In front of us was the sewer entrance guarded by metal bars along with a locked door. It'd taken us far far too long to find the entrance to Rosurnan's sewers; we left in the morning and it was already noon. Sure there were grates everywhere but none of them could fit me let alone Damian. By now my stomach was beginning to hurt and my lips were starting to get chapped. I realized I hadn't actually eaten anything before leaving the inn, and the panging in my stomach was a constant reminder.

  “I shouldn't have drank that ale last night.” I grumbled to myself over last night's mistakes.

  “I thought Steilae couldn't get drunk?” Turning my head to the left I saw Damian with a face of slight surprise. I didn't understand why he was still wearing that armor if all we were doing was some rat extermination.

  “The hell's a Steilae?” Damian tilted his head at me, his surprise turning into confusion.

  “You?” Said Damian answering the obviously rhetorical question.

  “Well how was I supposed to know that?” I replied back.

  “You knew what a gun was, so I thought you knew what species you were.” Damian said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

  “Those are two completely different things.” It was obvious by Damian's expression that he thought the two were somehow connected.

  “Let's just get this over with.” I said before we finally opened the gate.

  —

  It smelled worse than I thought it would. A million people's waste trapped underground so that it could get into my lungs, it was like somebody barged into my home and threw a dozen rotting corpses onto my bed. The noontime sun didn't help things either, its light entering through various grates in the ceiling every now and then, letting us see with dim light, although Damian still held onto a torch. At the very least there were stone platforms in the sides to protect us from the waist high sludge barely a foot below us, though I guess it would be thigh high for Damian in his not so shining armor. The side paths of the sewers we were walking on weren't much cleaner in reality, sure they didn't have gunk and waste on them but they were still damp and had probably been submerged at one point.

  “Do you even know where we're going?” Ever since we entered the sewers I'd been blindly following Damian who kept checking his map. I wasn't sure what good it'd do with every corridor looking the exact same.

  “Of course I do. We're nearly halfway to where the nest was reported.” We weren't even halfway through yet? We’d been walking for half an hour and these kid legs were already starting to give out.

  I stayed silent for a while, before I noticed it. Along the wall on the opposite side of me and Damian was a lone rat, it had to at least have been an adult from its strangely large size. Damian kept walking and didn't notice as I aligned the red thread onto the revolvers back, the string dimly illuminating the hallway. Heat emanated from the guns back as I pulled the trigger.

  Bang!

  In an instant the rat's brain was splattered against the damp sewer wall. Along with it went my grip on the revolver. It packed more punch than I thought as the gun nearly hit me in the eye before I was able to bring it back down in the nick of time. Thankfully Damian wasn't able to see my mistake as he was looking forward on the path to wherever we were going.

  “What the hell are you doing!” Damian turned back to yell at me. At first I thought he'd calm down after he saw what I did but the moment he saw the rat he only looked more furious.

  “Doing our job? What do you think I'm doing!” I did the only thing I knew to do in the situation, yell back.

  “That's obviously not one of the rats we need to kill!”

  “Well then tell me what I'm supposed to shoot at! Kael tells me to kill rats, I kill a rat, and now you're saying I'm not supposed to kill rats?”

  “The big rats. We're supposed to kill the big rats.” He gave out an exasperated sigh as if he was talking to a toddler. Rude.

  “What do you mean big? That rat was already bigger than any rat I've seen.” The rat was twice as big as the biggest one I'd seen back on Silt and I'd seen those bastards every day of my life.

  “You'll know it when you see it,” his voice made it abundantly clear he didn't want to talk about the topic any longer than he needed to, “gods why did I get her today.”

  “What was that?” I responded to Damian's muttered words.

  “Nothing, let's keep moving.”

  There were at least a dozen rats of varying sizes as we made our way through the tunnels. None of them were particularly large, in fact most of them were of average size. It was another half hour of walking before we came across something other than the monotony of stone platforms and literal shit everywhere. A wooden door to our right reinforced with metal was embedded into the wall. It only had a handle, no lock to keep it away from prying hands. The door seemed a little too large for the way, the kind that needed a shove to get open.

  “That's strange, the door doesn't show up on the map…” Damian muttered the words to himself before ignoring the door entirely and kept walking forward.

  “Aren't we gonna investigate it or something?” A mysterious door in the middle of the sewers felt like something that should be investigated.

  “Not unless you want to spend half an hour searching a storage closet.”

  “Fair point.” I didn't want to spend any longer here than I needed to.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Finally after what must have been at least an hour and a half of walking since the entrance we reached our destination. Damian began to slow down and made a finger to his lips, I nodded in response. His armor barely made a clink as we passed one final corner to a wide circular chamber with stone platforms on the sides and gunk in the middle between it all. On top of the lake of sewage was a nest of rats in a makeshift wooden platform like a beaver's dam.

  There had to have at least been a hundred rats in the nest, they all squirmed and wriggled in and out of the damn thing. Worst of all though? Damian was right, there was a single gigantic grey rat as long as I was tall. It was sleeping on its giant dam, like a really fucked up dog would in its bed. He pointed his finger at the rat as if I didn't already understand the plan.

  “I know, I know…” I grumbled under my breath before aiming the gun square on the thing's forehead, both hands on the grip this time.

  Heat reached through the gun and into my hands yearning to be released, I obliged. The bullet coursed through the air and hit the giant rat dead on the mark. Rats scurried away from the noise, instinct taking over. In the middle of the nest lay the rat, unmoving from its position. An easy hunt unworthy of consumption… Consumption?

  “In all honesty I expected that to be a lot harder. Let's get back to the-” I turned to Damian to speak but before I could finish my words I was rudely interrupted.

  “Skroooa!” Just then a deafening screech came from the dead rat.

