trying times did the Town Council come to the decision that Alcohol must be limited? They tell us to stay close to family members - to our loved ones - to insulate us from these delusions, and then only one bottle of Alcohol per a day? What do they think we’re going to do at home all day, knitting for our sons like we’re at war again? Someone needs to-”

“Calm, Yurik. It is not so bad.” Igor says, trying to divert his co-presenters tirade. “The limit is one bottle per a person so the families of Toprak will manage. Two to three bottles will see us through this.”

“Two to three bottles!” Yurik’s voice blasts static through the shortwave. “Igor, I’m alone. I only get one damned bottle. Think of the other lonely people in Toprak. If I didn’t have to be sober to host the shortwave each day with you, I would have broken in to Adrik’s store today already.”

“For once I will say it is not the Town Council to blame, Yurik, but your own life choices. Whatever happened to that nice blonde girl-” Igor pauses. “-Kasana I think her name was. If you had just married her you would have two bottles now.”

I shut off the shortwave with a static snap.

I’m already packed for the Ambit. This time I dug up a flask from dads stuff in the basement, rinsed it out and filled it with water. I have it in a plastic bag with a tin of mystery food, a tin-opener and a spoon. I’m contemplating tying the plastic bag to my belt loop again. It’s much heavier than the gun and Kruna with the water and tinned food. I’ll tie it for now. In the tunnels I can put it down somewhere before I start the Ambit - if I can start the Ambit.

Delusion did want me to use the pink fleshy nub to communicate, but I haven’t. So it’s all a gamble from here. My ears did have that sensation again when I woke up, so he might have tried to talk to me this morning.

I’ve got my big kitchen knife, my club and also I’ve brought in the axe from the woodpile outside. Using the axe in the concrete tunnels will blunt its edge, so I plan to use the back of the axes head. Really, I’m worried about my club after how much I’ve used it, worried it might break from all the wear last week. So the back of the axes head will have to do as backup.

I shift the thick metal grate over and begin descending with the help of the protruding iron ribs of the access ladder. Reaching the bottom I snap the cap off dad’s torch, flick the switch and replace the cap. The tunnels darkness is pushed away, but I feel like the torch is dimmer than it should be.

Batteries…

Batteries cost money and the only money I have is Radovan’s filthy wads of Kruna.

I gather my club and axe under my arm and start jogging, my footfalls echoing down the tunnel. A warm up before the Ambit will be good.

Not having the gun this time is a worry, especially after the huge Marrop at the end of the last Ambit. If there’s a repeat of that I’m not sure what I’ll do. Maybe the blade of the axe will be enough or maybe it won’t happen. I’ll have to ask Delusion.

My ears are beginning to tingle, I must be close.

The tubular wiring and the absent streak of paint guide me down the concrete tunnel. It only takes a few minutes at a jogging pace before the strange damage or growths on the walls reveal themselves. They still remind me of barnacles or limpets, but with a closer look it’s easy enough to see the resemblance is in their shape only.

-Aleks, I told you communication is important-

He sounds agitated.

“I’m here now, Delusion.” I say a bit too hastily. “I didn’t like the idea of putting that pink thing near my ear.”

-I told you, Aleks, I warned you of the importance of communication. Look around you, the Ambit has already begun. Gone is the time of easy questions and forewarning. Any question you ask now will have a steep cost; one you probably cannot pay-

I pause, wondering if I should challenge Delusion on what he’s saying but at the same time thinking up questions.

-Aleks, they are coming-

With, apparently, no time, I break out of my thoughts.

“Tell me the most important thing in the cheapest way possible.” I say quickly, already seeing movement at the edges of the torches dim light.

-It is no longer safe to go out at night-

I hesitate in the dark concrete tunnel. The information is no help to my current situation.

“That doesn’t help me, Delusion.” I spit out. “What about the gun, am I going to need it for a huge creature like that Marrop?”

-Communication would have solved everything. All you needed to do, Aleks, was communicate. All of this could have been avoided with communication. Do you know what happens when communication fails, when one party is unwilling to communicate with the other? Violence, Aleks, violence is the outcome - and now you find yourself at its doorstep, unprepared-

“Prepare me then! What did I kill all those Marrops for last week?!” My voice bounces off the concrete tunnel.

I concentrate on my torches dim light as the far end of the tunnel seems to try smother it. There is movement here and there, but nothing approaches, not like the Marrops. I wait a few moments longer for Delusion’s reply. Nothing comes.

