The method to enter the Story had been obscure. A Story without a name, without an introduction or papers that unfolded. Perhaps it was because Tartarus itself was a giant Story.
Elias had dragged the corpses of the dead that littered the streets, killed in the night, as their bodies helplessly slumped against closed doors.
The doors were chipped and smeared with blood, as if they had been furiously pounded, to no avail.
He dragged them to a center where four paths connected and arranged them into a circle. Like a cult, Nora had remarked in fascination. She used to look up random information to procrastinate studying.
Before the apocalypse.
Elias made a joke about needing the sacrifice of a beautiful human, then directed Lucas to stand in the center. Lucas obliged suspiciously.
It did not summon a demonic creature.
Jokes aside, he brought them all into the obscure circle of blood and flesh. The Story he was looking for opened up near masses of death, swallowing it up to reap the souls that remained. The monster inside feasted on the remnants of flesh—its only source of food to curb its starvation.
The circle itself had no meaning. It was merely for aesthetic purposes and to make his joke. Lucas had looked tempted to beat him after hearing that.
He decided he would undoubtedly get a few solid beatings in after Elias was wrung dry of his usefulness.
But the ground had trembled, splitting open like a wide maw with jagged, stone teeth, starting from a small crack in the ground. It grew wider and wider, greedily devouring the bodies around them before it split in the center.
A chasm appeared underneath them. Then they were falling.
They landed standing on barren lands, a crooked path of stone, and two large, chiselled walls ran along the sides of them. A boulder, spiked and uneven, covered the entire space, shadowing the space they stood in and hiding the sun.
It's elegant and contained a hint of fake intelligence, a voice that pretended to sound wiser than they were. Lucas wondered what sort of fool the Teller had been, and how they would have claimed the Throne in whatever reality they'd existed.
Although he supposed it didn't take a smart person to win. It only took one ready to sacrifice everything else.
A roar shook the grounds and the skies above, though it was hard to see with the boulder shadowing their view. A boulder that, Lucas estimated darkly, could easily turn them into a puddle of smashed meat and bones.
Thinking about that, he realized it'd been a while since he'd eaten. His stomach felt hollow, and he absentmindedly rubbed circles around it.
Elias looked slightly repulsed. "Are you getting hungry while staring at the boulder that could squish us?"
"No, I got hungry thinking that it could turn us into ground meat and bones."
"I don't think that's any better."
"Never said it was."
Amusement wrote itself over Elias' irritating face, a gleam in his deep blue eyes that wasn't faked or purposeful. Lucas stared and then looked away.
A handsome face was always pleasant to look at, Lucas decided.
Nora glanced around warily. "The Story has begun, right?"
Kane nodded, scrutinizing the boulder as if looking for a mathematical formula that could make something this large remain at the top of the hill. There wasn't one. He kept thinking, anyway.
However, Nora's soothing but tense voice spoke again. "Then where is Sisyphus?"
Another rumble echoed through the grounds, sending violent vibrations in response to her question. Lucas hadn't noticed earlier while distracted by the boulder's towering shadow, but there was a cave of great depths behind. If he leaned closer, he could hear cursed whispers, a jumble of hissing prayers.
He couldn't see anything, not even the shadow of the giant who slept inside, waiting for the Story's start.
The ground trembled once more with each shaking footstep, a thudding echoing from deep within the cave, where no light reached. There was the grating sound of teeth gnawing on bone, grinding the white solids into powder.
"If we're helping Sisyphus, is he our ally?" yelled Nora over the noise.
Lucas continued to peer deeply inside the cave, seeing a glint of madness in a down-turned, sunken pair of eyes. "Trust nobody, the Teller said," he muttered, spinning on his heels. "He's not our ally! Run!"
As his words dropped, he scrambled for the gap between the boulder, where the sphere didn't touch the ground. A narrow and suffocating space, low enough to be hidden, but dangerously close to where the edges of the boulder waited.
Slowly, he went to the other side, feeling a scorching heat burn past his exposed arm, snapping it back to the shadows between the boulder and the wall.
"The sun!" He shouted, irritated by the roaring ground. "Do not go into the sun!"
Elias ducked behind him, squinting at the blinding peak of light ahead. "So behind there's a deadly giant, and ahead a burning sun. I don't feel quite inclined to help Sisyphus reach the top anymore."
Lucas turned slightly to respond before a low crack murmured against the walls, and the boulder moved from its frozen spot.
Behind, he made out a towering man, nearly ¾ as tall as the boulder, raising his mangled, wrinkled arms that had patches of burnt flesh, clinging to the bone. A pair of shorts hung on his narrow hips, exposing equally bony and withered legs.
