A Different Circumstance - Darkness

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

	Sam and Kris stood opposite each other in the hallway. The silence was deafening; unbroken even by the children in the younger class until Sam began to speak. “Kris… Just how long have you been standing there?” he growled. Kris stayed infuriatingly silent.

	Sam began to slowly advance towards Kris as he continued. The bridge of his snout twitched with anger. “Hey, I’m talking to you. You like just fuckin’ staring at people with their backs turned?” he spat with venom in his voice. Kris began to back away from the approaching dragon. Sam stopped when he saw this. “Oh… I get it now. You’re too scared to even say...”

	Sam looked to the side before speaking again. “You know, I WOULD say that quiet people piss me off, but I think it’d be good for both of us if you kept your goddamn mouth shut. Your mom already gives me enough shit as it is,” he said, beginning to raise his voice whilst pointing a claw at the human in front of him.

	“...Alphys sent you after me, right? Of course she did. I can’t do something as simple as grabbing a roll of paper towels without needing a goddamn chaperone...” Sam grumbled. Kris stayed completely static as he rambled. He narrowed his eyes at the human before him, now beginning to feel more and more offended by her very presence.

	“I’ll tell you what, Kris…” he said, “Fuck off back to class and let me do my thing. Tell Alphys to get off my ass, and that I’m not just some incompetent dumbass!” he snarled, nearly yelling. He didn’t realize it at the time, but his teeth were bared. His hands were clenched into angry fists with nails that threatened to pierce his palms.

	Kris remained where she stood, not making a sound or movement other than breathing. Sam’s headache, the merciless itch in his throat, his skull-cracking headache, and Kris’s defiance were all mounting up and fueling Sam’s fury. He was about to punch a hole in the wall to his left to get the point across, but he did something else instead.

	“GAH, fine, I don’t have time for this shit! Tag along, but stay out of the way. If you tell anyone, and I mean ANYONE, that I was smoking on school grounds, I will personally bury you alive. Got it!?” he snapped, roughly pushing past Kris and power walking towards before she could possibly answer.

	He turned his head as he walked to ensure that Kris was within his sight. He groaned and pinched his temple when he saw Kris drinking from the water fountain. “Hey, Kris! I put my mouth on that earlier, so you might not wanna do that,” he said in a hushed voice that was loud enough to be audible from where Kris was standing.

	Kris stopped drinking at the fountain and made eye contact with the dragon for the first time all day. After a moment of awkward staring, Kris shrugged and went right back to drinking from the fountain. Sam’s face scrunched up in a mix of confusion, disgust, and near-laughter before he turned around and kept walking. “That… That wasn’t encouragement,  Kris… Ugh, just meet me at the closet you damn freak…” he mumbled.

	Sam walked through the rest of the hall and approached the closet. Two wooden doors coated in purple paint greeted him on the wall. He looked back to see Kris approaching from behind, signifying that she was done drinking saliva-tainted water. “You stay out here. I’m gonna go in, get the paper towels, and we’ll both go back to class,” he declared as he reached for the handle.

	With a small turn, the doors suddenly swung open by themselves. The two classmates were met with an unnatural absence of light, unpierced by the fluorescent lights of the school ceiling. The darkness within the confines of the closet seemed to pour out and blacken everything around it. The aforementioned lights seemed to dim as if relying on a failing generator.

	Sam was almost immediately gripped with a sickening weight in his chest and a frigid chill racing up his spine. His heart began rapidly cycling adrenaline through his body, and he found his hands shaking uncontrollably. He stood for several seconds, completely frozen in place. He couldn’t explain why, but something about the closet deeply unnerved him. Something was very wrong and he could feel it.

	Sam broke out of his trance for a moment to take a look at Kris. As usual, it was incredibly difficult to read her. The one thing that indicated any form of fear was her quivering, near frowning lips. Sam hadn’t noticed before now, but Kris had taken a few steps back from the door.

	“Hey… Kris? I don’t think it’s supposed to be THAT dark in there…” Sam said, keeping his gaze focused on the inky black void in front of him. He looked back at Kris again and noticed just how far she had stepped away. “What, you’re not… scared, are you? Why don’t you go on in?” he prodded.

	Kris slowly shook her head and stayed right where she was. “...Alright, if you’re gonna puss out, then I’ll…” Sam began, yet he stopped when he looked into the darkness once again. “...Uh… How about we both go in at the same time?” he asked, taking another glance back at Kris.

