of rocks. His leg hurts but nothing seems broken, not even his indestructible glasses.
Zachary reaches out to pull himself up and his fingers close over a hand.
He yanks his arm back.
He reaches out again, tentatively and the hand is still there, frozen, extending out from the pile of rocks that is not a pile of rocks at all. Next to the hand is a leg and a round shape like half a head. As Zachary pulls himself up he rests his hand on a disembodied hip.
He stands in a sea of broken statues.
An arm nearby is holding an unlit torch, a real one from the looks of it, not one carved from stone. Zachary moves slowly toward it and takes it from the statue’s hand.
He puts the sword down by his feet and fumbles around in his bag for the cigarette lighter, grateful to past Zachary for including it in the inventory.
It takes a few tries but he manages to light the torch. It gives him light enough to navigate, though he doesn’t know which way to go. He lets gravity dictate his way forward, following the sloping surface in whichever direction is easiest to step. The statues shift beneath his feet. He uses the sword to balance himself.
It is difficult to manage both sword and torch over the uneven surface but he dares not leave either behind. He needs the torch for light and the sword feels…important. The broken statues shift, creating miniature avalanches of body parts. He drops the sword and puts his hand out to steady himself and he hits something softer than stone.
The skull beneath his fingers is not carved from ivory or marble. It is bone, clinging to the last of the flesh that once surrounded it. Zachary’s fingers tangle in what is left of its hair. He pulls his hand back quickly, stray hairs chasing after his fingers.
Zachary rests the torch in the awaiting hand of a nearby statue so he can get a closer look that he’s not certain he wants.
The corpse that is almost a skeleton is concealed amongst the broken statues. Had Zachary been walking a few paces to either side he never would have noticed it, though now he can smell the decay.
This body is not wrapped in memories. It wears scraps of disintegrating clothing. Whoever it once contained is gone, and they have taken their stories with them, leaving their bones and their boots and a leather scabbard wrapped around their torso, fit for a sword it does not contain.
Zachary pauses, torn between the obvious usefulness of the scabbard and the amount of corpse contact it will take to obtain it, and after an internal debate he holds his breath and clumsily unhooks the belt from its former owner, collapsing bones and rot and unidentifiable liquids in the process.
He has a sudden thought that this is what will become of him down here and he pushes it from his mind as forcefully as he can, focusing on the bits of leather and metal.
When he frees the scabbard and its leather straps it does fit the sword, not perfectly but well enough that he will not have to carry it. It takes him a minute to figure out how to wear it over his sweater but eventually the sword stays in place on his back.
“Thank you,” Zachary says to the corpse.
The corpse says nothing, silently grateful to be of assistance.
Zachary keeps moving, stumbling over statues. It is easier now. He switches the torch from one hand to the other to rest his arm.
The pieces of broken statues grow smaller, eventually there is only gravel beneath his feet. The expanse of marble resolves into something that might be a path.
The path turns into a tunnel.
Zachary thinks the torch might be getting dimmer.
He does not know how long he has been walking. He wonders if it is still January, if somewhere far above it is still snowing.
He can hear only his footsteps, his breath, his heartbeat, and the crackling flame of the torch that is definitely getting dimmer which is disappointing because he had hoped it would be a magic endless-light torch and not a regular extinguishable one.
There is a sound nearby that he is not causing. A movement along the ground.
The sound continues, growing louder. Something large is moving nearby. Behind him and now beside him.
Zachary turns and looks up as the torchlight illuminates a single large, dark eye surrounded by light fur. The eye stares at him placidly