Elias saw the scrunch of Lucas' nose, so slight one would've missed it if they weren't paying attention, and laughed. "Scandalous, isn't he? The only shirtless person you should look at is me."
The comment drew Lucas' bitter attention. He rolled his eyes. "Because your sunken ribs would be much more appealing than Sisyphus'," he answered sarcastically.
"Believe me, darling, I have no shame in stripping to prove my abdomen is anything but sunken."
"Go on, then," said Lucas as the boulder budged another inch. They crept forward to follow it. "Strip."
"Here? In public? You're more daring than I thought."
"Strip," said Lucas again. The boulder's speed slowly increased. "And you'll be matching with him."
He jerked his chin to Sisyphus' tall frame that seemed purely constructed by bone, wrapped in compressed skin-colour fabric. The pair of shorts fluttered in the wind.
Elias stared blankly, turning and smiling at Lucas. The brief image of himself standing side by side with Sisyphus, both equally topless, made him grimace.
The speed of the rolling was steadily increasing, and they struggled to remain in the gap between the boulder and the wall. Too far, and they'd be burned to a crisp by the sun. Too slow, and they might become a giant's supper.
And while Sisyphus certainly appeared to need a few meals, they had no plans of dying in such a manner.
Crumbles of rock shards splintered to the ground, and Lucas had to twist his body to go around them, making their small surface even smaller. He heard a shout from the other side, where he couldn't see Nora and Kane.
Laboured, rasping breathing came from behind him, while the occasional sounds distracted. Not to mention the shaking tremors in the ground created another layer of sound, a cacophony that made his head throb.
He twisted his body to avoid another slab of stone, smashing against the ground and jumping up to graze his skin.
"The hell..." hissed Lucas, squinting ahead and seeing no end to the hill. "You actually wanted to kill us."
"What an unfair accusation," protested Elias, following behind leisurely. "I never lied when I said you had a better chance of surviving this Story than most others. I can't tell you the solution, though."
"And the reason is...?"
"I could tell you what I know if you give me a reward."
Deja vu tided over Lucas, and he felt dizzy. A similar conversation in the past, though without the hot and burning tones of orange and yellows.
Despite that, he asked, "What reward?"
"Hold my hand until we reach the top."
Lucas' face morphed into disgust and repulsion at the request, more so at the timing during this life-or-death situation. Elias smiled because, of course, he had no worries to care for other than his own amusement.
"Your answer?" prompted the man.
Lucas scowled and thrust out his hand, feeling a warm and defined hand take his. It was anything but reassuring, and in fact, made Lucas feel hotter in the heat. It was hot, irritating, and gripped his hand tighter.
"Now tell me what you know."
Elias raised his eyebrows, ducking under a flying piece of stone. "I don't know anything."
Lucas was taken back to the memory of the other man he had scammed, promising to share his information in that aquarium with the boy, who was a man. He shook his head and moved to pull away, but the hand tightened again.
Lucas stared at it deeply, as if the viciousness of his glare could force separation.
"No going back on promises, darling," said Elias, and even the shadows that obscured his face couldn't hide the telling amusement on his lips. He tugged Lucas along with him, narrowly avoiding another flying piece of stone.
Lucas, deciding that struggling was futile, and Elias, born with a personality issue that meant protesting only further increased his fun, gave up and continued walking.
Sweat dripped down his forehead, and he brushed it away from his eyes. They hadn't even reached the top, but they'd have to repeat this cycle until they found a way to have the boulder remain at the top.
"They're testing our endurance. What a joke," seethed Lucas.
"I estimate you'll be able to stand around ten runs, back and forth," said Elias. "The doctor, eight. Nora, six. At least, that's without risking your lives."
"Risking our lives further than we already are?"
"Now, this is nothing. You know that."
Suddenly, the boulder stopped at Lucas almost slipped into the sun before a hand yanked him back. He fell against Elias' sturdy body.
Lucas tilted his chin back, peering at the man indifferently. "Good job. You're not entirely useless."
"What happened to thank you? You're the best?"
"Do you deserve those words?"
"I deserve more."
Lucas gave him a bland glance, turning to crouch lower and peer at the hollowed giant, bony arms stretched to hold the boulder in place. The spikes along the sphere dug holes into the thin skin, hollowed out, and caused bleeding wounds.
"He's taking a break. If he stops during each run, then we'll last a few more rounds." He turned the opposite direction, the tip of the hill that bore the sun's wrath coming into view.
