The Rat King: Anchor of Guilt

Naomi knelt beside Eli, the flickering lantern casting dim, shifting light across his unmoving form. The silence in the hideout was thick, pressing, as if the air itself resisted movement. She traced her fingers over his wrist, feeling the steady but unresponsive pulse beneath his fur.

"I won't be gone long," she murmured, as if saying it aloud made it true. "I just… I need to know more."

Her grip on his paw tightened, her breath shaky. **If I can remember more, maybe I can help you.**

She exhaled, forcing down the hesitation, and gently placed his hand back at his side. "When you wake up, I want to have answers."

Her words faded into the damp stone walls. With one last look, she turned, stepping away and disappearing into the ruins.

The Ruined Quarter stretched around her like a skeleton of the past. Towers of collapsed buildings loomed in the dark, their broken structures casting long shadows. The air carried the stale scent of dust and time. This place should have meant something to her, should have felt familiar. Instead, it was just a hollow expanse.

Her boots crunched against loose rubble as she moved carefully between the wreckage. Every corner, every jagged remnant of a building, felt like it could be hiding something or someone. But she pressed on, forcing herself forward. She noticed a set of footprints leading out from a gap covered in recently moved foliage.

Who had been out here?

She made her way down a narrow tunnel, the walls damp and the air thick with the scent of stagnant water. The path was uneven beneath her feet, forcing her to step carefully. After several minutes, she came to a sudden stop. Ahead, a gap yawned open, the sound of raging water echoing from below. She inhaled sharply, her pulse quickening at the sight. But then, just a little further down the path, she noticed something out of place.

A plank bridge spanned the chasm, its rough wood a stark contrast to the ruins surrounding it. Naomi hesitated at the edge, studying the reinforcement. Someone had built this. Recently.

She stepped onto the bridge, testing the weight beneath her feet. The wood held. Whoever built this needed it to last.

Her stomach twisted. But for what?

She didn't get to think on it for long.

The moment she passed the bridge, the atmosphere changed. The air felt denser, thick with something unseen. She wasn't alone.

The sound came first, a shift of boots against stone. A faint, deliberate movement.

Then the voices.

"Well, well. Looks like we got ourselves a stray."

Naomi turned sharply, but it was too late. Figures emerged from the ruins, cutting off her escape. Shadows moved with them, low murmurs passing between them like silent confirmation.

A trap.

She took a step back, heart pounding, scanning for openings, a way out. But they'd planned this. They knew these ruins better than she did. This was their ground.

The voice that followed was different, rough, but deliberate. Calculated.

"Now, now. Let's not waste bullets, yeah?"

Naomi turned toward the voice just as a figure stepped forward from the group. Lean, wiry, an air of command clinging to him like a second skin. His coat was weathered but functional. His single eye gleamed beneath the flickering lanterns.

He studied her for a long moment, his expression unreadable, then smirked.

"Well. You're not what I expected. Name's Roe, ma'am."

Naomi didn't move. Didn't speak.

"Go on, then," Roe gestured to one of his men. "Bring the young lady over. Wouldn't want 'er gettin' lost."

The thug hesitated. He shifted, as if suddenly uncertain. Didn't move.

Naomi felt the flicker of power stir inside her. It was working.

Roe noticed.

His good eye narrowed, though his smirk didn't falter. He exhaled, shaking his head like he was indulging a misbehaving child.

"Ohh, you're right, mate." His words dripped with mock hospitality. "Wouldn't be polite, now, would it?"

Naomi tensed as he approached, but he didn't rush. He kept it casual, unthreatening.

"You see, miss, sometimes me men can be a bit rough but please," Roe gently guided her forward, "don't be alarmed."

And then she felt it, a sharp sting in her arm.

She gasped, jerking back, but Roe's grip was already firm. A practiced motion. A quick, clean injection.

"Easy now." His voice was amused, but there was something beneath it. Something knowing. "Can't have ya turnin' me boys into puppets, can we?"

Naomi's breath hitched. Her vision blurred. The ruins swayed, their edges softening.

She tried to fight it, tried to pull her power forward. One of the men raised his weapon at Roe. The voice came garbled from the man " Don't, don't, don't move." She was doing it, if she could just hold her ground long enough maybe she could escape still. All she had to do was—

And then without looking, Roe slipped out his sidearm and fired. A single shot. The man crumpled, lifeless.

"Oh, you're a clever one, alright." Roe tsked. "But looks like ol' Roe is quicker." He said as he tapped the gun barrel against his head. He let go of Naomi's arm, letting her stagger on her own weight. Her legs buckled and she fell to the ground.

She tried to focus, to hold her mind together, but the world tilted beneath her.

Roe spoke again, his voice calm, almost disappointed. "Hate to lose a man like that you know what they say about how hard it is to get good help." Roe snapped to get the attention of his men. "Now, get this bitch to the brig."

The last thing she saw was Roe's smug grin.

As the darkness took her, something else stirred in her mind.

A memory.

Faint. Blurred. But there.

A voice she almost recognized. A flash of movement. A name, just out of reach.

