Fluxy had been teaching herself to read for some time, it hadn’t really been anything more than a time sink. She was board most of the time in the dungeon by herself. So, when she learned the wizard was only in the dungeon at certain times, she jumped at the opportunity to sneak into his lab. And he had books, lots and lots of books. The issue for her at first was that she couldn’t read. And of course, while she had a type of sight, she couldn’t truly see the way humans can. But as she focused more on the ridged physicality of the world around her, she slowly developed sight. She even grew eyes somehow, or something like eyes anyways.
And even after all that it still took her sometime to figure out how to turn the lines, dots, and squiggles into sounds and meanings. She never figured out to make the sounds out load. But as she listened to the casual conversation of some of the adventures, she encountered she learned how the sounds connected to the symbols on the page. Letters connected to make phrases, and phrases made sounds, which could then be put together to make words. Sounds that didn’t have any meaning, given meaning by the person listening.
The wizard had books in many different languages, and while she struggled with a lot of them she did manage to learn two of them well enough to read. The first language she learned was the one that seemed to be the most common, the second was a much stranger language. Unlike the common language she learned, the symbols were the phrase and those phrases were put together into much shorter words.
But
on the day the wizard caught her in his library, she had a specific purpose,
she had seen the man in the suite the day before. And something lit inside of
her, she wanted to know about the world beyond the walls of the dungeon. She
had pored over all the books that she thought might have a reference to the
outside world. But there was an issue, the wizard had a lot of fiction mixed in
with technical books. She had a hard time figuring out what the outside world
was. The outside world was either a horrifying post-apocalyptic hell-scape, an
idealistic world of love and peace, or anywhere in-between.
She
was so absorbed in her reading that she didn’t notice the time passing. The
wizard kept a clock in his library, so she always knew when to head back to her
room so the wizard didn’t see her. The wizard didn’t know she was more than
just a normal slime. Considering the way most humans reacted to her, she didn’t
think the wizard would be any more understanding. And she knew that he was not
a kind man, she had seen him kill adventures that she had only knocked out with
not even the slightest hint of hesitation. But she messed up, she lost track of
time. And then the wizard walked in at some point in the morning.
She
noticed him right away, there was a tension that the wizard carried with him
wherever he went. And so, the moment she felt her slimy body stiffen, she knew
something was wrong. Then she noticed him with her heat sense next, his body
was much warmer then the cold damp dungeon, and then finally her physical
sight, he still hadn’t put on his beard and hair that he only wore when he was
there for reasons that Fluxy could never figure out. He stopped and stared at her
for a moment, she was used to that. Apparently, she was so strange that human
brains took a moment to prosses what they were seeing. She should have used the
time to run, instead she stared back.
“What
the hell are you,” the wizard shouted as he raised his hands palms out towards
her.
She
didn’t know what he was doing at first, but that was understandable because to
her “wizard” was just his name. She knew what magic was, in theory, she had
read all about it in the books in the man’s library that she had so often snuck
into. But she had never seen it done before. Never knew what it was like to see
a man perform an impossible miracle with the casualness of walking or chewing
gum. When lightning shot out of the man’s outstretched hands she didn’t have
time to react. It struck her, and tore through her body. One of the advantages
of being made from slime is that she had never really felt pain before.
Everything ranged from dull discomfort to a tickling sensation most of the
time. But when the lightning hit her she knew what pain felt like. Like her
body was being forced apart, and then it was. She exploded into a spray of
green goo that rained all over the wizard’s books.
Her
self-awareness faded, there was still some things she could feel, light, heat,
movement. But she couldn’t draw her attention towards anything, and she
couldn’t think about anything. She couldn’t tell if time was passing at all or
if she was just trapped in one single never-ending moment. There was a noise,
but it sounded like static, like the low murmur of people talking in the
distance.
Then
the single moment ended and time started to move again. The static slowly
morphed into the ambient sound of moving air and water, like a human slowly
unplugging their ears and finally hearing what was around them. Her thoughts
cleared and her senses started to work again. She blinked and looked around at
her surroundings.
She
was still underground, but the warm, weathered bricks that made up the dungeon
were gone. And instead the floor was made of gray, unfeeling, concrete. She
tried to move, but her body wasn’t cooperating. She looked down to see why, and
was shocked to see she didn’t have any arms or legs. Looking around in a panic
she saw that small blobs of green slime, were crawling towards her, rejoining
with her and slowly rebuilding her body bit by bit. She just had to be a little
patient and she would be back on her feet in no time.
She
decided to spend the time trying to figure out where she was. It was defiantly
some sort of underground tunnel. There was a wide ditch in the ground near
where she was, and brown water flowed in it like a raging river. She couldn’t
smell, and that was probably a good thing, because she guessed that the smell
would be awful. Condensation dripped from crakes that had formed in the
concrete celling, a mark of the wear of time.
She
was almost certain she was in a sewer of some kind. She knew what sewers were,
she had read all about them in one of the wizard’s books. There were lots of
sewers all over the world, many were older then then the cities above the
ground where the humans lived. She didn’t know how that was possible and the
books never explained that part, the authors that did address the issue didn’t
seem to understand why either.
