“The children of Assp have a problem,” The Strongest said as the dragon and her children continued eating. “Our enemies have griffins and airships to fly their adventurers where they wish, while we do not.”

  The dragon didn't respond.

  “This puts my people at a disadvantage. Airships require expensive, impossible-to-acquire materials, and griffins don't do well in the underground caverns, which are our home. But then it occurred to me, dragons do well in underground caverns, grow larger than griffins, and are superior fliers.”

  “That much is true, warrior mage. You wish me to be your pack animal in exchange for the lives of my children?”

  “Absolutely not,” The Strongest said. “We would never hurt your children, and you are far too dangerous to make our slave. We are hoping for an alliance to our mutual benefit.”

  “We have allied with your kind in the past, and you always betray us.”

  “Do not lump us in with them,” The Strongest motioned towards the adventurers the dragon was eating. “While we defend our home, we've never hunted your kind. If you leave, we won't stop you, but your children will remain. We will raise them as our own.”

  “You lie! You will sell them to your filthy merchants, and a princeling will kill them to gain levels!”

  “Unless a merchant's money or some princeling can carry my men into battle, that's not an option for us. If you or other adult dragons won't join us, perhaps your children will.”

  For a long moment, it looked like the dragon would attack The Strongest again, but she lowered her head in defeat. “In exchange for the lives of myself and my children, I will carry your men.”

  The Strongest's frown-face mask turned into a big smile. “I thought you might see it that way. But do not be afraid. If you attack us, we will kill you in an instant, but we would never harm your children.”

  Anda felt the dragon's disbelief. This arrangement was temporary until she and her children could escape. “My name is Shard Grayscale.”

  ***

  Jeremy woke up. He'd had a dream about people whom he'd dreamt about in the dungeon. A dream within a dream. Weird!

  To Jeremy's disappointment, Mom refused to get him a tarantula or scorpion for Christmas. She'd bought him a new jacket instead, even though the cold didn't bother him anymore. His dad sent him a sweater that was too small, and one of his surviving grandparents sent him underwear. For an instant, he could have sworn a multi-pupiled eye appeared on his new underwear and stared at him, but when he looked again, it vanished.

  Andrew ran off, leaving Jeremy and Mom to watch the latest Christmas special. It was stupid, something about Santa Claus fighting off terrorists with a rocket launcher. Santa Claus looked at him through the flatscreen. “Jeremy. If you think about it, the world will end.”

  Think about what? Instead of answering, Santa Claus returned to what he was doing, clubbing a terrorist to death with a Christmas tree. Blood pooled on the floor, forming a giant K.

  Jeremy covered his eyes and did his mental box exercise. When he opened his eyes, the bloody K was gone. He told his mom he was feeling sick and turned in early.

  ***

  Anda returned from the dragon's cavern. It had been a quarter of a year since the dragon and her children had arrived. The dragon and her children fascinated him, and he used any excuse to visit. It was hard to imagine how much had changed since the great battle. Anda assisted in training hundreds of new trainees, most of whom were larger and older than he was. They'd quickly learned not to underestimate him. As an initiate, he could mop the cavern floors with even the largest trainee without breaking a sweat.

  He saw five trainees standing around a slave. Anda approached. “What's going on?”

  The trainees flinched and looked guilty. “Initiate! This slave was misbehaving, and we put him in his place.”

  The slave looked up at Anda, his face and eyes full of hate and fury. “You.”

  To Anda's shock, the slave was Tanif, the highborn he'd defeated in the arena almost half a year ago, now lying in water mixed with blood. The water had spilled from a nearby bucket, and the blood was Tanif's. Anda's former tormentor was a shadow of his former self, his bruised and broken body emaciated from lack of food and harsh treatment. Anda almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

  Among other things, Tanif had a broken collarbone, and without a healer, it would be many days before he could resume his duties, which meant this slave's life was at an end. Anda looked over at the frightened trainees. “You five were a match for one slave? Impressive. Perhaps The Strongest was wrong to think you had potential.”

