It’s Not Okay to Clear Dungeons in Air Force Ones

A Choose Your Own Adventure Story

Article by P. Rae Leon

Chapter 1

It’s dark. Pitch black. Not, I can’t see my hands in front of my face dark, but more like, I can’t see my fresh, black on black, Air Force 1 Hightops, dark.

And the smell, it’s earthy and foul, like being buried in a portapotty. I can’t be sure if the water trickling inside this hole is street runoff or diluted sewage.

I tug my hoodie up past my nose and mouth and tie the drawstring real tight. Only my eyes peek through the hole. I try to block the smell, and prevent, God forbid, some liquids potentially splashing on my face or mouth.

“My kicks!” I scream in disbelief. My new shoes are soaked. I feel the squishiness around my toes. “Dammit Man!” It will take forever to clean them and what if this smell never comes out. Just the thought of what sort of fluid sloshed under my soles is enough to make me want to barf.

I pull myself together, taking slow, but shallow breaths. This is no time to fall apart. In my haste to get home after work, I didn’t see the sink hole I fell into. Sinkholes are pretty common around these parts. Never know when the earth will open up and try to swallow everything nearby.

Blame Global Warming and rising sea levels. Blame toxic waste or whatever companies dumped into the rivers and buried in landfills. Blame the digesting mutant beasts that bore caverns underneath the streets, making them unstable.

Goblins and ghouls, sounds like campfire spooky tales. But these critters are real. Even if we don’t know where they came from, whether they spawned, or mutated from moles or whatever. They are real. I’ve never seen one, except for on social media. My hero is Greysen, a Dungeon Master, clearing caverns and taking the riches from those things’ nests. That’s right, goblins and ghouls collect shiny things as they burrow, stuff like gold and precious metals, and store them in their dens.

I tap the screen of my phone and raise it above my head as high as I can. That’s funny. I’m not that far down, yet I can’t get a signal.

The clumps of concrete still have rebar poking out of them. Some of the stones are huge; big enough for me to scale at least. I feel around, searching for something sturdy to climb up and hopefully get out of here somehow. I find a piece of pipe about as long as my precious Loisville Slugger softball bat. I use it as a walking stick, trying to steady myself as I climb up. The rocks and chunks of caved in sidewalk shift under my feet and collapse even further into the hole. 

I slide down with the debris. Dust billows around me, clinging to my skin and collecting on my dry lips. I spit and try to blow the dirt away, resisting the urge to lick them.

“This is impossible,” I moan.

“Lulu, get your eyes off your phone and watch where you’re going, the earth could gobble you up one day and you would never see it coming.”

 Dammit, if my old man wasn’t right. 

“Help me. I’m stuck down here. Can anybody hear me?” I shout out of frustration, and if I’m being honest, panic. “Somebody help me!”

In the breath between my screams, I hear a scratching noise in the darkness. It’s goblins. I know it. They have come to eat me. 

“Hurry! Please! Anybody!”

I scurry up the rocks, stretching my arms up to grasp the edge of the next closest stone. The rocks slide down and I roll down with them.

The rolling rubble carries me further into the hole. The light from the surface is barely a sliver and that threatens to be easily snuffed by the thick plume of dust. Smaller rocks continue to topple down the tunnel. They cIick against the stoney floor seemingly forever. I hear nothing to suggest the tunnel closes off remotely near.

I do hear a horrible hissing. This sound I have heard before on Greysen’s Social account. This is the sound goblins made right before Greysen lopped their heads off with his swords.

I don’t have swords. However, as I feel around on the ground around me, I find my loose pipe. I use it to slowly and silently get to my feet. I tightly clutch the cold steel, staring into the darkness, holding my breath.

It’s faint at first. Then I spot the reflective glint of eyeballs, like cat eyes. The thing hisses again. 

Urine is running down my pant leg at this point. “Dear God, please don’t let this thing eat me. I promise not to vape or drink or cuss ever again, Please God, save me.”

The creature crawls into the small ray of light shining through the opening above. It freezes, standing on hind legs, its arms cover its face, long claws block the light from its eyes. Long sharp teeth glint in the dampened glimmer.

I step and swing, digging my toes in the earth, rotating my hips and keeping my arms tight.

My High School’s softball team won the State Championship my Junior year and I was MVP. This is my greatest swing ever. I could have knocked the skin off a softball, instead I whack the skull of something the size of a large rat. The follow through is clean, hardly any resistance. Out of the park! I hear the thud of the body hit the cavern wall and fall to the ground. There is silence after. No more scratching of clawed feet or screeching.