There
was a dumpster nearby, and a trash bag that someone had tried to get into the
dumpster, but they must have thrown it and it must have fallen short. Why they
didn’t just pick up the bag and try again she didn’t know. But then she took a
closer look at the black garbage bag. It had broken open, and a large amount of
the moving slime bits were emerging from the garbage bag.
It
made senses, she was the garbage the wizard had tried to throw out. She was the
garbage that wasn’t worth walking up to the bag when he missed the first time.
That made sense to her. She decided not to think about it anymore then she
already had, instead she focused moving her legs which had just reformed as she
had been thinking. She tried to use her legs to push herself to her feet, but
it was hard to get up with no arms, she couldn’t keep her balance and ended up
falling down every time she tried.
Eventually
though enough of her body had returned to her where her arms and hands
reformed. She had never really been able to from completely humanoid hands,
instead her hand was shaped oddly, she had two long finger and a thumb, the
thumb was backwards on her hand facing up towards her fingers. She had tried to
form more human hands once but they had just fallen apart. Her arms and her
hands were good enough to grab things, and more importantly, to help her keep
her balance. She stood up at long last.
She
regarded her surroundings one last time before deciding what to do. She had no
idea how to get back to the dungeon, and she had been thinking about leaving to
explore the world anyways, so her unplanned departure had really been for the
best. The only difference was she would have to find a different place to live
once she had finished exploring the world. She had always planned on going back
to the dungeon once her travels were done. It was still home to her despite
everything, if it hadn’t been, she wouldn’t have bothered defending it from all
those adventures.
She
shifted her mind to get her body to spit up one of the metal tubs she kept in
herself as storage, there was a map in the one she wanted that might help her.
But she panicked for a moment when nothing came out. But how could it, she had
exploded recently and everything that she had been holding inside of her had
probably dropped on the floor of the wizard’s library. That meant that she had
just lost everything she owned, as meager as that might have been. That meant
her sword was gone as well. That sword had gotten her through a lot down in the
dungeon. She would also miss her shiny coins and rocks that she had worked so
hard to collect, those things wouldn’t mean anything to anyone else. But to her
they represented a lifetime of work and collecting.
There
wasn’t anything she could do about it though, and even if she knew where to go
to get back to the dungeon. And even if she did she wondered if she would have
the courage to go back. If the wizard could take her out with a wave of his
hands—was there even any point? Not that she could see. As things stood she had
nowhere to be and nowhere to go. But nowhere somehow seemed preferable to going
back. Besides she was thinking of seeing the world anyways. It might not have
been on her own terms, but she could finally what the outside world was like.
Though if this is
what the outside world looks like I’m not really impressed, she thought as she
looked around at the flowing brown water and discarded garbage scattered around
her. Well I know I’m in a sewer
underground somewhere, maybe things will look better once I get above ground.
With
that thought in her head she decided to look around for a place where she could
go up, up to the surface. Presuming such a place existed. All the books she
read said it did but being able to write something down in a book, didn’t mean
that it existed. That’s what fiction meant, she had learned that early on.
She
figured she should follow the water, but the question was, should she follow
the water in the direction it was flowing. Or follow it back to its source. She
thought about it for a moment, the water probably flowed down from the surface,
she didn’t really want to see where the disgusting water ended up. So, she
started making her way upstream.
When
she first started making her way up there were no humans around even though the
evidence of them was everywhere. She came across more dumpsters, she had no
idea why there were dumpsters down in the sewers if there were no people to use
them. She didn’t have to wonder for long. She started seeing humans, many of
them dressed in clothing that looked old and ragged. Many of them were sleeping
against some of the dumpsters, she also started to notice that some of them
were sleeping in the dumpster, she even saw one human sleeping in the brown
river. She started to think that they had been there when she first woke up,
but they just camouflaged into their surroundings so well she couldn’t tell
that they were there.
She
decided to switch to her heat vision so no humans could sneak up on her and try
to hurt her like they did in the dungeon. But she didn’t have to worry, even
the humans that were awake didn’t even look twice at her. She switched off her
heat vision and as she walked by a group of humans huddled around a fire, she
waved at them. One of them did a double take but then they just shrugged as she
walked by them.
So far
everything’s going well, no one’s attacked me yet, she thought. I don’t understand why the humans that came into
the dungeon were so determined to attack me when the humans here don’t seem to
care at all?
There
was definitely something wrong with the humans she saw there. They didn’t
look—healthy—yes that was a good way to describe what she saw. They didn’t look
sick, or at least not all of them did.
As
she walked the river she followed seemed to grow deeper and it flowed faster
than it had further down. She couldn’t believe that something like that could
have been man made, but there was no way the underground sewers were natural.
