Nail - A Short Story (4 page)

There’s half a minute of silent, rushed
climbing— the only sounds are the grunts of exertion from the
three, and the occasional, slow dripping of blood from Zell onto
the pursuing Bas’tun.

With a deep, metallic thud, Ralic hits
his head into the trap door—the very same that he climbed down into
hours ago. “Found it! I… but it’s stuck!” Ralic says.

“
What do you mean,
stuck?
”

“
Like, I can’t push it open!
There’s something holding it back.”

Zell groans. “M…must be a mechanism!
Figure it out!”

As Ralic locates and fiddles with the
lock with both force and finesse, Bas’tun gets back in a confidant
shooting range.

“
Last chance!” Bas’tun
shouts up as he leans his back into the tunnel, digs his feet into
the ladder, and points up to shoot.

“
Open it!” Zell shouts just
as another shot rings from below, serving as another direct hit to
Zell. “Open it, Ralic. We don’t have time!” Zell struggles to
comunicate as he shifts his position.

“
I…” Ralic fiddles with the
strange metal box preventing him from opening the trap door. “I
don’t know h-” The ring of another gunshot reverberates bitterly
through the vertical tunnel. This bullet glances Zell’s head, and
lands right into the mechanism box, doing damage incomprehensible
in the dark. Immediately, the trap door’s mechanism fails to hold
the escapees back— allowing Ralic to easily push open the door,
scramble into the blinding light of the cabin, and reach down for
his friend. “Come on!” Ralic shouts just a foot down.

Zell reaches up— but he’s become slow,
weak. Now flushed with light, Ralic holds a gasp when he looks down
on the bloodied, squinting Zell. “Get me… idiot.” Zell reaches
higher- it’s all he can do to offer his hand.

Ralic takes up Zell and bends back,
using every fiber of his being to pull the considerably-large man
from his spot on the ladder.

“
Pull up, help me!” Ralic
says just as another shot rings from below, hitting Zell a final
blow. With a clench, Ralic wins Zell up the ladder and into the
cabin containing the trapdoor. Zell plops over and Ralic closes the
trap door amidst screams from Bas’ below.

“
I
will
come up there! Speak your peace
and-” Bas’tun’s voice is muffled with the sturdy fall of the trap
door.

Ralic turns to Zell. “Come
on.”

Zell slouches over onto the ground, his
entire lower body drenched a crimson He iss smiling.

Chapter 5

“
No… no!” Ralic looks over
Zell frantically, eyeing and feeling for wounds to
treat.

Zell laughs with a skewed cough of
blood. “Hey… spirit.”

Ralic does his best to bandage up Zell
with torn strips of clothing, but to put pressure on that many
wounds at once, and to even find them all amidst the red mess,
proves too difficult. “There’s too much! What the hell am I
supposed to do?” Ralic cries out with a trembling voice. “I… You’re
going to die, man. There’s nothing else I can do… this is my fau-”
Ralic stops as a weak, playful punch notches into his knee from
Zell’s fist.

“
Spirit.”

Ralic, the welling of tears on his
features, takes a deep breath. “Yes?”

“
Take me outside. I gotta
see the big light.”

Ralic takes another long breath and
then starts dragging Zell outside. It’s not too much brighter
outside because it’s raining. “What?” Zell says, as if he didn’t
get what he paid for.

Ralic sets him by the cabin and sits
with him against the wall.

“
Spirit, what’s
this?”

Ralic stares up at the clouds as the
light drizzling caresses his face. “They’re clouds; they rain water
onto the earth… They’re covering the great light.”

Zell’s grin stays strong. “That so?
Thought it was out all the time.”

“
No, there’s times when it’s
not out; like night time, storms, or just clouds.”

“
Yeah? So I guess I don’t
get to see the light, huh?” Zell asks, staring up with a
smile.

Ralic smiles. “No. I guess you don’t,”
he says as the drizzling slows to a few light drops.

“
Yeah… But I can sorta see
it.” he looks deep into the clouds at the golden-most point,
concealing the glory of the sun. “Hiding up there. That’s it,
right?”

