The Fools of Amphidor

Achilles Heel

I stood up straight and walked out. Claire ripped her finger tips off the handle. We sat down on the bench nearby to try and get warm.

"I can't... I can't believe they just... They're..." She shook her head solemnly.

"I know... But we have to keep going..." I murmured.

Claire stood and walked into the embalming room without me. She yelped a little and nearly fell back.

"What?!" I ran in, "What's wrong?!"

She shook her head, "Nothing... It's..." She pointed to the fish person laying dead on the table.

"Oh... Um..." I examined the body, reading the toe tag. It just read 'key', "...Claire. I think there's a key in his throat."

"What? What do you mean?" She asked.

"I mean one of us will have to reach down into his throat and pull out the key," I felt sick.

"...Nose-goes," She put her finger on her nose.

"Dang it!" I hissed.

Hesitantly, I opened the body's mouth. I saw something glittering in the back of its throat. I tilted the body up so he was at an angle that was easier to work with. I heard a strange noise as the key fell further into its throat. I cringed.

I stuck my hand into its mouth, pushing further into its slimy throat. It was the strangest feeling I'd ever experienced. It wasn't wet, but it wasn't dry, either. It was some sort of moist limbo situation. My fingers brushed against the key's handle. I was up past my elbow at this point. I grabbed a hold of the key and yanked it out. My hand was covered in slimy, green blood. I quickly washed it off in a nearby sink.

Claire looked like she would throw up any second, "Good--... Good job, I guess..." She held her arms.

The key was labeled 'Reuben'.

"Oh! Claire! I think this is the key to his study! The one Alfie talked about that was across the city!" I exclaimed.

"Poor Alfie..." She murmured.

"...We can't let his sacrifice go to waste, Claire. Or Max's. We have to get out of here, for them," I sighed.

"I know. I know. I just... I feel awful..." She said softly.

"Me, too..." I nodded, "But like I said, we have to press on."

Claire nodded, "Yeah... Yeah, we gotta press on."

We walked out of the morgue, two teammates short and one key richer. We took another ride from a local and reached the other side of the city just around what would be sunset on the surface. I still hadn't quite processed that Alfie and Max were gone. Like, gone for good. We got out of the car and stood in front of the handsome three-story house. The light hit the house in a way that made it look more haunted than it probably was.

I unlocked the door and walked in hesitantly. Sitting in the entryway was a TV screen that buzzed to life when we turned the lock.

On the screen was an older looking man. He was dressed in what could only be described as an old man suit. It was brown and had darker stripes with brown pants. The jacket of the suit was open, revealing a white dress shirt and a blue bowtie underneath. He had a structured face and his hair was greying.

"Hello," his voice was cold and deep with a distinct timbre to it, "My name is Reuben O'Cyrus. If you're hearing this, I've sadly passed away. However, you, my friends, already knew that. You received a letter from me days ago stating that you had been chosen. This is true. In fact, you are the most special people in the room, now. Because if you're here, it means that you have made it through the city. You see, you've been set up to die at any given moment. If you'd eaten too many of the crab legs at the buffet, on the ship, you would have died from cyanide poisoning."

"Max had one!" Claire exclaimed, "That must have been why he got so sick!"

"If you had chosen to stay on the dock instead of getting on the boat, you would have been shot by snipers positioned atop the buildings of the friendly-looking beach town. If you tried to jump off the boat, you would have been eaten by sharks. If you tried to stay in your rooms, carbon monoxide would have been filtered through the air vents. If you walked through the wrong room in the morgue, you would have frozen to death... Etcetera. You should have died at any given point during this adventure... but you didn't," He smirked, "Why is this? Dumb luck. You are here for one simple fact. You have dumb luck. That's why you are the fools of Amphidor..."

"T...the..." I was stunned.

Claire was searching the room, now ignoring the TV.

"You might ask why I'm doing this," He chuckled, "Well, my friends. A long time ago, when you weren't even a thought, your grandparents were my partners. We went on adventures together, exploring the great outdoors. Specifically, the ocean. We came upon a little city called Amphidor... A city of aquatic fish people. We couldn't pass up this opportunity. We'd get an award from the NERDS association for sure! So, we explored it, teaching them our language and prospering there for a while. We even exposed them to some of our technology. The issue occurred when we went back..." His face turned to anger, "Your grandparents decided to leave me in the city. They claimed all the work I did was split between them. They took the credit... so I took their proof. I stole all the documents proving the existence of the city and I even took the award that was given to them. It was rightfully mine, anyway..."

"..." I couldn't believe what was being said. My grandfather? A fraud?

"Documents..." Claire murmured. She picked up a notebook containing knowledge about the city and put it in her bag. She picked up the dusty award the man in the video was now showing off and examined it.

"This is... THIS IS HIS FAVORITE ITEM!" Claire yelled, "We gotta get out of here!"

"SHH!" I hissed, trying to listen.

"I had a monument erected for them. As a painful memory of the people who crossed them," He chuckled, "I was their... Achilles heel, you could say... Anyway... I hope you've figured out your next clue... Because in 2 minutes, this whole room is rigged to explode."

"CLAIRE!" I yelped, scooping her and the backpack up and running out of the room as fast as I could. I ran outside, going as far as I possibly could away from the building. In the distance, I could hear it explode.

"All the-- I--" Claire's eyes were wide.

"He's INSANE!" I huffed.

"We have to get to that statue!" Claire huffed, "That's the last clue! The heel of the statue!"

"YES! Claire, you're a genius!" I grabbed her hand and ran to the center of the city. I'd been using the statue as a marker for where we were in the city for a while, but I'd never realized that it was the final destination.