  Turning back to the nest I saw that the rat was indeed still dead. Unfortunately behind it was a second slightly larger rat screaming at the death of what I could only assume was its mate. Seeing that giant thing actually moving terrified me, no rat should ever be able to get as big as that. Hurriedly I aimed my gun back on the rat but it dashed through the air with a jump right at me. Instinctively I put my hands in front of my face but it was already too late. Just as it was about to land on me I felt a harsh shove from my right as Damian rammed into me.

  The rat pushed itself and Damian into the murky gunk below as it tried to claw its way through his armor, thankfully it didn't seem to understand that his head was vulnerable. A few feet away from him the torch still burned brightly, but without it in his hands we could only see so far. He didn't even have the time or the space to unsheath his sword with the rat in front of him. I watched in awe as Damian slugged the rat in its face, staggering it for a second before it angrily tried to bite through his gauntlets.

  “Shoot it!” His words were strained as he battled quite literally tooth and nail against the rat.

  Broken out of my stupor I forgot that I in fact had a gun in my hands that could end the situation in mere seconds. Recreating the star on the back I was once again aiming at the rat. I struggled to find a clean shot as the two struggled to gain the advantage over each other. After what felt like an eternity I finally found a moment to fire as Damian was able to grab hold of the rat's arms and pin it down. The bullet flew through the air narrowly missing Damian and landed squarely in the rat's thigh, which only made it angrier.

  Furiously it kicked Damian off of itself, sending him straight into the stone walls surrounding us, he wheezed as he took a breather from the battle. It lunged at me head first, and this time Damian couldn't save me. The moment the rat made contact with my stomach it felt like a dozen gut punches at once. A little bit of vomit made its way to my mouth, what little remained of last night's porridge vacating my stomach. I landed back first into the nest, my hands still gripped tightly to the gun even with the throbbing pain I felt behind me. Blinking through dizzy eyes I aimed the revolver straight at the rat barely a meter away from me and pulled the trigger.

  Click!

  The gun didn't fire, the thread was gone, heat no longer grazed my finger tips. I could only watch in horror as that damn rat sauntered up to me with what could only be interpreted as a smirk on its furry face. Tapping the gem on the side of the gun I tried to get the thread to work but my concentration was shot. Through my ringing ears and the aching pain across my body I struggled to maintain the thread.

  I tapped the gem over and over as red light flickered in and out of existence. In vain I closed my eyes and tried to focus on the gem, no rat, no nest beneath me, red, fire, string, heat, burning. The thread became more corporeal with each word, in my right hand I wrapped the thread on my fingers the same way I did the gun. It was warm beneath my fingers, like being wrapped in a warm blanket in winter. Threads weaved around my finger the same way I did the star on the revolver. A warm, comforting heat surrounded my hand, a ball of flame I wanted to last forever.

  “-chael!” There was noise, something trying to distract me from my thread.

  “Michael!” Suddenly I was broken out of my dazed state as Damian called to me from across the chamber.

  Opening my eyes I saw directly above me was the rat with its maw wide open, ready to tear my throat out. So I did the only thing I could, I punched it. With my hand full of red threads I slammed my fist into the rat from my prone position. As my fist made contact with the beast it exploded, a ball of fire engulfed my hand before spreading across the rat's dry fur, immersing it in an inferno. The dimly lit sewers were now bathed in blazing light as the flames began to spread to the nest below me.

  It fell to my left, the smell of searing flesh made its way to my nose, the blissful scent of my completed hunt filled me with ecstasy. Blood and guts still clinging to life, the perfect meal, after all this time finally some meat, drool sliding down my lips. Through the aching I tried to grasp at the still screaming meat, craving to take a chunk of the burning flesh. Before I could reach the meat I started getting pulled further and further away. I watched in horror as the flames spread to the nest and my meal burnt to cinders. Below me I realized Damian had put me over his shoulder like some bag.

  “Damnit! Let me down!” I furiously spammed my fists into Damian's armor, only hurting my hands in the process.

  “What is wrong with you?” He shouted back at me as if my hunt wasn't important.

  “My prey’s back there! I need to… I need to eat it?” As the words escaped my lips they made less and less sense to me.

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I- I don't know. I just had this urge to- Eeep!” My thoughts were interrupted as I realized we were being chased by dozens upon dozens of rats struggling to keep up with the surprisingly agile Damian in his armor.

  “Run faster!” Behind us I watched in horror as the rats kept up with Damian, only being slightly slower, but I doubt his stamina would last long enough to get us to the exit.

  “I'm already running as fast as I can!” He said that right before the world lurched backwards.

  Damian skidded across the floor before dropping me onto the ground. My sore body hit against the stone causing my already aching back to flare up in pain. I couldn't do much but groan as the aching worsened. As soon as I took the effort to look around me I realized we were right in front of that door from earlier as Damian pulled as hard as he possibly could against the handle, one hand clutching the torch and the other pulling furiously. To his left the horde of rats inched closer and closer to us with each passing second. Getting up I limped a step to the door and pulled with my entire weight.

  The door lurched open and I nearly fell backwards into the river of sewage, if not for Damian catching me by wrapping his arm around my tiny waist. We waddled through the doorway just as the rats finally reached us. Damian slammed the door shut behind us. The moment I felt it was safe I keeled over onto my side, as did Damian. A horrible scratching noise came from behind the door as the horde desperately tried to claw its way through.

  I don't know how long we laid there on the now wooden floors in pitch black darkness. Damian's breathing was haggard from the battle and running with me across his shoulder. He has to be aching just as badly as I was, all I did was get shoved while he fought a rat in hand to hand combat. Even still I didn't fight the urge to pass out, I'd just rest for a little while…