by Stone Deal

Nobody escapes the dungeon.

I don’t know how I got here. I found myself here. I can recall my life from before, but the transition is absent from my memory. Did I forget, or was my descent imperceivable?

The dungeon is dark. There is no light, no windows. It was impossible to see anything when I first got down here, until my eyes adjusted, then I could see the glow. Humans have a glow: a faint, pale-blue aura. I bet you didn’t know that humans have a glow. You don’t get to see it until you come to the dungeon. It’s drowned out by all the light above.

Down here we use the glow to find each other in the dark. We don’t use our voices because there are creatures in the dungeon that can hear our voices. Luckily, they can’t see our glow.

But not everybody has a glow. Some of us have lost it. The ones who have been in the dungeon too long lose it. In my head I have named them the lost ones,because I can’t find them.

Many people are in the dungeon, but three of them are my friends. I don’t know their names because they can’t tell me. I know they want to escape with me, and I believe we will. We sit near each other on the large cobblestones and we think about how we will escape, and I know that if one of them has a good idea they will lead us.

I have spent a long time mapping the dungeon with my friends. We walk slowly and carefully and we feel around as we go. I know that the dungeon is roughly 200 ft by 100 ft because I have counted my paces. The border is closed by cobblestone walls. I don’t know how tall, but they are taller than my second tallest friend on my tallest friend’s shoulders. Along the border is a ten-pace wide walkway made also of cobblestone. This is where we stay.

At the center is a pit. Many have fallen into the pit. We don’t hear them hit the bottom. But things come out of the pit, too. The creatures that hear us come from the pit. I had a fourth friend in the dungeon before the creatures took him. He was talking in his sleep. He kept saying nobody escapes the dungeon.

Stone Deal is an American writer and musician. He was born in Dallas, Texas, in 1999.