‘The queen will be our way out.’

  With the idea of the queen being the way out, Athan started to put his plan slowly into motion. He held his sword across his back and slowly walked away from his workstation.

  Trying to blend in with the other workers, Athan kept an eye out for Aurelia and Zephin. While searching for them, he suddenly remembered they were working at the larvae. More specifically, directly under it, catching the eggs.

  Athan tried to walk over to the larvae as carefully as he could, but just as he was about to get close, he would turn himself around and walk away.

  Surrounding the entrance to the larvae were a bunch of man-eaters. But not just your typical man-eaters; there were also a different variant. So, Athan felt that it was practically impossible to get close to Aurelia and Zephin.

  Instead, he had to figure out a way to get their attention. Athan crouched down and began to think about different ways. In the end, the one he came across was throwing a rock at them. Athan knows there is a good chance he’ll get caught, but he wants to try anyway.

  Athan, with his left hand, picks up a couple of rocks nearby and slowly begins throwing them at Aurelia and Zephin. Unfortunately, the rocks Athan was throwing weren’t big enough to get their attention. They were just small pebbles. Athan was too scared to pick up any of the larger rocks and throw them.

  After some time, Athan manages to throw a pebble at Aurelia’s head.

  When Athan hits Aurelia on the head, she looks over at him and sees he is trying to get their attention about something. Unknowing what Athan might be trying to get their attention for, they discreetly left their work station and headed over to where Athan was.

  Athan was hiding in a small crevice in the wall, which he had found while looking for Aurelia and Zephin.

  “Over here, guys!” Athan screams in a lowercase voice.

  Aurelia and Zephin quickly weave through the crowd of workers and approach Athan.

  Aurelia has a look of frustration.

  “Well, did you find anything? Or think of anything? Because if not, we need to get back. They will be doing a count soon to make sure everyone is working their stations.”

  Athan blinked.

  “They do a count?”

  Athan shakes his head. “Whatever, that isn’t important right now.” Athan met Aurelia and Zephin’s eyes. “I think I found a way for us to get out of here.”

  Aurelia and Zephin look at Athan, confused.

  “Well? What is it?” Asks Aurelia.

  “We will use the queen.”

  Before Aurelia can ask a question, Athan continues.

  “We will get the queen mad by starting a riot.”

  Aurelia tilts her head to the side.

  “And how do you want to start this riot?”

  Athan looks towards the carts of eggs and points. “We will destroy all of those eggs, killing each man-eater one by one.”

  “Okay? And how do you suggest we destroy the eggs, huh?” Aurelia says, frustrated.

  Athan takes a breath.

  “We will use fire.”

  With an even more confused look, Aurelia and Zephin share a glance, then look back at Athan.

  “During my time exploring this dungeon, I have figured out that man-eaters' blood is super flammable. So if we can get our hands on some man-eater blood, then we could make some easy fire.”

  Athan turns his head towards the entrance of the egg-layer. “Just outside the entrance lie several man-eater corpses.”

  Athan faintly smiles, but is stopped when Zephin taps Athan’s shoulder.

  “Leaving this part of the dungeon is impossible. So your plan just won’t work, sorry.”

  Aurelia turns her back towards Athan.

  “Yeah. This plan will fail. Let’s just go back to our work stations and keep looking for a way out, okay?”

  Zephin smiles lightly and turns his back on Athan, then follows Aurelia back to their workstation. Athan sits against the wall and looks up, as if he were lost.

  ‘Crap! They just made me look like a fool!’ Athan slaps his face with his right hand. ‘No! I can make the plan work. I just have to wait until we return behind those walls and rest for the night. I mean, after all, we don’t have much time left.’

  Athan returns to his workstation and waits until the man-eaters finally decide to call it a day.

  Of course, the man-eater that had to end the day was the general. The general was standing on top of a big rock, and with all the strength in his little body, he mustered out a loud voice.

  “The day is now over! Everyone, please return behind your walled-off area and rest for the night!”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  Just as when the day started, everyone remained like a zombie. They carefully cleaned up their workstation and headed back towards the walled-off area. Their arms hang at their sides, and their backs slumped.

  ‘So depressing.’ Athan thought as he followed the lines of people back into the walled-off area.

  Inside the walled-off area, Athan sighed as he sat against a wall. As he sat, Aurelia and Zephin approached him.

  “Resting?” Asks Aurelia.

  Athan looks up.

  “Just need to think about stuff for a bit.”

  ‘Well, okay, but Zephin and I were going to gather the others to discuss what we saw throughout the day. You might want to join us.”

  Athan’s jaw tightens.

  “Yeah, I might.”

  Athan keeps his gaze forward, making it clear he doesn't want to talk. Aurelia and Zephin leave him.

  ‘Once everything settles down, I’ll do my plan.’ Athan thought.

  As the night grew, Athan watched as the others gathered and discussed what they had seen throughout the day. More specifically, if they were able to find a way out of this place.

