The girl's voice was soft and soothing, instantly captivating Athan.

  “Hello?” Asks the girl.

  Catching Athan off guard, he replies, “Sorry, uh, my name is Athan—Athan Sotirios.”

  The girl smiles.

  “That’s cool.” She sighs lightly. “My name is Aurelia.”

  Aurelia jumps off from the small wall—her long, black, silky hair swings in front of Athan’s face. She was wearing a long, ragged black dress about knee length. She also had no shoes.

  Aurelia lands on the ground and carefully wipes off the dirt from her ragged black dress.

  “So, how did you end up in this dungeon?”

  Struggling to compose his thoughts, Athan just decides to keep it easy.

  “It’s a long story. But basically, a bunch of man-eaters jumped me and brought me here.”

  Aurelia giggles.

  “So, that's what you call those monsters?” Aurelia puts her hand behind her back and walks up to the nearest wall caging them.

  “Yeah, that's not a bad name for them. We’ll call them Man-eaters.”

  Athan hesitantly walks up beside her. ‘Who is this girl?’ He decides to turn his head slightly to get a glimpse at Aurelia once more. But when he turns his head to look, he finds that Aurelia is also looking at him. Athan blushes.

  “Ah, sorry,” Athan says, rubbing the back of his head.

  Aurelia sits down and leans her back against the wall. “So? Have you seen the outside?”

  Athan crouches down. “Yes, I have seen the outside.”

  “So, you know what the peaks look like?”

  Athan nods his head.

  Aurelia’s smile slowly fades. “And have you seen the other monsters that have roamed in the peaks?”

  Athan thinks back for a second, and he suddenly remembers his encounter with the weird variant of a man-eater on the peak.

  “Yes, I have encountered a different variant of a man-eater. If that’s what you mean.”

  Aurelia stands back up.

  “Uh, something like that.” Aurelia takes a breath, slowly turns herself around, and looks up at the larvae of soon-to-be man-eaters. “The queen has gradually been building up for herself an army of man-eaters. The ones you saw are her creation.”

  Athan’s eyes widen slightly.

  “I have a question, Aurelia?”

  Aurelia looks at Athan, confused.

  “Do you know who the king is?”

  Aurelia doesn’t respond for a second. It was like hearing the word king stopped her, scared.

  “Where have you heard about the king?”

  Athan hesitantly answers, giving only a little information about where he learned about the king.

  “I learned about it from a strange creature.”

  Aurelia sighs.

  “I see. I'm guessing then that you don’t know much about the king. Well, that makes sense, because based on what I heard, there isn’t a king. He disappeared a while ago.”

  Athan’s mouth widens.

  “What do you mean, the king disappeared a while ago?”

  Aurelia can tell Athan’s tone suddenly changed. “It's only rumors, but everyone I have talked to here has said the same thing. They haven’t seen the king.”

  Athan frowns.

  “But, there is still a chance that the king is alive? Right?”

  Aurelia grabs Athan’s arm. “Look, stop worrying about the king. We have bigger problems to worry about.” Aurelia points over to the queen man-eater.

  “We need to figure out how to escape this dungeon.”

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  Athan gives Aurelia a weird look.

  “Escape? Don’t you think we should try to kill the man-eaters?”

  Aurelia looks at Athan like he is dumb.

  “Impossible. There is no one here who is strong enough for that. And I don’t care how long you may have trained with your sword, it won't work.”

  “Fine. So what should we do then?” Says Athan.

  Aurelia walks over to one of the broken walls, which is not attached to anything, and climbs up. When she stands up, she throws hand signals, telling everyone to get closer.

  As everyone gathers around, Athan stays back at the attached wall and just watches. For some reason, large groups of people would make Athan nervous.

  Aurellia crouches on the wall and whispers loudly.

  “Ummm…captured people of the dungeon! We must devise a plan to escape!”

  Everyone looks at her in confusion.

  Suddenly, a guy from the crowd raises his hand.

  The guy had blonde hair and red marks going across his face. The marks looked like lightning.

  “How do you suggest we escape?”

  Aurelia faintly smiles.

