Wonderful Insane World

Julius pushed the door open without ceremony, as if returning from an overly long smoke break. Not a glance behind him. Dylan followed, half a beat behind, still naked but a little less shaky, his body streaked with dried blood and sweat forming a grotesque kind of armor.

The room smelled of cold stew, stale sweat, and resignation. A yellow light hung from the ceiling, swinging lazily like a tongue suspended in a silent mouth. Three men in rumpled uniforms sat around a wobbly table, playing a card game so old the faces looked ready to kill themselves.

They looked up. No jump, no shock. Just that slight shrug people give when they've seen too much to be surprised by a naked man entering their hideout.

"Hey guys," Julius said, running a hand through his dust-caked hair.

"Shouldn't you be decapitated tomorrow morning, Chief?" asked one—gaunt, puffy-eyed, with an ironic smile lodged at the corner of his mouth.

"What'd you think? That I'd just let it happen while there's still good pussy left on this earth?" Julius replied, arms wide like he was embracing the universe through his navel.

Dylan stayed by the door, arms crossed over his thin chest. His ribs jutted out like the keys of a badly tuned piano. He watched. Silent. Tense.

"They call you 'chief'?" he finally asked, tone neutral, almost polite. But with that something in his voice… like a needle in honey.

"Oh shit, forgot the introductions," Julius chuckled. "Julius—ex-mercenary, cap—well, former captain of the Pilaf Guard, pack leader, certified brothel navigator, and unofficial protector of unstable-stigma freaks. A pleasure."

He nodded toward Dylan with his chin.

"And this guy's my new roommate. Doesn't talk much, but seems alright. My gut's never wrong. Make some room for him—he won't bite. Not that he'd have the time anyway."

One of the soldiers handed Dylan a tattered blanket, like giving a one-way ticket to an exile.

"Thanks," Dylan murmured. It was sincere. Strangely sincere. But everything sounded strange in this room, as if reality had been replaced by a botched imitation.

"We won't stay long," Julius said, pulling out a chair. "Gotta disappear before the city's hounds sniff out my ass. And the nudist's here."

"I've had calmer mornings," grumbled a soldier, stuffing his cards back into his coat.

"You'll get used to it. We won't be here long."

A heavy silence fell. The kind only known to those already marked dead in military records, but still breathing out of sheer laziness.

Then Julius leaned toward Dylan.

"Get some rest, you sack of bones. You're gonna need it. If digging through corpses for scraps of energy thrilled you, wait 'til you hear what we've got planned. It's gonna be fun… and probably suicidal."

Dylan closed his eyes for a second. One heartbeat. Then another. His stigma still buzzed deep inside, like a fire refusing to die out.

"As long as I've got something to wear," he murmured, "I keep going."

The rough blanket slipped over his shoulders like a second torn skin. He clutched it around himself—a reflex more than a comfort. The fabric reeked of mold and ancient fear.

Julius let out an approving grunt before turning to the soldiers. "Alright. Plan." He squashed an imaginary bug on the greasy table. "The Observatory cellars."

An even heavier silence dropped. Even the yellow light seemed to stop swinging. The puffy-eyed man widened his lids, red veins glaring.

"You serious, Chief? That's… that's under the main barracks. Right in the beast's mouth."

"Exactly," Julius grinned, his yellowed teeth glowing in the gloom. "They're looking for a condemned escapee and his magical naked buddy. They'll sweep the sewers, ruins, known hideouts… But under their own feet? Never. Last place they'd think to look. Lamp principle."

"The what?" Dylan asked, his voice a little steadier now that he was half-covered.

"You never start searching under the lamp," Julius said, leaning forward, excitement lighting his worn features. "Too obvious. Too filthy. And way too dangerous. The Observatory's where they keep the buzzing things, the singing ones, and those that eat dumbasses' brains. And the cellars? No one goes down there. Even the rats die of fright. But I've got the plans." He tapped his temple.

One of the soldiers, a scarred hulk of a man, coughed loudly. "And how do we get there? Through the main square?"

"Through the forgotten guts," Julius pointed a hooked finger at the floor. "There's an old collector, sealed after the Great Purge. It opens just beneath the eastern wall of the Observatory. A hundred meters of shit and cobwebs the size of dogs, and boom—we're in. You, with that skinny little body of yours, you'll fit even easier."

Dylan raised an eyebrow and glanced at the blanket hanging off his protruding ribs like a half-stuck curtain.

"Great. Always dreamed of crawling naked through a spider-infested sewage pipe."

"See? The enthusiasm is contagious," Julius laughed, rummaging through a cracked leather satchel. He pulled out a crumpled map, drawn by the shaky hand of a very drunk and likely desperate man. He spread it across the table.

"Here," he said, pointing to a blurry smudge. "That's the access mouth. According to urban legend, they called it the Maw. Lovely, huh? A rusted iron plate, covered in faded seals. If it hasn't been welded shut, we can open it from the inside."

"And if it has been?" the scarred soldier asked, gnawing on a strip of jerky that could've been a boot tendon.

"We scratch, we shove, or we pray. Maybe all three." Julius brushed off the question, then turned to Dylan.

"But we gotta move fast. Once they figure we haven't left the underground, they'll get nastier."

Dylan finally stepped forward, bare feet scraping the dusty floor.

"Why the cellars? Why not just leave the city?" he asked, eyes fixed on the map like he was waiting for a corpse to breathe.

Julius stared at him. His grin faded.

"Because what they're doing down there… goes beyond the usual shit. They're messing with soul fragments. Things that should've stayed buried. I've seen it. Took part in it. And now I'm gonna burn it all down."

A ripple of disapproval passed through the soldiers, but no one got up. They all knew. Or at least, they suspected.

Dylan nodded slowly. Part of him wanted to run, find a quiet hole to lick his wounds and vanish. But the other part… the one that had tasted the burn of a cursed stigma, the one that still bore the bite of metal on his skin… that part wanted answers. And maybe revenge.

"Then we go through the Maw," he whispered, resigned.

Julius tapped the table.

"Good. Got that team spirit."

"I just don't wanna die stupid."

"Don't worry. I'll make sure you die in a place of historical value."

Everyone, except Dylan of course, burst into a near-bestial laugh.

Then Julius handed him a canteen.

"Drink. Eat if you're hungry. We leave at sundown. The city's guts aren't the kind of place you enter while the sun's still awake."