Once I left school, it wasn’t too hard to stay out of trouble. Nobody showed much interest in me and I didn’t go out of my way to provoke people. You have to be noticed to be punched.
However, that isn’t necessarily a good thing. Learning how to take a punch is a useful skill, especially in world where everyone’s running around trying to kill everyone else.
The troll who hit me didn’t use his full strength. All he did was tap me on the forehead with his finger. When I came round, I was on the floor with Claire leaning over me.
“Are you okay?” She sounded genuinely concerned for me, which was worrying.
I put a hand to my head, which hurt like a motherfucker. There was a bump the size of a golf ball in the middle of my forehead.
“I managed to stop the bleeding,” said Claire, “but my healing still isn’t that great. I couldn’t do anything about the swelling. Or the bruising. Or that weird jelly stuff.” She pulled a face that suggested what she was looking at wasn’t very pleasant.
I sat up, groaned, placed both hands over my face and healed myself. The pain dissipated and the swelling went down. Hopefully, it also took care of the ‘jelly stuff’, whatever that was.
When I lowered my hands and looked around, I realised we were no longer in the tunnels. We were in a large cave and we weren’t alone. Apart from our group, there were a dozen or so other people.
Maurice knelt down next to Claire. “You alright?”
“Peachy,” I said, still feeling a bit woozy. “What happened?”
“After you got knocked out, they brought us here,” said Maurice. “We thought it best to do what they said. You know, because they’re huge and made of rock.”
“And these other people?”
Maurice looked around, pushed his slipping glasses back up his nose, and leaned closer. “This is some sort of prison,” he said in a lowered voice. “They’re all captives here, like us.”
From what I could tell, there were six men, four women and a couple of others lying down making it harder to identify them. They appeared pretty normal. Their clothes were practically rags and there weren’t any fatties among them—gaunt might be the best way to describe them—but they were all clean and well-groomed, which was kind of odd.
“Okay,” I said, “but why are you whispering?”
“Walls have ears,” he said, “and eyes and hands and feet. Know what I mean?”
I did know what he meant. The trolls who had ambushed us had been indistinguishable from their surroundings. It was quite possible there were trolls in this cavern watching us right now. I glanced around like I’d be able to spot one.
Torches on the walls lit the cave and there was one exit. It was unguarded but no one seemed to be in a rush to use it. Mind you, I didn’t know what was on the other side.
“We have to watch what we say,” said Maurice. “Plans are afoot.” He waggled his eyebrows at me.
Shit. I lose consciousness for a couple of minutes and the inmates immediately take control of the asylum.
Jenny sat down next to Maurice. “Welcome back. Enjoy your nap?”
“Yes, very refreshing.” I felt like I was balancing a sack of potatoes on my head, but at least the searing pain had gone.
She reached out and touched my forehead. “Amazing. Good as new.”
I didn’t say anything. Is it wrong getting pleasure from a girl touching your forehead? Or just sad? She withdrew her hand and I had to grit my teeth to prevent a sigh from escaping.
“Did the trolls say anything about what they were going to do to us?” I asked.
“They didn’t say anything at all,” said Claire. “Just dumped us here, didn’t even take our stuff.” She pointed behind me.
I turned. Dudley was sitting with his back to the wall, eyes closed. Nestled into the crook of his arm was Flossie, quietly singing to him. It sounded like the chipmunk version of ‘Can’t Feel My Face’. Here we were trapped underground, in serious danger of being killed by gigantic rock creatures, and these two were so happy cartoon birds were practically flying around their heads. Sickening.
Next to them was a pile of our bags. I realised I also had all my weapons and equipment on me.
“I guess you don’t have to worry about swords and spears when you’re made out of solid stone,” said Maurice.
That didn’t make much sense. Even if they didn’t feel threatened by us, why take the chance of leaving us with all our gear? And even if we couldn’t hurt them, what about all these other people? We could easily get into a fight with them.
“You know who the trolls remind me of?” said Claire. “The Thing from The Fantastic Four. Only not so orange.” She turned to Maurice, inordinately pleased with herself and in full expectation of a pat on the head for her pop cultural reference. She’d even got the colour right, surely that was worth bonus points.
It’s always endearing when a girl tries to show an interest in her boyfriend’s obsessions. It shows she cares enough to try. But it never turns out well. Never.
“Ugh,” said Maurice. “Honestly, worst superhero team, ever.”
“Oh.” Claire’s wagging tail abruptly stopped wagging. “Really? I thought—”
“Think about it. Invisible Woman, because she turns invisible, fine. Human Torch, obvious, no problem. The Thing, okay. And then Reed Richards. How much of an egomaniac do you have to be to call yourself Mr Fantastic? And what’s that got to do with stretching your arms? Mr Elastic, sure. But Mr Fantastic? If I was in that team, I’d be like, why don’t you Mr Fuck Off?”
