An icy shudder ran down Kael's spine. Barely, reflexively, he dropped his bundle. Before he could even cross his arms to protect himself, the gray blur was on him. Five dark nails whistled from his left, an inch from his ear. They would shred his face.

  No!

  Desperate to live, he wrenched himself to the right.

  The nails dug five lines in his ear, then half his left cheek. He escaped having half his face torn open by crashing against the wall shoulder-first.

  Trembling, he covered the searing wounds. Blood seeped through his fingers, a slow drip against the rapid flutter of the rat-man's ragged clothes. Once again, nails were on him.

  From bottom to top. No time to think or plan.

  Kael slammed both fists on the rat-man's forearms an inch before his nails eviscerated him. The impact made his bones vibrate. For a split second, he held the lock. Then, he felt as if a mine boulder collapsed on his arms. His muscles numbed, and his arms flew over his head.

  He stumbled back, the narrow block helping. Not enough. Five more lines seared his abs to his collarbone. Clenching his jaw to muffle a scream of agony, he turned and scrambled.

  His heart drummed, mirroring his mind's screams of pure terror. This damn creature was way too fast. And strong, too, much stronger than even the most well-fed miner he knew. Endurance couldn't protect him from those nails. He couldn't even fight back at all. He had to flee. To survive.

  The creature's faster than me. Damn it. Damn it! Even if it leaves me be, my rations are in the bundle. Shit! Why are there monsters in the sewers?

  As he scrambled, the rat-man lurched on all four to chase.

  "Tonio, wait." He turned to the man who looked like a half-melted candle. "He'll die from his wounds, but we can question him before. Bring him back alive."

  "Bad dog dead." Tonio squeaked. "Alive. Questions. Giovanni smart."

  The blistered man with pus trailing down his face like sweat sighed. "You were the smartest before... No, forget it. Go, Tonio. Take your time until he's out of strength."

  As if delighted by the compliment, Tonio let out an eager squeak and rushed behind his prey.

  ***

  Kael was back into the sewer passage, the wall he traced his only guide in the consuming darkness. The more he ran, the more his breath came out ragged. Exhaustion? Impossible with his endurance. His wounds prickled a little more with each step, and sweat stuck his dark hair to his forehead. Thoughts slipped away from his grasp. Something was wrong. He knew this sensation; everyone did: illness.

  A tremor rocked his stomach. He lurched over his knees, the disgusting taste of bile forcing its way to his mouth. Tearing, he vomited against the wall, but he didn't taste just acid—the coppery taste of blood joined it. Then, he collapsed on his back, shivering, both cold and burning.

  How? I thought... Cold can't make me sick. Rat, sewers; that thing's nails can make others ill. I refuse to die. I'll heal. He'll catch me...

  Slow footsteps shattered his disoriented thoughts. The next moment, he was heaved on a furred shoulder. His limbs limped down the defined muscles of the rat-man. "Why... why don't you kill me?"

  "Dog no talk. Giovanni questions, then dog dies, understand?"

  "I'm not with the—" A knock on Kael's head forced his mouth closed.

  He didn't know what he thought about on the way back to the torch-lit room, and knew even less about what was happening. He just knew that the rat-man discharged him on a discolored sheet before he sat beside the blistered man at the table with a proud grin.

  While the blistered man scratched Tonio behind his round ears, Giovanni leaned over Kael. His temples sagged over his eyes, and his cheeks looked about to drip like tallow.

  "Tell me, kid, why did the Sump Dogs send you with enough rations to last a week?" He pointed at the five loaves of bread and the canteen on the table.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  "I'm... not with the dogs," Kael whispered the same answer. If only he could convince them, he knew he'd survive.

  "No? Strange. They own the sewer's entrance and most of it. Why would they let you in? And why did you stroll the sewers half-naked instead of bundling your rations in anything but your clothes?"

  "The lamp factory's entrance. Had to escape the Ragged Crown..."

  "Lamp factory?" Giovanni raised a brow, and the blistered man answered.

  "Oh, the factories the bastard began to build twenty years ago. Remember, most of the waste comes from them through holes in the ceiling. The brat might have come from one of them, but how did he survive the fall and a swim in the waste?"

  "Right, the water alone should have killed him with all the metal and illness in it. Yet, he showed symptoms only after Tonio drew blood. Could he be... No way." Giovanni turned towards the tunnel opposite to where Kael had come from.

  A thick silence answered him. He shivered while the blistered man shook his head. "They wouldn't let him go, and it would mean that he's like us."

  "Like us?" Tonio's ears perked up. "Not dog? Friend?"

  "We'll see." Giovanni sat beside Kael, the corner of his lips slightly trembling as he noticed that the wounds had already stopped bleeding. "I believe you. But Tonio's nails are like poison. You're dead already."

