Shish Kabob

“My case?”

“Why, to become my apprentice!” The stylus paused. “What else could have possibly brought you here?”

“Hard pass.”

Bewilderment shifted to irritation. “Well you’re just a conundrum, aren’t you. You walk into a forbidden catacomb carrying your own mortcloth, proceed to lay down on top of me in a burial niche… but you don’t want to become undead or wield unlimited power?” The voice stopped for a long time in search of an answer. “Tell me what I’m missing.”

“I didn’t walk in here. A piano fell on me in my home world. Then I awoke here.”

“Hmm… well… that’s… a story.” It sounded disingenuous. “Not very believable. But we can go with that, apprentice.”

Anna sighed in frustration, shaking her head dismissively. “I’m not going to argue with a talking stick.” Her voice hardened. “And I’m not your apprentice.”

“STY-lus.”

“Stop that! Do you want me to lose my cool and break you in two?”

“Ooooh. … Evil. … I like it!”

In the dim light, Anna just stared back.

“You’re… not actually going to do it… are you?” The voice sounded mildly disappointed she wasn’t willing to commit such an act.

“Puh.” An exasperated sigh blew through Anna’s lips as she rolled her eyes. Of all the situations to be isekai’ed into, she ends up with a loser sentient stick. “Tell me what I need to do to make you talk less.”

“Simple. Answer one question.”

“Fair. If you answer mine.”

“Deal.” It paused for drama. “Are you literate?”

“Huh?” Anna was caught off guard by something so basic. “Are you asking if I can read and write?”

“Go on.”

“Why couldn’t I?”

“Fascinating!” Its voice shifted in tone, as if someone were sliding up close in a restaurant booth. “Soooo… follow up question. How many words have you written, in your entire life? A generalized number will do.”

What a strange, strange stick. A little creepy too. Anna did some quick head math. School. Her diary growing up. Roughly four years jotting orders in the café. All the online, text based RPG games she played. A few badly written fanfics that would never see the light of day. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe, at least, a million?”

“A- a- million?!” The voice nearly drooled over the number. The sheer amount was apparently overwhelming. “Well then! You’re hired, apprentice!”

Anna’s lips moved to fire back a quick denial, but a sudden distant sound of metal scraping against stone reverberated down the hallway. Anna shuddered, a chill running through her spine, stabbing at her heart, as her throat tightened in fear.

They weren’t alone.

Anna waited a long time, listening intently.

Nothing.

“W-w-what was that?” she whispered softly.

“Could be undead, but unlikely,” the stylus replied. “Necromancy is a lost art, save me.” It paused to consider the possibilities. “If I had to wager a guess? Most likely witch hunters.”

“But I’m not a witch.”

“Apprentice, if you have truly written a million words, not only are you a witch, but you’re the most powerful there has ever been.”

Anna’s voice fell deadpan. “You’re joking.”

Metal reverberated again, though this time closer, accompanied by a profanity. Muffled voices followed. Anna stiffened in the burial niche.

The hunters were slowly closing in.

“How hard did you hit your head earlier? Written words create magic! The more you’ve written over your life the more skilled your words are. Therefore the more powerful your magic.

“What a silly magic system,” Anna retorted in a hushed voice. “Anyone could have magic.”

“Hence the reason why literacy is forbidden. Punishable by… death.”

Anna made a face. “Fine. Whatever. I’ll just write out a spell to return home and rewind time so I’m never in this situation in the first place.”

“Bleh,” the stylus rejected abruptly. “Doubtful that it will work. If it did-” its voice altered to that of a wise, old scholar, “-you would not be here seeking my tutelage."

Awful. Just awful. Anna pressed her right hand to her brow above her glasses. “I can see why someone abandoned you here.”

Metal rang out again, though this time alarmingly close.

Anna’s eyes shot wide.

“Just scribble out a quick ‘Kill’ spell and -poof- they’re corpses.”

“I’m not killing anyone!” Anna snapped. What was intended to be an angry whisper ended up as much more.

“The witch is here!” a male voice boomed down the hallway, raising the alarm. More male voices echoed, some close, others distant, coming from both directions down the hall. “Kill the witch!”

“Kill or be killed,” the stylus replied, nonchalant.

Anna jammed the stylus into her apron’s joey pocket. Abruptly rolling out of the niche, she fell several feet to the floor, hitting the stone hard. Pain shot up her body in multiple places, causing her to yelp loudly.

“That way!” the voices shouted.

Scrambling to her feet, Anna scooped up her phone in one hand and yanked the funeral pall out of the burial niche with the other.

“Good idea. You’ll need that when you’re dead soon.”

“Not helping!”

Flashlight showing the way, Anna rushed down the hallway, her block heels clopping noisily. Cute for a café setting. Entirely troublesome now.

The hallway was narrow, the ceiling low. Burial niches lined either wall, some sealed, others open, displaying the remains of the dead. The air was cool and humid. It smelled stale with a faint trace of incense. Ahead was a junction.

“Which way now?!”

“As if I should know? They put me down here where I shouldn’t have been found!”

Anna raced into the junction.

Thwack! Fffppp!

The sound of a loosened crossbow string heralded the bolt’s arrival. Anna never saw it. She only felt the projectile tickle across the hair on the back of her neck, gone in an instant.

“She is here!” the male shooter bellowed.

More scraping metal. Tromping feet. Swords being drawn. Shields clattering to the ready.

Anna continued straight on, huffing, panic sweat beading up all over her body in the humidity.

“Seriously?! You’re running?! Just summon an undead horde! You have plenty to work with down here!”

There was no time to argue with the stylus.

Multiple torchlights appeared at the far end of the hallway, indistinct shapes accompanying it.

Anna skidded to a stop, panting.

“Do something, now! Or do you want to be a shish kabob?!”