The bell rings late. Its sound echoing from the tunnels as I scurry and scurry, knowing very well that my time could end easily. Ding. Dong. Ding. Dong. Ding. Dong. The 22nd hour approaches. The roaches told me that they saw The Goopy One here, and my roaches never lied, but he was nowhere to be found. I looked and looked and looked, but nothing! No clues! No nearby familiar human places! No nothing! I have to get him back, lest I want my subject to be abused and exterminated.
Ding. Dong. The 23rd hour approaches. I stop looking at the accursed location my roaches left me and started looking at the places the Goopy One liked to go to. I can't remember their names, but I remember them being obnoxious. How could one ever find watching humans walking and talking important in any way? They served no purpose against my kingdom nor do they seem to be part of Takeda's secret plans of blowing up the sewers (I KNOW it will happen! I KNOW IT!). I stop at the manhole to one of the locations. I go up the latter, slowly cloaking myself so I won't be seen. When the lid pops out, I see everything dark. Very few lights come out of the glass windows and soot filled the air as everyone burned their furnaces for the winter. I can make out random poro sculptures on buildings and streams of fake green plant life around the lampposts. I see the name of the location: Skylight Commercia.
I reveal myself, feeling comforted by the dense ashy fog and the lack of light. I try to remember the places that The Goopy One liked to go to. It was usually ones with food. He watching people eat and talk about their day. He never stops blabbering about that, but where were these food places? I walk around, trying to find a map. The roads feel cold to my paw and every store I see seemed to have a cage behind their doors. It was so much different than the way The Goopy One described it. He described it as a happy place, one where a person can enjoy all of the great things of the surface dweller city above my kingdom, but it just seems like an empty husk. Then again, I shouldn't be complaining. Less humans to deal with, the better.
Suddenly, the black fog grows darker and darker, to such a point where I couldn't see the buildings anymore. I couldn't see the lamppost or the Snowdown decorations. I could barely see my own hands. As I trudged further for some order, I see a small yellow light in the distance, so awfully bright that I had to squint to make it out. A gentle voice called.
"I see you.." he said. "I see you walking.. Come! Come closer!"
I immediately grab my crossbow and fired at the creature in front of me.
"That's no way to treat an old saint.." he said, disappointed. "You seem lost, little one. Maybe I could help you this Snowdown's Eve. Help you find your way.."
I wanted to leave right then and there. I don't have time to deal with some stu-
I feel something metal grab at my leg. Something cold and forceful. Wanting to drag me down to the sewers. I feel the chains through my fingers as I run through them, and wondered when they would cover me from head to toe. When I walked away, the grip becomes stronger. When I went towards the light, it became looser. I cautiously walk to the old saint, covering its glare with my clawed hand. Eventually I saw a shadow of a floating man with something circular behind his back. I march on, finally seeing the creature for what he is: an old white bearded human in red robes with a colorful clock behind his back. He floats in the air as he grins at the rat.
"Ah... I've always wanted to take a look at you, Plague Rat."
My breathing quickened. "Are... are you judging me..." I squeak. He simply lends a hand in response, keeping his warm, creepy grin.
"Come! Before the hour goes." My hands shake as I lift it up from my body, and held the hand of the sprit. The dark fog whirls around me violently as the clock behind the saint's back begins to spin backwards and backwards and... stop! The clock stops with the hour hand at 11 and the fog begins to dissipates as the light emanating from the clock grows brighter and brighter. I hear the water rushing in the background and the familiar wet and sticky floor. I sniff the sludge in the air. It wasn't just the sewers, it was MY sector.
"Sprit? Why did you bring me he-?"
Suddenly, I'm interrupted by the kids that dare wander into my lair. That dare invade. They laugh as if it was some kind of joke. Usually the Goopy One was there to keep them in check, but he wasn't with me anymore. I raise my crossbow to fire only to see the body go down immediately. I never pulled the trigger, yet I see the arrow in the chest all the same. I hear my mad cackling as I see another plague rat in a green coat running to loot the corpse. Another plague rat? I run up to him, with so many questions, only to completely phase through and fall to the ground. I see his maniacal face. His pinks staring down at the body, and his incessant desire to steal from another. His hands plunges into the clothes and flesh, hungry for something to claim. I jump back in reaction, beginning to realize that this was me.
"Saint! Judger! What am I doing here..? Why am I here!? I have someone to find!" I said, angry at the mockery.
"We're in your past, Plague Rat. Of things that came. What did that poor soul ever deserved?" the old saint said, looking over the body.
"He.. he was invading! I knew it!"
"But did he really?"
"Yes!"
"How could you know?"
"Because he's a human! They always invade.. Always trying to exterminate me!"
Suddenly, my past version runs away, kicking the body into the water before he did so. I watched as it sinks into the bottom, never to be heard nor seen again.
"Plague rat.. I've seen countless sprits. You may have seen only a minority, but I've seen many. All of them are capable of murder and invasion, but not all of them do. Even you are capable."
"What are you saying..?"
"Come let's follow."
I follow the saint quickly, following my past self to the old lair. My old magnificent lair. I remember how the waters flow. How the chambers were gigantic, but as I enter, I see the glass shards and the decayed rat body at my foot.
"This one.." my past self shouts. "This is the ingredient they stole from me! This time I know this will work!" I see my past self cackle. He takes his hand and brings up a rat before the potion. He dips it into the acid. Suddenly, the rat's heinous screech echoed into my ears, never like before. He screamed in the water, never to be heard except me. He squirmed in my grip before laying limp. It wasn't long before this rat joined the rotten brethren at the foot of the door and my past self screaming in anger, pain, sadness, and frustration. I flinch at the my old weeping, knowing very well of how he feels, but I remember feeling the lesser rat's screams. I never heard it.. It has to be the sprit's doing, but it felt so real... So scared.. As if it was my own..
"And you say you're not like them?" he says behind me.
"This.. this is different okay!?" I shout back. "I just wanted a subject.. Someone like me! Subjects are sometimes sacrificed for the sake of MY kingdom. I'm not like them! They.. they want to exterminate me! They wanted to sabotage me!"
"But you kill so many lives.. That was not the only corpse.." he said, pointing to the rat bones of many. As I looked, I hear a faint noise from above. A dripping leak most likely, but that's not what I saw myself do. I saw my wretched face as it begins to twist and turn to something sinister. Something broken. He begins to cackle silently before going invisible, leaving me and the sprit with my victims.
I look back at the decayed corpse as it still twitches. "They were just potential subjects, sprit. Twitch needed someone.." The rat tore his sight away from the dead, imagining the screams once more. Screams that he identified as his own. Screams that he never considered in his grief. "Anyone.."
The saint levitated towards me and showed his hand.
"We're still not done.. You'll be surprised with what we give you.."
I grab the hand of the old saint and we disappeared before the my past self came back with another ingredient in his hand.