	After a moment of hesitation, Kris slowly nodded. Sam took a breath, and walked towards the closet. Hearing Kris’s footsteps following him, he felt a tad safer knowing that she was right there behind him. If something bad were to happen, she could easily run to go get help.

	Sam crossed the barrier that separated the hall from the closet. Suddenly, he was able to see what looked like old papers from a bygone era from before he even moved to town. He found this incredibly strange. Had he not noticed in all his fear from before?

	“Uh… All I see here is just a bunch of old papers. Nothing to be scared of…” Sam said as he slowly inched his way deeper inside the closet. “...Say, uh, there oughta be a light switch in here. Help me find it.”

	Sam outstretched his arms and felt around. He began to slightly pick up the pace, becoming more and more confused and apprehensive. He stopped at one spot and heard Kris right behind him. He turned and saw a dim silhouette in the darkness. “You find a switch yet? I’m not finding a damn thing,” he said before turning back around and continuing his search.

	Sam walked even further into the closet, now breaking into a nervous sweat. His breathing grew shallow. He stopped mid-walk, causing Kris to nearly bump into him from behind. He quickly spun around, fists tightly clenched. “Alright, fuck this. If Alphys needs something to clean her coffee up with, she can just use her own shirt for all I care. Let’s just get back and tell her we couldn’t find any paper towels,” he said rather quickly.

	Kris turned around just as quickly and began to nearly jog towards the door. Sam followed closely behind, relieved to finally have an excuse to leave. Just as Kris was about to make it to the doors, however, they suddenly slammed shut with a loud bang.

	“W-What the hell!?” Sam yelped. He rudely pushed past Kris once more and lunged his hand towards the handle, only to find nothing but a black wall. Sam’s eyes widened as panic began to set in. He pounded furiously on what was supposed to be a door. “Hey, what the fuck! Let us out! LET US THE FU-”

	The floor began to violently shake. The papers on the floor shuffled and shuddered. The floor began to crumble beneath Sam’s feet, starting at his toes. He backed away quickly and accidentally crashed into Kris, nearly knocking her over.

	“KRIS, THE FLOOR IS-!” is all he could say before the ground completely gave way beneath the two classmates. Sam sharply gasped as he felt the wind rush past him. His arms and legs thrashed wildly. He frantically clawed at the air, desperately trying to get back onto solid ground.

	He wanted to scream, but he couldn’t bring himself to do so. Something inside him gripped his voice tight and smothered anything that otherwise would have slipped out. He clenched his eyes shut and waited for the pain to start. He waited for his entire lower body to hit the ground and shatter his bones.

	He violently crashed against an invisible floor, yet he felt no pain. He slipped into unconsciousness, and his panic and fear subsided. All was quiet…

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

…

…

…

	Sam opened his eyes. He was sitting on the stairs leading up to his front door. He felt a warm presence to his right, but his ears were assaulted by a cacophony of noise. The sound of fireworks bursting in the air echoed in the distance. Muffled yet loud, hoarse crying came from behind his house’s walls. There was an opened 24-pack box of beer on the step just below where he was sitting.

	He looked to his right and locked eyes with a very familiar man. A simian monster with reptilian, yet horizontal pupils in his eyes. He wore a heavily stained, wine stenched tuxedo. He had been staring at Sam with a look of sorrow and pity.

	Sam looked back down at the ground as a question formed within his mind. “W-Why is m-mommy crying so bad, M-Mr. Victor?” he asked with a quavering voice.
	The monkey sighed, smacked his lips, and mentally prepared himself to answer. “Your mother… She is different woman when she drink, Samuel,” he explained, trying his best to push through a passable yet stiff language barrier.
	“D-Different…?” Sam asked, now looking back at Victor.
	“Mean. Cruel. Your mother is cruel woman when she drink. She not understand… that… other people have feelings that she don’t have when she drink,” he continued, “and she think when she drink that other people out to get her and cause her harm.”
	“W-Why would she think that?” Sam asked, now looking down at his woefully undersized sneakers.
	“Some people are like that when they drink, Samuel. Some people, when they drink, get very cruel. But, do not fear alcohol, because not people all are like your mother. Some people are nice and even fun to party with when drunk. Just... not her,” he said, placing a hand on Sam’s shoulder.