  Athan sighed, but then put on a determined face. ‘I will show them that my plan will work.’

  As the people kept talking, Athan quietly got up from his spot and headed for the wall. He tried to keep his steps silent as he walked across the damp, hard ground so as not try and bring any attention to himself. When Athan reached the wall, he leaped up and jumped over it. When jumping, his landing made a somewhat loud sound, sending shivers down his back. Thankfully, no one seemed to notice the sudden noise.

  Athan kept to the shadows of the dungeon, keeping himself well hidden from the others and the man-eaters who were keeping night watch. Athan carefully walked through the shadows, watching his every step, making sure not to make any sudden noise. Athan repeated this process of jumping through the shadows until he finally reached the entrance to this part of the dungeon.

  Standing at the entrance were two guards, one on each side. The guards were holding a wooden staff with a sharp, crescent-shaped blade at the top.

  Getting them away from their post was easy. Athan already had a plan. He was going to kill them from the shadows silently.

  Athan got as close as he could to the entrance, and when he got close enough, he set his eyes on his first target.

  Holding his blade, Athan quickly dashed out of the shadows and, in one fell swoop, he cut off the man-eater's head.

  The other man-eater turns around to see what happened, but Athan had already disappeared. The only thing the man-eater was looking at was the corpse of the other man-eater.

  While the man-eater was distracted, Athan dashed in quickly and cut off his head.

  The corpse fell to the ground, and blood quickly began to ooze out of the man-eater.

  Athan coldly stared at the corpse, then he bent down and examined the blood.

  ‘Perfect!’ Athan thought.

  Reaching the ground, Athan picks up a stick and a rock and covers the stick in the man-eater's blood. With the blood stick, Athan uses it with the rock to light up a bright purple flame.

  ‘I forgot to mention that man-eaters' blood changes how the flame looks.’

  Holding the lit-up stick, Athan walked towards the larvae. As Athan walked, the purple flame caught the attention of people and man-eaters alike. No one could understand what the boy was doing, holding a purple flame.

  Athan reached the larvae and stood there looking at all the eggs he was about to burn.

  “Stop!!!” The man-eater general shouts from a distance.

  “Do you understand what you're holding!”

  Athan looks at him, confused. “Yeah, I’m holding the key to my way out of here.”

  “No, boy! That purple flame doesn’t just happen! Dammit, you have a purple flame, this is bad!”

  The general carefully walks up to Athan, urging him to put out the flame

  “Why does it have to be you!” The general yells.

  Athan, ignoring the general, looks over the wall where everyone is gathered. Among them are Aurelia and Zephin.

  Acknowledging that Aurelia and Zephin are watching, Athan turns back towards the eggs. And with a focused look, he tosses the stick in the air.

  The general shouts in anger, and without thinking, the general jumps and tries to grab the stick before it lights up everything in its path. But it was too late; the stick landed on a mound of eggs and blew up a huge purple flame that reached all the way to the top, burning everything in its path, including the general.

  Athan dashed towards Aurelia and Zephin away from the flames.

  The other man-eaters ran towards the fast spreading fire and tried to stop it, but in the end, they would also go up into flames and die.

  Athan stopped himself in front of Aurelia and Zephin. His heart was racing, and he couldn’t keep himself still.

  “See! I told you guys my plan would work!”

  Aurelia smirks at Athan.

  Zephin quickly tells the other to get out of the dungeon. But as he was telling them to leave, an ominous sound came from a pathway. The sound was loud and hard. It sent shivers down everyone’s body.

  The thing to emerge from the darkness of the path was the queen man-eater.

  “What…What happened!” The queen-maneater yells in agony.

  She turned her glance towards the humans. And with anger, she let out a loud screech.

  Only Athan understood what the screech meant. She was calling out to all the man-eaters.

  In a matter of seconds, multiple footsteps could be heard from outside the entrance. Everyone panicked and quickly got themselves away from the entrance, but the only other way they could go was towards the queen man-eater.

  The queen man-eater locked her eyes on the people in front of her and ran in spring towards them. Everyone broke off from each other, running in different directions, but for some, it was too late. The queen man-eater had started her slaughtering.

  The queen man-eater was throwing people everywhere, stabbing through their bodies.

  All Athan could do was watch. He stood there, his body frozen in fear. It’s as if his heart had sunken to the bottom of his chest.

  ‘This—this isn’t what I wanted.’ Athan thinks as he looks ahead of him at the countless corpses of dead people.

  Athan looks slightly to his left and sees Aurelia sitting on the ground with Zephin standing in front of her.

  Athan’s eyes opened wide.

  A man-eater had pierced Zephin.

  “Nooo!” Aurelia cries out as she holds Zephin's lifeless body.

  Falling to his knees, Athan stares towards the ground, and tears slowly fall from his face.

  ‘Is this it?’

  Just as Athan thought that, a part of the dungeon's wall exploded open, and jumping through that hole were Xavier, the Brute, and Amelia.