Ember stood there, frozen, as the two monsters stepped forward. Their armor clattered and clanked, their movements stiff and a little slow. They didn’t have face plates. The black armor shone very little in the candlelight, and nothing but skeletal faces and two pinprick-red lights settled in their eye sockets as they stared at him.

  I have to be dreaming. This can’t be real. It can’t.

  But he already knew it was. He could feel the coldness where his piss had frozen on his leg and the trembling of his hands. Undoubtedly, this was reality.

  He took a step back. The skeletons continued their march forward until they were about ten feet away from him, and then they paused. The one on the right stepped forward, its dark armor seeming to almost suck in the blue candlelight. It didn’t speak. It just drew its sword and pointed it at Ember.

  By this point, Ember was in a full-blown panic attack. He had never fought in his life. He didn’t even know what was going on. How was it possible for skeletons and armor to exist? Those kinds of things only existed in manga and video games.

  His legs trembled, but he knew that if he wanted to survive, he was going to have to fight. So, he put the sword in front of him, the dark blade gleaming. His heart pounded so hard it hurt, and the blood in his ears muffled everything.

  The skeleton charged. It was slow. Slow enough for him to dodge its attacks. It slashed and stabbed, but the movements were sluggish. Most aimed for his head or arms. He could hear the whistling of the blade as he barely dodged, his reaction time honed to a fine edge by the thousands of hours he spent dodging rocks and branches. But the attacks didn’t stop. Even if the movements were slow, they were relentless.

  The skeleton swung horizontally at his neck. Ember jerked back, stumbling over his own feet. They’re slow. I’ve seen faster movements from tree branches in my way. Before he recovered, another strike came, a downward chop aimed at his shoulder. He threw his sword up instinctively. The impact jarred his arms, nearly knocking the weapon from his numb fingers.

  Move. Keep moving. They’re slow enough for me to react. This is nothing compared to biking at full speed.

  A thrust came at his chest. He twisted sideways, heard the blade whistle past his ribs. Too close. His feet slipped on the icy marble as he backpedaled, arms windmilling for balance.

  Ember deflected a few more attacks, but he had no technique, no training. All he could do was shove the sword away and stumble backward, each deflection stinging his cold hands and sending reverberations through his arms. Every strike made his breath shallower. Before he knew it, his back was almost touching the strange shell statue. His breath came in gasps, and his eyes watered in fear. He wanted to scream. To cry, but his voice wasn’t working. It’s so slow, but it won’t stop.

  The creature stabbed. Ember dodged to his right, and as he moved around the monster, his eyes caught the open door. Though faint, he could see a small incline. A path out. He knew he had no other choice.

  With desperate energy, he dodged the next blow and ran. He wasn’t fast enough and felt the blade scrape his shoulder, but the cold had numbed his body completely by this point.

  The armored skeleton brought its left arm out, no doubt meaning to clothesline him, but Ember ducked underneath. The other skeleton was already on top of him. It came down with a vertical slash, the blade aimed for the crown of his head. Ember jumped away, feeling the sword scrape against his ankle. It was hard enough for pain to prick his body, but the cold numbed it. He hit the cold ground hard, sliding several feet across the polished marble and into a pile of the frozen corpses. He screamed and scrambled out of the pile.

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  When he looked up, the two skeletons were behind him. The doors were open. He didn’t think, he just ran.

  He could hear the sound of the skeletons, the thump of their metallic boots, as he ran up the incline. More ghostly blue candles lit the corridor. It was maybe a twenty-degree incline, a slow, curving rise.

  Eventually, the sound of the skeletons faded, but the hallway showed no signs of stopping. It was a constant, leftward spiral upward. After a few minutes, his lungs were burning, whether from fear, shock, or cold, he didn’t know; his mind was blank.

  Thankfully, the higher he went, the warmer it got, though not by much. The corridor itself was unimpressive, similar to the chamber where he had drawn the sword. But here, the walls weren’t made of that strange glassy marble, they were actual rock.

  Unfortunately for him, he could now feel the cut on his shoulder. It was less of a slice and more of a bruised abrasion, like being hit with a bat. The sword must have been dull. His ankle was swollen. Not broken, but he wouldn’t be running anymore. His walk turned into a limp as he used the wall for support.

  Every now and then, he came across a skeleton. They didn’t look human. Elongated skulls, weirdly proportioned arms and legs. He stopped to examine one, crouching beside it. Whatever it was, it definitely wasn’t human. It was small—three, maybe four feet tall—but its arms were long and its legs oddly short.

  Hopefully, whatever these were, he wouldn’t meet any living ones. I can’t be on Earth anymore. It’s not possible. I was in biology for God's sake. Nothing like this existed on earth.

  Reluctantly, he continued his climb. There was no other choice, either he kept going, or he went back down to the skeletons and the creepy shell. He didn’t like that option.

  A few minutes later, the lighting changed. The candles shifted from ghostly blue to orange, a warm glow filling the hall. Ember wasn’t sure why, but he didn’t question it. The air was now in the mid-forties. At least he wasn’t shivering, though the melted pee and its smell were extremely uncomfortable.

  Not thirty feet farther up the spiral, a sound stopped him. Coughing. Human coughing.

  Hope bloomed in him before he could stop it. Another human. Maybe they can tell me what is going on.

  He rounded the curve, and found Michael Chen against the wall, naked. A giant hole gaped in his chest, like something had torn through it. Or stabbed it. Blood pooled around him and dripped down the slope. Ember swallowed hard. He had never seen someone die before. It was haunting.

  Why is he naked? Then he remembered Chen’s clothes left behind in the cathedral. Oh.

  Chen breathed in and out, a rasping death rattle. Ember slowly approached, avoiding the spreading blood, and crouched.

  “Michael Chen?” he asked.

  The young man looked up. “Help,” he gurgled. “Monsters.”

  Ember looked down at his chest, blood still pumping down his chest. His fingers and toes were completely frostbitten. “I don’t think I can do anything,” Ember heard himself say. The words sounded distant, like someone else was speaking. He should feel something. Horror, pity, anything. But there was only a strange emptiness, as if his body had run out of emotions.

  Chen gurgled again, then whispered, “I want to go home. I never should have tried to pull the sword.” The man's eyes traveled to Ember’s sword, “I was trapped in that room for hours. The door suddenly opened, and I ran-.” He coughed and hacked. Blood pooled out of his mouth.

  The light faded from his eyes, and he slumped over with a wet squelch.

  Ember turned and leaned against the wall as he puked his guts out. The smell of blood and feces filled the hallway. When the sting faded from his mouth, though the taste remained, he looked back at the dead man.

  That could be me, he thought. Am I going to die here like that? Wishing to go home?

  Where am I? What is this place? Why are we here?

  His eyes fell to the sword still gripped in his hands. He didn’t know why he was holding it—only that he shouldn’t let go. He felt drawn to it. He knew he should drop it, but it was all he had to defend himself. And seeing the hole in Chen’s chest… he was going to need it.

  With a hard swallow, the taste of bile and acid still in his mouth, he backed away from the body and began his climb again, this time cautiously. He strained to hear even the faintest sound as he slowly ascended the slope.

  One thing was clear to him. Those people in the sword room weren’t killed by outside forces. They either starved to death or froze to death. All because this sword wasn’t claimed. But what now? He looked back at Chen and the terrifying downward curve. Fear struck through him at the thought of returning to the corpse-ridden hall. Shoving Chen out of his mind, he climbed up.