	Sam looked out to the sky. He tried his best to see a single firework, yet the treeline got in the way. It blocked out the sky and surrounded it in darkness, leaving only a pocket of stars for him to observe. He felt disappointed. In this time he took to gaze skywards, Sam connected the dots in his little head and made a realization.

	“...B-But Mr. Victor, m-mommy drinks a lot, s-s-so that would mean that she is m-mean a lot. W-Why do you love mommy if s-she’s always mean?” Sam asked, now looking back at Victor.
	Victor broke eye contact with Sam and retracted his arm. He thought for a moment the best way he could put his thoughts into words that a child would understand on a basic level, and that an adult would understand the full meaning of later on in life. He turned back to Sam and slowly worked through his thoughts regarding the boy’s mother.

	“Your mother,” he began, “when she not drink, she is actually… She is good person inside, yes? Victor loves that woman when she not drink, and…”
	“And what?”
	“And… Victor is not proudest monkey in jungle to say this, but Victor likes dragons… more than he likes other monkeys like himself...” he said, looking away from Sam.
	“Y-You like dragons more than monkeys? But Mr. V-Victor, you’re a monkey… Dragons are s-super cool… and can… and c-can breathe fire and all, but monkeys are supposed t-to really like themselves, r-right? Monkeys climb trees better than d-dragons and I think that’s cool, but I s-still like dragon stuff a lot because I am one!” Sam innocently retorted.

	Victor laughed, holding his chest with his palm. After several moments of Sam waiting for Victor to calm down, the simian took a deep breath and began thinking of the best way to elaborate while not going into too much detail.

	“Hah… No no no, you misunderstand me, boy. You see, Samuel... I… I like dragons more than monkeys… Er... like that of how a boy likes a girl on playground more than other girl,” he explained.
	“...What? That’s weird. Why?”
	“Well, you may find girl that is not dragon that *you* really like one day and you will maybe know why when that time comes,” he delicately elaborated. “Anyway... You ask many questions, little Samuel, never lose that! Too many people in mother country never ask questions, and that is ending bad for them, which is why I am even here in America in first place. But for now, that is all I want to say about all that,” he said, reaching into the box below him.

	Victor pulled out two cans of beer and handed one over to Sam. “Today is great American holiday, Samuel. Is okay for boy to drink a little. One beer will not harm you. You ask about many complicated things, but little Samuel is still young child. Victor suggests that you live simple for now, while you yourself are still simple, yes?”

	Sam took the can in his hand and held it for a few short moments. Although his mother’s heavy sobs could wake the dead, they seemed to filter out as Sam looked into the brownish, yellow liquid in the can, anticipating the calm and woozy feeling that would be soon to come. Finally, after breaking through his hesitation, he cracked it open and put the can up to his mouth.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

…

…

…

	Sam’s eyes shot open. He took a massive gulp of air into his lungs, then suddenly jerked his body upwards as he began to cough uncontrollably. His hacks and wheezes forced his eyes shut once more as his body fought to expel some foreign substance clogging his throat. He focused on what he had seen when he first opened his eyes while he waited to recover. It was a blur, but he thought he had seen blue and black all around him.

	Sam gagged several times between coughs, nearly puking all over the cold, hard ground beneath him. Tears formed in his eyes, and his face would have turned red if he had blood running through his veins. When he wasn’t coughing, he was breathing in as he could and often accidentally swallowing air.

	Eventually, Sam gathered his bearings and caught his breath. He managed to burp out all of the swallowed air that had built up in his throat. He wiped away the tears from his eyes and opened them to get a good look at his surroundings for once.

	Sam was greatly unnerved by what he saw. He was on a small plateau above a larger stone landmass among a seemingly infinite abyss. He saw pitch black holes in the walls, some oozing a thick black tar. He saw what looked like eye symbols etched into the walls and cliff faces.

	He walked over and tried to scan the area for solid ground to jump down to, but he noticed something else entirely. He looked… different. Sam took a good long look at himself the best he could, finding himself both incredibly confused and somewhat elated by how badass his new appearance was.

	Sam’s skin had turned from his familiar mauve to a hot pink. From his hands to elbow, his arms were wrapped up in a tough, dark purple fabric. Both biceps carried a gold studded armband. He was wearing a dark grey, button-up vest with a light blue patch on the right pec with a Delta Rune symbol stitched into it.

