Around five days after entering the tunnels

  Monotony was the perfect world to describe Lou’s life for the past week or so. That and the discomfort of endless walking. The tunnel, which had originally been so new and interesting, was nothing but repetitive at this point. The shiny corridors stretched on and on into the distance, the constant light boring into his mind. The faint sound of the stagnant water being disturbed by currents in the air was the only thing that broke up the deafening silence of the chambers.

  For the fifth day in a row, Lou trudged down the tunnel. His mind was clogged with tiredness, as he had gotten barely any sleep over the past few days. Thyrian had packed enough rations to last for a month, but they were bland, boring pieces of stale bread, for the most part. The water flowing through the tunnel was only moderately dirty, but was slightly worse than the water in Urbs Sacer. Lou hadn’t thrown up or got sick, so he wasn’t worried about the quality of his hydration. His calves ached like they had been run over by a wild turtle, and he was constantly out of breath.

  “Look there,” said Thyrian, abruptly breaking the silence. He seemed chipper as ever, with the monotony of their trek not breaking his spirits whatsoever, at least on the outside. “See?”

  Lou squinted. He just saw endless tunnel. Wait… There! Off in the distance was a sight that filled him with sheer annoyance and agony.

  The tunnel had caved in completely around a thousand feet ahead of them. The shiny chrome blended with thousands of tons of rock, looking almost like two pieces of paper being stuck together at the end. The lights within a few hundred feet were completely broken, casting the area into darkness.

  “Yeah,” Thyrian said. “We’re going to have to retrace our steps.” He sighed. “When you get to my age, boy, the exertion of oneself sure gets to you.”

  “You’re only, what, 35?” Lou asked exasperatedly. “You’re only a decade older than me! You’re in perfect health.”

  “Ahh, to be young and healthy,” Thyrian said in a fond, reminicing voice. “To not have grey hair.”

  “You literally have black hair!” Lou shouted. “You’re in the prime of your life! You’re weird.”

  “Continue!” Thyrian said, turning around and retreating his steps.

  “Can’t I rest my sundamn calves for one sundamn minute?” gasped Lou.

  “No!” Thyrian said cheerily. “Walking forth makes four!” He giggled to himself. He walked down the corridor.

  Lou was flabbergasted. Thyrian was so strange sometimes. This roadblock would cause them to lose over five days of travel time, but Thyrian seemed significantly happier than before. What went on inside his head?

  “West!” Thyrian shouted, breaking up the silence. Lou jerked in surprise. The past forty minutes had involved walking down the endless tunnel, with silence coming from the two of them.

  “What?” Lou asked.

  “We’re going west!” Thyrian said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “We can find the old stuff!”

  “The what now?” Lou asked. “What ‘old stuff?’”

  “The tunnels, boy!” Thyrian said. “The tunnels have secrets! Yea, secrets!”

  “What secrets?” Lou asked. “This tunnel? It probably extends forever!”

  “No, my boy,” Thyrian said. He giggled to himself. “The tunnel ends in paradise, yes, yes, yes!”

  “Paradise?” Lou asked. “Sounds like what those Rain Castemen wanted.”

  “No, no!” Thyrian said. “Old paradise! Hee hee!” He abruptly went silent.

  7 or 8 days later:

  Lou, sitting on the latticed walkway cross-legged, beheld a dry ration bar. It had once been something akin to flatbread, but being baked many times and left in a bag for practically eons had left it impalatable. It would probably be better dunked in liquid, but the water running through the tunnel had gotten darker and more disguisting as they moved onwards. He had thrown up once yesterdayish, but had drunk more water than usual.

  He had trouble keeping track of time. While he had a loose guess of how much time had passed, there was simply no way to accurately tell time in the tunnels. The only indicators of anything were the arbitrary times Thyrian ordered them to stop and sleep/eat. Lou had finally gotten a few hours of deep sleep, but the hazy fog clouding his brain never truly left him. They had passed the point where they had entered the tunnel a couple days back, and it had looked exactly the same as when they had left it. None of the Rain Caste’s allies had found the tunnel.

  He stroked the bar with his thumb, breaking off a small chunk. He rubbed his forehead with his other hand, sighing.

