It took about four more weeks of recovery before I could leave Hawthorne’s cave on my own. The stab wound itself surprisingly wasn’t too severe and it closed up in about two weeks after I woke up although it still prevented me from moving around too much. Funnily enough, my shoulder and thigh injuries were the ones forcing me to stay in bed. It looks like I pushed myself too hard and reopened those wounds, damaging them even further. Hawthorne says I’m lucky I’m young because if he suffered those types of injuries, he’d be bedridden for months but I was somehow able to get up and fight with them. But I suppose the extended time I had to stay in bed afterwards was the price for my recklessness.

Over these four weeks, either Hawthorne or Sylvia would feed me whatever was sent down. Most of it was just more black bread, tasteless hardtack, or random vegetables they probably foraged for up there. I even noticed a few stalks of Wild Tulsi mixed in which I warned Hawthorne couldn’t be consumed by humans. He immediately tossed them away and ran out of the cave to warn others but he was too late and two people died that night. One of them was the woman who Corbin’s remnants took hostage and whose brother tried to kill me.

Jonas, who visited me quite often with his brother while I was recovering, told me after the night her brother died, she turned into a lifeless husk, wasting away day by day. It was hard for me to feel sympathy for her because although I felt bad I had to kill her brother, the memory of him stabbing me in the back was still fresh in my mind. But at the end of it all, she was innocent of her brother’s actions. I asked the brothers to bury her next to where they buried her brother and despite their reluctance to handle corpses again, they still did it.

Speaking of the brothers, after Corbin’s goons were disposed of, they became second priority for the daily food deliveries. Hawthorne and Sylvia have first pick at whatever’s available, the brothers earned themselves second pick, and everyone else goes after them. They did tell me with over a dozen people basically disappearing overnight, there’s more food and water to go around and fights between the rest of The Pit’s inhabitants have nearly stopped. I guess that’s an unintentional benefit from me taking care of the goons.

Honestly though, being bedridden and being unable to do anything for an entire month almost drove me insane. I was bored out of my mind every day and I couldn’t wait until I could stand up and start putting my plan into motion. But it wasn’t all bad since my dreams calmed down significantly from my earlier episode. I haven’t had any more incidents where I woke up dazed and thought I was someone else since that first time. Although recently it has started to worsen again and I’ve had a few times where I woke up screaming, startling both Hawthorne and Sylvia awake.

Since I started living in their cave, I’ve noticed Hawthorne and Sylvia have an incredibly monotonous routine they strictly follow everyday. It seems it was Hawthorne who first started it many years ago and has kept it up this entire time. Quite frankly, I have no idea how Hawthorne could endure that sort of lifestyle until now. Every day, aside from going out to get The Fold’s deliveries, all he would do is practice his writing and then practice his fighting for hours on end before going to sleep and then starting again bright and early. That’s it, nothing else.

Admittedly, seeing the way he moved and his practice sessions with Sylvia let me understand how lacking I was in barehanded combat. After being down here for numerous years and surviving countless fights, he created and refined a fighting style unique to him and as I watched them from the side in my bed of rags, I started learning from them too. For one thing, instead of solely aiming for one fatal blow to knock out the opponent like I learned from Bertrand, he combines his punches and kicks to gradually deal damage until he finds an opening to commit to a big attack. He doesn’t only aim for the chin but he aims for unprotected vital spots like the nose, the ears, the temples, and even the body if it’s open.

His punches are also nothing like mine and are designed to come in from the opponent’s blind spots like below the chin, far off from the sides, and body shots. Both Hawthorne and Sylvia would often fight imaginary opponents, picturing and predicting how whoever they were envisioning would move. Hawthorne called it fighting shadows and I could even imagine doing the same thing but with a sword. Regardless, even though my body couldn’t move around and practice what I was learning, it still gave me a bunch of great ideas I was itching to test out.

It also turns out Sylvia can speak. I found out she’ll only say anything in front of people she’s familiar with and I guess after interacting with me for a whole month, she became comfortable around me. She’s actually really bright and apparently she memorized the names of everyone she’s met down here. Even during her sparring practice with Hawthorne, she was able to pick up what he was teaching after seeing it just once. It’s unfortunate for such a young, smart girl to be trapped in such a terrible place.

…

After four weeks of mundane but necessary rest, I left Hawthorne’s cave and returned to Corbin’s. After tidying the place up, I took a seat on the pile of rags and inspected my little collection. In front of me was a simple comb made from wood and over a dozen makeshift knives with varying degrees of wear and tear. Jonas and Jonathan have been busy on my behalf, cleaning out the caves of everyone that’s died and gathering all their belongings in my cave. There’s also a few knick knacks like wooden mugs, unlit torches, burned out brightstones, and other baubles but the knives are what I’m most interested in.

Picking out two knives with decent conditions, I lightly toss them at the two brothers sitting neatly across from me, offhandedly saying, “Those are yours.” Confused, they don’t dare to even touch them and only stare at me helplessly. “Listen, I want to leave this place. I don’t want to just leave The Pit but I want to escape The Fold’s clutches up there as well. The only way I can do that is if I prepare a hidden blade while I’m still down here.”

