Belthor Escapes at All Costs

The crowd was leaning in aggressively.

“‘Food?’”

“‘Feed’ us.”

“‘Feed.’”

“What.”

“Don’t.”

“‘Feed?’”

“‘Food.’”

With each step Belthor took to dismantle the barricade, it seemed as though another person spawned into a previously empty space. The throng of voices still demanded answers about the “food.”

He couldn’t even try to stealth, with so many eyes boring into him.

What if these people were all like me once?

The thought was more than he could bear. He pointed to the dead clerk on the other side of the shop before the group could close in anymore.

“There. There’s some ‘food.’”

He had no proof that these people were cannibals, but they were terrifying and he wanted them to go away. Distraction was the closest thing he had to an escape plan. For a moment at least, it seemed to work. The room fell silent before turning their backs.

“The ‘food?’”

“Has ‘food.’”

“What.”

“‘Food.’”

Their attention was briefly off him and back to the pockets of the dead man. Belthor took comfort in the fact that they were looting him rather than devouring him, but didn’t much care for the way they all salivated. He turned his attention back to the barricade.

He began frantically removing the steel chairs from the stack, their legs all tangled together in a sort of puzzle that must be removed one piece at a time.

“Do you need help with that?”

The voice wasn’t the hollow monotone of the others, but Belthor glanced over his shoulder suspiciously all the same to see who had spoken. It was a man, tall for a human, and far too thin. The thicket part of his body appeared to be the tight curls of his dark hair. He wore the haunted expression of someone who had been in the “food” store for a long time.

“Uh yeah. Thanks.”

The man was stronger than he looked. Together, they were able to rip chunks of furniture away from the door. Before long, it was just a single table standing between the two of them and freedom. Belthor went to move it, but the man stopped him, his voice dropping to a desperate plea. “Wait.”

I should have known this was a trap.

“‘Food.’”

“‘Food.’”

“Bring us ‘food.’”

“There’s no ‘food’ here.”

“He has no ‘food.’”

“He.”

“Him.”

“‘Food.’”

“He lied.”

“Lied.”

“Lied about the ‘food.’”

The horde was starting to rise and turn toward him once more. Belthor didn’t know what to do but try diplomacy once more to try and assuage them. “Listen. I’m sorry there was no ‘food’ but I have to go.”

“If you had ‘food’ you would tell ‘us’ right?”

“‘Food.’”

“Us.”

“You would tell us.”

“‘Food?’”

The lie sounded a bit over the top, even to himself as he answered. “Of course I would.”

He stepped over the table then, reaching for the door. The man clawed at his cloak. “Help.”

There was a fleeting curiosity there. If Belthor could take a survivor of this place with him, he could get answers to the many questions he had.

It’s risky.

The voices were getting closer.

If this guy could just leave with me, he would, right?

There was no time to find out, or to argue.

“I’ll come right back to help you, alright? This sounds like a quest we can go on with my allies, but,” he looked at the door. Then he looked back to the impending horde, and back to the door again. Escape was so tantalizingly close. “But right now I need to go.”

“You’ll really help me?”

“I’ll come back.”

The man let go of his cloak. “You have to.”

The curiosity and terror were replaced by overwhelming relief as the bell tinkled and he made it outside.

I can never step back inside the "food" store.