“Nearly there. Eyes up.”

It had been three days since I first started walking with The Man In The Hat, and these were the first words he’d spoken. For a moment, I actually thought I’d imagined it, that the rustling grasses of the plains had waved in the wind to make it sound like speech. I’d been walking through the dry, amber grass for weeks, I could see myself imagining something like that. He licked his lips, flicking the dust from the corner of his mouth.  No, those had definitely been words and it had definitely been him.

The Man was big. That’s the only word I can use. It wasn’t that he was particularly tall, or wide. In fact, he seemed average in nearly every respect. He just seemed…larger than he was. His body was buried in a long, black coat with a high collar, his face shrouded in shadow cast by his wide brimmed leather hat. I got this impression that his clothes could barely hold him in. I strained to see his face within the darkness he’d wrapped himself in, but all I could get were vague impressions. Something about him struck me as being very old. Too old to be out in a place like this.

“Eyes. Up.” he spoke again.

The voice wasn’t what I expected. It had the low, whispery quality of someone who downed a bottle of whisky a day, but without the rasp. It was… soft. Gentle, almost, with the kind of tone one uses around a newborn. Like the kind I used around my own girl. The thought of my family at home shot a needle through my chest, but I pushed it down. I didn’t want to let my guard down, not around him.

“We’ve been walking for days, and you finally speak now?” I said. I’d never made a trek out to the Falling Market, didn’t know much about it, only that it was dangerous. Most people traveled here in groups or found companions along the way. I supposed The Man was mine. He wasn’t what I would have chosen, would have chosen anyone else if I’d had the option. His quiet unsettled me. But one couldn’t be picky in a place like this.

“Because now it’s necess’ry. You’re not paying attention,” he said.

I wanted to refute it, but he was right. In the few moments since he’d talked, the scenery around us changed. The long grasses of the plains were still there, but added to it were little piles of detritus. Toasters, wooden boards, bits of rusted machinery. Far ahead, the piles grew larger and larger, leading to mountains of discarded objects spreading into the distance. We were in the outskirts of the Market.

Everything was bathed in a sickly, burnt orange light that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. It was just after dawn. Soon the light would spread and brighten, turning yellowish at its peak before fading again. I’d heard rumors that in the other world, there was a thing called the Sun, that hung up in the air and illuminated everything, so bright you couldn’t even look at it. I wondered what that must be like. This hazy, ambient luster was the only light I’d ever known.

We were hoping to reach the Market by Fell Day. At least I was. I had no idea what he actually wanted.

“So what are you here for?” I asked, and immediately regretted it. The Man In The Hat didn’t look back to me, but I could feel the energy coming off him. That was one of the unspoken rules of the Market; you didn’t ask what people were there for. I changed tack, hoping to salvage our…relationship? Partnership? Whatever this was. Mostly, I didn’t want to anger him. He seemed so calm here, and I didn’t want to anger someone who could be at ease in a place like this.

“I know I shouldn’t…Sorry. It’s just, how can I help you if I don’t know what you’re looking for?”

“You can’t,” The Man said simply.

This was infuriating. I understood what he was talking about, couldn’t disagree with it, but this was a man whose life could be in my hands, or vice versa. I wanted to know something about him.

“How far in are you going? Can you tell me that?”

“Far.”

I would have rolled my eyes, if I were the type to do that, and if this were a less serious situation. Instead I just chewed my lip. The man was greedy with his words, with his knowledge, and I hated him for it. Were all pickers like this?

“How about this. What’s your name?”

Silence. Not even a grunt.

“Come on, at least that? What should I call the person I’m traveling with?”

“You can call me whatever you like,” he said.

“Look, I’m just trying to make conversation,” I said.

The Man In The Hat stopped. He turned to face me. His face was covered in shadow, but I could see the outlines of eyes, cheekbones. The eyes narrowed. “Conversation’ll get you killed,” he said. “Makes you distracted. When you’re distracted, you die.”

