Waiting for the crowds to leave, Sylvester let out a heaping breath of air from his lungs. Convincing this many people didn’t prove to be easy, but confidence was a magic nail Sylvester always tucked away under his sleeve of elusive tricks.

All of our eyes fixated onto the large crater where the podium used to be. Darkness and boulders of dry stone crumbled around the edges and, with the right angle of light, a way inside was visible, as small as it may be.

Sylvester raised his hands to gather everyone’s attention, his voice shaking the ground like an earthquake, far too similar to the explosions he caused. “We need to get inside the catacombs! Now is our only chance, and we may not get another!”

I walked over to Sylvester, Laena holding my hand like a daughter crossing a road of wagons and horses. “I’m not going,” I said. “I’ve helped you far enough, and all are safe for now. Call it what you must, but my presence is no longer needed. Laena needs to get back to her father, and I promised to get her there.”

“I’ll take little Laena back to her home.” Sylvester gave me a wave, giving Laena an adult-like smile. “I have routes and safe passages that can get to the ridge. Besides, you started your travels with—” He cocked his head at Rina and Kalvin, then turned it back to face me. “Best finish it with them.”

“A promise will take priority over my selfishness over a wish.”

What was I saying? I thought to myself again, or perhaps, I was thinking about someone other than myself...

“Then how about this,” Sylvester stuck out his wrinkled finger, eyes as bright as fire. “A pinky promise, for me to return Laena back to where she belongs, along with your items.”

Laena giggled, “I wanna do a pinky promise!”

Sylvester kneeled beside her, his pinky as sharp as a knife. “I’m sorry dear, but this is very important grown-up business. Us men need to settle this through the holy grail of trust.”

“That’s okay mister mustache!” Laena pouted cutely, nodding and skipping back to Rina and Paris by the crater.

“Don’t play jokes with me Sylvester,” My face went blank, as per usual.

Sylvester chuckled, pulling out a small knife from a leather holster by his waist, “How about a Truth of Blood then? I’m sure this is right up your ally.”

I didn’t answer, notifying Sylvester of my absence of knowledge about the subject. Whatever a Truth of Blood might be, it didn’t sound any safer than a stab to the heart.

“A Truth of Blood is a treaty between two parties which allows for the utmost limit of trust. A fusion of blood on a promise, and a deed that cannot be betrayed.” He paused, letting me climb through the information. “For example, when we combine our blood, my promise to you cannot be broken—and if it is, my wound will begin spreading a virus throughout my body, killing me slowly until my body rots away like an old loaf of bread.”

With all my thoughts scavenging around, this turned out to be an offer too good to pass down. From what I have learned about Sylvester, he was a trustworthy man. A man that wouldn’t betray. But he was also a man of secrets, lies, and deception. A dangerous man to entitle my trust to, but this Truth of Blood piqued my interest to a keen degree of loyalty. “Swear you’ll get her home safely.”

Sylvester smiled, the edges of his mouth touching the tips of his cheekbones, “On my life, and the next.” He turned, walking over to Bonnie and pulling out the luminous white wine bottle. He then slid the knife across his hand, unflinched by the sting of sharpened iron against his thin skin.

Handing me the knife, he reached his hand out as if to shake mine, “After you.” He gestured.

Feeling the feather-light blade in my hand gave me an odd sensation, but I ignored it, running the edge against the inner side of my left hand. I was right-handed, so immobilizing my most trusted side was foolish.

After a firm nod, our hands grasped, blood soaking through our skin like a clumsy strainer. A few drops splashed against the stone below us, and Sylvester poured the white wine bottle over our clasping hands. “I swear to get Laena back to her father, along with the items Cairo stole from the Vault of Glass.”

I sighed, as I couldn’t back out now. “I swear to go inside the catacombs with the rest, and only return if everyone comes out safely.”

Sylvester chuckled, “Twas not necessary to claim such acts.”

“No.” I answered, “It was.”

With the stinging pain subsiding with the strange liquid he poured, our hands were free. However, instead of a diagonal laceration on my hand, a black, vile looking mark appeared in the center of my palm. Veins and arteries enveloped themselves in it, and it pulsated with every heartbeat. Great, I thought. More magic tricks to fool me of my lack of knowledge.

I handed Sylvester the Key of Hysteria, the Dragon’s Heart, and a few vials of blue and red. I kept a few to myself, along with the horn and the book. I felt like they could prove to be useful later on, whatever or whomever they were designed for.