For the next few minutes, I go into the surface parts of my plan and only tell them the basics. They listen in stunned silence and look at each other for an entire minute when I finish. For some reason, they do this… thing pretty frequently where they’ll look into each other’s eyes and seemingly have coherent conversations in the span of moments without saying a word. I wonder if all siblings can do that.

When they’re done, they both nod at the same time and Jonas turns to me, saying, “We’ll do it. Our mother back in Ocean’s Rest is getting on in years and she needs us. We’ve already wasted too much time down here and we have to get back to her. Just tell us what you want us to do and we’ll do it.”

Seeing the resolution in their eyes, a smile grows on my face and I stand up, giving my clothes a quick pat down before heading out of my cave with only Corbin’s knife in my pocket for emergencies. Without turning to them, I say with a laugh, “Sometimes blades are forged. Sometimes they’re bought with currency. But sometimes they have to be taken by force and for us, we’ll be pummeling ours into submission.”

…

For the next three weeks, the brothers and I paid a visit to every inhabited cave in The Pit. My demands were simple: surrender and follow my lead, or die. Well, although I did threaten them with death, none of the people we visited ever reached that point. At most, a few people would say they weren’t interested in whatever happened in The Pit and would rather be left alone. Unfortunately for them, my plan needed everybody to be onboard and the more bodies, the likelier I’d make it out of here alive.

For the ones unwilling to cooperate, I put into practice everything I learned from Hawthorne during my stay in his cave. None of them really put up a good fight considering they were the ones who would normally stray away from conflict and preferred to pick up the scraps from the deliveries after everyone had their turn if it meant they could avoid any fighting. But for the majority of The Pit’s inhabitants, they just agreed with apprehension because they didn’t understand what my intentions for them were. I even approached Hawthorne and told him what I was planning to do, offering him two knives sort of as a gift for what he’s done for me.

He scoffed at me and showed me an entire hidden stash of knives at the back of his cave but he accepted the knives anyway, perhaps appreciating the gesture. As for my plan, he didn’t hold any hopes because of how outlandish and difficult it would be to pull off. Apparently, I’m not even the first to think of my plan and he said in all likelihood, I wouldn’t be the last. Regardless, he agreed to help me keep everyone down here in line until I needed them.

During the three weeks I spent subjugating The Pit’s residents, I climbed up and down the stone walls to visit the ones who lived on the upper levels as a way to isolate themselves from everyone else. Climbing up and down three or four levels wasn’t too hard but anything after that and my wounds would start to ache. The climb itself wasn’t difficult due to the grooves in the stone walls being well made. Even though the Savior made them decades ago, they’ve weathered the test of time magnificently. When I peer into them, I can even see the exact spots where the Savior placed his fingers as the indents are still visible.

Another week passes and I’m almost ready to make The Climb as The Pit’s dwellers have elegantly termed the final climb back to the surface. It’s early morning and I’m taking a few moments to adjust myself mentally. The morning headaches are worsening and the confusion I experience every time I wake up is getting more dire as foreign memories and thoughts start to linger which is also why I’m in a rush to get out of here. My heart freezes when I realize I’m subconsciously combing my hair with Corbin’s comb. In a fright, I toss the comb onto the ground far away from me. Knowing getting emotional now isn’t going to do anything, I head out for the morning delivery.

Everyone is already gathered there, standing upright with a straight back and silent, awaiting my arrival . A few weeks of discipline have done wonders down here and although Hawthorne thought it wouldn’t last long, I told him I just need them to be obedient for a short time. Across the way, I make eye contact with Corbin’s last surviving goon who made a deal with me and I give him a nod with him reciprocating it. He’s actually one of the few aside from the brothers and Hawthorne that I’ve given a knife to. When I was going around paying everyone visits, he came to me first and surrendered all his weapons before swearing his allegiance. I wasn’t too sure how to deal with him but I decided to place my trust in him and made him one of my armed enforcers.

Including the brothers, Hawthorne and Sylvia, Corbin’s last survivor, and seven others, I’ve handed out 12 knives to people I could trust to help them with helping me keep order down here. Disarming all the other inhabitants and only arming the people closest to me was the only method I could think of to maintain obedience when I made The Climb. Hopefully nothing goes wrong when I’m gone.

When the morning delivery finally starts to come down, I immediately notice something’s off when I hear shouts coming from the wooden box. Looking up, I see several bloodied and injured individuals leaning out from the box, screaming obscenities toward the surface. When the lift reaches the bottom level and touches the ground, a group of six unruly men covered in blood and wounds glare out viciously from the box. One of them steps forward and snarls, “Who the fuck’s in charge here!? You’d best get your ass out here ‘cause the Plainheart Vipers are taking over this shithole!”

Every resident of The Pit turns to look at me in unison and following their lead, so do our new arrivals. Seeing the six men step out of the wooden lift and approach me while cracking their knuckles with smirks on their faces, a grin grows on mine. Nothing beats having breakfast after a morning workout.