“True, but we’re not even fully there yet. Surely you can tell me something. I mean, we’re here to help each other right? Look, I’ll start. My name is—”

The Man put up a hand. It wasn’t a harsh gesture, a violent one, a quick one. Just a simple raising of his hand. But it stopped me cold. I don’t know how, or why, but the simple movement of his hand said “authority,” and it would have taken more will than I had to deny it. Was there some power there? Or was it just pure force of personality? I didn’t know. The simplicity of it, the unquestioned nature, jabbed at me.

“I don’t like names,” he said.

“Well, call me what you like,” I spat back at him.

He sniffed a little laugh, and I could just barely see the corner of his mouth quirk up.

“Follow me, Thief.” He turned and walked on into the Market.

“Thief? That’s what you’re going with?” My hands curled into fists, cheeks going hot. “I’m no thief!”

Though I had to admit, there was some truth to what he said. We all called the place the Market, sometimes referred to those who came here as “pickers,” but the reality was that we were scavengers. Rooting among the piles of trash and lost things for something useful, tools, clothes, things that could help our tribes or families. Sometimes, pickers came from the big cities, like Zevzi or Prokesh, seeking things the sprawling communities needed to survive, things they could only find here; parts for their machines, the massive engines that drove their lives.

And then some came here for profit or power.

I wondered why he’d come, and whether he was after the same thing I was. I somehow doubted it, but then again, The Man In The Hat was impossible to read.

“We all come here to take something,” he said. “We’re all thieves. And I’m inclined to believe the Proprietor would agree.”

“The Proprietor?” I said. “I thought he…it…was just a story?” We’d all heard things. He was a man who owned the place, a monster who stalked it, a beggar king, a leper messiah. All anyone could agree on was that nobody saw him and lived. For him to speak so casually of The Proprietor felt wrong.

The Man In The Hat grunted and kept trudging through the growing piles of garbage. “This whole place is a story. What makes one part of it any less believable?”

I hated that I couldn’t argue with him. I kept wanting to dispute him somewhere, but everything he said made a sort of sense. A method to the madness, as they say. Not for the first time, I hoped he wasn’t after the same thing I was. I trusted him less every moment I was with him, and the thought of him possessing it made bile creep up my throat.

“You said you’re going far,” I said.

“Yep.”

“Same here. Going to the Market Square. Trying to catch the Fell. Guess it’s good we met up.”

The Man In The Hat raised an eyebrow at this. I thought I saw wrinkles bunching on his forehead, but it could have been a trick of the light.

“The Square? That is certainly a coincidence.”

My throat went dry and my fist tightened. I hid it behind my back so that he wouldn’t see the reaction. Did he know why I was coming here?

“Looking for something in particular?” I asked.

The Man’s eyes went a little soft at the question and he gazed off into the distance. I wondered if he’d heard me, then finally he spoke.

“Something important,” he said. It could have meant anything. I bit my lip again to keep a frustrated groan from spilling out at his vagaries.

“I notice you’re more conversational now,” I said.

“Because it’s clear to me you have no idea what you’re in for, Thief,” he said. “And I don’t like traveling with fools.”

“And what exactly is it that I don’t know?” I’d heard the place was dangerous, but The Man was starting to get on my nerves. I hated his arrogance, and how he just expected me to take everything he said as truth. I’d met plenty of travelers in the cities like that, and they’d always irritated me. Of course, he actually seemed to know, but that didn’t stop the feeling from bubbling up. Men like him always thought they knew what was best for people like me. I’d spent my life under their thumbs, and seeing that attitude out here in a lawless, chaotic place like the Market just solidified why I’d come in the first place.

The Man In The Hat didn’t say a word, but reached into his coat and drew out a short blade, roughly the length of his palm. His arm barely moved, and the throwing knife whizzed through the air, missing my ear by a hair’s breadth. It was so close, I could hear the wind parting as it passed by.