	A large gold chain wrapped from his right hip to a large shoulder pad on his left shoulder. Above his baggy, grayish purple pants was a tightly bound belt with a golden, heart shaped buckle. There was a kneepad for each knee, made seemingly of the same material as the shoulder pad. On his feet, he wore heavy, black boots with light purple laces and a metal toe guard on each boot.

	Sam didn’t know what to make of it. A more instinctual part of his brain freaked out at the sudden change of his skin, yet his new digs were something to behold. The only thing he didn’t like about it was that his belt buckle was shaped like a heart of all things, but it wasn’t like he chose his own new clothes.

	After getting acquainted with his odd new appearance, Sam started trying to put the pieces together in his head and figure out how he ended up in such a dismal place. He tried to remember the last thing that happened before he went unconscious. He remembered spilling coffee, smoking a cigarette, walking in the hall, having a splitting headache that still annoyingly lingered, and Kris. Sam suddenly felt a ball of poisonous guilt bouncing around inside of him when he remembered how he treated her.

	She hadn’t done a single thing to him, and he acted like a piece of shit, just like he always does. All because he *thought* she *might* have snitched on him. Sam grimaced and groaned while covering his eyes with his hands. He felt immobilized, not wanting to go any further until this self-inflicted pain subsided.

	A sound ripped him out of his despair, however. He heard metal clanking against stone in the distance, sounding like footsteps. The dragon wasn’t alone here. Now fueled by curiosity and longing to not be alone in an unfamiliar place, Sam approached the edge of the plateau to see what looked like a stone slope that lead down to a much more comfortable amount of ground to walk on.

	Sam sat down on the edge of the plateau and looked at where he would land. He took a deep breath and steeled himself before going down. The slide down was surprisingly smooth, yet provided just enough friction to keep him from sliding at a dangerous speed. He hit the bottom safely, though the impact nearly sent his rear end into the ground.

	Sam found that the only path he could take went towards the footsteps. Otherwise, the other direction stopped at a cliff above the void below. After taking another deep breath, Sam began to walk.

	The heavy thuds from his boots and the jingle of the chain on his torso didn’t make him feel any better. If anything, they gave his position away. Thinking it would be more difficult and tedious to try to sneak around with this heavy gear on, he kept his pace.

	Sam was beginning to feel a bit more at ease, though apprehension still gripped his heart. Just as he felt a tad more relaxed, he heard an extremely loud chirping noise to his left, startling him and making him nearly jump out of his skin. He sharply twisted his head at the source of the sound to find something odd.

	A fleshy, joystick shaped object or creature was wildly wiggling and thrashing around atop a plateau nearly three times as tall as the dragon next to it. He saw another one to its right, yet it stood completely still as if it were a statue. Sam slowly backed away from the wiggling thing above.

	Sam looked at the still object whilst he created as much distance between him and the moving one. Once his position was aligned with the still object, however, it too began loudly chirping and thrashing about. Sam broke into a power walk to get as far away from them as possible.

	Sam came to a right turn at a wall with an oozing black hole in the center of it. Sam sidestepped the wall and turned the corner, not wanting to know what the black liquid even was. The wall stretched out beyond the corner, with more oozing holes and the weird eye symbols he had seen before.

	Sam kept traveling onwards until the path stopped at a small gap. A wall stood to the left, now with another eye symbol etched into it, but it seemed to be crying the strange black tar. The gap was small enough to easily jump across, but one wrong move could send him falling to Angel knows where. He stared at the gap, thinking of what to do before deciding the only way to move forward was by jumping across.

	The dragon took several steps backwards. “Here we go,” he muttered under his breath. Sam sprinted towards the gap and leapt across it. He successfully made it to the other side, though his hands were shaking. He stood upright and looked back at the gap, chuckling from the endorphins that rushed through him.

	He had been internally congratulating himself as he continued walking, but he heard more shrill chirping to his left. Feeling startled, he spun his head around only for something large to slam into his snout. Sam grunted and cursed several obscenities while holding his nose. He backed away from the source of the pain, only to nearly fall off the cliff.

	He opened his eyes and saw another wriggling, fleshy, joy-stick shaped object, yet this one was different. It was nearly as black as the void all around him, yet it glowed with an evil, hostile red. Sam saw two more of the same objects in a row on platforms separated from the ground he walked on, but they were standing still.