This must be how Greysen feels decapitating vermin in his vids with a grin on his face. Just before he takes the loot of the goblins’ nest. Before he hops in his luxury sports car and drives to his luxurious mansion.

I take a step into the darkness, not fully contemplating the possible outcomes of my actions. Before I know it, I’m beyond the slimmer of light from the sinkholes entrance. My eyes strain to detect any detail. I listen intently for the scratch of claws on the earth floor.

I hear hissing and pause. Still straining to see in the dark, I catch a glimpse of the reflection of eyeballs. My hips cock and release. My pipe swooshes in through the air. There’s a solid thud. Another homerun. 

Now I kinda wish I hadn’t quit the team, remembering the feeling of knocking the shit out of a ball, hearing the cheers of the crowd as I trotted around the bases. “Lulu, Lulu” they screamed until I stomped across home plate.

I step into another puddle. My Ones become heavy with moisture. Almost as burdened as my soul, thinking of all the baskets of fries flipped to afford these ruined beauties. I march deeper into the abyss, shoes squishing with each step. 

Ignorance is bliss. Not knowing what is inevitably around the next corner is happiness. Not knowing your parents are drowning in debt despite both having multiple hustles. Not knowing the expense of your schooling. Not knowing the fees of your extracurricular activities. Not knowing how they were mounting on top of unsurmountable credit card bills. 

Quitting the softball team was a gift to my parents. As was working after school at the Burger Shack to help relieve their burden.  Who cares if my new friends enjoyed a drink or a smoke after shift. How dare my parents judge them, at least they are there when mom and dad aren’t. 

Mom is always tired, between the night shifts at the hospital and selling cosmetics to the neighbors during the day. All she cares about is her eldest daughter’s unladylike red hair and acne peppered skin.

Dad works construction when there is work and offsets the slow times working the bars and clubs. He could care less what I do, as long as I’m home to clean the house and raise Diedra, my younger sister.

Tiny feet scuff about the dirt in front of me, little critters with patches of spiky white hair atop their greenish heads. Even their hisses are tiny, more like kittens meowing.

I strike. The pipe pounds earth, leaving nothing but a red stain in the dirt.

“I could have gotten a scholarship. I could have gone to college after graduation.”

Another small goblin is smashed.

“I don’t want to flip burgers anymore. I don’t want this life.”

The last little critter tries the scurry. I step in its way and with a one armed stroke, I cleave its torso from its rooted trunk.

My chest heaves beneath my bulky hoodie, billowing with anger and resentment I didn’t even realize burnt so intensely. And to top it all off, one of them things scuffed up my Ones.

More hissing comes from the black recesses. Another set of eyes shine in low light. It charges on all fours. It’s by far the biggest I’ve seen, the size of a glutinous cat.

I lift the pole over my head and swing downward. My wrists ache as the pole’s tip plows into the soil. Goblin brains splatter. Its lifeless body stopped in its tracks. Its arms and legs twitch. Its claws glisten in the low light, clutching air pointlessly.

There is something shiny around the beast’s feet. It sparkles on the ground like stars in the night sky. I bend down and run my finger along the slick ground, inspecting the material closely. I’m almost certain this is gold dust. I pocket all the tiny flakes and crumbles I can gather that don’t smear to dust at my touch.

I can’t believe this is actually happening. I must be close to their nest. There could be all sorts of treasure there. Diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and of course, golden nuggets. I’ll be rich. I can quit shoveling fries and flipping burgers all day.

Chills shoot across my body. My legs tremble even as I take a knee. The body has stopped twitching.

I look up from my plated fingertips to the goblin. It’s standing, with half its skull caved in. Its sharp teeth expose themselves as he shrieks. He swipes his hand at me, towards my face. 

I fall backwards, to my back, but out of the range of its blow. Now it’s taller than me. I’m vulnerable. I cover my face with my arms, close my eyes and cringe, waiting for the little creature to bite and claw me to death.

It doesn’t. Perhaps it still fears me too much to attack. Maybe it’s too hurt. I mean, half its head is missing. The thing slowly backs away and staggers deeper into the cave, whelping, crying out to its brethren.

More creatures screech from the depths. I can’t see them, but estimate at least three. 

The gold on my fingertips calls to me. I know there is more just a little further into the blackness. I have killed several of them already, what is a few more.

I stand and peer down the path.

Greysen wouldn’t let a few goblins keep him from his treasure. He would march down there and kill every beast he encountered. Then again, Greysen never peed his pants from fright.

I have, and I feel like I might again.

My legs won’t stop quivering. My breath is too shaky.

I could march onward and search for treasure or turn back now, be satisfied with being alive.

I stare down into the void of the unknown, indecisively determining my fate.

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