  “Eat,” Thyrian helpfully quipped. “You’ll starve if you don’t eat.”

  “Stupid ration bread,” Lou moaned. “I’d rather starve.”

  “No, you wouldn’t, boy,” Thyrian said. “Hunger is agony.”

  “You experienced it?” Lou asked. “You’ve been a bootmaker my whole life. A rock in the stormy sea of our community.”

  “Wasn’t always one,” Thyrian said.

  “Oh really?” Lou asked. “What were you?”

  “Do you want to know?” asked Thyrian. “Because you’ll be surprised.”

  “Sure,” Lou sighed. “Anything to break up the sundamn monotony.”

  “I was Sun Caste,” Thyrian nonchalantly said.

  “What!?” Lou gasped. “How?” He sputtered. “You don’t have a brand!”

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  “Long story,” Thyrian sighed.

  “We have a lot of time,” Lou replied.

  “True, true,” Thyrian said. “This also ties in with how I know about this tunnel.”

  “Tell me!” Lou said.

  “Right on,” Thyrian said. He took a deep breath, and his eyes filled with remembered sorrow.

  “So I was around 8 or so years old. You weren’t even conceived yet. I was living in Remus, a city in the Are District. My birth name was Demorrigan, but that’s irrelevant. I was Fire Caste, and my mom didn’t know my dad. Could have been one of a hundred men. Long story short, she caught cholera and passed when I was 6 or so. I was on my own. People though I wasn’t right in the head, so nobody adopted me. I scavenged food off the streets, and was caught when I ate an entire meal thrown out by a passing Rain Casteman. He said that he ‘gave the food to the worms’ or somesuch and that I was a ‘robber.’ He sentenced me to the Sun Caste.”

  “At age eight?!” Lou said. “That’s sick!”

  “We live in a sick world, boy,” Thyrian sighed. “Younger folks than I have been branded Sun Caste.”

  “How did you survive your battle?” Lou asked. “It’s practically unheard of!”

  “It was really chaotic,” Thyrian said, “And I was a small boy. I stayed near the back, then hid under a pile of corpses when the heathens started winning. The Wind Castemen assumed I was dead and mopped up the other heathens when everyone else was butchered. When they left, I headed west.”

  “What happened next?” Lou anxiously asked.

  “I came upon a vast forest a few dozen miles to the west of the Holy Kingdom,” Thyrian said. “Lived off the land for a few months until they found me.”

  “Who?” asked Lou. “Heathens?”

  “Yeah,” Thyrian said. “They took pity on a starving, pathetic child like myself. Brought me to their village.”

  “What were they like?” asked Lou. “Were they barbaric and savage like the scripture suggests?”

  “Not really,” Thyrian admitted. “They were like us. They had farms, families, their own gods… But they didn’t really have a Rain Caste. Everybody in the village got together and voted on issues, and everyone’s voice was heard. These heathens in particular were part of a nation known as the Contigo Pact, which in turn was part of the Forest Clan. It wasn’t too bad, if you ask me.”

  “Wow,” Lou mused. “And that must be where we’re going!”

  “The heathens don’t hate us,” Thyrian said. “They simply view us as other people. The heathens who attack the border on occasion are criminals. So instead of being executed, criminals can opt to go to battle. If they bring back the head of a Wind Casteman, they’re pardoned.”

  “Do they have Lux?” Lou asked.

  “No,” Thyrian said. “They have some other sort of power. They can turn the earth into puppets, enhance their speed, strength, build structures out of dirt and stone. They claim this power comes from their god, the Earth Mother.”

  “Gaia,” Lou mused.

  “How did you hear that name?” Thyrian asked. “That’s another name they called their god.”

  “I had a dream where I spoke to a being calling herself Gaia. Also, Nevos mentioned her.”

  “Ahh, I see,” Thyrian said. “Nevos.”

  “How exactly do you know him?” Lou asked.

  “I’ll get to that,” Thyrian said. “So, anyway, in the heathen village, there was a leatherworker named Rufus. He liked to make boots, and he taught me how to do so as well. He was like a father to me, a father I never had. He raised me like I was his own son. Alas, he passed away from disease when I was around 15 or 16.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Lou said.