Walking back towards the crater, my eyes wouldn’t dart away from the black mark on my hand. It was fascinating, and yet, daunting all the same. It felt like—

“Mister Cairo!” Laena broke me from my thoughts, but it was for the better. I get lost inside them too frequently nowadays. “Lookie!” She yelped as she jumped onto Mooks’s thick back, riding him like a horse. They both enjoyed it, and I let them. It felt good to see Mooks excited and bringing joy into a child’s life. If only he was with me in the Gulag, perhaps things would be different now.

“Laena,” I gestured for Mooks to ride her over towards me. “Mister Mustache is going to take you to your father.” Her smile dimmed, “He’s a kindhearted person that knows how to get from one place to another. I trust him,” I looked down at my mark, hiding it. “You can trust him too.”

“But I want to go with you mister!” She jumped off of Mooks, clinging to my leg again.

I gave her a pat on the head, as I always did when Mooks was sad. It seemed to work on children as well. I decided to keep that as a mental note for now. “Mister mustache has all the drinks and food you can eat and drink.” I added, seeing a glimmer of hope sparkle across her eyes. “Lots of it too.”

“Okie dokie!” She hugged me, the dry dirt on her hands and clothes rubbing against my neck. “Does Mister Mustache have apples?”

I nodded, “He has much more than just apples. Strawberries too.”

“Yay!” She galloped into the air, giving me another hug, and a look that made my heart warm. A feeling I get when a brisking pot of Fo enters my chambers. A feeling of relief, and a tingle of pleasure—or atleast, I thought it was.

Sylvester came over to us on Bonnie, grappling Klyde beside her for his ride back to Torchmire. He helped Laena up, and slid down one last time to face us. “Now, when you enter the catacombs, be wary of anything that looks even the slightest out of place. Bones and Skulls lie around every corner. Traps and tricks hide beneath every crack. And to get to the jewel, one mustn't follow a path, but rather intuition.” He reached into his pocket, giving Kalvin a compass of some sort. “If you get out, find me. This compass will lead you to where you need to be.”

Kalvin pondered at it dramatically, “There aren’t any directions on it, the hell is this?”

Sylvester smiled, hopping back on Bonnie. “You’ll understand when the time comes.” He gave us one last nod, and rode off with Laena and Tesla on Bonnie’s back.

Paris and Rina waved at Laena, who seemed to be on the verge of tears again, but I was certain they weren’t tears of sadness or grief. They were tears of a reunion that has yet to come. A reunion that would cause much more than tears.

I waved too, only lightly. My attention was fixated onto the crater, and the darkness succumbing it. Rigid rocks and broken stone piqued out into the sunlight, pieces of broken carts and planks of wood created an odd, yet fitting scene across the entrance. The rest of the space was darkness; a hollow type of darkness. I picked up a small pebble off the ground, and tossed it down into the hole.

Clings and Clacks echoed into my ears, until a final thud bounced off something odd. I couldn’t see what it was, but something more than just a pile of rocks was surely down there, whatever it might have been.

Oscar chuckled, pushing Paris forward. “Ladies first.”

“Ahhh!” She screamed as she nearly lost her balance to the fall. “Bastard!” She yelled back at him, slapping and punching his chest muscles like a bag of sand.

“Cairo,” Rina tapped me on the shoulder, “You can go with Sylvester if you’d like,” Her face turned grim, blank as an empty barrel. “You don’t have to keep—”

I stopped her, grabbing her hand and showing her a dark mark on mine. “But I do. I made a promise.” Gently shoving her hand back, my body leaned behind me, and it fell into the darkness, Rina’s fingers gliding against mine like strings on a harp.

As my body fell, I felt free for a moment, like the time my chest was nothing but a bundle of sticks. The hole of light with stares looking at me became smaller and smaller, and soon, it became as distant as the sun in the horizon.

It felt good to fall freely for once. However long it may have been, gravity would do wonders to the human soul, because when there is no gravity, there is no weight holding one down, except for the limitless burdens attached to the soul itself.

During a fall such as this, memories seemed to fade from me. I felt as if I was in a field of bristling glass, letting a gentle breeze glide beneath my loose clothes. It’s as if it washed me, freed me of my sins, and all the souls I’ve stolen held me high in their scorched arms for all the pain to leak from my beaten body. Those souls kept my heart alive, even if I refused to forgive what I’ve done.