I could turn back, just leave the tunnel and try talking to Delusion tomorrow with the pink fleshy nub.

Or I could try to find out what I’m facing, just take a look and nothing more. I know better this time too, I know to look up.

My eyes flicker to the tunnels depths and back as I fidget with the plastic bags knot. I’m not sure what to do with the axe though. I want it close at hand in case I need it but I already have my free hand holding the torch. Not having any better I ideas, I leave both on the tunnel floor and begin a slow and careful approach.

I squint into the darkness. My torch doesn’t quite help, but I squint anyway. There was something going on down there earlier, movement of some kind. Now I can’t-

-Movement on the ceiling just a few meters ahead. There’s a clump in the corner like a Swallow’s nest you might see under an overhang. But the clump seems to pulse as it moves. I need to get closer for the torch to show me more but that might be a mistake.

Patience. Time is on my side. There is nothing rushing me or forcing me to act quickly.

I take a breath, trying to push away the enclosed feeling of the thick concrete surrounding me. I’ll watch and wait.

I stand for minutes on end watching something that reminds me of a grub at first. But as it crawls closer, along the corner of the ceiling, I begin to notice its colour, not a pale yellow like a corpse worm, no. It is dark and the creature’s skin seems to have some kind of a sheen like it’s moist. The more I look at it, the more it starts to remind me of a large stout slug pulsing and roiling as it moves. It’s quite large too, about the size of a small dog.

Would Delusions say it’s just another kind of bottom feeder, maybe feasting on the meat the Marrop’s pass over?

Am I being a coward by standing here and watching? I’m not afraid of it, I just don’t want to make a rash decision when faced with the unknown. Is that cowardice or stupidity?

I stand around for a while longer watching as the slug silently pulses. Feels pathetic. I mean, it should be weary of me. Not the other way around. I’m bigger and physically more capable. But it doesn’t seem to know that. It’s waiting me out, daring me to approach. If I had spoken with Delusion, or if Delusions had spoken with me, all this could have been avoided. Delusions was right.

The axe has more reach than my club, so I turn back to fetch it. I’ll squash the slug against the wall and go look for the others.

It’s following me as I move, squirming further along the surface of the concrete tunnel as I walk back for the axe.

My grasp of the wooden shaft is made to feel awkward by the axe head facing the wrong way, but it will do. I’m almost annoyed now, having to deal with this and waste my time. Today could have gone much better.

I pace up to the slug, standing only a few feet away from its perch up in the corner. I pull the axe back and take a step closer-

-The slug drops from the ceiling like it’s trying to drop onto me. All I can do mid step is fall sideways. It brushes my shirt leaving a gooey coating behind before hitting the floor with a wet slapping sound. I feel a splash of its juice or blood, I don’t know which. I jerk my legs back in a lance of anger. It doesn’t seem to be acidic, nothing is dissolving my clothes. Being afraid of such an inept creature is humiliating. I’m the more dangerous one, I’m bigger, and I’m more capable.

I get onto my knees and bring the back of the axe head up behind me. The slug pulses, probably hurt from dropping 3 meters onto concrete.

I bring the hammer of the axe down to meet the concrete floor. The slug turns to mush.

Feels like half the slug is on my clothes. It’s like I didn’t win even though it’s dead. A creature that non-threatening, that laughable still managed to make me filthy after scrambling away from it.

I forgot the Ambit could be filthy. I need a pair of old clothes just for the Ambit.

I get up and leave the goo on me. Would be worse if it got on my hands and the axe slipped away.

Aleks, I need you to kill creatures not in their natural state

Yeah right. I feel like an exterminator sent to roll around in the sewers. Throwing a few poisonous rats down here would kill all the slugs in a week. Because there are more, I can see them. The one I killed must have been the biggest of them. These are all shrivelled and slack, like they used to eat well but have been starving the last few weeks. Half-filled goo sacks waiting to die. But I don’t raise the hammer of my axe and step forward. The bones around them worry me.

They look like the bones of small children, a partial rib cage, one that might belong to a forearm, the delicate bird like bones of a hand but no fingers. There’s even half a pelvis. The bones are all covered in goo too, coated thickly like the slugs have been scouring them for any scrap of flesh relentlessly.

Where did the children come from, how did they get in here? The slugs could not have captured them and dragged them off. Maybe if the slugs worked together. A child alone somewhere. Still, it seems unlikely.

Is this what Delusion meant when he said it’s no longer safe to go out at night?