  “It’s alright,” Thyrian replied. “I grieved for a time, but then decided that it was time to act. I decided to go back to the Holy Kingdom to see if I could gather intel on them. The heathens all around the land are getting fed up with living in the shadows, and me and numerous other escapees have proven our nation’s evils to them. Their farmlands are also eroding from the constant rain. They are planning to fight back and liberate the people from the Rain Caste’s tyranny, as well as stop the constant rain.”

  “How did you get your Earth Caste tattoo?” Lou asked.

  “They used their power to remove my Fire Caste tattoo and my Sun Caste brand. My friend Georges personally tattooed the Earth Caste symbol on me. I then covertly moved to the city of Svaelus in the Lvier District, using this tunnel. There, I got a new name, new job as a bootmaker and met a woman named Ninian. We fell in love, but she unfortunately passed away from disease scant months after we married. I subsequently moved further east and arrived at Urbs Sacer.”

  “When did you meet Nevos?” Lou asked.

  “I met him then,” Thyrian said. “He told me that he knew all about me, and to ensure that other people know the truth about the world. ‘The God of Rain isn’t invincible,’ he said. ‘We can fight back.’ I held onto his words until you walked into the shop.”

  “I was 11 or 12,” Lou said. “I wanted some pocket money, so I figured I’d get a job. Nobody else would hire someone so young, except for you. I was intimidated by you at first, but you grew on me.”

  “I paid you some money, but quickly realized you were skilled at bootmaking,” Thyrian said. “I offered to take you on as a full-time apprentice when you became an adult at 14, and your parents agreed.”

  “And we both know what happened afterwards,” Lou supplied.

  “Yeah,” Thyrian sighed. “Haven’t told this story to anyone save for Ninian. Her lips were sealed, but I still speculate whether or not she actually died of disease. Could have been poison.”

  “Sick,” Lou said. “But why did you initially go east? Are District is the westernmost place in the Theocracy. You don’t know the heathens to the east.”

  “The Contigo Pact gave me a special token of my citizenship all throughout the area,” Thyrian offered, reaching into his pack. He procured a wooden coin around two inches wide. On it was carved a strange symbol: a diagonal scythe facing to the bottom left crossed with a diagonal sheaf of some sort of grain reaching to the top right.

  “The symbol of their religion,” Thyrian answered Lou’s unasked question. “The grain is wheat, a staple crop grown in heathen farms. Each clan has its own gods, but their pantheons all include the Earth Mother. Only the Forest Clan exclusively worships her.”

  “Interesting,” Lou said. He nibbled on his bread. It tasted better now that the boredom had been partly alleviated.

  “Oh,” Thyrian said. “On that note, we only have a little bit of food left.”

  “What?” asked Lou. “What do you mean, a little bit?”

  “Just a week or so left,” Thyrian said. “I assumed we’d be out of the eastern tunnel by then and we could live off the land until we found a settlement, but obviously I was wrong.”

  “Oh man,” Lou groaned. “We’re gonna starve.”

  “Not necessarily,” Thyrian replied. “According to Nevos, the beings who built this tunnel left caches of supplies. Maybe we can find them.”

  “After hundreds of years?” asked Lou. “They’re probably all rotten.”

  “Beats starving,” Thyrian said. He paused and sighed. “I’m tired.”

  Lou realized that he was feeling tired as well. “Let’s sleep.”

  “Good idea, Lou,” Thyrian said. Lou felt a wave of emotion going through him. Thyrian hadn’t called him ‘boy’, he had called him by his actual name! This new connection made Lou feel warm and fuzzy inside. Unfortunately, the new emotion caused his other emotions to dig themselves up. He felt intense grief at what had happened a few weeks ago. His neighbors were most likely dead, as were his parents. Tears leaked down his cheeks as he began to sob silently.

  “It’s all right, Lou,” Thyrian mumbled. “I’m sad too.” The older man’s voice began to break. “I lost friends there too,” he sobbed.

  “At least we’re alive,” Lou countered, choking on the last bit. He turned away and huddled on the cold, shiny metal. Abruptly, determination began to emanate from his core and spread across his entire body. He was going to survive, and he would save his family, or at least enact vengeance upon those who took them from him.