Flock

Chapter 3: Blind

I stood there for only a few more seconds before I decided that either way I'd probably be brutally murdered for my crime, so I followed him. I expected him to lead me back to the welcome rally, but instead, he led me away from the center of town and deeper into the housing section of the city.

My voice, which had abandoned me at the first sign of danger, was slowly coming back. I wasn't sure if my nerves were causing me to babble but I couldn't stem the tide of words tumbling out of my mouth.

"Where are we going?" I asked. I had never been to this part of town before. The streets were a little dirtier, and the walls were grimy with ash and soot. He ignored me like I expected him to. My stomach growled, reminding me that I hadn't eaten dinner yet, and that there were still valuable items back at my flat.

"If you're going to kill me just do it now, will you?" He didn't rise to the bait. Instead, he took a sharp right and stopped in front of a door in the ground. He pulled back the wooden door and then descended a set of slick, stone stairs.

He didn't wait to see if I would follow. In fact, I think he just expected me to follow. And I did. The alley felt dark like there was something malevolent watching me from the shadows, and it seemed safer with him than out in the open. The room we found ourselves in was damp, and water dripped farther away in the darkness, the echoes spinning around the stone caverns.

"Was this a mine?" I asked. It was perfectly crafted. Perfectly dug and structured. The surface was a gray stone, worn smooth over time. The walls matched the floor, shelves covering every inch of the room.

"Storage."

"What?" His voice startled me, and I almost dropped a metal container of what appeared to have tomatoes inside. It wasn't the harsh sounding growl I had come to associate with the Kryjia, instead, it was almost human.

"Storage for what?"

He sighed loudly before he straightened his posture and turned to look at me. "Supplies," he gestured around himself. I could tell my existence was becoming more offensive to him the more I opened my mouth but I couldn't stop talking.

"I can see that," I snapped. My eyes rolled dramatically. "What I mean is, who's storage? Why are they keeping this stuff down here - do you know how valuable some of these items are? We haven't had tomatoes in months!"

"It doesn't belong to any human and the Kryjia don't know about it just yet." He trailed his fingers along one of the empty walls. 

"You're Kryjia," I said. A low rumble burbled out of his mouth, but he didn't turn around, instead, he focused on his fingers fluttering over every inch of the wall. His fingers were longer than human fingers, slightly pointed at the ends. 

"Ah," he sighed. There was a soft click, followed by a hiss as part of the wall swung inwards revealing an equally dark tunnel. He didn't look back as he stepped inside, his tall form disappearing down the corridor. I waited another heartbeat before I placed the can of tomatoes back on the shelf and followed him. 

The walls were slick with moisture, and the cobblestone floor was uneven. I squinted into the dark, attempting to keep the odd Kryjia in sight and to keep my footing. It was almost as if the darkness of the tunnel was slowly swallowing the Kryjia as I struggled to keep up. His footsteps made no sound, and he effortlessly moved farther and farther away from me until he was completely gone. 

I stopped moving, my eyes adjusting to the gloom slightly, my sight reduced to what was only a few inches in front of me at a time. I inched my toes forward, tapping them on the floor before taking another step forward. Panic was starting to rise, and I felt my chest constrict. I was terrified of the dark. 

No, not the dark. I was terrified of what was hidden in the dark. A band of Kryjia, an unseen abyss, creatures swarming me...my imagination was conjuring up more horrible creatures by the minute. When I stumbled upon the city, I was only six years old. Or at least, that's the best guess anyone could make. I didn't speak for the first few years I was here - preferring to watch others instead. I couldn't remember anything about my life before I stumbled into the town square. Only darkness. Darkness and the feather-light touches of what had existed with me in that darkness. 

It was as if I had been blind my whole life up until the mayor found me wandering around. He wasn't the mayor then, though. I helped him become the mayor, not of my own free will mind you, but because I was the orphan he found and took in.