CHAPTER EIGHT

“SAVING... SAVED.”

The dwarf stepped back from the altar, his second entry logged in the blank book before him. Waspig was not far behind, grazing on the red beneath both. He thought he ought to chastise the beast but stayed his hand given the much present dilapidation it only continued. Mere feet away a great hole laid in the foundation with a depth the dwarf felt intimate, and above set an equal sized crater, sunlight shot onto cracked tile. Despite the doggedness that brought the dwarf an unignorable sensation of weary, waking up to a warm face was what he wanted most, and he felt prepared for what the day would ask of him next.

To clarify, the dwarf tired. But his story is written.

Together, both dwarf and animal came up to the chapel’s blockade. He set about attempting to free the double doors of their candelabras but struggled to frustration. The dwarf at once inhaled sharply. He clenched his fists in repeated cycles until the strength in them gave out. He drew up to the door again and wailed a series of limp attacks, then crumpled to the tile. The dwarf did not cry despite his eyes stinging from exhaustion; frustrating further. All this Waspig watched, tilting his head and little else. The dwarf’s cheek smeared too cold, so he drew up and headed into the hallways of the place, searching again for another exit. He thought to smack himself for allowing his idiocy control of the situation. It was some time before he remembered the existence of another who snorted eagerly at his master’s calloused hands.

The two entered the kitchen as the dwarf went to fetch what remained of the pantry’s stores: very little. They then returned to the red rolled room and sat where light basked, one crunching carrots and the other expired potatoes. The dwarf gazed up at the saturated blue past the ceiling’s penetration. Fat clouds drifted lazily. They did not look so unlike his home’s. He wondered their distance traveled. Past them, he realized, something resembling the moon presented itself in an even deeper blue, a sapphire over puddles. Near dead center sat a speck of green, and the dwarf struggled to comprehend its existence. He turned to his pet as assurance of the alternate, strange reality they ate in. His eyes came to rest. The dwarf dozed off...

The sun persisted--but dimmer. It became clear quickly to the dwarf there laid only one path out: up. The inherent danger in his scheme was not lost as he peered over the edge of the hole beneath. The dwarf considered whether he would be granted a second resurrection should he fall. He spat those thoughts then out into the abyss. Returning to Waspig with a potato, the dwarf allowed it to hover precariously close to its snout below. A series of huffs betrayed the beast’s intentions, and it was quick to follow suit, lifting its forelegs up into the air while adjusting its wings. The dwarf whistled. Another potato having wiggled in the air, Waspig repeated its trick--slightly now more elevated. This act continued two potatoes deeper until the dwarf succeeded in lifting his pet completely off the ground.

“ANIMAL HUSBANDRY INCREASED TO 3”

“ANIMAL HUSBANDRY INCREASED TO 4”

“ANIMAL HUSBANDRY INCREASED TO 5”

Next, the dwarf practiced mounting. It--the creature-- did not at first much appreciate its owner’s insistence on the point, but further offerings of potato allowed the dwarf’s mimicking of horseback rode days--his steed now somewhat stouter. Waspig’s strength frightened the dwarf as he came to understand its ability to bear its bearded burden. But the lessons continued as the last vestiges of light nearly left the chapel, darkness soon to reign dominant once more save the stars as guests.

“ANIMAL HUSBANDRY INCREASED TO 6”

“ANIMAL HUSBANDRY INCREASED TO 7”

The process grew so gradual the dwarf himself became caught off guard at the level of verticality achieved. The two ascended up close to roof, evidence meanwhile of a sunset spilling out through stained glass. Waspig fluttered with a determination not understood but appreciated nonetheless, gobbling up the last of the dwarf’s supply. Just enough, thought the dwarf, his concern however growing elsewhere, inevitable foraging ahead of them. But he blunk back to reality.

“ANIMAL HUSBANDRY INCREASED TO 8”

And as the beasts’ lungs collapsed and contracted with a struggle its wilderness had never wrung, the dwarf’s hands seized the mouth of the hole.