Ralic nods. “Yeah, that’s
it.”

“
Cool,” Zell says, his
expression getting sleepy— he feels tired, and yet peaceful. “So
spirit.”

Ralic looks over to Zell.
“Yeah?”

“
Ralic
, right?”

“
Yeah.”

“
Cool… So thanks, Ralic…
This was worth it.”

“…
You’re welcome,
Zell.”

There’s a moment of awed serenity— a
moment in which Zell realizes how great and beautiful his world
really is, and Ralic realizes how incredibly different people must
be because of the overlords’ deceptions. The sun is nothing special
to him, but from now on, he will appreciate it as Zell
does.

Then, the sound of the trap door being
flung open— a dense, violent din. Zell and Ralic hear an
exclamation of curses from Bas’tun, complaining about how bright it
is. The two hear a crash, a crack, and then the door opening to the
outside. The rain has subsided— and now slight, teasing blades of
sunlight spill through the cracks of the sky.

“
Show yourselves! Spirit
realm or not. I’ll never give up!” Bas’tun shouts, squinting into
his thick night vision goggles as he searches for the
two.

Ralic and Zell bate their breaths; the
pitch of the door’s opening has blocked them from Bas’tun’s view,
and this is just the opportunity Ralic needs. He gets up, and
gently steps to the back of the door, opposite to Bas.

“
I said, show yourselves!”
He says again.

Ralic slams his weight into the door,
forcing Bas'Tun off his feet and onto the muddy ground. Ralic
rounds the door and leaps just as Bas reflexively points the gun.
With a fraction of a second to spare, Ralic meets his hands to Bas’
and they struggle for the device. Because Ralic’s on top, he
engages all of his muscles upward with perfect freedom and wrests
it from Bas’ hands. Ralic takes a single look at it, realizes he
has no idea what he’s looking at, and then he tosses it as far away
as he can. In the same moment, Bas’ sends his boot straight to
Ralic’s groin, and the real fight starts on the ground.

Bas’Tun, though a bit younger than
Ralic, is strong like Zell—built from the years spent at forges and
with hammers, crafting miracles of engineering with his brothers
and sisters below. Ralic, a true Qetainite, spent only a single
hour stressing his body for every four he’s had his nose in a book.
It takes only half a minute before the difference in their physical
powers become bitterly apparent to Ralic; Zell single-handedly
depresses him by the neck and punches his face with his free hand.
The fight lasts a full minute until Ralic deigns to quit. With a
push of the legs, Ralic escapes to his feet and rounds the corner
of the cabin.

“
Get back here you freak!”
Bas screams as he sprints for Ralic. Here, it becomes quickly
apparent that while Bas
is
far stronger, Ralic’s heart is more trained for
long distances; the furthest Bas ever needed to travel was the one
hundred meters to the forge, whereas Ralic’s walked all across the
great country many times. Bas’Tun’s tired out in only a minute’s
time, but he spots the gun. Ralic did not see where it landed when
he threw it, so he overlooked it. Confidant that Bas is almost
exhausted, Ralic rounds the corner again. A bullet zings past his
left shoulder, and he freezes. “That’s right,” Bas’Tun says. “Just
stand… still.”

“
Don’t hurt him, Bas,” Zell
says, weak and slouching to the side of the wall.

“
Shut up,
hero
. I believed in you—
but you led everyone astray by believing in this… this
heretic
.”

“
Kid… It should be clear as
day. This spirit boy just taught us how to preserve knowledge for
generations through his paper invention, something that surpasses
even the Elder’s wisdom. Just take off that stupid mask and see for
yourself!” Zell says as the clouds part and dissipate.

“
No!” Bas focuses the gun
right at Ralic’s chest. “The elder gave me these to stop you both
and save the village. This is the only way I can see what’s going
on here.”

“
That’s not true, kid; just
take it off and…” Zell stops as the walled town is flooded in
radiant, blinding light. Everything becomes brighter— from the
ground to the walls to the very air around them.