I have to kill them one way or another, whether it’s because they are the Ambit or because they seem to be hunting children.

I try to be fast this time, stepping forward and bring down the hammer of the axe on the closest slug at the same time.

The slug gushes it’s goo as I feel the floor shift under my foot. I jerk back, trying to jump away from the slugs but I can feel something on my leg. It’s the bones. They’ve flexed and folded in the goo and are trying to clamp around my leg. Horror stabs my belly as I assume the worst; some kind of necrotic entity that Delusion really should have told me about. I step further back intent on kicking a wall to get whatever the fuck this is off, when I see a slug being pulled along with me as I move back. The goo and the bones are somehow attached to the slug.

I kick the wall anyway, feeling bone or cartilage splinter and fall away as the goo is flung off. I stamp once or twice, getting the last of the gooey bones off. These slugs, if they were bigger and flexed a large net of their goo bones on to me, I might suffocate.

I step forward, juicing the slug against the concrete floor. The Marrops had two packs, or was it three? These slugs don’t seem dangerous at all, just kind of gross with the goo. I should be able to ignore whatever they do and kill them quickly.

-

These slugs are too small, they must be adolescents of their species again. Their bone and goo nets are traps that somehow physically connect back to them. But the nets are so small along with the slugs themselves that they hardly even hamper me.

I feel completely slick with their goo. As I’m marching through their bone traps and stomping as much as hammering them to more slush, an odd few of the slugs drop off the ceiling like the first one, to what end I have no idea. But they roll off my back and shoulders, leaving more goo behind.

I was halfway through the second pack when I realised I had slime in my shoes, my school shoes. Well the shoes I use for school and running and everything. I don’t have any other pairs except for dads. I don’t ever have any reason to wear dad’s shoes though. No going out with friends or special occasions like weddings or funerals. I’m not sure what else you need nice shoes for, really.

When I noticed the goo in my shoes, I realised I need to stop stomping on the slugs. There are only a few left now though. A little pack of five of them at the edge of my dimming torch light where they play the bait for their own net. They play a near perfect bait; the weak and dying creature, deflated from starvation, old age or disease. Small shrivelled and helpless with no means to defend itself and no way of out running anything.

I also noticed the slugs themselves have bones, well the ones dropping on me from the ceiling do, or maybe their bones are more like cartilage. But they have them and the others don’t. The ceiling slugs always seem plumper and more energetic too

I take one last sip from my flask of water and get up from the tunnel floor. The flask is almost empty, it was meant for alcohol so it’s not surprising. Now that I’ve killed most of the slugs it’s kind of humiliating all over again that I even cared about how the first slug instinctually reacted to me. I guess I was angry about Delusion and this gooey slug ball was staring me down, daring me to attack it.

It’s the pressure too; this oppressive weight has been with me since that morning school was cancelled. Radovan is out there wanting to find me. I’ve got his gun and money. Can really feel the concrete tunnels pressing in when that comes to mind.

I wipe my hands under my shirt to get the goo off and pick up the axe. I’m going to need to give the axe a nice clean at home, in case the goo is bad for it. My torches reach has shrunk further. I can no longer see the slugs and their nets, but I know they’re there, just a little further down the tunnel.

I walk forward slowly, straining my eyes in the darkness only several meters away and occasionally flicking the torch up to the concrete ceiling. I don’t want to be surprised when I’m half blind by a slug deciding to drop down onto me.

I’m beginning to wonder if the slugs and their bone traps have up and left while they were out of sight when my torch reveals the first pale net of bones. Sure of the outcome I close the distance, stepping onto the bone net and ignoring it as the bone and goo flexes around my foot and shin. I pull the weight of the axe-hammer into a downswing, the slug gushes. I bring the axe-hammer up, step forward onto the next bone net and swing down onto the next shrivelled slug. I repeat my actions three more times until my shoes and shins are covered in flaccid bone nets and all the slugs are dead.

The end of the second pack. I walk a few steps forward and lean the axe against clean wall and floor.

-Well done, Aleks, the dangers of the Ambit are almost over-

I don’t respond. Can see how much Delusions likes being ignored.

Wait… that’s why I’m in this situation in the first place.

“Is there another pack or is there a big slug somewhere?” I ask calmly. I can talk to Delusion about the what and why of communication after the Ambit.

-There is still danger in the Ambit. But, Aleks, it is time I talk to you about the rewards you were promised last week-

What were they, I can’t really remember.

A greater power? Maybe a gift?