  “Simple. When the man-eaters assign us to our daily tasks, we will simply break away at times and explore to see if there is a way out.”

  The crowd of people gives concerning looks.

  Aurelia sighs.

  “Look, if you want to survive, this is your best bet. But if you decide to do nothing, then you will die here. No doubt.”

  After getting what she wanted to say out, Aurelia jumps down from the broken wall and walks back over to Athan.

  “Why didn’t you join me?”

  Athan bites his lower lip slightly.

  “Because large groups of people make me nervous.”

  Aurelia tilts her head to the side slightly. “Large groups of people make you nervous?” She says, chuckling.

  While they're talking, the blonde guy from earlier walks up on them.

  “Hey, guys!”

  Startled, Athan reaches for his sword, but Aurelia stops him.

  “Hello.” Says Aurelia.

  The blonde-haired guy stands there for a second.

  “Ah, right.” He rubs his hand through his thick blond hair. “My name is Zephin.” After giving his name, Zephin stares down at Athan, then he looks back up at Aurelia.

  “I know what your name is, but what is his name?” Zephin asks.

  Aurelia glances down at Athan. “His name is Athan.”

  Zephin smiles.

  “Now that the three of us are acquainted, we should team up.”

  Athan looks up at Zephin. ‘Another team up? Just how many teamups am I going to have to do?’ While looking at Zephin, Athan notices just how big his build is. His build is lean and seems powerful.

  “Everyone! Get up!” A man-eater yells from behind a closed gate.

  “Well, here we go.” Says Aurelia.

  “It’s time for your daily tasks!”

  Everyone stood up and walked towards the gate like they were zombies. They all had heavy eyelids and frail bodies. Watching them, Athan also stood up. But before following them, he waited to see what Aurelia and Zephin would do.

  “Okay, Athan, let me quickly explain what we will do.” Aurelia takes a breath. “Zephin will go together as a duo, and you and your sword will try to find a way out.”

  Athan looks up at Aurelia, weirdly.

  “What will you guys do?”

  Aurelia laughs.

  “We will also try to find a way out.”

  Athan sighs. ‘But why do I have to be alone?’

  Aurelia leads the way towards the gate. Zephin smirks, and then he slowly follows her. Athan also follows.

  Walking through the gate, the man-eater directs where certain people go and what they will do. Athan watches as Aurelia and Zephin go to the larvae.

  “Boy! Walk forward!”

  Scaring him, Athan carefully walks toward the talking man-eater.

  “Your job is to push the cart of eggs to different spots in the dungeon.” The man-eater points to an open cart.

  ‘So, I have to push eggs around? Gross.’

  Athan walks up to his cart and starts bringing it to the larvae. Once at the larvae, Athan waits for people to load his cart up with eggs. Once his cart is full of eggs, Athan slowly wheels it back to where he found it for further instructions.

  ‘Right. I need to look for a way out.”

  Athan turns his head, discreetly looking around to see if there is any easy way out, but of course, there just doesn’t seem to be one. Man-eaters are guarding this part of the dungeon everywhere.

  Athan smirks.

  ‘Looks like I will have to try and create a distraction again.’

  While Athan is thinking to himself, a scream comes from ahead of him. It’s the queen.

  “NO! It’s too early! You must have heard wrong! There is no way the volcano is already beginning to rumble!”

  Standing below the queen is the general man-eater. “No, queen, I’m being serious. There was a report of rumbling coming from the volcano.”

  The queen man-eater pouts to herself.

  “Looks like we don’t have as much time as I thought we did.” The queen sighs. “He will be arriving soon.” Her tone suddenly became ominous.

  Understanding the situation, the general orders all the other man-eaters and humans to speed things up.

  On the other hand, Athan heard words that were like music to his ears. ‘Someone will be arriving soon? Is it possibly the king?’

  Finally, after being stuck in this trial for days, Athan had a chance at meeting the king. Or at least he was hoping it was the king. However, they had at least a day before all the larvae hatched. And with the remaining time, Athan knew he had to find a way out of this dungeon alive.

  Then it hit Athan—a possible distraction plan.

  ‘The queen will be our way out.’