Bas jolts. “Wh-what the… How is…” He
flails around as his NVG receptors are overloaded with
light.

Ralic steps forward quietly.

“
It’s so bright! It hurts!”
Bas complains, expecting a response from Zell.

“…
Wow
,” is all that Zell says as he looks up with his last
breaths.

“
Zell! What is it! Why can’t
I see? Is this trickery from the spirits? Elder, help
me!”

With a flash, Ralic swipes the gun from
Bas and upper cuts into the goggles, pushing them up off his
face.

Bas cries out as he’s blinded anew,
this time by the real thing. He gasps and curls to the ground as he
slowly adjusts to the light. Gradually, he makes out the deep
vibrant greens of the grass, the rich wooden tones of the cabins,
the infinite blue of the sky, the pure cotton whiteness of the
clouds— and, finally, the Sun; that piercing, monumental array of
light and heat that supplies freely and without reservation.
Bas’Tun is on his knees, frozen, his mouth wide with disbelief at
the sight of the great light in the sky. His vision becomes watery,
blurry; he’s crying, but why?

“
Pretty, isn’t it?” Ralic
says as if Bas were a friend.

“
What… Spirit man…
what
is this?
”

“
It’s the Sun. This is what
I wanted to show you and your town.”

“
Then…” Bas’Tun looks down
to his own body— ghostly-pale in comparison to Ralic’s pleasant,
comfortable color that’s been baked warmly in the sun for his
entire life. “Then you’re… this is… this is really the
surface?”

“
Yes.”

Bas slumps over in defeat. “Zell’Ahn,
Spirit man, I’m sorry. I… I didn’t know. Forgive me.”

Ralic nods. “I forgive you… but I don’t
think Zell will be able to… in this life, at least.”

Bas’tun swings his gaze to
Zell— dead, and with a grin plastered to his face. In reverent
silence, Bas creeps to Zell, closes his eyes, and weeps. “I’m…
sorry, Zell... I didn’t know.
Please
…”

“
We’ll have time to…” Ralic
takes a breath. “Grieve later. We need to concentrate on saving
your town from the overlord.”

Bas crumbles into Zell’s shoulder
weakly. “Zell I’m… I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. You taught me how to
use a crossbow, and how to temper steel, and-”

Ralic tears Bas from Zell’s
corpse and shakes him. “Get a hold of yourself! We have to finish
this! We can’t give the overlord the opportunity to make a new
strategy. We must strike
now!
”

Bas sniffles. “But… but
how?”

“
We… we need to show them
the Sun. We need to either get them to come up or… or we’ll need to
bring the sunlight down, somehow.”

Ralic lets go of Bas’Tun as
he gets to his feet. “The eld-… er, the
overlord
’s too powerful; we can’t kill
him.”

“
Yes, we
can
. All we need to do is to shake the
people’s faith in it. If we show them all that it's been lying to
them, then they’ll do the rest of the work. Overlords are powerless
when people refuse to believe in them.”

“
Overlords… what are they?”
Bas asks; Ralic gestures as they discuss, leading him to the one
thing that he didn’t check before he descended— the large, white
object covered in a sheet that's been sitting the center of the
town square for more than a century.

“
We… we don’t really know.
I’ve read lots of books written about it. Overlords are like… ideas
that are alive.”

“
Ideas?”

“
Yeah, like yours wants you
to stay in a hole and invent things forever, and it does it by
feeding you lies. Or my town, Quetaine— before we made
that
town, our ancestors
traveled to this large island from an island that was a
fake.”

Bas mutters. “Uh, a
fake…
island?
”

“
An island’s a kind of
landmass… I guess there’s too much to explain. For now, just know
we’ve got to show the overlord is wrong. Destroy its idea, and
we’ll destroy it too. We know that for sure.”

“…
You Qetaine people must be
amazing— figuring it out.”

Ralic sighs as they reach the large
object covered in white. “It was all an accident. The overlord made
a mistake that it couldn’t have known about, and that's how the
village figured it out.” Ralic touches the sheet— it’s strong, and
made of a material Ralic’s never encountered before.