4,000 Words
Prompt: Rubber duckie.
OJO STRAIGHTENED, PUFFING out his chest, as his comrade thrust a small box into his hands. Trepidation crawled over his skin at the thought of the monthly feeding. After living on a circus world, he thought there was nothing strange enough to faze him.
He was wrong.
The lower levels of Lazaranth Prison held twisted horrors from a litany of pages torn from their respective worlds.
"Razon was twice as experienced and smart as your sorry carcass, and look what happened to him," the soldier said, her mechanical pupil adjusting to the light near the entrance. If she was trying to give Ojo a pep talk, she was doing a poor job of it. "Don't deviate from your instructions. Don't be a half-wit."
Ojo gave a downward jerk of his chin. Of course. Who wants to end up a blathering fool?
The oily fear that coated his tongue every time he walked the dim corridors wasn't from the mumbling wizard in a constant trance, the brooding cowboy neither living nor dead, the mad scientist, nor any of the dozens of prisoners; it was the snake creature, half-humanoid, half-serpent, unlike anything he'd heard of in the Literary Worlds. In some unfortunate twist of fate, poor Razon had locked eyes with the snake.
Ojo cleared his throat. "The snake's new iron mask is secured, then?"
"You'll be the one who finds out first, rubber clown." The soldier smirked as she rapped her scarred fingers on the box before spinning on her polycarbonate heel, mumbling about the Council and dimwits. The door thundered shut, echoing in the cavernous space.
The box trembled in Ojo's hand, and the newly promoted guard automatically gripped it tighter. He sucked in a breath and marched down the steps, his boots announcing his presence. He set the box on the trolley, the last meal on the list.
Not a clown, a contortionist. And a good one at that, Ojo thought to himself. At least, he thought he was special until he realized he was merely a background character in a book, too small even to be noticed when he disappeared from the pages after accidentally finding his way through a ley line to Rogue Destiny. Ojo shook off his comrade's insult. It was only his pride that she stung.
He passed an empty cell being prepped for another high-risk prisoner. A Raconteur, of all characters. The Rac was rumored to have destroyed an entire literary world. Ojo didn't know if he believed it though. The Racs were responsible for saving worlds like Ojo's own Circus Dawn. If Ojo hadn't followed a Rac that fateful day, the contortionist never would've realized the larger universe he was missing.
In the next cell, a wizard mumbled, his eyes closed. His skin was taut against his wasting ribs, further pronounced by shadows from an eerie flicker of light near his knees. Ojo slipped a box of vegan fare through a slit in the bars and retrieved the untouched meal from the day before. During the exchange, the wizard didn't stop his mantra. He never did.
A few steps further Ojo approached the next cell. Fortunately, this character didn't require food. Ever. In the month that Ojo had trained, the broad-shouldered cowboy had faced the wall, his meaty hands curled into tight fists. Ojo's heart thumped. As if in response, the cowboy turned, staring through Ojo with soulless eyes. The prisoner's hands gripped the bars so tightly they'd be white, if he had any blood in his veins. Ojo's stomach dropped, and he jerked his gaze ahead, not wanting to provoke this creature that bridged life and death.
No one has escaped. No one has escaped. No one has escaped. The mantra brought Ojo little solace.
Ojo passed a half-dozen other prisoners, his focus tunneling ahead. Each step grew heavier as he grew closer to his primary objective for his first night solo: feeding the grotesque snake-creature Maquna.
Every cell was specifically tailored for its inmate. The one for Maquna was five walls of reinforced stone, and a sixth wall made of unbreakable one-way glass. As an added precaution, the blinding scarf over the snake's eyes had been replaced. After Razon's accident, a newly forged iron mask was secured to Maquna's unique humanoid-demon facial bones and sinews. As the cell came in view, Ojo's heart thumped against his ribs.
I can always pull the emergency lever. I'll be fine. A tiny hole in the ceiling was poised to pump a sleeping toxin into the cell, if needed. Though it had done the last guard little good.
Ojo's leaden footfalls closed the distance. Though he had determined not to, he inexplicably found himself staring through the glass at the beast. His knees stiffened and locked as he gazed upon the creature's serpentine tail that morphed into a muscled torso, veined herculean arms, and a face only a demon-mother could love. In Ojo's hands, the box tilted as tiny feet skittered to one side of the package, reminding him of the disgusting task.
"Just breathe, circus boy," a woman's voice with a proper English lilt sounded behind him. Dr. Idalia Jyotsna Devi was in the cell across the hall, too far away to see into the snake's cell, but she could easily spy Ojo.
Unable to move, sweat broke out along Ojo's brow.
"Entranced?" she mused. "Maquna does have that affect on people. He can't help himself. It's in his nature. But he can't take credit for what you're experiencing now. You're holding yourself there, circus boy."
Ojo squirmed within himself, fear rooting his feet to the stones beneath them. There was a scratch and then music sounded from Lady Absinth's cell. A smooth, brass melody that loosened his muscles. His lungs released his locked breath, and his back relaxed enough for him to turn. He couldn't see Dr. Devi, but he pictured her by her gramophone, watching the record go round and round.
He shifted his focus back to the box in his hands, air holes stabbed in the top with a knife. Kneeling at the bottom of the one way glass, he placed his thumb on the wall, and a five by five inch slit wavered and then disappeared. Pulling a latch on the box, the ferret broke free. From the frying pan and into the fire, the ferret rushed into Maquna's cell. Pressing his palm on the wall again, the door waved shut, locking the ferret inside.
The snake's body jerked to the side. Ojo jumped back, unable to tear away from the sight. The massive beast's body went rigid, hovering. His tail twitched, then he dove at the ferret, snatching it up, his hands quick and sure. Then he swallowed the creature whole. Alive.
"Maquna prefers to strangle his prey first," Lady Absinth said, her voice flat. "Kill it. Then eat it. But a ferret is too small to bother with. The Council knows this. Yet they refuse to send anything bigger to satiate him. They're just frustrating the beast. That's probably why he went to the effort to rip the last blinder off him."
A trickle of sweat ran down Ojo's back. He'd suspected the snake managed to remove the blinder, but hearing the doctor say as much made it all the more real. The beast had more power over magic than Ojo had wanted to admit.
"He'll never get this one off," Ojo blurted.
"You're probably right," she nodded. Dr. Devi seemed more detached than actually dangerous, but Ojo had the feeling of being studied like a fortune teller studies her cards. "What toxic mess did they send me today, circus boy?"
Ojo sorted through the remaining dinners, wondering how she'd figured out he was from a circus book. Few knew his background. Most characters rarely spoke of how they ended up in Rogue Destiny—each character's literary past generally came with painful memories of loss. But the Council knew everything about Ojo, including his body's ability to stretch like saltwater taffy. Despite what his comrade had said, the Council put him through rigorous testing. A clown from a light-hearted choose-your-own-adventure could be as effective a soldier as a combatant from a sci-fi space military novel. And Ojo would prove it.