Claire frowned. The praise she’d been hoping for had not materialised and her contribution had been unacknowledged, dismissed even. I’m not great at sensing a woman’s moods, but even I could see we were rapidly approaching clobberin’ time. Maurice didn’t notice and was about to launch into his next rant, my guess, probably something to do with how shitty the movies were.
“Perhaps he didn’t name himself,” I said. “Maybe his wife named him. He can stretch any part of his body, after all.”
“Oh,” said Claire, successfully distracted. “That is pretty fantastic.”
“Mm,” agreed Jenny. They both sat there staring into space. I didn’t know what they were thinking about, but I could guess.
“What happened to Mandy?” I had suddenly noticed she wasn’t with us.
“She’s over there,” said Maurice. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder.
Mandy was sitting in a group of men, chatting away. She seemed very much at home.
“Didn’t take her long to jump ship,” I said.
“No, no,” said Maurice. “She’s been great. It was a bit edgy when we first got here, but she made friends with them and smoothed everything over.” He leaned in close again. “May even have found us a way out of here.”
My natural inclination was to have little faith in whatever scheme Mandy had cooked up. But I also have little faith in my own gut instincts, so if Mandy had stumbled onto an escape plan, I wasn’t going to turn my nose up at it.
“See the guy she’s talking to?” Mandy was deep in conversation with the largest of the group she was sitting with. A burly, heavily-bearded man. “He’s their leader. I think he likes her.”
Maurice could well have been right. As Mandy leaned against the man as she spoke, he stared into her face, paying attention to every word. Which was odd, because her breasts were right under his nose. Literally. He was completely ignoring them.
Mandy looked over and caught my eye. She smiled. She’d never smiled at me before. She said something to the man and they both got up and came over. I stood up, as did the others.
“Colin,” said Mandy, “this is Raviva.”
The man, who towered over me, put out his hand. “It’s good to meet you, friend.” His voice was so deep I felt it in my chest. I had to stop myself from wincing as he crushed my hand in his. “You have arrived at fortuitous time.” He lowered his voice to the loudest whisper I’d ever heard. “We are on the verge of escaping this pit of despair.”
Seemed a bit of an exaggeration. “How long have you been here?” I asked.
“Ahhh,” said Raviva. “It’s hard to measure the passage of time in this place. Months? Years? No, not that long. We were travelling to Dargot when a storm drove us to seek shelter in some caves. We didn’t know the danger within.”
“Why?”
“We are merchants who travel from—”
“No,” I said, “I mean why did they capture you and keep you here. What do they want with you?”
Raviva shook his head. “I’m afraid I can’t answer that. They’re not big on explaining themselves. Occasionally, they take one of us away, for what reason I do not know. We used to be twenty-three. Now we are twelve.” His welcoming smile evaporated at the thought of his lost companions.
“And you’ve never tried to escape?”
“There’s never been an opportunity. Until now.” He moved towards me, grabbing me by the shoulders and pulling me in close. “Every day they take us to the washroom so we can perform our ablutions.” He was speaking into my ear in a hushed voice that was loud enough to rattle my skull. “An underground stream runs through a cave and we are allowed to bathe in it. A few days ago, one of our group, a young man called Samara, couldn’t stand it any longer and dived under the water. He swam through the wall and disappeared. We thought he must have lost his mind.”
Raviva pulled back and widened his eyes to express the shock he had felt.
“What could have been waiting for him other than death? But no! He was recaptured and returned a day later, but he had seen where the stream led.” He pulled me in close again. “According to him, he had been flushed out into a large cavern where hundreds of trolls were mining. And there was a large opening that led to the outside world.” Raviva shook me violently. “Freedom, my friend, freedom.”
“And they just returned him?” I asked once the shaking stopped.
“He told them it was an accident. He hadn’t meant to get washed away, and almost died when he fell down the waterfall. They seem content that none of us would intentionally do something so stupid. But that is where they’re wrong! I would rather die in the attempt than stay here any longer. We have discussed it amongst ourselves and agreed to do this. You are welcome to join us.”
“What about the hundreds of trolls on the other side?” I said. “How do you plan to get past them?”
“Samara said they were too busy with their mining operation to notice him. Unfortunately, he was so disorientated by the fall, he ended up walking into their midst. But now that we know what to expect…”
“But do you really think the best way to sneak past a large number of trolls is to take as
Also, this story is now at number 10 in the weekly chart. Thanks to all of you who followed, faved and rated, and also those who voted over at Top Web Fiction (VOTE). The extra exposure really helped. Not sure I can make it past the big boys to Top Five, but still really happy to get so high up the charts. Cheers.