Then, nothing.

The next thing Naomi registered was the cold.

It seeped into her skin, through the thin fabric of her clothes, curling around her like an unwelcome embrace. The floor beneath her was solid metal, chilled by the underground air, and when she shifted, she heard the rustling of the restraints around her wrists.

Not a cell. Not a cage. But a place meant for keeping.

The dim light from a single lantern flickered above, casting distorted shadows on the low ceiling. The steady hum of machinery filled the room, a mechanical heartbeat that made the space feel too alive.

She wasn't alone.

A chair scraped against the floor. Naomi blinked, her vision adjusting just as Roe leaned forward into the light, his good eye gleaming with amusement.

"Rise n' shine," he murmured, voice laced with something almost playful. He tapped a cigarette against the arm of his chair before lighting it "nasty habit, picked it up from this old man, Vetch," exhaling smoke through his nose. "Can't help but admit, it does calm me nerves some." He tapped the ash of the cigarette before continuing. "You lot from the surface always wake up quick. Can't ever seem to keep ya under for too long."

Naomi's throat felt raw when she spoke. "You should've killed me."

Roe chuckled, shaking his head. "Now where's the fun in that?"

Naomi clenched her hands, testing her bindings. Thick rope. Tight. Restrained, but not completely helpless.

"You seem like a smart girl, so I won't insult ya by actin' like I don't know what you are." Roe exhaled a slow stream of smoke. "See, a few months back, I start hearin' whispers 'bout weird little things happenin' round the market. Me men forgettin' transactions. Things goin' missin'. Real subtle-like. Then," he flicked the cigarette toward the ground, "word gets out that it ain't just pickpockets. It's somethin' else. Somethin' that gets into your head."

Naomi's jaw tightened.

"Now that, sweetheart, is interestin'." Roe tilted his head. "But y'see, I got ahead of things. I got meself a little insurance."

He gestured vaguely to her, to the lingering haze she could still feel at the edges of her mind.

"Took a bit of work, that little cocktail, but it gets the job done. Suppresses all that special business of yours." His smile widened. "And wouldn't ya know it, seems to do somethin' else, too."

Naomi swallowed hard.

The memories.

Flickers of something just out of reach.

Smoke in the air. Screaming. The sensation of running, stumbling over broken ground.

Roe watched her carefully, tracking the way her fingers twitched, the subtle shift in her expression.

"Feels strange, don't it?" he drawled, leaning forward. "Like somethin' crawlin' back into your skull. Somethin' that was always there, but you just… forgot. Or so I hear, I'm not messin' with that stuff meself, could kill ya'."

Naomi forced herself to breathe evenly. Don't react. Don't let him see.

Roe grinned, tapping his temple. "That's what's got me all curious. You lot that get touched by the brown-green light, y'ain't all the same. Some get stronger. Some get faster." He smirked. "And some, well… they start messin' with people's heads."

Naomi's pulse hammered against her ribs.

No.

Not here. Not now.

"You ever think about it?" Roe's voice was softer now, almost conversational. "What's on the other side of that little wall in your head?" Roe smirked. "Because word on the street is, you sure don't seem to know."

Naomi's fingers curled into fists.

The sound of crumbling stone. The scent of smoke. The feeling of someone's hand slipping out of hers.

Roe leaned in, lowering his voice. "Tell me, love, was it your fault?"

Naomi's breath caught in her throat for just a moment.

Roe's smirk widened. "There it is."

"That's the real kicker, innit? That little itch in the back of your skull. Maybe you ain't just forgettin', you're runnin'."

Naomi's breathing came sharper now, but she kept her expression blank.

Roe studied her for another moment before chuckling to himself and standing up. "Well, we'll get to all that soon enough." He stretched, rolling his shoulders. "But for now, I think I'll leave ya to stew on it."

He turned toward the door, pausing only briefly.

"Maybe, when I come back, you'll have a real story to tell me."

And then he was gone, leaving Naomi alone in the dim light, with nothing but the sound of her own heartbeat and the memories that refused to stay buried.

A sharp pain lanced through Naomi's skull.

She squeezed her eyes shut, breaths coming quicker as the world around her warped. The damp metal walls of Roe's prison flickered, then vanished.

The cold remained, but the space around her shifted.

She was underground, standing in a narrow tunnel where cracked stone met damp metal. The air carried the faint, earthy scent of Rat City, mixed with the musty dampness of old pipes.

Lanterns flickered overhead, their dim glow stretching shadows across the uneven walls. The distant sound of water dripping from rusted gutters filled the silence, steady and rhythmic.

And then.

A voice.

"About time you showed up."

Naomi turned.

Standing a few feet ahead, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, was Eli.

His fur was short and slightly disheveled, a mix of warm browns with lighter patches near his snout and chest. His ears twitched slightly at the edges, alert even though his posture was relaxed. His whiskers flicked as he spoke, his sharp amber eyes glinting in the lanternlight.

A familiar satchel was slung over one shoulder, and his sleeves were dusted with flour, a sign of the hours he had spent working in the bakery. His tail curled lightly around one ankle, a subtle nervous habit Naomi had long forgotten he had.