“What in the hell—?” I started, but then halted at the sound of the knife striking home, a crack like cutting open a melon. I turned. On the ground lay a person. Well, not quite a person. Maybe it was something trying to be human, or maybe it was human once, but human it was not. It was warped, twisted, limbs elongated, little tufts of shaggy, greasy hair growing in places hair shouldn’t be, teeth and bone exploding in clusters from elbows and bare patches of flesh. The Man’s knife jutted out from its forehead.

“What in the fuck is that?”

“Something you don’t know anything about,” The Man said.

I looked around. The piles of junk were all around us now. But as I looked closer, I could see not all of them were piles. Most of them were, but among the heaps of garbage were areas that were more orderly. Here, pots and pans were stacked up into a shack of sorts, there a slapdash shelter of bits of wood, rusty gears, shredded pieces of rubber all nailed into one semi-coherent mass. The creature, person, thing, whatever it was, had crawled out of a heap of left socks stuck together to form a kind of igloo. There were nothing but left socks here, that was the joke I’d always heard. I never quite got it.

The Man In The Hat moved on, not saying another word about what just happened.

“Um, do you want to get your knife back?” I asked.

He shook his head. “No. I don’t like touching those things. He can keep it.” That meant he had more. I shivered at the thought of how many weapons he had concealed under that coat of his.

“Is touching them bad?” I asked.

“Dunno. Never touched one. Don’t want to find out.”

“Doesn’t seem like you,” I said. “I’ve always heard that knowledge is power. You don’t strike me as the kind of person who likes not knowing something.” For the first time since our conversation started, I felt like I finally had a one-up on The Man, like I’d backed him into a logical corner. I savored the minor victory.

But instead of conceding, he said, “I know enough to know when I don’t need to go looking for something. If I touch it and find out I shouldn’t have, what have I learned? Nothing. Because I’m dead.” And like that, my victory deflated, and I felt smaller than I already had around The Man. My lip quivered as I bit back bitter indignation.

If The Man In The Hat saw, he didn’t seem to care and simply walked on through the maze of scrap and trash. I took one last look at the dead creature, and jogged up to join him.

As the piles of junk grew higher, the little shelters became more numerous. I was seeing them in nearly every giant heap. Occasionally I would hear a hiss or growl from one of them, but none emerged. Maybe they were tired. Maybe we weren’t worth their time. I just didn’t want to think that it was because they were afraid of The Man In The Hat.

The light brightened to a urine-yellow. Reaching midday. Almost Fell. We had to hurry.

“How much farther?”

“To the Square? Not much. Hour maybe. You’ll get there in time.”

Every time he spoke his voice raked my spine with a blade. The Man In The Hat just rubbed me every possible wrong way. I’d be happy when this was over and I could leave this strange person to whatever it is he did.

“So I take it you’ve been here before?” I said. “You seem to know your way around.”

“Been here plenty. The thing I’m looking for, been looking for it for a while. It… belonged to someone important to me.”

When he said that, my shoulders unbunched and my fists unclenched, releasing a tension I didn’t know I’d been keeping. He couldn’t be here for the same thing as me. I’d only heard about it a few months before. Rumors of something that would be coming through from the other side. Something that nobody would lose or get rid of. I’d overheard a man in a pub in Zevzi, an elderly picker of some seventy years. Everyone there thought he was crazy, spinning tales of things he’d read. Specialist in letters and manuscripts scavenged from the Market, he said. Crying over an ale, he told of something that shouldn’t exist, something powerful. Some said it had saved the world on the other side, others that it had ruined it. But either way, god forbid it ever come here.

I listened to his stories with open ears. Listened with wonder and horror as he described the object. A thing so small but so feared. A great equalizer, he called it. Something that could make the weakest man or woman into a being of power. Something that could make it so that my family would never have to struggle, to suffer, ever again. So that I’d never have to kowtow to those with greater means than I.

But The Man In The Hat didn’t need to know all that. Especially since he didn’t seem to be looking for it. Maybe I wouldn’t have to kill him after all.