	Still holding his nose, Sam carefully walked by the next object. As soon as he was aligned with it, it chirped and wiggled again, only this time it materialized three spherical, white, basketball-sized projectiles that quickly flew at him. The now panicking dragon sidestepped the one on the middle, only to get hit in the shoulder by one on the left.

	“Ow, damn it!” he grunted. Strangely, the projectile seemingly disappeared upon impact, leaving a scraped up bruise in its wake. Sam decided not to question it, and began another sprint, hoping to outrun the projectiles this time. As he ran by, the chirping sounded again as the projectiles came barreling towards him.

	He felt the air whoosh by as a projectile nearly slammed into the side of his head. He slowed down and looked back at the object to see it wiggling as well as the two others. He had successfully dodged the last one, though his snout and shoulder still hurt.

	In all his panic and confusion, he didn’t pay any mind to the footsteps until now. Strangely, he was actually ahead of them this time. Sam rushed over to another slope leading down to another large patch of ground beneath him. He noticed two of those wiggling objects, yet they didn’t move when he rushed by. ‘Maybe they only started moving when you approached from a specific angle,’ he mused.

	He quickly slid down the slope and landed much more gracefully than the last time. In front of him were several giant, white, chalky piles of dust. They all moved in a rhythm that reminded him of breathing, and there was what looked like a mouth in the center of each one.

	Before Sam could approach one and examine it further, he heard the source of the footsteps slide down a slope just as he had done a moment prior. He ducked down behind one of the piles of dust and did his best to get a good look at it. His racing heart felt heavy in his chest.

	From behind the dust pile, he saw a short, shadowy figure walking around and carefully examining everything around it like a curious child. It approached a dust pile and touched it, causing it to violently explode and violently scatter dust in the air. Sam retreated a step back, heavily considering just making a run for it and not looking back.

	His eyes widened when the figure began to quickly and systematically touch and explode each dust pile, one by one as if it were popping bubble wrap. Seeing the figure closing in fast, he forgoed all sleath and ran back to hide behind another dust pile. There was no doubt in his mind that the thing saw him, or at the very least heard his obnoxiously loud chain or thunderous footfalls.

	Sam was eventually pushed back to one last dust pile where the ground slimmed into a one-way lane. There was nowhere to sidestep and outmaneuver whatever was coming after him. He closed his left hand into a fist and bared his claws on his right hand. He planned to open with a slash at its face, then follow up with a punch to the gut. From there, he would improvise.

	The figure reached his dust pile and touched it. Sam shot up from his crouched stance, instinctively taking a deep breath. He was about to attack, but he didn’t account for something very important. His mouth was now filled with chalky dust, completely throwing him off guard. Instead of following through with his attack, he fell backwards onto the ground whilst he gagged and spat out the dust in his mouth.

	He took one look at the figure from before to see… a blue, female human. Not just any human, but Kris. Her face and visible biceps were a bright, neon blue while her hair was much darker in comparison. He couldn’t make out her eyes in the dark, though the rest of her face was just visible enough to make out simple details.

	She wore a fabric bodysuit underneath a silver breastplate and a torn red cape wrapped around her neck. Her metal boots were comprised of the same material as the armor on her torso. Her arms, save for her upper arms, were shielded by silver gauntlets, each with a Delta Rune symbol faintly visible on the back of her hands.

	“K-Kris!?” he exclaimed as he finished getting as much dust out of his mouth as he could, “Jeeze, don’t fucking scare me like that! I nearly clawed your damn throat out!”

	Kris had a small smirk on her face. “...Oh, that’s funny, huh? I JUST NEARLY KILLED YOU, DUMBASS!” he said, pointing a claw at her. “Ugh, anyway, you have any idea where the hell we are?” he asked, pulling himself back up to his feet. Kris gave a small shrug.

	“...You know, if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s still possible to, you know, feel pain, I would have assumed we were dead… Unless this is hell or something…” he pondered, caressing his bruised shoulder. “You come across any of those weird, black and red things? The ones that shot those… er… circle… things?”

