He was holding the blade with two fingers, when I got up still holding the hilt, he let go and I almost dropped it. The sword was heavy, I could hardly hold it with two hands, its weight tipping the blade downwards, almost below my waist.

How does he use this? I wondered.

I lasted around ten seconds holding the weapon before letting go of it, not completely due to the weight, the constant burning sensation where the centipede had stung on my left hand got stronger. I held my arm, trying to stop the shivering that suddenly turned to a violent trembling, the makeshift bandage fell and I saw the dark purple rot spread faster through my hand, it had already covered most of the back of my hand.

My vision wavered and I was on one knee when Zanir put the wooden bowl to my mouth.

"Neink," he said, tilting the bowl so I could drink.

Bitter.

The trembling slowly stopped, I felt better almost instantly, the lesion also gradually ceased spreading. A long sigh let itself out as I rested my back on the rough wall of the small cave.

He walked to the end of the room and opened the hole on the ground, retrieving a book, maybe it was my imagination, but In the dark of where he stood, I thought seeing a slight smile on the corner of his mouth, that would be the first positive expression showed on his face so far. He came back and handed me the book, the cover was brownish with a red rock drawn in the middle, and by the number of images, it appeared to be some kind of children's book. I couldn't read any of the words in it, if they were words at all, the drawings were simple too, straight lines making crude shapes.

He gestured to himself then waved his hand as if flipping through a book, then pointed to his mouth, me then his ears.

"You'll teach me?"

Quite the change of attitude for someone that seemed to want me dead just a few minutes ago.

Not knowing how far I was from the surface, communication was important if I wanted his help, especially to know what kind of monsters I'd find on my way there, like the centipede and the furry balls of death. Of course learning the whole language with just one book and a teacher that wasn't much of a talker would be hard, but I should be able to learn the basics. I had a bad feeling that we would have more than enough time.

He picked up the sword I had dropped and sheathed it again, then turned to the wall with the weapons. There were three pairs of weapons in total, two hammers, two axes and what looked like two spears, but shorter and having a blade slightly curved at the top, instead of a spearhead.

He picked one of the axes and handed it to me.

The axe too felt a little like a two handed weapon, and it was heavy, but not nearly as much as his sword had been. The body of the handle was of a white smooth wood and had a small spike at the end, the head had a crescent moon shaped blade and a thicker spike on the back of it. It had some rust on it, and the wood had some darker areas, but the weapon looked overall in good state.

"Lekow," he said, grabbing a bag and two small wooden tubes from one of the walls, waving me to follow him outside. He turned left, opposite the way I had gone before, I followed. Axe in hand.

The path went up, I realized, we passed through a number of entrances that led into tunnels of varied sizes. The scenarios changed but stayed mostly the same, like a forest, same formula of roots, vines, crystals, flowers and animals, arranged in different ways.

I could no longer remember the way back when it appeared, the size of a horse, light brown and resembling a beetle with two long horizontal horns. The thing was so big that it was ridiculous, like it was fake, as if someone was trying to replicate an animal and did something wrong. The creature wasn't scary in itself, the idea of it was, bugs shouldn't be this big, its image gave me a bizarre sensation deep in my core, disconcerting. Like my body couldn't process it well.

I took a step back, despite myself, and Zanir took a step forward. He unsheathed both swords and took a stance, body low to the ground, making him almost half as tall, feet wide apart, one sword over his shoulder and behind his back; the other to the side of his torso, pointing behind him on the opposite side of the holding arm, sword parallel to the ground.

Zanir moved first, running so fast and low that he was practically falling forward, the distance was closed before the beetle could move. He made a sharp turn right and the bug brought its horn in the same direction, Zanir blocked with one sword while the other went for the legs, cutting two in a single swing, the insect toppled, but Zanir kept running around it while cutting all its legs. The back of the insect opened and wings tried to take off, making a loud thrumming sound, both were cut before the creature left the ground. I doubted it could have, anyway, too heavy and there was no space.

When all the creature could do was squirm around, he ran to the side of its head and brought the blade down, beheading it with a clean strike.

He made it all look so easy, but I knew that a creature of that size couldn't be that weak, Zanir was just that strong. The "battle" made me wonder what had he trained to fight against, to be so strong.

Yellowish blood started to ooze off the carcass when he cut pieces of the dark brown shell to put it in the bag at his waist, the body was still slightly moving when Zanir put his hand inside of it to retrieve chunks of yellowish flesh and put it inside one of the wooden tubes he brought, when the tube became full he closed it and went on to eating the goop from inside the creature. I was quick to decline the offer.

Too many things were happening at once, what even happened? How it even happened?

While he was distracted eating, I heard something coming our way, the tunnel we were in was twice the size the one we came from and had several smaller pathways in every direction throughout its length, so I wasn't sure exactly where the sound was coming from.

A few minutes passed and some smaller insects were already crawling on the beetle when Zanir jumped away from the body and a dog sized bug appeared, only its head and orange carapace were visible, the latter sectioned in rectangular arcs, similar to an armadillo. It started to eat the beetle from the softer parts, under the unused wings.

"Szana liah," he said, pointing to the creature and the axe, which I noticed I was unconsciously gripping at.

He wants me to kill it?

I guessed I had to do it sooner or later, if I wanted to leave, might as well start now. I carefully approached the body and went around it, the creature didn't seem to notice me, since it kept eating. I raised the axe and regret hit me in sync with the swing. The creature started to violently thrash around, the axe stuck to it's back, I put my feet on it and pulled the axe free, falling backwards and dropping the weapon.

The insect darted towards me, wriggling. I stumbled to my feet and picked the axe up to bring down on it again, and again, and again. I kept doing it long past the point it was necessary, moved by adrenaline and sheer panic.

When I was done, a pale blue mess of liquid and solid bits laid before me, with few recognizable body parts. I dropped the axe and backed away to the wall, sitting.

I wasn't unfamiliar to killing, but I never did it myself, or got used to it. It felt wrong, killing that creature, more than watching people get killed ever did. I didn't know why. Maybe because of it's size, stepping on bugs didn't feel like killing, but something that big just felt wrong. The proportions made every detail more powerful, the way it reacted to my attack, the pain it must have felt, that I was inflicting.

No, It would have killed me if I gave the chance... Right? I asked myself.

The truth was that it didn't matter how I felt, if what I did was right or wrong, evil or not. I would probably need to kill many more to get back home.

I got up and picked the axe up again, properly feeling its weight. Zanir walked up to me and offered me the beetle flesh again.

I ate it voraciously.