Gift for Brightpath2. Prompt: Gregor receives a message from the Underland after his family moves. The message leads him to a series of tunnels, and he's faced with a decision of whether to explore, or to turn back.
This was stupid.
Clutching the piece of parchment, with a flashlight duct taped to his arm, he stared down the network of tunnels.
At first, he wasn't sure if it had been reality or another component of his dream.
But this cave was real. The chilly drafts gusting gently around him, the smell of dank earth. The darkness.
He had awoken to a normal-sized rat waiting on his dresser. A normal sized rat with a piece of parchment attached around his neck.
Come now, Gregor, the parchment had read, We need the Warrior.
He didn't recognize the handwriting. It wasn't Luxa's, but it could have been Howard's. Or Vikus'.
He had tried to ignore it. The Warrior was dead, and Meg, who had outgrown the nickname "Boots," barely remembered their foray into the dark underground world.
But the dreams worsened. Since Ares had died, Gregor could no longer sleep in peace. Nightmares plagued him- of falling, of death, of fire and strife.
Since the message, they had only intensified.
Barely twenty four hours had passed before he ended up following the small rat back to the entrance to the Underland. It was just Gregor, the rat, and the dark tunnels, carving their way through miles upon miles of stone-cold rock.
He noticed when the air changed, when no new breezes blew through, when the air began to press in around him.
The rat squeaked. Lifting the flashlight, he saw the grey rat squeeze through a doorway. And It was clearly a doorway- the way the stone was jointed and carved reminded him of Regalia.
A slight smell wafted from the door and memory filled his brain- Luxa, the taste of salt on her lips; and Ares, whose coarse, musky black wings enveloped him like a security blanket.
Other images followed- Ares, bleeding out on the ground. Luxa, her face frozen into a look of betrayal. His mom, covered in the purple knots of the Curse.
Tick. Pandora. Twitchtip. Hamnet. Frill. Thalia. Cartesian. Solovet.
So many people dead. So much of it because of the Warrior. Of Sandwich's prophecies.
What was he doing?
Return to the Underland? Back to the war, strife, the consuming flames and strife? Everywhere he went down there, death followed.
He backed away from the door, his nerve crumbling like tinfoil.
The little rat squeaked and tugged lightly at the leg of his pants.
Was it asking him why he was hesitating? "I- I don't know."
Another gentle nudge.
"What do you expect me to do? This isn't my fight. The warrior is dead. I killed the Warrior."
His mother so desperately wanted them to have a normal life. And Meg was so close to having one. She was trying out for the school soccer team. His Dad had gotten another job teaching science.
But things would never be normal, no matter how they tried.
He still woke up screaming from nightmares. He had never lost control of his rager senses, but there were other senses that kicked in at night. And his scars isolated him. Mental, and physical.
But, Luxa, Howard. Hazard. Could he just… leave them? To deal with… whatever it was… by themselves?
What would Ripred do?
The question didn't help much, because the rat would want to know more about the situation before making a choice.
So… what would Ares do?
It's not about what I would do, it is about what you should do, the bat's voice said in his head. If you step through that door, then you bring not only yourself back to the Underland, but your entire family. Are you willing to make them pay the price for whatever new task the Warrior is 'destined' to run? You have sacrificed enough.
"No," he whispered softly, "I can't put them in danger again."
He turned away from the tunnel. "I'm sorry, but I can't do this," he said softly to the rat.
The rat watched him go, solemnly.
He was nearly a hundred yards away from the door when a voice spoke out of the darkness, "If you had stepped through that door, Warrior, I had orders to kill you."
Gregor turned, shining the flashlight onto a large tan bat. "Kill me? Why?"
She gave him an impassive glare. "You claimed that the Warrior is dead, but you know how the prophecies are. They are open to interpretation, with no certain translation. According to some interpretations of Sandwich's prophecies, there is still work for you to do. And you are much hated throughout the Underland for your war crimes. There are some who think of you fondly, but many remember you only as an agent of destruction."
Gregor bowed his shoulders under the weight of the accusation, but said nothing.
"You do not deny it."
"No. I don't. Even the people I loved got hurt in the Underland. Some things I did were necessary. Others…" and his mind flashes to the cutters, the diggers, Hamnet and Frill- "They were pointless. Nothing I did changed anything for the better. If I return… it will polarize the Underland, won't it?"
"There is peace, of a sort, but it is strained. If you stepped down there, they would all clamor to get you on their side, or eliminate you before you became a threat. Some consider you a threat already, and it is only by the orders of Queen Luxa and King Ripred that you are allowed to live undisturbed."
"Then why the note?" he asked, "Why lure me here?"
"A test. Are you content to stay on the surface? Or do you miss your warrior life? Ripred believes you will return eventually. Luxa does not. So, this test was devised. To see if you were truly going to leave us in peace."
"You said you had orders to kill me."
"I did."
He bit his lip. "Did- Luxa-"
"I am working under the orders of Queen Athena, unbeknownst to either the rats or the humans."
"But- I thought the bats were allies with-"
The bat stretched her wings. Though small, he could sense her displeasure with the confined space. "Indeed. But she has... personal reasons for keeping you out of the Underland- namely, her daughter's safety."
"Nike. Right."
"It was nothing personal."
"No, I understand. Tell Her Majesty that- I understand. And tell the others that- that I think of them."
"Goodbye, Warrior."
"The Warrior is dead. I am Gregor."
A flash of approval. "Fly you high, Gregor."
He followed his guide back out of the tunnels, dazed, aimless, cracked fragments of memory both good and bad running through his head and something wet pouring down his cheeks.
The starlight shone silver when he stepped out of the tunnel. Wiping his eyes free of tears, he took a deep breath and looked up at the stars.
He felt heavier, somehow. More grounded, as if he had finally shaken off the effects of a dream. He was free to move on.
A light clicked on in the farmhouse, the only lamp in miles of countryside. Gregor smiled. Wiping away his tears, he made his way across the field.
Toward home.