The Something

by Peter van den Heuvel

Crash, bang! Levi’s robotic arm smashed through the mech sewer vine, which had been covering the old sewer for aeons. He was being hunted by “The Something”, as everyone called it here in Quinrove. It was a big, nightmarish beast that had haunted the town for a couple of months now. It used to just haunt the unused streets and sewers in the main part of old town but now, over the last couple of weeks, it had started going all over the city and killing many people. Levi was the king’s fixer and fixed everything that the old king broke. He was paid handsomely for it, but in his tiny robotic brain it felt like it was not enough for the ton of work he had to do.

Levi lost the creature and hopped onto the airship that was docking at Cloing port, but he did not notice that “The Something” was following him. It prowled quietly into the engine room and clawed its way to the top of the blimp where the balloon was. It ripped the balloon to shreds once the blimp departed, and Levi suddenly felt himself falling 30 feet into a deep, cold lake on the periphery of Quinrove. “The Something”, incidentally, fell smack-bang onto the doorstep of Professor Blake and snuck in through a window. Levi noticed that something had gotten in and went to stand nearby to save “the master of life and death” as the professor was known throughout Quinrove.

Let me tell you, Levi was not a brave fella, but saving the professor was suddenly the only thing on his mind. He thought about his options as, clearly, charging in would be suicidal, so he sat down and thought hard. He wished that he had signed up for airship tasering or gunning, so he would have had the right attachment for his left arm. His rusty sabre would do no good against the bulky mass. So he did the only thing left to do. As he smashed through the locked door, he immediately put three rounds into the monster’s thin underbelly from the .45 inch calibre with poisoned bullets that he always carried. The floor gave way and the monster fell with a sickening crack down onto the floor below, but the monster was not done yet, oh no. It raced outside the door and in less than three minutes was outside the king’s palace, and in a fit of mighty rage, watched by Levi and the extremely gracious professor, the monster cruelly mauled the queen.

The king, who had just come out of a pleasant bath, was absolutely faint at the sight of the queen’s death, but the professor had a lifeforce potion in his pocket and he fed it to the queen. But it was missing an ingredient: a small fungus that only existed in the mouth of “The Something”, which meant war upon the creature of the night! The only problem was that the king had been warned many years ago by many people to never go into battle again, simply because he was too old to get another scar or worse, and if any part of his body were to stop functioning in any way, then it would result in a heart attack, which would be fatal for a man his age.

The battle resulted in many deaths and went on for ages. The professor assured Levi that all the fallen would be revived after the battle. It was the creatures of the night vs. the Quinrove. Never once had Levi even come close to dying, so every night he kept the morale high for the others who had been not so lucky. Until day 32, that is, when seven werewolves cornered Levi and viciously licked their hairy, disgusting lips at the sight of him. Levi backed up against a wall and cowered, waiting for the onslaught. Then, the king and his mighty battle ram, Nev, hurtled towards him and tried to fend the monsters off. Timely, but accidently, the king at full speed hurtled off the ram and ricocheted between the fierce wolves and knocked them all out.

The king, after realising what he had done, yelped out a “Yes!” and then collapsed and died. But the battle wore on and at last, on day 67, the monster was shot down by the archers of the 7th Tower, as well as Levi. What a party there was that night! Everybody was drunk and they went to bed at four in the morning. With their leader dead, the night animals retreated to the far-off lands, never to be seen again. The king and queen soon were alive again and very well indeed with the lifeforce potion.

Levi, the professor, and the king became good friends after the war and soon enough, Levi stopped becoming the fixer and became more of an advisor for the old king. Let me tell you, if you listen closely in the old Quinrove castle, you can still hear them laughing and talking in the halls.