	Kris nodded her head, seemingly now taking notice of the bruises on Sam’s nose and shoulder. “Right… So, uh… You look… different?” he said, cocking his head to the side and furrowing his brow. Kris shrugged again. “...Anyway, I think we should, y’know, get the hell out of here? This place gives me the fuckin’ creeps, man…”

	Kris gave a small nod and carefully stepped around Sam, walking ahead of him. He saw a single pillar near a dead end, past what he assumed was another slope heading down to another cliff. For all he knew, the dead end could have a slope safely leading down to the bottom of the abyss.

	He followed closely behind, carefully looking around for any other threats. Considering that he was already with Kris, he would likely repeat the same fear he felt earlier. Next time, however, he wouldn’t end up gagging on dust.

	As he examined the area, he found himself looking somewhere extremely specific without even realizing it. Once he realized exactly where he was looking, he shot his eyes up to look at the back of Kris’s head to see if she had caught him inappropriately eyeing her. Seeing that she was completely focused on putting one foot in front of the other, Sam’s eyes slowly went back down.

	He had never truly noticed before, but Kris had some pretty nice legs. The bodysuit looked tight as if made for agility during combat, yet this tightness was a tad revealing. Sam felt his heart start racing again, along with a sudden… stiffness.

	Kris suddenly stopped. If Sam hadn’t been paying enough attention, he would have crashed into her and made a fool out of himself. Seeing that she hadn’t even noticed, he felt extremely relieved.

	It was the slope he spotted. Kris carefully slid down and hit the ground with a surprising amount of finesse. She stepped to the side and looked up at Sam as she waited for him to follow. Sam squatted and slid down just the same as Kris, yet he nearly hit the ground with his behind again.

	After Sam got his bearings, Kris began to walk again. Sam followed as close as he did last time. His eyes traveled around for a few moments, occasionally glancing at the darkness that surrounded them. Now that he thought about it, this void was actually quite terrifying. It was as if they were inside a halfway point between dimensions.

	Just before his eyes could wander back downwards again, Kris suddenly stopped again. “Hey, what’d we stop for?” he asked. He noticed that Kris was looking upwards, then saw that they had already made it to the pillar he had spotted before. He was about to ask what the hell Kris was looking at, but then he saw what had her so transfixed.

	There was a small, plump figure with a spade shaped head waving at them. “The hell? There’s someone else here?” he asked, squinting his eyes to see it better. “...What do you think they want?”

	In the very next moment, the figure raised its hand, causing two spade shaped objects to appear. Recognizing them as projectiles, he immediately dodged out of the way. The spades came hurtling down and nearly hit him in the chest. They both fell into the abyss, never to be seen again.

	Sam looked back up with a mix of rage and bewilderment in his eyes. “Hey, what the fuck! We’re friendly! Stop throwing shit at us!” he shouted. Kris slowly backed away from the pillar as the figure atop the pillar began to softly giggle, before summoning a second pair of spades… Then a third.

	...Then a fourth. Sam’s eyes widened as he realized what was happening. The sky began to fill with projectiles aimed at both of them. His heart sank as a spine chilling, gut wrenching dread filled his soul. He felt like a deer in headlights.

	Sam heard one of Kris’s footsteps as she continued to back away. The sound of metal clanking against stone snapped him out of his fearful stupor. Had time been on his side, Sam would have thought of a plan. Instead, he was forced to go with his gut and act fast.

	Kris’s mouth was agape, and her hands were shaking. Seeing that Kris was just as frozen in fear as he was, he rushed towards her and scooped her up off the ground. He made a mad dash towards the cliff at the end, carrying Kris over his right shoulder. “Shit shit shit shit shit SHIT!” he mumbled then gradually began to scream. A spade collided with the ground in front of him and kicked up a significant amount of dust.

	The dragon closed his eyes and his mouth, learning his lesson from before. He felt the dust cake his face and get in his hair, yet survival was much more important that staying clean at the moment. Spades flung by all around them, nearly hitting them. If the blunt projectiles from before hurt, then something of the same caliber but sharp would likely hurt much worse.

	His legs slowly began to burn, seeing as he was carrying an entire person and running faster than he had ever ran in his entire life. A spade flew by and hit his arm. “OW, FUCK!” he screamed. The spade was surprisingly dull, yet sharp enough to cause some damage at the sheer speed they flew at. Another spade caught him on his side, sending pain throughout his torso.

	He growled and shouted like a cornered, feral animal. He could take it like a champ, but the pain was mounting quickly. If a spade were to catch him in the leg, he would most certainly fall flat on his face. He looked at Kris to see that she was unharmed, then turned his attention back to his desperate fight for their lives.