How could they stop the boulder from rolling back?
His mind churned. It would be better to discuss with Kane and Nora, trapped on the other side. Perhaps they'd get a chance later.
Until then, he was on his own. Well, he supposed Elias was there, unfortunately. Everything was a flat plane of nature, smoothened out to guarantee failure. But the falling rocks—the surrounding walls collapsed with the movement.
It wouldn't work. They wouldn't be able to walk up and down enough times for the debris to build into a tall enough barrier to stop the boulder.
If they could break the rock on top...
It would require a sacrifice to bear the heat long enough to knock the stone into that. Or they could cycle turns. He predicted that the boulder would roll back down at the top, and only then would they have a moment to run along the ledge.
The walls couldn't be climbed, so that was the only option. How many runs would it take to knock down enough debris to block the boulder?
And the last moment had to be timed perfectly.
When the boulder was about to roll down the final time, somebody had to use enough strength to cause a final tumble of debris, blocking it at the very top. Somebody had to wait, bearing the scalding heat of the Story's sun, for the perfect moment.
Lucas slowly glanced back at Elias before tucking that thought away in his mind. No, unfortunately, that man would be useful in future situations. Elias was a lifesaving ticket, useful in emergencies if he chose to comply.
Anyway, he was too unpredictable; he couldn't be trusted.
Although that stood to be less true now. Time had reshaped Lucas' opinions on Elias, the villain in his own novel, and the dastardly and feared leader of the gang he was once in.
Lucas wasn't unwilling to put his own life in that man's teasing, careless hands, but he couldn't risk Nora's or Kane's.
Not when he knew Elias couldn't care less about them.
Feeling slightly annoyed, he spat at Elias, "You need to learn kindness."
Elias, who'd been falling behind, felt a moment of confusion. "Yes?"
Instead of responding again, Lucas' eyes strayed back to the front and held the top of the hill in his vision. They were rushing to follow the movements of the boulder before it came to an abrupt stop.
They waited with bated breath in the corner. There, the boulder sat at the top, patient and obedient. There it sat, in the place they desired, with no inclination to move.
Lucas felt confused as the boulder made no move to roll. For some, it might fill them with anticipation, then confusion, then calm, but Lucas felt differently.
Dread wrote itself over Lucas' mind as he frowned, ducking sideways to peer at Sisyphus. First, he saw the long, boned legs, sunken skin wrapped around them. They were slicked with an unnatural amount of sweat, watering the dried grounds.
His eyes slowly ran up the height of the giant, the dripping scent of sweat becoming increasingly visible as it ran down his body.
Lucas stopped at the giant's hollowed face, his eyes deep in their sockets as they gazed at the towering boulder silently. The entire time, Sisyphus had barely shown much of a reaction save for exhaustion.
Now, it was the sagging skin from the lack of meat to fill his cheeks that scrunched together. His cracked lips bent deeper and deeper, opening into a wail as a look of sheer terror painted over his gaunt and long face.
Lucas' heart plummeted to his stomach.
He shot out from under the crevice and yelled toward the opposite side, where Kane and Nora watched in surprise. "Move! Get away! The boulder's about to fall!"
As he spoke, the ground roared, and Sisyphus let out a piercing screech, hoarse and battered from an unknown time of failure. The giant, awkward with limbs too skinny and too long, scrambled around.
Lucas saw himself reflected in the giant's pure black eyes, but paid it no mind. Neither of them was in a position to fight right now.
And Lucas had a feeling that the experience of getting crushed by that boulder was one Sisyphus knew all too well—and feared all the more.
If he fell behind, there were only two options.
To get pounded to the ground or burnt to a crisp. Both, if he was lucky.
Nora yelped, tumbling over her feet as she slammed against the ground and rolled, the shards of rock digging into her skin painfully, tearing flesh. However, she ignored the pain and hurried to crawl forward, jumping into a sprint.
Kane was keeping a decent speed, far enough to prevent any fatalities. Lucas was the furthest ahead, with Elias following not too far behind.
As they neared the bottom, the boulder picked up speed and increased suddenly.
All four humans, in an instant, threw themselves forward, through the dark cave where Sisyphus resided. They slammed against the ground, tumbling against dry dirt and sharp stones.
Lucas groaned, lifting his head in time to witness the giant's body lumber closer, face still twisted upside down in white horror.
His body couldn't run fast enough.
And the boulder caught up.
With a sickening crunch of bone and flesh, it slammed into Sisyphus' wailing body, flattening the giant to the ground. The impact forced the boulder to a stop, grinding into his shoulder blades.