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DUN REACHED THE DOOR of the Over-Folk. He stopped to scratch his leg where the water had been splashing on it. Then he adjusted the straps on his backpack. It was a lot lighter now. Just food, some water, and his knife. The map, clicker beetles, and all their other traveling kit had been left with Padg and Tali. He reached in for his drinking flask and took a long pull on it. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, sighed, and started to search for the security pad that Myrch had used to get in. Finally finding it, all he could do when he applied his thumb was illicit the low boop noise that seemed to mean “wrong thumb: no entry”. He pressed it a few more times and waited.
Dun had prepared himself for a good many eventualities in order to make this trip. Nobody home wasn’t one of them. He could feel tension turning into a cramp in his calves. He pressed the button a few more times for good measure. There was a hiss and a familiar metallic creaking. The odd smell of the Over-folk wafted out. Along with the noise of a guard with some kind of breathing condition.
“Hi...” Dun said.
“Wha?” the guard yelled, a rebuke and not a question.
“Er... I’m...”
“Rah! Brah raddah.” The guard leaned out and poked Dun in the chest with his finger. “Buh!”
And the door creaked closed again, leaving a dumbfounded Dun on the threshold. This was not how he was expecting this to go. His shoulders slumped. He returned to his flask, took another swing from it, wiped the drips from his mouth with the back of his hand, and resumed beeping the pad. One of his baby siblings knew this game all too well. Back in their nest, it consisted of her poking Dun in the ribs til she got her own way. Dun considered himself quite patient, but she seemed to have a boundless ability to outwait him, long outlasting his ability to ignore her. Who knew one day he would be channeling his baby sister Ban to get any further. She would be pleased and probably giggle about it.
Dun sighed and buzzed again.
More hissing and creaking, and the, the wheezy guard said, ay his breaking point, “Whaaaaaa?”
Dun pushed past. “I’m Dun. You wanted me; I’m here!”
It was the guard’s turn to be dumbfounded.
“Well?” Dun said. “Take me to your leader... or whatever.”
Instead, the guard rounded on Dun and struck him on the side of the head with something long and heavy. Dun’s head woozed. He tried to hold himself up, but his knees went out from under him, and he fell face down into the thin water at his feet.
***
HE WOKE TO AN UNPLEASANT ripping sound and a more unpleasant sensation of something sticky binding his hands behind his back. As his dizziness started to clear, he realized there was more of the stuff around his waist and someone was trying to get him to his feet. The side of his head throbbed like all hells and inside his head felt sharp and spiky. He could taste blood in his mouth.
“Up!” the guard said, doing the sticking.
It was someone other than the wheezy door guard, and this one at least spoke in a way Dun could understand. Come to think of it, now Dun’s ears had stopped ringing, he realized that he couldn’t hear the wheezy guard at all. He was still at the guard post behind the door though. Perhaps there’d been a shift change. Dun didn’t fancy another bash like the last one, so he got his joints in order and slowly stood.
“Move!” the guard said.
Dun shuffled off. The guard poked him in the back any time he stumbled. The bay containing the guard post and door were quickly closed off into a narrow corridor with smooth metal-sounding walls. Their footfalls echoed harshly. Or maybe that was just the inside of Dun’s head; he couldn’t be entirely sure.
“Where are we going?” That earned him another poke. At least what he was getting poked with was blunt.
Dun could hear noise in the distance. The corridor they were in had a definite downward slant to it, and it was starting to feel damp underfoot and he could touch the walls on either side. A waft of air brought awful smells toward him. A melange of the worst things he could imagine: vomit, body waste, fear. Some fresh, some old. Those smells weren’t just what had happened here, they were here, whatever this place was.
Another poke in the back from the guard. “Move!”
The smell got stronger as Dun got poked farther down the slope, and he was sure he could hear low moaning. This was not at all going how he’d imagined. Although, what had he imagined, really? Go to a new place in the Dark that no one seems to have returned from, except maybe Myrch, and what? Say “I’ve been having these dreams...” He felt stupid, alone, and now scared. There was a half-hearted scream from ahead of him; it was the sound of anguish from someone who was worn down and exhausted. The moaning was distinct, or at least all around him. Lots of voices, like some kind of damned choir.
“Stop!” the guard barked.
Dun stopped. The guard hit him anyway. Dun didn’t give him the satisfaction of any noise. The guard seemed to be doing something on the wall ahead with his free hand. The other gripped the top of Dun’s arm, his spatulate fingers digging into him uncomfortably. There was a beep and the guard pulled Dun forward again. Odd there was no door to accompany the beep sound. It was certainly an identical beep to the front door one.
“Here!”
The guard pushed Dun into an opening: a small room. He could smell someone else. Behind something in the way, as far as his air-sense could tell. A low desk?
“Uhh?” the desk-sitting Over-Folk said.
“New,” Dun’s guard said.
“Uhh,” the sitting guard said. “Arm.”
“Arm!” Dun’s guard said.
When Dun didn’t respond, the guard yanked Dun’s arm forward and slammed it on the table. The sitting guard stood, grabbed Dun’s wrist and then Dun felt a stab of pain in his lower arm.
“Ow!” he said.
Something had broken his skin, and he could feel pressure under the surface. Had they put something in him? He felt a chill down his spine. He hoped it was just fear.
“Quiet!” his guard said and hit him with the stick again on the back of his legs.
He buckled as far as the grip on his upper arm would let him. When the guard pushed him again he almost fell.
“Get up!” the guard yelled.
“New prisoners row,” the desk guard said.
“Move,” his guard said.
He was pushed out of the far side of the small room into a wide corridor that seemed to have the mouths of lots of other corridors facing them. Moaning issued from most of them. They moved toward the corridor where the moaning was loudest. There was sobbing too. He was pushed on and started to hear distinct sounds. The nearest moan became a person. Before he had a chance to process that, there was another beep, the metal creaking of a gate opening, and then Dun was thrown into a small room with a wall at the back, on which he hit his head. It wasn’t all that far away. Dun sat up and rubbed his head. He felt along the back wall and around the cell. Bars on three sides. He reached the gate again where the guard was and was rewarded with a kick in the chest.
The gate clanged shut. ‘Quiet!’ the guard yelled.
Of the many things this place was, quiet was not any.