  “Initiate! The slave's broken bones are an unfortunate accident, and we regret our clumsiness!” one of the trainees burst out.

  “Indeed,” Anda said. “A question. These weak highborn made the rule that healers were not to heal the weak. Some might suggest this was short-sighted of them. But what can you expect of the weak? The question is, should the strong request that this rule be overturned, so that a healer might heal this slave, and the slave can return to his duties of cleaning this floor?”

  The trainees looked at each other. The former speaker responded. “Initiate. To lend our strength to the weak is like trying to carry water with a woven basket. You would gain nothing but a wet basket for your trouble, as you would gain nothing from using our strength to provide healing for a slave.”

  “I see,” Anda said, feeling an odd sadness.

  “Initiate! Was that the correct answer?”

  “Perhaps.” Anda could have ordered the trainees to throw Tanif into the bafbam pits to be eaten alive, but that seemed cruel, and Anda felt no hatred for his former tormentor. “Without a healer, this slave is useless.”

  Tanif knew what was coming. He spat at Anda's feet, then looked up at him, eyes full of hate. “May Assp make you suffer as I have.”

  Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

  Anda chuckled. “Even your curses are weak. Not long ago, I could only look up at you; now you're a slave, not even worthy to be killed by me.” He turned to the trainees. “Your clumsiness destroyed this slave, so you will kill him, and then provide him with a slave's burial. That is, throw his body into the bafbam pits to be eaten.”

  “Yes Initiate!” In the slave's weakened, broken state, it was easy for two of the trainees to restrain him, while a third wrapped his arm around Tanif's neck and applied pressure until there was an audible snap.

  “When you have finished with that, you will take over this slave's duties. I expect this floor to be clean enough to eat off of. If you feel I'm being unfair, you may take it up with my superiors in The Order.”

  The trainees weren't that stupid. They were getting off easy and knew it. “Thank you for your judgment, Initiate!” the five said at once and got busy removing the slave's body.

  ***

  Jeremy woke, unsure what to think of the last dream. He was saddened. The Children of Assps' lack of compassion for the less fortunate killed so many of their kind. It was odd to think that their obsession with individual strength left them weaker as a people. But then, it was just a dream. Wasn't it?

  Jeremy couldn't shake the feeling that something was very wrong. Why did he feel so frightened? He got up to grab some Christmas cake and a glass of milk to calm down. The refrigerator magnets were in the shape of a K. He closed his eyes and looked again. They were back to their random order.

  What was the significance of K? Why did it fill him with fear? He slipped out of the house and went for a long walk in the snow.

  Over the next few days of his winter vacation, he saw K's everywhere, and his mental box exercise became less and less effective. Then an R appeared next to the K. KR. He wasn't sure why, but he knew this was bad.

  What was going on? Something was wrong. And what was the significance of KR?

  He had another dream.

  Anda studied the hole of blackness sitting in the middle of the passageway. This time of night, he and the slave were the only ones present.

  “Adults can't see it, Lord Anda, only children,” the slave boy said.

  Anda shivered. “It's a demon portal.” He'd heard of them but had never seen one and did not know what to do. “Go. Find The Order and tell them Anda said there is an emergency and they must come here immediately.”

  “Yes, my lord,” the slave boy said, backing away but making no move to follow Anda's instructions. More slaves approached from both sides of the passageway.

  “I see. You brought me here to kill me,” Anda said, looking over the maybe fifty slaves. “You should have brought more people.”

  Bramf came to the front of the crowd. Anda hadn't seen him since their arena battle, almost a year before. Like the rest of the highborn slaves, he was beaten down by harsh treatment. He glared at Anda with a gaze of pure hate. “Two days ago, your initiates took my sister to their personal quarters to teach her to respect her betters. She took her own life this morning.”

  “I bet you wish you were strong enough to protect her,” Anda said with a smirk. He had no sympathy for Bramf, knowing what the man would have done to his sister given the chance. “Anyway, I had nothing to do with that. Why come after me?”

  “You claimed to speak for Assp and told the lowborn we were weak, turning them against us.”

