Deranged Writer's Afterword

“ Why did it take you so long ?”Greydor asked once again sensing something amiss.

Lydia seemed to be in a state of shock, I can’t blame her…this dungeon was a shitshow. No sane person would willingly come inside this dungeon if they knew of its true nature.

“ It’s only been 10 months since you went inside….what happened ?”I asked, hoping the shock would just kill him.

Carrying him through this dungeon would be a drag.

….

My words seemed to have taken a second to come into effect as silence reigned for just a second before Greydor voiced his doubt in a small voice,

“ What ?”

“ I said that it’s only been ten months since you’ve entered…so what the hell happened?”

“ That’s….that’s….that’s not possible, it’s b-been so long….they all died….every single one of them…I couldn’t help it….it’s been so long……this can’t be happening…I-”, the old wolf slowly seemed to be losing it.

Well, he’s probably going to die soon if we don’t do something….well too bad.

Let’s just move on.

….

“ Calm down, sir. You’re going to be fine….I promise you, we’re going to help you come back…home.”

“ H-home ?”, Greydor whimpered, snapping out of his trance.

“ Yeah…we’re gonna take you back home.”, Lydia answered back with a warm smile.

………..

………..

Do I get a vote?

~~~~

“ I say we dump him here and go about our way..”, I say, staring at the old wolf from a distance.

I had called Lydia away to advise her on our best move.

“ How can you even say something like that ?!”Lydia asked, glaring at me.

I see…

I let out a chuckle and put a hand on her shoulder,

“ Look, I can understand that you feel sorry for him….I get that, but think of it like this: the man is already half-dead…we would just be doing him a favor by leaving him here.”

…..

“ He’s not a man…..he’s a wolf, and I won’t just abandon one of our own….I’m not someone who would just kill my kind…..especially not for you.”

Uff.

I suppose that was deserved.

Lydia pushed away my hand and walked over to Graydor.

I can’t believe how petty she’s being…..is killing one of my friends for a non-existent reason such a bad thing?

~~~~

As a new day dawned on the dungeon, we were all nervous.

Greydor explained everything he knew about the dungeon and we told him about the situation outside, we also gave him plenty of food. The ‘time’ aspect of the dungeon was also discussed, Lydia initially wanted to return immediately but I managed to change her mind.

The dungeon was very large and even Greydor had yet to completely explore it, by his estimate he had only explored about one percent. The reason for such a low number was apparently because of the ‘green people’ according to the old wolf. Greydor also confirmed that he had yet to find any trace of Luna Caerus.

Greydor wasn’t sure how long he had spent in this dungeon but…he was sure that it was more than 10 years,

It’s unbelievable…

How can someone be so useless that they’re unable to find a single person in ten years?

Pathetic.

“ So these ‘green people’....what are they like ?”I asked wanting to know more.

Greydor’s face immediately darkened as he said,

“ They’re devils…..”

Great….I knew it.

We spent some more time discussing their location and decided to head there to understand more about these people, we wanted to scout before taking action.

~~~~

“ This is it huh ?”I asked, staring at a village a few meters away from us.

I was worried about how we would hide in the snow but strangely enough, the area surrounding the village was not covered by snow…it was like a whole different place. We had hidden ourselves using a bush and were now observing the village.

We could see a guard standing outside what I presume is the entrance to the village, ah…seeing these people brings back a lot of pleasant memories…

The guard was green, just as described by Greydor but he didn’t look all that intimidating, they were peculiar though, they didn’t have a nose, instead, I could see two small holes….so basically these beings were just like a green voldemor-

Nah, forget it….that’s not important.

“ So what should w-”

‘Step’

‘Step’

I stopped speaking, and all of us turned around to find a little green girl staring at us, she held a ball in her hands. None of us spoke, silence fell on us like a comfortable blanket that was ripped out too soon as the girl screamed at the top of her lungs.

“ AYRALU !”

Without wasting even a second, Lydia knocked the child out but it was too late as the guard had already heard the girl and was running toward us, I grabbed Greydor and sprinted back to the cave with Lydia following behind me. We easily escaped but it was only a matter of time before they caught us.

Damn it…

The child was unconscious but she was still alive, maybe we could make a trade…after all these people can’t be that bad…I know best.

“ What should we do ?”Lydia asked, looking at me for answers.

I shook my head, not wanting to reveal anything that might make Lydia suspicious.

~~~

It had been an hour since we kidnapped a child.

….

We hadn’t been found….but it would happen any time now.

It was just a matter of time.

“ Let’s eat…”, I say, taking out some beef jerky and water.

Lydia took the beef jerky and pushed away the water,

“ We should use as little of the water as possible since we know that this dungeon is time-related…everything is unpredictable..”

I nod and put the water back in my sub-space.

“ Well, there is a river nearby…I drank from there all these years…so I know it’s good water.”, Greydor said, taking a bite of his food.

“ That’s great !”Lydia said, smiling for the first time in a while.

We finished the food quickly and decided to collect some water for ourselves. I had brought two empty water containers just for this.

“ The two of us will go…you stay with the girl.”, Lydia said, taking the containers away from me.

I sit back down and nod,

“ If we don’t come back in twenty minutes….take the girl and run.”

I’m not sure how running will help but-

“ Sure.”

~~~~

I watched as the girl slowly woke up.

It had been seven minutes since they had left to bring more water.

The girl snapped out of her trance rather quickly and stared at me with fear evident in her eyes. But strangely enough her eyes didn’t stay on me for long, she looked around frantically for something…

“ AYALUR !”, she screamed.

“ AYALUR !”

“AYALUR !”

She kept on screaming that word.

…..

‘Sigh’

I suppose I’ll translate her words since I have nothing else to do…

Of course, I know how to speak their language….I created it.

Still, I’m a little rusty though…

I haven’t used this language since I was a child, no….the last time I used this was probably when I wrote about it…anyway it isn’t that hard…

I assigned two alphabets to a single alphabet and made a weird language, I used to love using it….I remember my mother taking me to a doctor because she thought something was wrong with me…

Yeah, she was silly sometimes.

My mood soured as I thought about Dina.

I wonder how everyone back at Unity is doing?

“ So let’s see…A stands for-”

After an intense two minutes, I finally got what the little girl was trying to say,

“ But it doesn’t make sense…”

What does ‘CANNICAL’ even mean?

The girl had not stopped screaming even now.

I stared at the paper in which I had arranged the words.

OH.

I had mixed up a ‘b’ and a ‘c’.

With a satisfied smile on my face, I corrected the word.

Oh…I see now.

The word is CANNIBAL.

……

I stared at the girl and then at the paper.

The girl. The paper.

The girl. The paper.

The girl. The paper.

‘Ohh……’

Lydia might be in trouble.

~~~~