Ty stormed off down the narrow corridor, seeing where he was going but not caring particularly much. He only felt like he needed to get away, to be alone for a moment and let the adrenaline subside and the information he’d been bombarded with process so he could figure out just how he felt about it.

He already regretted everything he’d said. He bitterly recalled the empty threat he’d made in parting; he had been trying to hurt her, childishly. He knew all along that he was not going to leave her: Ty imagined finding a mountain of gold and jewels (sapphires, he thought) in some long forgotten ruin, only to discard it because a part of it was tarnished. Just leave it behind for someone with more sense to discover.

This last thought made Ty want to jog his way back to Siona immediately, but he stayed the urge – she had lied to him, and he still needed to brood over that betrayal.

His head down, looking only at the ground in front of him, Ty worked his way down the dark tunnel. He turned a corner arbitrarily and found himself in some kind of engineering bay.

Ancient tools and racks littered the large room, decayed beyond recognition over the millennia. Above him, long chains suspended hulking engines, some of which bore small, lonely looking lights that still twinkled silently. His motion through the room must have kicked up a breeze in the long-undisturbed air: the chains jingled slightly as he passed, but Ty barely noticed.

Ty plopped down into a corner of the unlit room, able to see only by the grey light streaming in from the hallway. Ty leaned back, his sword in its sheath to dig painfully into his back, and allowed himself to feel utterly miserable and full of self pity for a while.

Ty’s back throbbed, but he did not move. He went over Sionas confession again, trying to put himself in her place.

He thought back to the way she’d attacked him when they first met. She could have explained herself but did not, letting him panic and fear for his life instead, but he could easily forgive that. It was a part of her affinity for theatrics, and that was something he loved about her.

He moved on to the part that truly hurt him: Her story, told so adorably, that he knew now was a lie. Why even tell a story? She could have just literally caged him up and drank all the emotion off him that she liked. Or did her food need to be willing? No, that wasn’t right either – she openly reveled in his involuntary emotions.

The only way it made any sense at all is if she had told the story because she wanted him to freely choose her. If she had simply captured him, that would not have been possible, and if she had told him the truth, Ty would have felt compelled to stay with her, and she knew that.

She may have trapped him at first, but she had continued lying to him in order to have some kind of genuine relationship with him. Everything had been to preserve the way he felt about her, so that he would not view her as a damsel in distress trapped in this dead city for millennia and suddenly feel obliged to stay with her out of pity. And hadn’t she even admitted to having more to tell him? Hadn’t she been planning to reveal everything to him?

Ty’s mental dam broke, and his anger began to melt away. He realized that he had not come out here to brood, he had come out here to find a way to justify what he’d wanted to do all along: Forgive her for everything. He’d found it in the form of genuine stupidity on his own part.

What kind of fool was he? What else could he expect her to do in such a situation? Ty stood abruptly. He wanted to see Siona right now and apologize to her - apologize until his face was as blue as hers – but before that he wanted to see her again, more than anything else in the world.

It was then that Ty realized the light from the hallway had been blocked. A shadowy figure stood in the dim light. It was taller than Siona chose to be most of the time, the grey light did not shine through it and stain blue, but rather glistened off of its opaque ebony surface. Its body bulged oddly and appeared muscular, but its skin seemed to boil and quiver.

Ty stood perfectly still, afraid to move. The creature remained in the entryway, seeming to dare Ty to contemplate its existence. A wire seemed to twist around Ty’s gut, and knew immediately what he was looking at – a thing that had destroyed an entire civilization.

It had no face on it’s crude, ebony head, but grey flecks danced across it like static and seemed to coalesce into images of different men, some with squared jaws, some with facial hair, some young looking. Ty thought with horror that he might see his own face there if he looked long enough.

A deep, jagged X-shaped fissure was cut into the creature’s abdomen. Salty water streaming constantly from the crack painted the creature’s lower body. Ty’s mind was as prone to gutter humor as anybody’s, but he did not make that mistake now – this thing was the opposite of sex, the antithesis of anything right. Ty knew the fluid would be human tears.

Ty drew his sword. The thought that it would do him no good against a creature that an entire civilization’s military could not kill did not cross his mind. His only thought was that this thing had tried to kill Siona, and it now stood in his path. Utter fear gave way to fury, and Ty grit his teeth and rushed Taka. It did not move.

Ty brought his sword down in an arc, glinting against the pale light. He connected with its shoulder and cut in at an angle toward its chest – it was like cutting into cold tar. His momentum was lost and the muscles in his arm buckled with tension, but the creature’s head had flung askew and its arm now hung limply.

The creature’s wound snapped back together as quickly as it had been made. Ty’s sword protruded from its chest, now sealed together around it. Ty yanked but could not free it. The creature moved at last and used the sword to fling Ty against the far wall, chains slapping against him and jangling in complaint as he flew.

His sword had dislodged, but Ty had struck hard enough for stars to explode in his eyes and his world to go grey and dizzy before he snapped back to consciousness. The creature’s feet pounded against the floor with a sound like lead bricks falling into mud. Ty managed to dodge feebly along the filthy wall at the last moment.

Taka’s shoulder check impacted with the wall and the entire room buckled – the affected wall twisting to a conical shape, even the ceiling pulled down toward the point of impact. Ty fled out the door, but he was too slow. Taka was already upon him and extended a rubbery appendage around his waist. Ty slashed frantically.

His sword lacerated the creature and it seemed to stagger momentarily as thick bands snapped back from its wounds like elastic, but instead of falling limp they flailed like tentacles and tried to ensnare him. Ty had severed the appendage around his waist, but it still clung tightly to him and weighed immensely.

Ty appraised the hallway frantically and spied a wide double entryway like a loading bay, with a device just inside it – it was similar to the runes Siona has touched in the temple. Ty hoped beyond hope that it might be a closing mechanism and scrambled for it, the tight black loop around his waist slowing him to a shuffle, fear driving his burning legs as fast as they would go. He knew he would die in that room if he was wrong. He was not.

Two sets of bay doors slammed shut and Ty was cast into utter darkness. Ty fell to his back and scrambled blindly into the room. The thing around his waist quivered and squealed and was cold as death against his skin, he began sawing it off as fast as he could. He had not gotten half way through when Ty heard the massive blast door cry out like a struck gong.

Ty re-sheathed his sword and ran with all his force through the darkness away from the constant drumming on the door, the weight dragging him down like a millstone, his lungs burning for air. Something tripped him and he found himself unable to even crawl. With each resounding blast on the door, Ty heard more and more rivets give way and ricochet like bullets.

Finally, the now bowl-shaped blast door gave way and rolled ineffectually into the room. The creature’s relentless, heavy footsteps approached Ty rapidly. Ty could only ball up and cover his ears.

The creature’s fist slammed into Ty’s midsection, and at first Ty thought with horror that its fist had pierced him entirely. Rather, it had wrapped around his midsection, binding his arms. Black sludge crept up Ty’s neck and covered his mouth, but stopped below his nose. It was deliberately keeping him alive.