“No! This can’t be right!” Alexandra thought to herself as she stared at the solid wall of rock. Her eyes scanned her surroundings as she searched for some crevice she could escape through or at the very least hide in. Her search became more and more desperate as the footsteps behind her grew louder.

  Suddenly, they stopped. Alexandra could feel a presence behind her. She wanted to reach for her sword, to cry out, to turn around, to do a million different things, but instead she stood there petrified. She breathed slow, shallow, all but silent breaths and didn’t blink. Her eyes remained glued to the wall in front of her.

  She stood there for what felt like an eternity, too scared to move, too scared to speak, and too scared to blink. It took her some time, but eventually a coherent thought managed to her head.

  ‘What do I do?’ she thought. Slowly, her mind began to return to rational thought. Her name was Princess Alexandra von Adler. She was in a cave looking for a sword when a monster attacked her group. The monster had attacked Fahim and Jean-Phillipe before chasing her. She wanted to regroup with Ekkehardt, who was ahead of her, but all she found was this dead end. Was there a fork? Did Ekkehardt go one way while she went another? She didn’t recall seeing a fork, but she didn’t recall actually paying any attention to the cave’s features after she saw the monster.

  ‘The monster!’ she thought. It had chased her to this dead end. She heard it right behind her. She could still feel its presence behind her.

  Or could she? Alexandra felt that distinct feeling that came from when someone stood right behind her, but nothing from her five senses supported that conclusion. She saw nothing, save for the torch she held in front of her and the wall of rock. She smelled no unusual odor. She felt nothing, but her clothes and the torch. She heard nothing, but her own breath. Was the monster really behind her? If it was, why hasn’t it attacked her yet? Why couldn't she hear its breath? Had it synchronized its breathing with her’s?

  She decided to test that by holding her breath. She heard nothing. After a while she exhaled audibly.

  ‘I am alone,’ she thought, ‘I have to be alone. Either that or I’m already dead and I don’t know it yet. There is no other possible explanation.’

  She slowly shifted her neck and body to her right as her right hand snuck its way to the hilt of her sword. Once her hand made contact with the cold, hard metal of the sword, she grabbed it before drawing the weapon and turning around in one single motion. She assumed a fighting stance that Ekkehardt had taught her. She stood with her left foot forward and her right foot back while she held her sword behind her head and parallel to the ground. Her eyes scanned the cave for any sign of the thing with long fingers and maggot-white flesh, but all that stood before her was a small child.

  They appeared to be a boy no older than eight. He had dark brown hair, pale skin, and sapphire-blue eyes. He wore a simple dark-blue shirt, brown cloth pants, a rope belt, and a pair of brown leather boots. His cheeks looked slightly sunken and, other than his boots, which were a little too large and a little too nice, he appeared to be an ordinary peasant boy.

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  “Hello ma’am. I’m sorry to bother you, but you appear to be lost. Would you like some help?” He asked in Alemanian while wearing an expressionless face. He spoke in a somewhat amicable tone.

  Alexandra’s heart raced in her chest. This couldn’t be right. She knew there was no way that she had just ran into a kid down here. Even if what she was looking at was a child, something about him just wasn’t right. He was by no means ugly, but something about him disturbed her. For some reason, looking at him was like smelling rotting meat or excrement through an olfactory veneer of perfume. A part of her wanted to cut the thing in half right then and there, kill it now and let God or whatever powers that be sort it out.

  Alexandra tightened her grip on her sword, but she just couldn’t bring herself to strike a child.

  “Who are you? What is your name?” She growled. The child frowned.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you. I understand that you don’t feel safe right now, but I’m only here to help. You are not safe right now and I would like to get you back to safety,” the boy-thing said. It’s every word only unnerved Alexandra further.

  “Answer the question! Who are you?” She barked. The boy-thing frowned.

  “I’m sorry. I cannot answer that.” It answered.

  “You’re not human…” Alexandra growled. The boy-thing took a step back, looking offended. Its face turned a little red.

  “Even if that was true, what difference would it make? I just want to help you. If you don’t come with me you may… you may get hurt,” It shouted.

  “How do I know that you’re not going to hurt me? How do I know that you’re not… that… that thing!” Alexandra argued.

  “Hurting innocent people is a sin. Sinning is for bad guys and I’m not a bad guy,” The boy-thing replied.

  “If you’re not a bad guy, then what are you? There are bad things in this world. How do I know you’re not one of them?” Alexandra said while giving extra emphasis on the words ‘guy’ and ‘thing’. The boy-thing frowned and looked down at his feet before returning his gaze to Alexandra.

  “If I was a thing and not a guy, would you still be okay with that?” It responded. There was a brief silence as Alexandra tried to figure out what to say next.

  “That depends. Are you a good thing or a bad thing?” She replied. The boy-thing looked down at his feet once again.

  “I… I want to be a good one. Sometimes it’s easier to be good when you’re a guy and not a thing…” He then looked Alexandra right in the eye, “I’m so sorry. There is much that I’m not allowed to tell you, but I will try to tell you as much as I can. I… I am a thing, but I’m not a bad thing. I was made here and I li… stay here. I have two jobs and one of them is to help people return to where they came from. I only wish to do my jobs, not just because that is all that I am made to do, but because my jobs are good and by doing them, I am good,” the boy-thing explained.

  “What is your other job?” Alexandra asked. The boy-thing frowned.

  “There is somewhere else where I take people, but it’s not a safe place,” It answered.

  “What is this place? Why isn’t it safe?” Alexandra asked.

  “The place isn’t important and it’s not unsafe because of what the place is, but because of what is there. Good people have asked me to take them to it. When we got there, it hurts them. It hurts them bad and they always ask me to bring them back afterwards. I don’t want to take anyone else to it. I know that I must, but I don’t want to see anyone else get hurt,” The boy-thing tried to explain.

  “What is this thing that you’re talking about?” Alexandra asked. The boy thing frowned and looked Alexandra dead in the eyes. He looked as though he hated himself for what he was about to say.

  “A sword.”