After what seemed like hours, I landed on a pile of bones atop of packed dirt. I let my body soften towards it as if I was landing on a blanket of feathers. However, my gravity couldn’t soften the sharpness of my landing, so I instantly sprang up to my feet, breathing timidly.

Looking around me, a couple of torches beamed in a narrow passageway up ahead. Possibly a couple hundred feet away, black and emptiness between them and I.

A sudden splash of water fell atop my head. Followed by another, then another, until a full wave of water came crashing down on me, wishwashing all the bones into a tsunami of flooded piles of ossein and rocks. The walls trembled in fear, and my legs barely managed to withstand the force of the water.

As I presumed, Rina had made a safe trip down behind me. She laughed a little after seeing me alive and soaking from head to toe, “Sorry for that.”

I nodded, looking back up at the hole. “Jump!” I yelled, hoping my voice reached the summit. Argues and shoves yelled back at me, until Oscar came crashing down upon us. I managed to tap him at the last moment and let the fall be broken with no gravity weighing him down.

His teeth clenched below his lip, almost as if it wasn’t his plan to jump down like that. He thanked me for breaking his fall, yet his face remained flushed with blood and frustration from whomever pushed him. Both Rina and I had a good guess of the culprit behind such a crime.

Kalvin was the next to make his jump, followed by Paris after countless minutes of shouting back and forth. I broke both their falls, but I only got a “thank you,” from Kalvin. As soon as Paris landed, she shoved me and Rina out of the way and dashed off towards the torches in the distance, “That wish is mine!”

“Mooks! You can jump!” I called out to him, breaking his fall with a feather-light touch. He thanked me, scurrying off towards Rina in an instant.

“Any specific way we’re supposed to be going?” I nodded at Kalvin, brushing dust off my hair.

“I am just as clueless as you,” He turned his sleeve inside out, lobbing a bone out of his pocket. “However, I have but a single clue to guide us. Although I ain’t sure what in the world it means.” Reaching into his left-shirt pocket, he pulled out what seemed like a page from a book. A thin page as a matter-of-fact. One that looked quite familiar too.

“Let’s head over to the torches,” He gestured cautiously, “Can’t read for shit in this light.”

With Paris’s footsteps guiding us forward, we made our descent into the trenches of the catacombs. I was quite used to darkness, in fact, I preferred it. However, this darkness was different. It was thick, almost like a black hole of some sort. It seemed to suck life and give death, so I kept my guard high, keeping alert with every step.

The footsteps running through my ears came to a brief stop up ahead, and Paris froze tight in place beside the torches. A small doorway made of grey bricks and concrete unraveled more darkness up ahead, but that wasn’t the reason she stopped.

As my steps approached her, she pulled out her blade, pinning it against my chest and signaling for me to stop. I gave her a dim look, but as my eyes adjusted to the flickering light of the two flames, a tiny thin line of silver popped right beside my face. String? I thought. No, a trap, a good one too.

Paris ducked down, all the excitement vanishing from her deathly stare. “Let’s go,” She moved, picking up the torch and entering through the tiny frame ahead of us.

Kalvin grabbed the other torch, “Wait.” He called, his deep voice echoing through every crack ahead. “Listen,” He ordered, shining the torch onto his piece of paper and adjusting his eyes to see the ink.

As above and As below

The jewel rests where one should know

Behind the men of sacred past

And down the floor of broken glass

A wish will pass but only one

Don’t wish for much, or you’ll get none

“The hell does that mean?” Oscar yawned, tightening his bandanna. His eyes drooped, and his neck made a few disturbing cracks. “Sounds like som’ sorta riddle.”

“That tells us nothing.” Paris sighed, lowering her blade.

“No, it tells us everything we need to know.” I said in a disturbing tone. “It tells us we need to keep going further. And when we do, there won’t be a way to turn back.”

“Well then,” Kalvin bowed sarcastically, his smile as devilish as can be under the shadows casted upon his face. “After you.” He gestured.

I grabbed his torch, sighed, and stepped into the doorframe, gathering darkness the darkness around me.

…

In the catacombs of Nirvana, seconds turned to minutes. Minutes turned to hours, and hours turned into dry throats and rumbling stomachs. It seemed as if we were walking in circles through endless corridors of bones and rocks, all just to turn another corner and repeat the cycle. Trails from previous explorers uncovered patches of old dust, and any trail we followed either led to a deadend or another pointless tunnel with twists and turns.After a while, we stopped seeing torches altogether, gathering more than enough to continue deeper into the darkness below.

