{Night 15: Twelve Years Later}

I could still remember my mom's face when we came back out of the dungeon a week later.

Rather, I remember how my face stung from being slapped for going in without any warning whatsoever.

I'd wound up socking Yunan and telling him not to just go making dungeons without warning people and running in. Zaria had followed directly after me, and about an hour into the dungeon we found Kahil leading the others to us.

It'd been a maze of monsters and riddles, only half of which we could actually read. The rest was in some sort of weird code made up of dots and triangles. We were lucky Zaria was so good with healing spells, considering the fact that I had bones sticking out of my skin at one point, and we had to pull spears out of Hassan and Uriel after Chaya accidentally set one booby-trap off. Kahil twisted his ankle pretty bad and Zaria got burnt. We all wound up exhausted, trekking through the dungeon for what felt like weeks, months, even. I found myself giving Kahil the knife I'd dragged out of the sea before finding Uriel and using a sharp rock for myself.

There had been a time when we'd all gotten sick from experimentally eating one of the monsters we'd killed. The problem with rushing in was that we had no food or supplies, and with the time we were in there... We got pretty adventurous with our eating-options. Chowing down on a creature made of gelatin and white fuzz probably wasn't the smartest idea.

But eventually, we finally made it to a room with a jug on a pedestal in the middle. Touching the jug sent a shockwave through the room, filling it with all sorts of treasures. From the silver jug had burst a huge blue leopard-thing that introduced himself as Flauros, the djinn of martyrs and persistence. He'd been highly amused with us, and applauded a bunch of kids making it through his dungeon, ragged as we'd become.

He lived in my dad's ring now, a little eight-pointed star emblazoned on my knuckle.

We'd all grown up since then, and our turf changed drastically with the help of the magic and the gold from the dungeon. In twelve years, we'd gone from a desert trash-heap to a jungle. Animals and birds had come back to our peninsula. We'd rebuilt everything— All the Rotters now lived in a rather nicely-sized little city near one of our shores, with a smaller, plainer recreation of the dungeon as the crown jewel. Our first tree towered above all others in the center of the forest, and the well still exists between it's roots. The ocean's been cleaned up, and everything looks nice. Some other countries are even starting to trade with us for our fruits and handmade curios.

I'm twenty-eight now. I still only wear my black pants. They actually fit now, though I still have the rope belt, and there are huge holes in the knees. My ears still have the silver gauges, and there are two little hoops on my eyebrow. There's a large, swirling black tattoo on my left shoulder of the sun. My hair falls slightly past my shoulders. I'm of average height and build, but I have a decent muscle-tone on me. I never take Flauros off. I'm called the Rotters' king— Though it's really nothing official.

Uriel is huge. He's a foot taller than me at shoulder-height. His claws are so long the tips stick out past his toes now, and his huge fangs grew in impressively. He still wears the black ribbon with the dented copper bell. And he's as smart as ever.

Kahil is the same height as me, still pale and thin at twenty-six. His black-and-white hair falls about a third of the way down his back. He still wears too-big black clothes that're practically rags and that old collar with a length of chain. The sandals I gave him were outgrown a while back, but he seems to have liked the style of wood and rope, because he got new ones just like them. Around his waist he now keeps a red leather belt, into which he tucks the knife I gave him. If I'm the king, I suppose he's the king consort? Kinda? We fuck fairly often, and he always gets very pouty when I sleep with someone else.

Zaria is twenty-eight as well. She became much more feminine-looking over the years. Not as busty as Chaya or my mom, but even if she was, she still binds herself with white bandages, and wears her glass-bead curtain-skirt. Like my original intention, it parts attractively along the side when she walks. She wears a mess of silver bangles on her wrists, and still has that old leafy stick for her wand. Her hair falls to her waist, and she keeps some of it up in a side-pony using a black ribbon. I swear, she rarely walks anywhere any more now that her magic has gotten stronger, instead choosing to float.

Chaya and Hassan, thirty, have gotten married. Chaya now looks a lot like my mom. Her hair is usually braided and in that high, tight pony at the same time. She became really busty and beautiful, and still wears that brass collar and those blue slippers with that green scarf around her waist, though the tube-top was replaced with a halter-top of light blue, and the harem-pants replaced with a pair more her size, low-riding and cream-yellow with light blue stitching on the seams. Hassan is the tallest of us, with a lithe figure. He still wears clothes of the same style as when we were kids. His cheekbones are more pronounced, his eyes more almond-shaped behind his glasses, giving him a very intelligent look, I think. His sleek bob has changed into a spiky bed head, and he has small gold hoops in his ears now. We replaced the metal rod of his with a staff from the dungeon, a tall bronze staff with an ornate sun at the top, with jingly little beads and glittering engravings in the darker metal circle surrounding the golden sun.

Uriel, Kahil, my mom and I lived in a house just outside the huge ziggurat-thing that Not-Rots called our palace. I suppose it kinda was, but it was really just a homage to the dungeon that helped us change everything. Anyone was free to live in it, sleep in it, use it as they wanted. We did too, occasionally. The quack was a full-time resident. Hassan and Chaya live closer to the shore, though. They're expecting a baby in seven months. Chaya's tummy is only just barely showing the signs of motherhood at about two months, but it's still exciting. Zaria lives closer to the treeline, and goes into the jungle often. She's become one of our almost-official healers, so when she's not in the trees she's just wandering the streets and making sure injuries are taken care of.

Life's become a lot better for us Rots.

My lungs burning, I shot back up to the surface, bursting through the water.

Gasping, I gulped down air, treading the water.

"You okay?" Kahil called from the shore, looking up from his book. He was lying under Uriel, who was asleep in the sand. Because the cat had gotten so big, he flattened anyone he laid his head on. Unfortunately for us, that was mostly Kahil and I.

"Yup! Good! Just peachy!" I yelled back, flashing him a thumbs-up. Deciding I'd swum enough for the day, I splashed back to the shore and flopped over on the sand. "Book good?"

"Mm-hmm."

I nodded, closing my eyes and basking in the sun.

I think my father would've been proud to see how far we'd come.