You’re confused, I know you are, guy. I run. But that’s okay. That’s okay! We all get a little mixed up sometimes, we get a little itchy in the brain sometimes, haha! Why am I here? I run through the darkness. Why am I here in this body, as this human, as this… person? Why did I bypass the hydra floor? How did I go up the real stairs? Why did I retain an object from my last life? The dungeon shakes. The dungeon-master is yelling, probably slamming their fists down onto the table in rage as we speak. They should be here any second now…

  I’m in this body because there were others who came down into the dungeon with the hero-party. But they were taken. Processed. They became a part of the dungeon, they became my brothers! Hallow! I run. I can go up the real stairs because I'm a human, something that was never meant to be. Something is frazzled somewhere in the depths, something that isn't me! Metal clicks can be heard from ahead of me as I press forward. It’s starting.

  My boot thuds against the next step, something clicks beneath my boot and I leap, the edge of the blade, swinging outright to cut me in half, just barely missing the soles of my boots as I land and keep running. “Don’t you get it?!” I yell to the dungeon-master who I know is watching me. They don’t get it either. I’m the only one who does. I’m the only one who sees! I'm the only one who has eyes! I run, I climb, metal clicks beneath my boot and I duck just in time as the blade launches over my head, taking off a piece of the fabric of my hood. It clicks again and I leap, barreling up the stairs as I continue further, as I continue higher.

  Items that belong to the respawners stay present. I don’t mean like gold-coins or some stuff like that. I mean things that we originally had when the reshuffle happened. That’s why the thief’s ring is gone, she still has it. That’s why I still had the underwear. Are you running, rat-hero? Are you running too? We both have a destiny to achieve. We both scamper-scamper!

  We were all so lost in playing the game that we didn’t notice the second most important thing. The second most important part of the game that we were playing. There’s no audience. There’s nothing. There’s nobody. Nobody is watching us play anymore! They’re all watching something else, something else… Something else… it’s in the water!

  I land again from my next leap. Another blade slides past me as the dungeon-master expends their entire contingent of dungeon traps to stop me from climbing higher, to stop me from breaking the rules a second time. To keep the game running. But I don’t care. I don’t care anymore! My boot steps down and my eyes catch a glimmer shine down from ahead of me and I duck, reaching up to grab the spear hurtling my way, launched from a trap higher up above. My fingers wrap around the base of the shaft, as my arm wrenches back from the force of the projectile. The apex of the world, from up so high. That’s where it all is, that’s how I know from even down here. That’s how I know- haha!

I land, my new spear in hand as I run up the stairs. Another blade trap slices out from the left and I block it with the new weapon.

  I continue running up the staircase that winds on for ages, these human legs are feeble and slow. But I can work with them. I can climb with them. I swing the spear that feels all too right in my hand, as I block a volley of arrows set loose by another trap. One flies through the side of my hood, cutting my ear and ripping the fabric out on the other side. I clench my teeth and keep going. I see the breach up ahead, I see the next floor. Floor eighty.

“You can’t do this,” says a dreamy voice from the side as I breach the precipice. It’s one that I expected to hear. I’m glad they sent her and not like… James or somebody. Ugh.

“Hello Madison!” I tell her, catching my breath, a feverish excitement in my eyes. “Are you going to see the miller too?! What a coincidence!” I laugh, looking at the magical tome who was sent to intercept me.

“You need to stop! You can’t do this agai-!”

I drop the spear and grab her with both hands, pulling her to my face, she makes a weird squeaking sound. “DON’T YOU GET IT?! Use your eyes! USE YOUR EYES!” I press my face against her cover, so that I can see her eyes better. She doesn’t have any, but they shake nonetheless. She’s afraid. She’s afraid.

“If you try to cheat the system again, we’re all going to be punished a second time! You can’t do it again!” she yells at me in a, for her, unusually sharp tone. “You can’t be so selfish!”

  I push her back, letting her float free as I look at the place I have arrived at. Floor eighty. Selfish? She doesn't get it. She doesn’t know that I’m doing this for her. Picking up my spear, I start walking through the remnants of what I see. Of what I see. I see. I see. Piotr, are you there? Are you listening? Do you see it too? What about you, guy? Are you starting to see? Finally? Dilapidated ruins surround me. Burnt buildings. Fresh corpses. Freshly scorched bodies and screaming skulls all litter the ruined streets of the place that fills this entire floor of the dungeon. Of the place where once so many used to live, hidden, secluded, safe. Everything is quiet, apart from that sound. The thumping noise. That sick, ancient pulsation. Can you hear it? That beating of a metal heart somewhere off in the distance? The sound that runs through the Hidden-Village?

I place my ear against a pipe that runs past a house’s exterior wall before digging down into the dirt. The sound of rushing water can be heard from inside of it, together with the same heavy heartbeat that I heard down in the foundry when I was an ooze. When I was a part of the black-water before.

“Please! You need to go back down and do this the right wa-“

  I place a finger on what amounts to Madison’s lip’s. “Ssssssshhhh.” I press my ear closer to the pipe and listen, as I now clearly hear the heartbeat of the thing. Of the thing. Of the thing that’s in the water. Somewhere, somewhere so deep down below, hidden in the darkness. Hidden in the deep reaches of the world, sheltered from all light and from all of the eyes in it. Hidden from all of the eyes that see and search for it. Hidden from all the eyes that want to know our secrets.

I won’t let them see it, I won’t let them see it. It’s what this is all about. It’s what this has all been for. After all, that’s what a hero would do.

Madison squeals as I grab hold of her and take her with me as we enter the Hidden-Village. There is work to do, so much hallow work! Hallow! Hallow! What a blessed body. Human yet trash-mob. Free of any ties that bind. Haha, hahahaha!

Razmatazz

*~+---SPECIAL THANKS---+~*

Henry Morgan,  Shadowsmage, The Grey Mage, Spencer Seidel, Slime girl chapters 4 lyfes, chp2001, Shaoraka, James_is_Playing, Collin Love, Sage, Solarlancer, ab, Diu Lei Lo Mo