The stranger led me deeper and deeper into the Market, and the heaps of refuse were now as tall as any of the buildings I’d seen in Prokesh. They’d spent generations crafting the sweeping vistas out of stone and concrete pilfered from this very place, but all of those centuries of human ingenuity were dwarfed by these piles of trash. I would say they spread as far as the eye could see, but my vision could only extend a few piles in any direction.

My heel nicked a stack of metal cylinders, each with a little paper bit with pictures of vegetables. The stack toppled, the clattering sound echoing throughout the space.

Within seconds, half a dozen of the misshapen creatures appeared out of their little caves of garbage and surrounded us, like vermin crawling from their nests.

The Man In The Hat didn’t chastise me, didn’t shout. Didn’t say a word. He simply reached into his coat and drew out two batons, simple wooden poles, each about the length of his forearm. Before I knew what was happening, The Man was in motion.

He was a flurry of movement, arms snapping out and back, whirling and spinning, thrusting and slashing. One arm lunged forward and bashed into a creature’s face, spreading blood and teeth in a halo around it. In the same movement, the hand had shot back, crunching into another’s shoulder. The creature howled in pain, but stopped a moment later when The Man’s booted foot slammed into its neck. He knocked the thing to the ground and then stomped on its bare throat, crushing it.

I by no means considered myself a sheltered person. I’d traveled through war zones, seen the odd pub dustup. But never in my life had I seen savagery like this. The Man In The Hat fought like a thing possessed, like a creature himself. I wasn’t sure what sickened me more, the creatures or the thing fighting them.

By the time he finished, his hands and coat were spattered with blood, dark and thick. He wiped a drop off his lip with one finger.

“That was—” Before I could say anything, he grabbed me by my shirt, pulled me close, my feet nearly lifting off the ground. This was the clearest I ever saw his face, but I couldn’t look at it. His eyes seemed to flare out from the shadow of his hat, fiery with rage, drawing my attention.

“Do. Not. Do that. Again.” His breath puffed into my face. Each word was like a punch, full of force and fury. He dropped me and walked off. I straightened my shirt and followed. I desperately wanted to be free of this man, to not have to be near him anymore, but the thought of being in this place without him terrified me ever so slightly more.

The Man descended farther into the labyrinthine corridors, the heaps and piles and stacks so high that the ambient light of this place started to dim, to be soaked up by the gargantuan mountains of waste. For the next hour, we walked in silence, the only sound our feet crunching in the dusty ground and the occasional bit of detritus tumbling down one of its hills. And then, when I thought that the endless lanes would go on forever, we turned a corner and the space opened up.

The Market Square.

The area was enormous, bigger than I would have thought possible. The ground angled downward into a bowl, big as any of the cities I’d been to. At its center was a monolithic dome of junk. It was too far away to see anything specific, but everything in existence must have been there. There would be treasures worth a thousand lifetimes. For a moment, I forgot about my goal and just tried to imagine all that could be hiding within its borders.

But the more I looked at it, the more I started to truly take in the Square. I could see motion down there, like insects at this distance. The creatures. Dozens, hundreds of them, scurrying around the giant dome. Surrounding the giant hill were thousands of smaller piles. The creatures ran between the big pile and these. They pulled objects out of the mound seemingly at random, but all had an idea of where everything was supposed to go. They’d pluck something from the mass, look at it. Some they would throw back, others they would carry over to one of the sub mounds. Some would go to the small piles and pull something one of the others had tossed there, placing it reverently into a different heap, all according to some system that I couldn’t begin to decipher.

And then, at the edges of the bowl, I could see others like us. Pickers here to rip the treasures from the hands of their caretakers.

“There’s your Square,” The Man In The Hat said.

“That’s a lot of those things,” I said. “What are they?”

“They’re pickers,” The Man said. “Here too long, and changed into shadows of their former selves.”

I blanched. “Is that true?”

He shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. As true as anything else is in this place.”

“Well, creatures or not, I’m going down,” I said. Despite the danger, I felt a grin spreading over my face. I was so close to my prize, to being free. Free of this Man, and the life of subservience that had brought me here.

I took a step into the depression and within moments felt a pressing on my mind. It wasn’t a headache, but it felt similar to that. Like a pressure, but not on my brain, on my mind. I stumbled backward, clutching my head and tripped. A strong arm shot out and barred me from falling over completely into a stack of trash. The Man In The Hat stared at me as he pushed me upright.

“You almost fell.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“You are not welcome. I saved us both. Had you fallen, they would have heard. And I cannot kill them all.”

“You didn’t—” I shouted, then lowered my voice at another glare. “You didn’t feel what I did!” I whispered.

“The knocking on your mind? I’ve felt it.”

He really had been here before. Not just to the Market, but here, to its very core. Who was this man? I wanted desperately to ask him who he was, what he was doing here, why he knew so much about this place. But I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing how much he’d occupied my mind. Instead, I asked, “Knocking? I felt a pressure. Pressing in.”

“Everyone’s different. That…pressure, as you feel it, that’s The Proprietor.”

“Where is it?” I asked, whipping around to see if it was near.

“Around. You likely won’t see it. Just ignore the feeling. It won’t notice you unless you do something stupid.”

“Like knocking over a pile?” I said, only half sarcastically.

“Exactly like that.” He was deadly serious.

His complete calm did nothing to reassure me. Quite the opposite, actually.

High above the great dome, I heard a POP. All said, it was uneventful. Not the fearful ripping open of the sky I’d expected. Just a pop, and a hole existing in open air where there had been sky before. And then came the thing that gave the market, this day, its name.

The Fell.

A rain of new treasures and trash poured from the hole, tumbling hundreds of feet to the top of the dome, then skittering and sliding down its sides. Millions of objects from the other world, plummeting down into ours, to enrich our lives, to bolster our cities and walls, to fix our broken machines. To give hope to the hopeless.

Power to the powerless.

Once every score of years, the way would open. Every Fell was a chance for someone to upend the world, to make a better life for themselves. This was mine. I primed myself to sprint down into the Square, but The Man In The Hat held me back. He pointed to the other side. Some of the pickers had already shot down into the bowl. Some held weapons, others held nothing, but all were thumping and pounding the dirt, arms swinging wildly as they ran.

It took little time for the creatures to hear them, and even less time for them to tear the pickers apart. Some fought, sure. Some killed a few of the creatures, slashing with swords and daggers and machetes, others bashing heads and crushing bones with bats and clubs. But none could keep it up for long, there were just too many. In seconds, every one of the pickers was overrun by blurs of teeth and hair and claws, until all that remained of them were scraps of cloth and red smears in the dust.

“We don’t do like them,” The Man In The Hat said. “We wait. We go careful. We go quiet. Like them.” He pointed to another spot on the outside of the Square. Teams of pickers were slowly making their way down into the bowl, creeping behind piles of junk, dispatching a creature if it got too close. So many others, so close to the Square. I fought down the impulse to run, to beat them to the prize that was mine. “Slow. Quiet. Say it.”

“Slow. Quiet,” I said.

“Good. Now follow, Thief.”

I still rankled at the name, but didn’t question him.

“Why are you doing this?” I asked.

“Doing what?”

“Helping me?” I asked.

“I’m not. I’m helping me. You’ll stick near me because I know more than you, whether I want you to or not. And if you’re near me, I don’t want you acting a fool. That will kill us both. So the sooner we’ve both found what we need, the sooner I can never think about you again. Now follow, and no talking. I won’t ask a second time.”

He stalked off into the jungle of twisting pathways and teetering stacks of trash.

I followed, glad that this trip was nearly over, that I wouldn’t have to listen to his smug superiority any more. As soon as I found what I’d come for, he’d be the one listening to me.