It was rather grand in its own way. She even walked up several stories of
stairs as she followed the brown river back to its source. She couldn’t believe
how deep the underground was. And she didn’t know for sure but she was starting
to suspect that the dungeon where she had lived was somehow connected to that
deep sewer. She even started to wonder if the surface was a myth just like she
feared. Maybe the whole world was just a bunch of never-ending tunnels that
sprawled out in different directions.
Before
she had time to despair in that thought she noticed a hand reaching out of the
river in panic. She didn’t even think about what she was doing, she stretched
out her right arm and grabbed hold of the panicking arm. The person struggling
just below the surface of the river couldn’t see the monsters shape of the hand
that had reached out to help. So, the person grabbed on to the hand for dear
life. Fluxy then drew her arm back to her like a fisherman drawing in their
line.
The
person that she pulled to safety was a worn looking man with pale skin and dark
eyes. There wasn’t much light left in those eyes. But he still seemed to have a
will to live because he coughed up the brown water he had inhaled.
“Are
you okay?” The voice that had spoken was unlike any voice she had ever heard
before. It was loud and high pitched, it was feminine and somewhat childish. It
was her voice, she realized, she had talked, something that should have been
impossible. She felt around her face for a mouth that may have suddenly formed.
But her face remained mouthless.
“Ahhhh–uhhhhhh—uhmmmmm,”
she said testing her new voice, making sure that it truly was her voice before
trying to say anything. She pushed back the logical part of her that said that
it made no sense that she suddenly had gained the ability to talk. After all
there were a lot of things about her that didn’t make any sense.
“I’m—fine,”
the man said between coughs. “Feeling a little stupid, but I’ll live through
that.”
“Ordell!”
Fluxy looked up to see a short bespectacled man running towards them from
further up the river. He had a long white coat on that shinned with a witness
that seemed to repel the grim and the muck of his surroundings. His glasses
were unnaturally clean, and he wore a belt with many different pouches
attached.
“Hay
Doctor Cynical, I’m fine, this nice monster saved me,” there was something
about the way he said that, an odd bending of his tone that made him sound
insincere or even sarcastic. But Fluxy only heard his words.
“Monster!”
Fluxy shouted angrily without thinking, her new voice cracked a bit under the
strain. “I’m Fluxy.”
Both
the man named Ordell and the one named Cynical blinked at her in combined surprise.
Ordell’s surprise was quickly scattered by his next round of coughs, however.
Cynical glanced down and his friend with concern on his face and moved to help
the man. But he’s pushed away for his effort.
“It
will be easier if you breath slowly though your noise. You have to remember to
breath or it’s just going to get worse.” Ordell glared at the doctor but he
took the advice anyways and the coughing slowed, and after some time subsided.
Ordell
didn’t seem like he belonged in the sewer, his clothes were a little worn but
nowhere near as worn as those of some of the other humans she had encountered.
His hair was nicely combed even covered in disgusting sewer water it retained
the shape of a business casual haircut. Which of course Fluxy didn’t know much
about at the time. But it didn’t matter she could still tell he was different.
“Ordell
let’s get you out of here this isn’t doing you any good,” Cynical pleaded.
“No,
I’m not leaving not until I find…” he trailed off and his face tightened with
pain.
Cynical
looked at the man with a strange expression Fluxy didn’t understand. But that
wasn’t very surprising since she didn’t understand most facial expressions. To
her all faces were like masks, strange and unintelligible. The look must have
meant something though because Ordell looked away from the Doctor in response.
“She’s
not down here Ordell,” Cynical seemed to do everything he could to soften the
blow, but it didn’t matter.
“I’m
so sick of being told crap like that,” Ordell yelled. “If you’re not going to
help me then get out of my way.” And with that the man that Fluxy had just
saved ran off into the depths of the sewers where she had just come from.
Fluxy
was confused, she had no idea what she had just witnessed. But it didn’t really
bother her too much. The fact that Ordell had called her a monster was still
annoying but he was clearly not feeling very good about something at that point
to she figured she would let it go. Cynical on the other had was exasperated, he
looked like he wanted to run after his friend for a moment. But then he sighed
and let his muscles relax as he seemed to change his mind.
“Sorry
about that,” Cynical said looking at Fluxy with one of those strange human
expressions that humans have. It didn’t mean anything to her, but it was an
expression no one had directed at her before, so she figured that was at least
a good sign.
“Uhh
that’s OK,” she said not sure how to best to talk to someone—at all. She
figured she should start by thinking about the dialog in some of the books she
had read down in the wizard’s library. Still books were always the same no
matter how many times you read them. And people were not nearly as predicable.
“So,
you said your name was Fluxy—or are you a Fluxy.”
“Yes,”
Fluxy said as both were true to some extent.
“That’s
not helpful—but nothing about this day has been particularly helpful so par for
the course I guess.” The man sighed and extended his hand to her. “I’m Manic
Cynical, thank you for saving my stubborn friend.”
Fluxy
didn’t hesitate, no one had ever offered her the kind of kind civility that
Cynical was offering her before. And that meant the world to her, at that point
Fluxy latched onto Cynical in her mind, a strange sort of connection that would
never really go away.