Page 86 of Satisfied By the Slime
His arm is wrapped around a small boy curled against his chest. Bobby. The boy who approached me at the diner, asking what I was made out of.
He hadn’t feared me then, and he doesn’t fear me now. His eyes widen with hope, and he says, “It’s Oz, the slime!”
Gary shifts his position slightly, his voice strained with pain. “Settle, Bobby. One wrong move and this whole cavern could collapse.”
Gary’s right; things could go wrong, fast, and from the creaking above me, I don’t think we have time to wait for a rescue crew.
“I’m going to find a stable path out of here,” I begin. “Stay still.”
I then press through the gap I entered through, testing its edges. The stone is tight here, tight enough that I had to thin myself considerably. A human body would wedge at theshoulders.
I extend another tendril left, through a crack where the ceiling has buckled against the wall. It narrows to nothing three feet in.
On the right, a slope of rubble that might’ve been a secondary passage before the collapse. I sink into it, flowing between the chunks of sandstone and timber, and find solid rock eight feet down.
I try every direction, but each route ends the same way. Stone, stone, and more stone.
The first pulse of genuine fear moves through me.
I could flow back the way I came in minutes. But Gary and Bobby…
I return to the pocket. Gary’s breathing has grown shallower, and sweat gleams on his forehead despite the cool air rising from below. Bobby watches me with those wide, trusting eyes.
“Oz?” Bobby says, and I notice him looking past my shoulder.
A pale green luminescence, faint but unmistakable, is flickering in the tunnel beyond the rubble.
The light moves closer, until a figure emerges from the crack in the wall, and the pale green luminescence catches on gaunt limbs.
The Ridge Walker. His body is lean, angular, folded into shapes that suggest he’s spent decades learning to fit through spaces that shouldn’t accommodate him.
His eyes reflect my glow, and I see him catalog me the same way I’ve been cataloging him. Another creature without a place on the surface.
He freezes at the edge of the pocket. Every line of him pulls taut, ready to snap back behind the rock.
“I know a way out.” The Ridge Walker’s voice is a dry scrape, like stone sliding against stone. “A passage through the rock. Stable.”
I hold still. Any sudden movement could send him retreating into the dark, and we can’t afford that. Behind me, Gary’s breathing has grown ragged, and Bobby’s small fingers gripGary’s shirt.
“Show us,” I say.
The Ridge Walker steps closer, and his long fingers reach for Bobby.
“I can carry the small one. You carry the big one.”
Gary tenses. His arm tightens around the boy, and pain flares through his damaged leg, sharp and acrid. Bobby whimpers at the pressure.
The Ridge Walker crouches at the edge of the pocket. His angular form folds into something smaller, less threatening. Bobby watches him with wide eyes, and something shifts in the boy’s expression. Wonder, not fear.
“Like a glow bug,” Bobby whispers.
The Ridge Walker extends his hand. Long, gaunt fingers, the skin rough with mineral deposits.
Bobby looks up at Gary and says, “It’s okay.”
Gary’s breath catches. His arm loosens.
The Ridge Walker takes Bobby’s hand gently, his grip careful around the smallfingers. The boy steps across the rubble, steady and unafraid, and the two of them move toward the gap in the wall where the Ridge Walker appeared.