	In this moment, he didn’t even question why he was even doing this; why he was saving Kris. He had no connection to her whatsoever. They never talked, and they barely even looked at eachother, save for a few hormonal glances from Sam that he had given to other girls several times before. Whatever the reason, he knew he didn’t want so much as a scratch on any part of her body, and he was willing to endure agony to protect her in this instant.

	He finally got close to the ledge at the end of the cliff. He came to a stop and looked down. Thankfully, there was a slope leading down somewhere. He could see something bright and blue glowing from below.

	He put Kris down for a moment before hugging her tightly to his chest and sliding down the slope. Make yourself small! My body is bigger than yours, and I can take it! I’ll block all the shit coming at us!” he yelled as they slid. Kris gave no answer, though she did what she was told and made herself as small as possible whilst Sam protected her body with his arms and legs.

	Sam looked around frantically to see several platforms on each side of the slope, each carrying a frantically wiggling, fleshy object from before. More projectiles came at him from the side. His eyes clenched shut as one nearly pierced his elbow, nearly missing but grazing the skin of his arm. He grit his teeth and growled at the pain, trying to keep it together as a dusty substance flew out of his wounds.

	Spades impacted the giant pillar he slid down in a rhythmic mess of crumbling rock and violently ejected dust combined with the sound of air whooshing with every missed projectile. “Come on, come on, come ON!” he hissed. A space nicked his nose, extending his right nostril by a centimeter.

	Sam and Kris got closer, yet closer to the bottom. Seeing where he was in relation to the ground beneath, he released Kris and dug his claws into the slope to slow himself down. “HANG ONTO ME, KRIS!” he shouted. The vibrations from his claws scraping the cold stone rattled his arms to a painful degree, yet he did his best to ignore it.

	Sam’s boots slammed against the ground. He accidentally fell forwards, still holding onto Kris for dear life. His face hit the ground, harshly scraping it, but protecting Kris from being crushed under the dragon’s weight. “Gaaauuuuuugh, FUCK!” he groaned.

	He collapsed in a heap to the side, finally letting the human go. She spent a moment, still pressed up against his torso before she crawled her way back to her feet. She looked upwards and found that the spades had stopped coming.

	Sam continued to lay on the ground, holding his face. His cheek felt like it was on fire, his legs burned, the places where the spades impacted him were sore, and his chest felt like it had been hit with a sledgehammer. There was sweat running down his face as he desperately struggled to catch his breath.

	He closed his eyes tighter than a vice grip until he felt something tapping on his bruised shoulder. Wincing at the tapping on his bruise, he rolled his head over to see Kris holding her hand out to help him back up. Sam took her hand, though he did most of the work in getting back on his feet.

	“Kris, you okay?” he said, closely looking at her for any injuries. She nodded her head, but she herself took a close look at his wounds. “...I’ll be fine, Kris. This ain’t shit…” he said with a smirk. He looked upwards to make sure that more spades weren’t coming at them. He sighed a breath of relief when all he was was the black sky above him.

	He looked back down to see Kris looking directly at him. She had a burning question on her lips, but he could easily guess what it was. “...Hey, don’t be getting any weird ideas!” he spat, replacing his smirk with a scowl. Kris kept looking at him.

	“...Kris, imagine if two people, one being a scary dragon everyone’s afraid of, and a human girl, go missing for a while without a trace. THEN, the dragon is the ONLY one to come back to town, and he doesn’t have a believable explanation as to what happened to the human. That would look REALLY fucking bad, now wouldn’t it? I wouldn’t have a second to even blink before they dump my dust in the river,” he explained with an annoyed growl in his voice.

	Sam walked around his blue classmate and took a good look at what was in front of him. There was what seemed to be a castle gate, lined with candles carrying a blue flame. The material composing the walls on the gate was as pitch black as the sky, leading Sam to speculate if all the darkness was just really dark stone in some sort of giant cave under the school.

	He walked towards the gate and peered inside, finding a deathly quiet town filled with warped, arrow shaped buildings. He turned back and gestured for Kris to follow him. “Come on, you. Let’s look around and see if we can find anything here,” he said.

	He walked onwards, and Kris followed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Previous chapter, Withdrawal: https://pastebin.com/VxFRBLss