“A greater power and I can’t remember the other one.” I say after mulling it over for a few moments.

-A greater power, yes. The other is a gift, which you will have to receive from a body of water other than the one further down this tunnel; the current in the water channel might wash it away-

“How do I, uh… receive the gift?” I ask. I can’t really help it, I’m curious.

-A tub or large bucket filled to the brim with water will suffice. You will be unable to receive it if the body of water is not large enough. Feel free to contact me if you are unsure about the adequacies of your body of water-

“Sure, I can do that.”

One of the barrels in the basement would be perfect, but those are filled with brine. I’ll have to look for something at home.

-The greater power, Aleks, will not be like the minor power. It has been settling into your body over the past week and is now ready for use-

The minor power, I forgot all about that. I asked to be quicker and Delusion said I would be faster, but only when I try. I guess I haven’t really tried at all.

-But the trick, Aleks, is the how. How do you use it?-

“I… don’t know? Isn’t it something you know all about?”

A lesson, everything with Delusion is a lesson.

-For your greater power, the first steps to using it will be to hold your arms forward and tense every muscle in your body, every single one. But-

I freeze.

-don’t do it now, Aleks. Pace yourself, you will need your energy for this Ambit-

“You make it sound like a marathon. How much more do I need to do?”

-You have not done enough Ambits for me to answer that question-

Typical. But that is what he said when the Ambit started.

-As for your greater power, you must learn to trigger it, and the way to do so is by triggering everything. Each and every muscle must be tensed, all of your being. Then your greater power will trigger and you can slowly figure out what part of you it is-

“Are you sure, Delusion? Are you sure this isn’t just a joke?” I try not to sound insulting. “Seeing these creatures and feeling them die is one thing, but this… I guess I’m trying to say that I haven’t seen it for myself - or heard about it at all.”

If there were other people doing this like Delusion has implied, you would expect it to be in the news or for there to have been strange sightings.

-The reality of the creatures and the Ambit should give my words more weight, don’t you think? Do you not perceive me as somewhat trustworthy as I have always delivered on my claims and deals?-

I’m about to give a hesitant yes when Delusion cuts in again.

-It’s proof isn’t it, Aleks? You like your proof.-

“I guess.”

-Do you have no memory of coming across anything strange, experiencing anything unexplainable?-

I think it over for a few moments, but I don’t really have to think that hard. Coming across something strange like Delusion is talking about would stand out.

“I don’t think so. Life in Toprak hasn’t been touched by whatever you’re talking about”

-Don’t forget my warning, which you asked for, Aleks. It is no longer safe to go out at night. That should be a proof of its own. You have, however, come across something strange, Aleks. Last week, a man who was too hot to have a fever grabbed your ankle. He ignored my warning too, if it interests you, and decided to learn elemental powers. Which I always warn against. What he learnt exactly is his secret to keep, but being a novice dabbling in elemental powers, he hurt himself badly. Third degree burns over most of his body, and a heat that would not leave him. I suspect it was all because he wanted to be a little warmer at night.-

My memory stretches back to the burnt smelling garbage bags at the side of the drug house that turned out to be a burnt man. I put it out of mind at the time. I had just stolen the gun and the money. His grip in the darkness on my ankle, it was hot, I remember. Almost burning me through my clothes. I kicked him away because of that.

I guess it was strange and it was weird, but not extremely so. I think even if it had been on a different day, not the day I stole the gun and the money, the burnt man and his searing hand would not stand out to me. Maybe it would just be a memory of being bothered or attacked by a fiend.

What does stick out about the memory, what does bother me about it, are the mans slurred and crazed words. The panic in them as he fought against the drugs or drink, maybe pain, to get them out.

Ear. Don’t give your ear.

It was a broken mix of native tongue and English.

-Aleks-

My attention returns to the concrete tunnel and the weight of its walls.

-You are nearing the end of your instructive period. There are still a few details I haven’t had the chance to communicate to you, but we can do that after the Ambit-

Delusion somehow manages to keep the accusation out of his words.

-For now, Aleks, to complete the instructive period, you need to use your greater power on the next creature in the Ambit you find-

“I don’t know how to.” I say trying to refuse. “You said yourself that I need to learn what part of me it is first.”

-Tense everything, every fibre and every part of yourself-

It’s my turn not to respond.

On the one hand these slugs are a joke. On the other hand, going to one of the abandoned apartment blocks and trying this sounds like a much better learning experience.

-Remember what I warned you about, Aleks. It was not the tunnels, it was the night-