Death After Death

Simon fell back asleep, but when he woke up once more, it was to the smells of cooking meat, and he quickly got dressed and went downstairs. He brought his mace with him, but not because he thought he’d actually need it or anything. Hard experience had just taught him that he should be ready for whatever mindfuck Helades was going to throw at him next.

“I’m sorry that we’re out of eggs,” Freya apologized as she started serving a plate of sausage links and fried potatoes. “We ran out of those a few days ago.” That statement sparked a similar conversation to one he remembered having with her lifetimes ago as she told him about how things had started here and how quickly they’d gotten ugly.

Once they finished eating, she started explaining how everyone had died one at a time, from infighting as much as the zombies, and how at the end, there’d only been a few of them left. By his count, there would have been three left when she started getting vague, and he was tempted to ask what happened to Brenna or Mr. Olggen, but he refrained. Something in her expression said that she absolutely didn’t want to go there.

So he shifted topics and talked about other things. Using scraps of food, Simon explained the geography of the world as he understood it, showing where Slany and Hurag were in the south, and she corrected him slightly, pointing out the coast and a number of other land features that Simon had not yet heard of. It was a useful conversation, and it made Simon wonder if every level was just another part of the same world.

Honestly, it seemed more likely than not at this point between the way the land areas overlapped and some of the things the goddess had said, but he didn’t mention any of that to Freya. He just waited for her to stop talking about how important the black bridge was for local trade routes and how it was the only year-round crossing for the Diener River for fifty miles in either direction before he turned the topic a little further towards where he wanted it.

“If we could escape tomorrow, where would you like to go?” Simon asked, catching her off guard.

“But we can’t escape, can we?” she pushed back, confused.

“Maybe not this minute, but I hope we’ll find a way out soon,” Simon answered, trying to stay upbeat, “and when that happens, we’ll need a goal. Do you have any family nearby we could stay with or…”

“All my family died here in Schwarzenbruck,” she said, as her eyes started to tear up. “At least, I think they did. I’ll probably never know.”

The conversation was going nowhere after that, so Simon dropped it and focused on other things for the next few hours. He cleaned his armor and sharpened his sword because it had been ages since he’d done either of those things and then when he noticed that the small keg they’d been drinking from was out, he managed to wrestle a new one upstairs and tap it without making too much of a mess.

This time there was no need to search for the way out. He knew where that was, but he had to earn Freya’s trust before he could show her, and that would take time. Fortunately, they still had time. A little, at least. There was a sea of the dead surrounding the building, of course, and their collective moaning and groaning were enough to make him feel like he was going to go crazy when he wasn’t doing something else, but other times when he was chatting with Freya, it was a barely noticeable background drone.

Still, he let things proceed at their own pace because he knew that if he rushed it, he would ruin it. He’d seen that theme play out plenty of times in movies and anime: he just needed to let it happen. That night, she didn’t even try to sleep somewhere else. She just looked at him expectantly until he said, “Why don’t you sleep with me. It will be safer that way.”

She still gave him a look as she crawled into bed and said, “I appreciate your kindness… but that doesn’t mean we’re doing anything but sharing a little warmth. You keep your hands to yourself.”

Simon nodded. He knew the drill. This time when she fell asleep with her head on his chest, their cuddling was an intentional thing, and the sound of her gentle breathing was enough to block out the cries of a thousand zombies as he basked in a single perfect moment that he hoped would never end. This just felt too right for him to want anything else.

The next few days, they enjoyed each other’s company, and he got Freya to open up a bit about what it was she wanted out of life and how, before these zombies had risen up to devour everyone and everything in her path, all she’d wanted was a small garden and a couple of kids. By contrast, he told her that for years all he’d wanted to do was fight monsters and become a hero, but as he got older, he thought a quiet life might suit him more.

This time their first kiss wasn’t a drunken spur-of-the-moment thing. It was something that built during the entirety of their fourth day together. He’d started to get the feeling that she was into him by the way she kept asking him if there was a Mrs. Simon waiting for him when he got home and when he worked up the nerve to kiss her, she kissed him back eagerly.