Something in her chest tightened.

She knew this place.

She knew him.

Eli huffed, pushing off the wall. "You got held up again, didn't you?"

She opened her mouth to answer, but her own voice felt distant, like it had to catch up with the memory.

Eli rolled his eyes before she could speak. "Right. Don't tell me, important business. What was it this time? Stealing from a noble, no, The Rat King Himself? Taking down a criminal empire?" He smirked, sharp teeth flashing. "Or did you just get lost again?"

The words felt real. The teasing in his voice, the way his tail flicked as he spoke, the slight tilt of his ears when he was amused.

Naomi felt herself smirk. The response came without thinking.

"I was making sure you had enough time to fix your fur before I showed up."

Eli scoffed, running a paw over his head, smoothing out fur that was already messy again a second later. "Right. Because looking good for you is my top priority."

She remembered this.

Not the exact words, not the details, but the feeling.

She had bantered with him before. Laughed with him before.

He had been there, always filling the silence.

How could she have forgotten him?

Eli grinned and adjusted the satchel slung over his shoulder. "C'mon. If we don't hurry, Edgar's gonna kill me. I took the long way here."

She followed. Because of course she did.

The tunnels stretched ahead, winding and uneven, the lanterns swaying gently as they walked. Water pooled in places along the floor, forcing them to step carefully, but neither of them seemed to mind.

Eli talked the whole way.

About Emma and how she had insisted on shaping the dough that morning."Her loaves came out looking like sad little bricks", about a rude merchant he'd out-haggled, about how he was saving up for something but refused to tell her what.

Naomi listened.

The memory was blurred at the edges, but the warmth in Eli's voice, the way he filled the empty space, it was so clear.

She had known him.

She had trusted him.

She had cared about him.

The lanternlight swayed, flickering.

A low hum crawled beneath her skin, a warning.

The memory was shifting.

The tunnel ahead stretched longer than it should have, the shadows deepening. The sound of dripping water grew louder, like something just beneath the surface was rising.

Naomi's steps slowed.

Something was wrong.

Eli noticed her hesitation and turned to her, his whiskers twitching as his ears flicked back slightly. "Naomi, you okay?"

She inhaled sharply, a breath that barely made it past her lips before catching in her throat.

That voice.

It was his.

It was Eli's.

Something deep inside her cracked, sending a shudder through her bones. It wasn't just familiarity, it wasn't just a memory resurfacing. This was real. This was something she had lost. Something she had once clung to without realizing it had already begun to slip away.

She had known Eli before the amnesia.

Before the silence of the ruins.

Before she had spent seven long months beside his unconscious body, tending to him with no understanding of why she did it, only the unshakable certainty that she had to.

That he mattered.

That he was important.

And now, now she finally understood.

Her fingers twitched at her sides, instinctively reaching for something that wasn't there. A presence she had forgotten, a connection she had abandoned, not by choice, but by the cruel pull of a past she had never asked to forget.

Her breath came faster, uneven, as if forcing itself through lungs that hadn't remembered how to breathe until now.

Please.

Her chest tightened.

Don't go.

The lantern light overhead flickered, and something shifted.

The air grew heavier, thick with an unseen force. Naomi froze, her body tensing as an unnatural weight settled over her shoulders, curling like fingers around the edges of her mind.

The tunnel ahead stretched, the stone splintering.

The walls cracked. The floor crumbled.

The Ruined Quarter was bleeding through the memory, seeping into the edges, darkening everything she had been holding onto.

No, no, not yet.

She was still here. Eli was still here.

She couldn't lose this, not again.

Her pulse pounded in her ears as the world around her began to fold in on itself, the weight of the past pressing against her chest, suffocating, crushing, like she was drowning. 

Eli was slipping away.

Her breath hitched.

No, not now.

Not when I'm so close.

She lunged forward, reaching for him, reaching for something, anything.

But the past was already collapsing.

Eli's face blurred, his form melting into shadow.

She reached further, straining against the unraveling threads of memory.

Her fingertips brushed empty air.

His voice came, so close yet already fading, strained, distant, 

"Naomi—!"

And then a deep, all-consuming cold that ripped her back into the present like a plunge into freezing water.

Naomi jerked awake, a sharp gasp tearing from her throat, raw and uneven.

She barely registered the harsh chill of the metal floor beneath her, the way her body trembled against it.

For a moment, she wasn't in Roe's cell. She wasn't in the damp, dimly lit prison where she had been left to rot.

She was still there, in the tunnels.

She could still hear the faint echo of Eli's voice clinging to the edges of her mind, warm even as it faded, slipping from her grasp like sand through her fingers.

And now, she knew what she had lost.

A slow tremor passed through her hands, curling her fingers into fists against the rusted floor.

Her throat tightened.

Her voice barely made a sound as she whispered into the darkness, the words fragile, broken, and filled with something dangerously close to regret.

"Eli… I'm so sorry. I can't believe I could ever forget you."

Her breath shuddered as the tears came unabated.

She remembered.

She knew him.

Eli.