Currently, we found ourselves in a large dome-like chamber underground. The only reason I recognized the shape was due to the millions of bat eyes staring down at me from the crescent ceiling. They were harmless, but the light from the torches woke them from their daily slumber. A few hissed back and flew away, disappearing elsewhere.

Once we entered this space, no walls were present left or right. The ground was hollow, scattered with human bones and torn up clothes. “People have been here.” I said, lowering my torch against the ground. I slid my finger across a torn shirt; no dust or any sort of residue appeared. “Not long ago too.”

Paris kept flailing her torch all over the place, paranoid and tired. “Uhh,” She moaned. “This is taking forever! How much further are we—AHHH!” She screamed as a loud thud hit her on the forehead

We all turned, and her torch gave light to what seemed like an ancient statue of some sort of warrior. Paris’s heart was thumping as if there was a volcano erupting in her heart, but it quickly lowered as the statue continued being motionless, just like all statues are.

Observing carefully, that statue of the warrior was clearly not from this time era. In fact, this was a warrior of not only the past, but from a different nation as well. The warrior wore some sort of straw hat, holstered a dangerously long katana similar to Paris’, and wore pallets of leather with tiny round spikes about an inch apart from one another. Well, that’s what I reckoned he wore. The clay sculpting of the warrior was badly worn and weathered. Parts and pieces were broken off, and no facial features gave me any indication of what or who the warrior might be.

“Watch where ya walking!” Paris shouted at the warrior, grumbling the hollow walls and getting nothing in response.

Oscar laughed, “What’s tha matter? ‘Fraid of a lil statue?”

“Uhh, shut up!” She snapped, giving the statue and Oscar an evil eye.

I wasn’t planning on staying for their foolish arguments, so I continued further. Letting my torch guide me forward, another identical statue popped out on my right, then my left. Another, then another. And soon, there were dozens. No, there were hundreds of warriors scattered all throughout this domed chamber.

I couldn’t help but feel as if they were watching us somehow. It was odd to find bones here, and seeing freshly torn clothes didn’t give us any hopes either. “We should keep going,” I called out quietly. “Don’t touch anything, and don’t go where you’re not supposed to.”

Kalvin grabbed Paris, holding her hand as if she was his daughter. “Enough foolin’ around, stay tight.”

Paris growled back at him and broke free from his grip. However, she stayed close behind, her hands locked onto her torch.

The further we traveled, an eerie pressure began pushing against my skull. When it first appeared not too long ago, I dismissed it as an affiliation of being in the darkness for too long. But as time passed, I realized it was pressure. Pressure that pops your ears and swallows you into the ground. We were deep. Deeper than most would dare to reach. This was odd for me, because pressure is something I’m well accustomed to.

“Kalvin,” I said, stopping. “Read the paper again.”

He nodded, reaching into his pocket and hovering the torch around the thin line of ink on his page.

As above and As below

The jewel rests where one should know

Behind the men of sacred past

And down the floor of broken glass

A wish will pass but only one

Don’t wish for much, or you’ll get none

“Behind the men of sacred past,” I repeated, glaring at the warrior statues. “There’s a good chance these are the men of sacred past. No warriors nowadays wear or use such swords and armor. It’s possible they’re from a different country, possibly a nation that is more eatern near the Aphian empire. It seems far too surreal.”

“What do you suspect is behind them?” Rina asked nervously, the flame on her torch shivering more than her.

I took a few more steps further, reaching the final row of warriors. However, as I reached the end, there was nothing behind them. Nothing but a stone wall of bones, and some sort of circular encryption on it.

In the circle, the top half resembled an apple tree, blossoming and full of green life. The bottom half had an exact replica of the tree upside down, except there was no blossoming green or sunshine. There were only dead branches, dull grain, and ruptured soil.

Interesting, I thought. First, we stumble on a massive plane of warriors from a different time era. Then, we find a wall with a symbol that tells us nothing. This wasn’t necessarily a good sign, nor was it a bad sign either. This was strange. Too strange.

The group hustled over to my motionless body, torches and light casting shadows upon shadows across the warriors. Mooks kept sniffing around, his eyes like lightning in the night.

“As above, as below,” Rina whispered, her eyes widening with disbelief. “It’s a folktale... No,” She shook her head trying to remember. “A law, a law of equal. A reality…” Being lost inside an endless gaze, she gently placed her hands onto the circle, twisting it upside down. A few nudges of tiny rocks fell on the floor as the circle turned. After a few seconds of rocks gliding against rocks, the blossoming tree was on the bottom, and the dead tree was on the top.