We were lucky. The commotion at the other end of the Square had drawn most of the monsters, and our way was clear. But as we got closer and closer to the Fell, I could feel the pressure on my mind growing stronger, more forceful. Even The Man In The Hat seemed to be having trouble keeping his composure. His steps became labored, and once or twice he stopped to shake his head, as if the act would stop the The Proprietor’s reach from boring into his mind.

Before long, we were down near the main dome, objects still falling from the opening, tumbling towards the ground. The Man went on his own way now, digging through the piles as quietly as he could, methodically searching through the rubble.

I looked around, tried desperately to find the thing I was looking for, the object the old man had described. There were teapots and books, cutlery, wooden toys that looked like caterpillars with wheels on them, a strange thing that looked like a glass pear with wires inside it. Everything so strange, but none of it what I needed.

Then I saw it.

A glint of metal in the yellow light, shining out, calling to me.

The Equalizer.

That’s what the old man had called the object, the relic, the weapon. It wasn’t quite as the old picker had described it, though. In the sketches he’d shown me, every instance of the weapon had lots of wood and moving parts, little filigrees over the metal tube that ran its length. This was smaller, sleeker, more angular. But it was unmistakable. The tube on this one was shorter, squarish in shape. It had more of a handle than the others, made of the same metal, and lined with a white material, maybe bone. And there, at the crux where the handle and tube met, the little hinging bit that activated it.

It was truly magical, just as the old man had said. It took no strength to operate, unlike a bow. One could train for years with a longbow, and a pulled muscle or a quirk of the wind could make a shot go wild. Not so here. With a flick of that switch, it could fire a small piece of metal hundreds of miles per hour. No wind would make it go awry. No armor could stop it. The perfect weapon. One that would bring strength to those who had none.

Would make a person born low equal to any.

I looked up. Another picker was there, looking at the same thing. We locked eyes. For a moment, we just stared, either daring the other to move first, or trying to will our own legs to lunge forward. We both leapt in the same instant.

Our hands wrapped around the Equalizer, his around the handle, mine around the tube. We wrestled and fought, each churning against the other, jerking it back and forth between us. This was getting nowhere. I shot out a leg and raked the picker’s shin. He grunted in pain, but held on tight.  

I slipped a foot behind his ankle and twisted. The picker’s leg caught on mine and he went down, landing flat on his back on the dusty ground. He gasped little breaths, the fall knocking the wind out of him. I leaned in, put an elbow to his neck and bore all my weight down, squeezing the rest of the air out. My hands never left the weapon, and my eyes never left his.

It took much less time than I would have thought for his eyes to go glassy. His fingers loosened. I’d never killed a man before, and the hugeness of it pressed on the back of my mind, stronger even than the touch of the Proprietor. I wondered what my daughter would think about what I’d done. But I could worry about that later. I would gladly listen to anything my family had to say to me once I built us a better life.

The Equalizer was mine.

I held it in my hand. It was solid, heavier than it looked, but not uncomfortable. It felt…right. The handle was contoured perfectly, and my palm molded around it as if they were made for each other.

Having found my quarry, I jogged off to find The Man In The Hat.

He wasn’t far. He was arms-deep in a pile of small golden things.

“Hey, we need to—”

“Shh!” he said. Slowly, carefully, he pulled something out of the mound. It was a little box, polished wood with gold fittings. He ran his fingers over the shiny wooden surface, tracing out a series of letters carved onto its top. He looked to me, and for the first time since I’d met him, he smiled, truly smiled. It was terrifying.

I looked down at the weapon in my hand. It was a good thing I’d found it and not The Man In The Hat. I wouldn’t trust a man like him to wield this kind of power in a million years. And he’d come here so often, had never found the Equalizer, didn’t seem to want it when it was right in front of him. Why did he seem so enamored of that plain little box, and so uninterested in the weapon?

Unless what he’d found was more powerful.

