Mud-Child: A Prequel Short Story to Elementas: Yamay

Mud-Child - Yamay

The warped wooden door creaked close behind me. The stalactites decorating the ceiling bore down, sharp as knives. Chatter, screams, laughter, and crackling thunder filled the humid air.

Mud squished between my toes as I merged into the foot traffic, holding my head high. Keeping your head down was a surefire way to be the first victim of the night. Or of the street. With our muddy underworld holding hundreds, probably thousands, of convicted criminals, surely someone had been murdered by now.

Our burlap shorts and sleeveless shirts gave us a uniform look. Dried mud blotched our pitch-black skin and violet hair. Some of us shaved our heads to avoid the mess. I had to cut my hair loose after getting it caught on my wooden pallet bed, so it lay jagged across my shoulders.

Drip Drip Drip

I smiled. Water.

A doorway shielded my back as I scanned the flat rooftops of the mixture of crumbling clay and dilapidated wooden homes. Torches blazed up and down the streets to help dry the mud. Whatever good that would do.

Drip Drip Drip

A water droplet caught my eye. I tracked its trail to a roof on the corner of the street. I scowled. Up there would expose me, but water would be worth the risk.

I huffed and snaked through the crowd, ducking into an alley to avoid unwanted attention. Clear, so far.

Drip Drip Drip

Cracks in the clay reached up toward the roof, but not deep enough to use as footholds. Three buildings down, a broken wall to someone’s lost home remained standing. Their loss, but my gain.

I jumped and grunted as I dangled by my fingertips. The slick mud threatened to let me go. My toes slipped around, searching for a foothold. One held, alleviating my shaking arms. I lifted my free leg higher until finding a crack to sink my toes in, then pulled myself up.

I shimmied across the uneven wall until it met with the roof, then tested the firmness before crawling over. Ceilings caved in all the time here. I once watched a boy go right through and heard whoever lived inside let loose a lightning bolt. The bright flash had seared my eyes for a few minutes, but the boy never came out.

Drip Drip Drip

While crouched, I toed across, licking my cracked lips at the puddle. The mud glistened in the firelight around where the water was collecting. I frowned. I’d slip through if I stood directly under. But water would be worth the risk.

My legs trembled as I straddled and crouched over the puddle. The little drops brought a smile to my face. They weren’t much, but it was better than nothing.

“Hey!”

I gasped and looked down at the street in time to see lightning shoot from the crowd directed at me. I jumped off the roof, ramming into the wall across the way. Thunder cracked in the distance, and the sloshing of mud grew closer.

This alley wasn’t familiar to me, but that wouldn’t stop me from running. The static in my veins vibrated, warming my core. Behind me illuminated, and I ducked, throwing my arm over my head. A lightning bolt exploded against the house ahead of me. The thunderclap made my ears ring, but I pushed through the muddy debris.

“Where you goin’, little one?” a young man called in a playful tone. Another young man laughed.

The alley weaved but never broke into a street. I couldn’t tell which neighborhood I was in, so for all I knew, I’d find myself in a more dangerous territory.

I snarled and stopped, turning to face my pursuers. My fists clenched as I stared them down. They grinned, jogging to a stop. The look in their reptilian violet eyes told me they were nothing but trouble. One was shirtless, showing every bone in his gangly body. The other had spiked his short violet hair with crusted mud. They couldn’t be too far past their age of maturity.

“Quite the chase ya put up, little one,” said Boney. His ribcage heaved as he caught his breath.

“Didn’t know this alley goes on forever, did ya?” Spikey grinned, baring his fangs.

I held my head high, keeping my breath even. “So, a couple of fools who just got their powers decided to hunt down a little girl, huh?”

They chuckled. Boney opened his palm, forming an orb of lightning. “Lots of talk coming from someone who ain’t hit their age of power. What are ya? Ten?”

“Twelve.” The electric currents in my veins fluctuated. They never suspected me of having powers. How could they?

“Aw, ya hear that?” Spikey said, grinning at me. “Three more years before she got powers.”

“Shame.” Boney feigned a frown. “Too bad she won’t live long enough to get ’em.”

Lightning buzzed through the air. I held my hands out, forming an electric field around me. My eyes squeezed shut as I grimaced once Boney’s bolt crashed into my barrier. The force’s concussion threw me back. Thunder muffled everything.

I shook my head, trying to clear the distortion.

“Tez? Tez? By the mud!”

I groaned as I sat up. A small crater had splattered mud on the walls where our energies had exploded. Boney shook Spikey, but he lay limp in the muck.

“Tez! Damn it!” Boney glared at me. “You killed him!” He stomped over. I gasped as he grabbed me by my shirt. “You’re gonna pay for that!”

He pulled his electric fist back. I bared my teeth, though I had gaps where my fangs would grow in one night, and dug my nails into his arm, sending my currents into him. Boney yelped before convulsing to the ground. I slipped around as I scrambled away and ran farther down the alley. Didn’t know if my electricity was enough to kill him, but I wouldn’t stick around to find out.

My legs burned. I risked a glance behind me. Nothing but mud. A wall held me up as I took deep breaths to settle my trembling hands. Wasn’t the first time I had to defend myself, and it wouldn’t be the last.

Wings fluttered overhead. I smiled at the barn owl as it hooted, flying west. The poor thing couldn’t find its way back to the surface, but seeing it every night gave me a taste of the above world. The one I would never see. I was born a mudder, and mudders never surfaced.

Farther down, where the owl had flown, came a break in the alley. Until I knew which neighborhood this led to, I would withhold a sigh of relief. They all looked the same, but the people changed. Not by looks, but by how they carried themselves. The more docile hid in the back while the more violent hung around the front.