  “I told them the truth,” Anda said. “If you turn around and leave, I'll consider sparing your lives.”

  The slaves didn't respond. Fighting fifty people at once would be difficult. He knew demon portals sometimes spat out demons, but little else about them. Anda and the slaves eyed each other, neither wanting to move first. The stillness broke when Anda felt something emerge from the demon portal behind him. A demon!

  Anda spun around, and before the furry creature could bite him, he kicked it into the crowd of slaves. There were screams. A mob of slaves charged Anda, and he was fighting for his life. Their combined weight pushed him back against the demon portal. He fell into the unknown, landing unharmed on a stone floor. He leapt up as six children followed him down into the cavern. Anda attacked the other children, using his fists, elbows, knees, and feet to beat them to death, ignoring their screams and pleading. He killed them without mercy.

  After finishing, he sagged with exhaustion among the six bodies on the cavern floor.

  “Usually, adventurers wait until they finish a dungeon before killing their party members,” a gravelly voice said from behind Anda. He jumped and spun around. “You are the first adventurer to kill his adventure party before entering a dungeon. Is this normal for your people?”

  “Only when the fellow adventurers are weak,” Anda said, not fully understanding what was happening. He hadn't realized that entering a demon portal was possible. And even if it was, the only result should be certain death. He studied the strange little being in front of him. “Are you a demon?”

  Boggan pulled himself up and looked indignant. “I am most certainly not a demon. I am part of The Children's Dungeon. A dungeon only children can see or enter.”

  “I see,” Anda said. His situation was becoming clear. Someone had placed poisonous mushrooms in his soup, and he was lying unconscious, hallucinating, and fighting for his life. He'd heard that strange hallucinations and visions were a normal symptom of these poisonous mushrooms. “I've been poisoned, and you are a hallucination.”

  Boggan sniffed. “I assure you I'm not a hallucination, and if you die in this dungeon, your death will be real.”

  “I believe I have the strength to pull through this poisoning attempt. When I wake up, I will find the one responsible.”

  ***

  Jeremy woke up in a cold sweat. In his dungeon dream. Anda's training and memories must have been collected in the two skill books. The boy, like the dungeon, was a figment of his imagination.

  Wasn't he?

  Though none of this was real, Anda's harsh upbringing had made him as hard as the stone caverns he'd lived in some thousand years ago. This made Jeremy sad. He wondered if the two skill books he'd received had been the dungeon reclaiming Anda's memories after Anda had died in the dungeon.

  The dungeon had been a dream, hadn't it? But if the dungeon was real, he must still be inside. And if he was still inside? Why would he hallucinate being at home?

  The earth shook, and there was a deafening boom! His room shook hard enough to toss Jeremy onto his bedroom floor.

  His cellphone alarmed. It was an emergency.

  JEREMY WILKINS

  THOUGHT ABOUT IT.

  SO WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!

  5555555555

  Mom pushed open his bedroom door, stormed into his room, and grabbed him by the ear. Something she only did when she was really mad. “Jeremy Wilkins! What do you think you're doing? You thought about it, didn't you?”

  “Sorry, Mom. I don't think you're real.” She had grabbed the ear he'd lost half of on the second floor to the giant orc Rampage. Jeremy pushed past her, and it was like her hand wasn't even there.

  He walked outside. Smoke and fire came from multiple locations. He did his mental exercise again, enclosing his mind in multiple boxes. It didn't help; reality was crumbling around him.

  Cracks formed in the street, and some unnamed person screamed as they fell into one.

  Jeremy ran beside the expanding crack, wondering what was going on and what he could do. A swollen orange sun rose from the west, and a blood-red K appeared in the sky. Followed by an R, then an I, T. Jeremy sat down on the ground, squeezed his eyes shut, and covered them with his hands.

  Andrew appeared behind him. “You thought about it! You idio—aaaaaaaaa!” he screamed as Jeremy picked him up and threw him into the bottomless crack in the street. By now, the crack was as wide as the road.

  The ground beneath Jeremy's feet vanished. He fell down, down until he was floating in nothingness.

  His memories returned.