  "I won't die. I can't die." Kael let out a feverish mutter.

  Silence thickened in the room, only broken by the crackle of the torch. Then, Giovanni wrapped Kael's fingers around his forearm. "You're too weak to tell us about your story, so let me tell you ours, from the beginning. If you feel enmity toward the people I talk about, squeeze. If you ever felt one of the sensations I describe later, even if it's just once, squeeze again. Riccardo, make him drink from his canteen."

  As Riccardo lifted Kael's chest to make him drink slowly, Giovanni began. "We're orphans who grew up in that whore, Sister Harrow's, shelter."

  Kael squeezed involuntarily.

  "Good. Thirty years ago, she sent us to work for the Broken Chain. Back then, it was the only gang in the slums and tried to improve life for everyone. We were sent into the sewers to reclaim them from rivals. Long story short, we succeeded. Tonio became our leader, and we built an underground community—the haven in the sewers where no one judged another. Life was rough, but we had everything we needed and kept things civil with the Broken Chain. We were one big family."

  His voice cracked. "Things changed twenty years ago. A man, Garrick—"

  Kael squeezed with all the strength he had. His mind even cleared slightly. "I'll kill that bastard."

  Giovanni exchanged a solemn glance with Riccardo.

  Tonio leapt from his seat to Kael. "Friend! Heal, friend! Kill Garrick!"

  "Shit." Giovanni pursed his lips. "If only he had told us he wasn't with the Sump Dogs from the start."

  Kael almost choked on the water. I've been killing myself trying to tell you, but you still attacked, you mad sewer rats!

  "Well, Garrick Vane came out of nowhere. With his two acolytes, Brannick Knuckles Holt and Silma Reed, they convinced the slums to rise against the Broken Chain with promises of purer air and self-sufficient slums. Blood flowed during the revolt. We... chose not to support any side. You know who leads the slums now. Garrick delivered on his promises. He built factories, imported seeds that grew without sunlight, and somehow eased the dust in the air. Veston's enforcers became rarer in the streets. People loved him. Not us. He poisoned the sewers. Our haven withered. We planned to revolt, but he didn't even give us a chance."

  When his voice rumbled with hatred, Kael wondered if he really saw a patch of his skin sag further down or if the fever made him see things.

  Riccardo lifted his palm to stop him. "I'll take it up from here, buddy. You need to calm down, or you won't last."

  Giovanni nodded in begrudging acceptance.

  "So, we planned to revolt, but Garrick was a step ahead. He cleaned up the sewers. Many of us died. He captured more. For years, he experimented on us. I watched friends die. They got the cleanest end. We three survived..."

  He plugged the canteen and placed it beside Kael's head. Then, he lifted his blistered palms.

  "They let us off. Guard this section of the sewers, they said. Not like we could refuse. We felt healthier... at first. The sewers' waste couldn't infect us even if we drank this disgusting water daily. Do you know why?"

  Kael squeezed, his eyes narrowed. They have a truth. Did Garrick's experiment aim to awaken them?

  "You do? Mhh. I survive no matter what. Something awakened in us when we took that vow. Even now, I can feel what binds it within me. It's old, and as cracked as I'm. But to survive, we all lost something."

  A truth like endurance. But... The rat-man... Tonio's strong and fast... Kael squeezed repeatedly, as much to confirm that he knew about truths as to make Riccardo continue.

  "What we know comes from experience, so I'm not too sure about what it is. Anyway, the longer we lived here, the more we changed. Giovanni and I bear the outside symptoms of the illnesses that can't gnaw our insides, while Tonio somehow became a human-rat. He's much stronger than a normal man, I'll give him that, but I wouldn't call it worth it. It was painful, you know? To watch him, who developed the sewer community, our brother since childhood, become dumb. Everything happened there, on the bloody ground of our haven."

  He pointed toward the sewer tunnel that ran under Ashcoil Row's neighborhood. Just looking in that direction made his voice twang. "Did you come from there, too?"

  Kael released his hand to point up. "I'll survive."

  Questions made his fuzzy mind painful. What did they pay to get their truths? Three got one, but many more died. The ratio felt way too low to make him believe there wasn't something else. What did he truly experiment on? If they were guarding this passage from the Sump Dogs, it meant he was still doing it. Why? What did Garrick try to create, why, and where did he come from?

  "I sincerely hope you will since you're like us." Riccardo patted Kael's shoulder. "Rest, lad. We'll watch over you. If you don't make it... The burial pit's at the end of the sewers."

  Darkness encroached on Kael's vision, but a last question tore through his mind. Would he... become like them if his anchor broke?