Mud squelched up to my ankles as I inched toward the corner to peek around. The street wasn’t too busy, but that wasn’t always a good sign. There’d be no blending with the crowd. Regardless, I would walk with my head high until I found my bearings.

Someone moaned behind a door. Whether pain or pleasure, I didn’t know. Yelling came from another closed door. Lightning flashed around the worn edges, with a crack of thunder to follow.

A woman shrouded by frizzy hair crouched low to the ground. I walked on the opposite side of the street, grimacing at the sucking sound. Her head snapped back at me with wide, wild eyes. Violet blood dripped from her mouth as she clutched a wrist of some man lying limp. Blood leaked from his neck, mixing with the mud.

“What ya lookin’ at, girl?” she said with a gory grin.

I kept my eyes straight ahead without missing a step.

“Ya thirsty? I’ll share.”

I swallowed, refusing to look back.

“We can walk in the light together!” She cackled.

Drinking Dharkeri blood had intoxicating effects. Mother said it made you hallucinate, could alter your reality, and some even claimed it was a form of mind control. A crime that would send you down to the criminal pit, meaning half the people here, if not more, were guilty of it. Every night I’d stumble upon a drained victim. Told myself it would never be me.

A crowd cheered to my left. My head cocked as I looked up. The stalactites hung like fangs in a gaping mouth that led up to the surface. The end of the city.

Two giggling children slightly younger than me hurried by.

“C’mon!” the girl yelled, waving at me. “They’re bringin’ someone new!”

My eyebrow arched as I hurried after them. A stalagmite higher than any two-story home had holes that spiraled up. The children expertly used them to climb and hopped onto a wooden roof. I grinned and followed suit. The awkwardly placed holes wrapped around at odd angles, but I had climbed enough muddy structures that it didn’t hinder me.

A line of children leaned over a broken wall. I stood behind the shorter ones instead of shoving my way to the front. Sticking your head out onto a street was idiotic, but these children would have to learn that lesson the hard way.

Lightning shot up and crackled. People cheered and clapped, some even danced. I never understood why we celebrated whenever a new criminal got dumped down here. One more criminal only meant more danger.

Guards marched down, dragging an unconscious man by his arms. A static barrier went up, preventing any of us from getting ideas. Pointless, seeing everyone here loved the underworld. A world without rules. Free to commit whatever crime they pleased. The consequences were death, which everyone pretended not to fear.

“Throw him! Throw him! Throw him! Throw him!” The crowd pumped their fists in the air as they chanted. The children around me joined in.

A guard removed the metal collar around the man’s neck, releasing his abilities, then kicked him in the back, rolling him down the rest of the road. My eyes squeezed shut at the blinding bright flashes. I covered my ears over the deafening booms. The celebration always got out of hand, meaning countless would start dropping dead. Time to go.

I climbed down, wincing at every bolt and crack. The yelling came in waves. The new prisoner was probably dead by now. Lucky for him, he was already unconscious.

I ran until I found a familiar street that headed back toward my comfortable neighborhoods. My stomach growled over the distant thunder that echoed off every wall and structure. People chuckled or rolled their eyes at the celebration.

“Just what we need,” a woman muttered to herself while rocking on the balls of her feet in the middle of the road. “They’ll be running through the streets any damn minute.”

I skirted around her, where two women leaned on each side of a doorway completely naked.

“Lookin’ for work, little one?” one called at me. Her neck was more scars than flesh due to the number of lovers she had. The other giggled, showing a chipped fang. Her neck was in competition.

They laughed as I continued on. At least this time they asked me to work instead of play, as they liked to call it.

The smell of bread wafted over. My stomach grumbled and my mouth grew sticky as it tried to salivate. I ducked into an alley and jumped over the deep muddy holes scattered about. I peeked around the corner, where the overweight baker set out his bread. He had an electric field over his table to prevent thieves. But it never stopped me.

The owl fluttered over and hooted. I smiled and walked out. Merchants hollered at everyone passing by. Someone was trying to sell a chair that had a hole in the seat and one leg. Another said he had fresh meat, which meant a corpse. I never asked what people did with it because I didn’t want to know the answer.

The baker turned his back, and I ran. My hand warmed, and I flicked my wrist, sending a jolt at his spine. He yelped and convulsed to the ground. The barrier dropped, and everyone nearby rushed to the table to swipe as much bread as possible before he came to.

I kept myself charged and elbowed my way through, shocking whoever touched me. I ducked under thrown fists and snapping fangs. Someone touched the same loaf as me and yanked me with them. I snarled and kicked him between the legs, then squeezed out of the mob before anyone else got hold of me.

My hands ached from clutching the bread to my chest as I dashed down streets and alleys. I slowed once the city grew to a soft rumble of voices and tucked into the next alley to catch my breath.

I frowned at the ripped loaf. There wasn’t enough to satisfy Mother, Darin, and myself. That man had ruined everything. But he was rolling on the ground in pain, possibly being trampled, and I had food.

While taking as large of a bite as I could, I walked down the alley, eyeing the rooftops for anyone peeking over. My route was typically safe, but getting comfortable would be a mistake.

The bread dried out my mouth, reminding me of the water dripping from earlier. But I couldn’t go back and risk exposure again. Not with bread in hand.

I groaned under my breath. Water would have to wait for tomorrow night. Told Mother and Darin I’d get them food, so I had to deliver.

My bustling street made it easy to blend. To everyone, I was just some kid and not a giant target.

The door rattled as I knocked. I looked over my shoulder for anyone who thought they’d get the jump on me.

“Who is it?” Mother called.

“It’s Yamay.”

If you enjoyed this short story and want to read more about Yamay, you can find Elementas: Yamay on Amazon in every format, or buy signed copies directly from me!