No, that couldn’t be. How could he have found something greater than the Equalizer? This was a thing of legend, talked about in hushed whispers in dark rooms. But I couldn’t ignore the evidence. That little thing was more important to him than the greatest weapon I could imagine. I couldn’t have someone like him wield something that would make my find worthless, not when I’d come so far, given so much to attain it.

“Give me the box,” I said. Fear thrilled through me, but I was bolstered by the weapon in my hand.

The Man turned, eyes level with the end of the weapon. He still held the box tight in his fist.

“You won’t kill me.”

“Why not? You don’t believe I’d do it? Because I’ll do it!” I pulled back the little hinging bit on the back that primed the weapon. It didn’t look like the one the old picker had shown me, but that part was still there. It made a satisfying click and locked into place. Sweat slicked my palm, and I gripped the weapon tighter. “Drop the box!”

“I believe you’ll do it,” he said, his voice calm as ever. “That’s not what I mean.”

I was tired of him, of his arrogance, his effortless calm, his easy violence, his deep knowledge of things nobody should know, of a place nobody should come to. And now that I had the weapon, I wouldn’t have to take it any longer.

I pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened.

I squeezed it again. Again and again. Nothing.

The Man In The Hat stepped forward, and with a speed and strength unlike anything I’d ever seen, he snatched the Equalizer from my hand.

“Safety’s on,” he said.

I had no idea what that meant, but he flicked a little lever with his thumb, one I hadn’t seen, and aimed the weapon at me. It belched out a deafening bang and a small puff of smoke. Searing fire shot through my leg at the same time, and I screamed, looking down to see red blooming on my pant leg. My kneecap felt like it had shattered into a million pieces as my leg crumpled under me, dumping me on the garbage-strewn earth.

I looked up to see The Man In The Hat disassembling the Equalizer, sliding its components apart with a deft grace. In moments, the weapon was in pieces, and The Man tossed each one into a different pile. Then he knelt down and looked at his prize.

He opened the top of the box.

I cringed and squeezed my eyes shut, expecting some kind of hideous weapon, though what could be more horrible than the fire that shot through my leg I couldn’t imagine.

But there was no weapon. No explosion. Just a little tinkling sound. Slowly, I opened my eyes.

Inside the box was a tiny little statue of a ballerina, spinning on pointed toe, while light, metallic music spread through the quiet space. The Man In The Hat stroked the porcelain hair of the little dancer, his jaw quivering. For a moment, I thought I saw a tear shimmer at the edge of his eye. He closed the box, and slipped it into his coat.

“I…I don’t understand,” I said.

The Man didn’t respond.

“What happens now?” I asked, my blood spreading into the dust.

“You did something stupid,” he said. “The Proprietor will find you. Or maybe the creatures will first. Maybe both. You’ll die.” And then he walked away. He didn’t curse me, or help me. He just left.

For what it’s worth, he was right. I didn’t see the Proprietor. I just felt it. The pressing on my mind intensified, as if he, or it, had noticed me. Have you ever had that feeling that someone is staring at you, but you can’t tell from where? That’s what this felt like. Like I was being stared at from every angle. I felt my mind tremble under the Proprietor’s gaze, and then felt the edges start to crumble away. I grasped onto them, desperately trying to hold them in, but it was like water falling through a sieve.

I thought about what waited at the home I would never see again. My spouse. My daughter, alone in the hovel we’d squatted in for years. They asked me not to come, said we had all we needed. They didn’t understand. All I’d wanted, all I’d ever wanted, was to give them a life where they didn’t have to scrape and scrounge for meals, where we could be the architects of our own futures, rather than live under the will of another. It was a humble goal. If it hadn’t been for the Man…

Already my memories of the stranger were slipping, dissolving. The more I tried to hold on to them, the more they melted away. Then memories of my family followed. My daughter. I saw her face, beaming up at me, dirty but smiling.  

She’d said something to me, before I left. It had seemed so important, but I couldn’t remember…

Searing white spread over my vision.

Then nothing.