Rina seemed lost in her mind, her face deprived of humanity. Luckily, Mooks snapped her out of it with a yelp, “What’s happening!”

Yet another circle formed around the original frame, followed by multiple larger circles curling and pressing into the wall. I backed up, as did everyone else behind me. The circles slowly began to twist and shift deeper inside the wall. Everything that wasn’t breathing around us began to shake with disturbing sounds as if an earthquake was below us.

Suddenly, all the statues began to turn in the opposite direction as if they were on some sort of pedestal. “The hell did you dumbasses do!” Paris shouted, hiding under Oscar’s massive shadow.

Rina smiled, cheeks as soft as clouds. “We found a way inside,” She pointed at the circle again. However, instead of two trees, a cylindrical tunnel was in its place, leading into the wall of bones and skulls.

“How did you know?” Kalvin asked, his tongue lodged in his throat out of a mix of fear and fascination.

Rina gripped her light source tightly, taking the first step inside the darkness. “Intuition.” A smirk drew across her lips, “Let’s call it that.”

I sniffled a large chunk of dust into my nostrils; this didn’t feel right. I was certain we were going the correct way, but something in my gut kept tugging me to go back. Like a leech sucking blood, except the leech was the catacombs, and the outside world was my only way to escape this eerie leech of pity.

I sighed, following Rina into the tunnel. “Can’t turn back now,” I jerked my head back. “Mooks, do you still want to continue?”

Mooks dashed in front of me, panting in the underground heat. “To hell and back!” He squealed, letting Rina’s hand brush against his scalp.

For the remainder of our time traversing through the tunnel, not a single word was spoken. The faint sounds of torch embers and crawling bats were the only noises present. Even our footsteps seemed to be muffled by the densely-packed underground rock around us.

A different noise ruffled through the air, and I quickly snapped my head behind me. Adjusting my eyes, there was nothing there but Paris and Oscar. They gave me a puzzled look, but my attention wasn’t on them, but rather behind them. I could’ve sworn I heard footsteps that weren’t ours. No glimmer of light caved into my field of view, so I dismissed it for now.

As we reached the end of the tunnel, a large squared room came clear into our view. Inside this awkwardly placed room were two doorways, although the doors that seemed to be there previously were ripped from the hinges. Rough edges of sculpted corners paved the foundation of the room, and torches that haven’t been used in decades or even centuries were piled in a mess on the ground..

I sighed, “Left or right?”

Mooks began to sniff his surroundings; his ears perked up like a fox. “Left!” He yelped, panting.

“I say right!” Paris barked back at Mooks, whiplashing her wrists onto her waist with a twist of sassiness. “Going right is always the right way.” She crossed her arms like a mother.

Oscar raised a brow, barely nicking his bandana with it. “Is there a pun intended or nah?”

Paris moaned again, heading right without saying a word.

“Wait.” Kalvin stopped her, “Let us flip a coin, it’s the only way to settle it fairly. Unless of course you suggest we split?”

“As if! I ain’t letting no one get a wish before me!” Paris turned back around, nearly dropping her torch out of her clumsiness.

Kalvin rummaged through his pockets, finding a bronze penny beside the piles of random trinkets scattered throughout his clothes, “Coin flip it is then.” He quickly blew any dust off of it, placed it on his thumb, and flipped it in the air.

“Tails never fails!” Mooks galloped into the air. Paris mocked him, accepting the role of heads intuitively.

As the coin released from his nail, it went higher than the torchlight could reach, and a clunking sound bounced off the hardened ground. I hovered my torch across the stone floor like a sword, then found a small coin laying flat against it’s back. “Tails.”

“Uhhh, what a dr—” Paris stopped. Her face of annoyance instantly twisted into one of pure fear. She quickly glanced around, looking for something, something that wasn’t yet there. “RUN!” She yelled, and nearly a second later, a black sphere rolled towards us from the tunnel.

I looked down on it, and my heart sank into my boots. It was a bomb. One that would explode any second. I jerked my head back, and empty stares and jaw-dropped faces gawked back at me. A flare of bright orange light caught the corner of my eye, and a sound that nearly broke my hearing escaped from the black sphere.

I swallowed, blinked, and the explosion set off, placing me back into the darkness.