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It was probably just because she was scared or because they could both die at any moment. That was what he thought as they made out in the common room. The only thing he was sure about was that it couldn’t be him that had been the cause of this, but he couldn’t explain why else things would be playing out differently this time. When this happened before, they’d had to get drunk to kiss, and it had still been a few more days before they’d had sex for the first time. Today though, there was no mistaking her need as she pressed against him, and he tried to unlace her top without breaking their kiss.

They had sex twice that day. Once urgently on the table and once more gently in the bed after a few drinks and some talking. The second round hadn’t been intentional, at least not on Simon’s part. He’d been trying to work up the nerve to talk to her about what had just happened, and she’d either gotten the wrong idea or decided that the only way to shut him up was more sex. After that, he was too exhausted to do anything but hold her.

It wasn’t until two days later that he finally returned to the topic of escape. “What if there was a way out of here, but it required well… magic, Freya?” he asked one morning while they were lying together enjoying the relative peace of the early hours.

“I think it would kind of have to at this point, Simon,” she answered playfully. “Magic or starvation are pretty much the only ways we’re getting out of here.”

Simon swallowed hard at that, remembering that there was a third way that had ended in fire and smoke, but he pushed that back down. “I’m serious. What if there was a way? Would you try it? Even if it was dangerous?”

“What are you talking about, Simon?” she asked, confused. “If you know something, then you need to tell me.”

“It’s easier to show you,” he said hesitantly, “but you need to promise me you’ll remain calm, okay? Can you do that?”

“I-I can,” she whispered after a moment’s consideration. “I trust you.”

He smiled and then agreed they would make the last of the ham for breakfast before he did anything crazy. She spent the meal peppering him with questions about magic, but he deflected them clumsily rather than answer, and when they were finished, he sent her into the pantry.

“Why don’t you start packing provisions for the two of us for a few days, Freya,” he said finally. “Things that can be cooked easily on a fire, or that can be eaten cold. I can’t promise that we’ll get to a town right away. So we’ll have to bundle everything up in a blanket or two and take as much as we can with us.”

“Where are we going?” she asked again, but Simon just shook his head.

“Even when I show you, it’s going to be crazy, but trying to explain would… well, you’d never believe me,” he said. “Just promise me that you won’t come out until I call for you, okay? Can you do that for me?”

She nodded, and he kissed her on the forehead before he sent her out of the room and started to unblock the front door. While he did so, the fear that Helades might have suddenly switched the position of the portal just to kill him at the most awful moment niggled at the back of his mind, but he ignored it. None of the portal positions had ever moved before, and though he didn’t rule that out, it seemed unlikely that it would be this portal on this day that was the one to finally break the trend.

When Simon had the door open to reveal the sewer, he finally called for Freya, and she came running, but when she saw the impossible sight, she dropped the things she was carrying and gawked. “What in the names of all the gods is that?” she asked. He could see the whites around her eyes and the way her hands were trembling. There was no disguising that level of terror, so he walked to her and held her for a moment, blocking her vision with his body.

“It’s our only way out,” he said softly as he stroked her hair and tried to calm her down. “It’s a sort of magic doorway… it leads to a sewer that’s kind of gross, but it’s not too dangerous. From there, it leads to a … I guess you could say temple and—”

“Simon!” she cried out, “What are you talking about? How do you know all these terrible things? It isn’t natural.”

“It’s not," he agreed, feeling his heart break a little as she looked at him with fear now too. “But it’s the only way out, and even if you hate me by the time I’ve saved you, I still have to save you. It’s the most important thing right now, so please, gather the supplies I asked you to, so we can leave this cursed place.”

She moved slowly and worked silently, but she obeyed him, and even as he thought she might not come back down from retrieving the blanket, she did so, though she was especially chilly after that. Then, with each of them carrying a bundle over their shoulder, they stepped towards the door. There he pressed a knife into her hand before he picked up his loaded crossbow to deal with the creepy crawler as far away from his beloved as possible and whispered, “Just in case,” before kissing her on the forehead.

Not willing to put anything past Helades at this point, he stood in the portal itself, with one foot on either side of the line, and watched Freya go all the way to the next level before he stepped through himself. As frightened as she was in that moment, he was terrified that she would disappear as she failed to spawn in the next level or that the portal would close when she was only part way through and cut her in half. He was taking no chances with that bullshit today. Today Freya was going to live even if he didn’t get his happily ever after. He swore to himself that he’d save her every single time he came through here if that’s what it took.