“Smell me!”

I tightened my grip on the dagger and rammed it deeper into my father’s chest.

“Smeeeeellmeeee! My name is Telle Smellme!”

I shoved the blade in to the hilt. My father’s old, yellow, smooger eyes widened in pain and surprise. His right hand reached behind my head and grabbed the back of my neck. He pulled my face toward his. His lips curled back, baring his black, rotten teeth. His white hair was in a tangle. His purple, wart-covered tongue darted from his mouth. He licked his lips.

“You bald little bastard…” he wheezed. Green foam bubbled out of his mouth. His grip tightened on my neck. I let go of the knife and grabbed his hand. I tried to pry his fingers off my neck. He pulled me closer. I was inches from his face.

“My father should have let you die with the others, Mellsme, he said. He sighed a long sigh. His grimace softened into a smile and his grip on my neck relaxed. The stench of his last breath hung in the air. I shook loose from his grip and stumbled away from his bed. His green blood spread across his chest and onto the filthy bed rags.

When I was first captured, my father was just a baby. I was given to him as a joke. In the years I had been in this nightmare, he grew old. I just grew up.

I hadn’t planned on murdering him.

“You were just supposed to run away,” I told myself. “That was all. Just run.” My hands shook. I got on my knees and searched the pile of bed rags. The box that had held the knife that was now in my father’s chest lay open. I pulled out a fistful of odds and ends and threw them on the floor.

“Nothing,” I said. I had hoped to find gold. I had hoped to sneak out with the box while my father slept. He awoke just as I’d taken his blade from the box. My body sensed the beating that was coming and acted on its own. I had stabbed him without thinking.

I stood and looked at the corpse of the man who’d beaten and abused me for the past twenty-five years. He lay there with that stupid smile on his face. I reached for the knife. I touched the handle and jerked my hand back. A fly circled in the air over my father’s face. It landed on his forehead and crawled toward his open eye. The dead eyeball stared at me. I didn’t have much time.

Before I left I leaned into his ear.

“My name is Telle Smellme,” I said. I turned and left the room. I had to get away fast. His real children, my brother and sister, were in the fields. My mother was visiting the neighbor and could come back at any time. I ran into the kitchen and took the food that I had made for the others. For years I made them meals, but was never allowed to eat the good food. Tongue and thistle was delicious. I climbed out of our hole.

My family lived in a large hole in the village of Blagton. Not me. I had a small hole that I shared with the family dogs. It was more of a pit. Most families had pits for their dogs. I slept with the hounds. I was a slave, just one of the dogs. I was worse than a dog. They mount the dogs and ride them into battle, or across town. I was just good for cleaning and cooking, and beating. They made me run with the dogs when they hunted boar. It amused them to watch me fight for my life. Anything that they wouldn’t want one of their own to do was left to me.

I had no idea where to go. Except for hunts, I was never allowed far from my pit. I crept away down the small path. Smoogers worked in the fields in the distance. I held my breath and walked past the thatched roof of a big smooger hole. Our neighbor’s voice came through the roof.

“Tomorrow we hunt! Bring that pet of yours, I love to see him tangle with the boars,” he said.

“If you love him so much, why don’t you just take him,” my mother asked.

“Why don’t I just take you?” he asked. My mother giggled. I crept away from the hole. I made my way toward the forest outside our village. I was careful not to walk near any smoogers. From a distance, I look almost like them. I’m just a bit smaller than your average yellow-toed, black toothed smooger. Once you get closer, of course, I look nothing like them.

“He’s dead!” My mother’s scream cut through the air. “The gnome animal killed my husband.” Smoogers jumped out of their holes. Dogs howled.

I walked a short way into the woods. The sunlight shot down through the trees in wide shafts. I found a rotten log and squeezed inside it. Smoogers ran back and forth. They carried sticks. I lay still among the ants and worms. I heard shouting. The dogs howled and barked. I ducked further into the log. I scooped up rotten leaves and put them over my face. I held my breath.

“Save me from these smoogers. Please,” I prayed to Kraken, again. The sun went down, but the smoogers still searched. Their yellow eyes glowed in the dark. They rode their dogs back and forth.

“We’ll find you pit boy!” they shouted. “We won’t rest until you’re dead.” The long shadows of the trees danced wildly in the swinging lamplight.

I shivered in that log. I prayed to Kraken again and again while the bugs feasted on me. Mosquitoes, burrbiters, and all manner of fleas and leaflice crawled over my skin. I was too terrified to budge. Once the moon was down and the night was black, the noise had stopped. I crept from my hiding spot.

I hiked through the woods as silently as I could. It was so black that I stumbled with my hands in front of me to stop from running into trees. My eyes tricked me in the blackness. I saw my father’s dead face from the corner of my eye. I wandered all night. When the sun began to rise, I had enough light to find my way to the road.

I reached another smooger town. The trees gave way to cleared dirt. I had reached the border of our land. The town sat by a narrow stone bridge, over a canyon. All the land behind the town belongs to smoogers. All on the other side of the bridge was unknown to me.

I’d heard there were stilts there, huge, long-legged people with skinny heads and small eyes. Some smoogers hunted boars on the other side. I’d never been taken on one of those hunts. I snuck through the town as quietly as I could. I darted from shadow to shadow. A few times I passed a hutch with dogs, and they would growl, but they never barked. I thanked Kraken and walked onward.

I thought about stealing a dog. Even I had learned to ride them over the years. I am probably a better rider than any smooger after all my years in the dog pit. A mount would have helped, but I couldn’t risk waking anyone up. One bark and I’d be found. I managed to get through the town and make it to the bridge. By now the sun was just coming up. I snuck across the bridge. Life in a pit did not prepare me for a narrow bridge over certain death. My heart pounded as I walked across that tiny bridge. The walls of the canyon streaked downward. At the bottom was a pile of boulders. When I got to the middle I glanced back. The town was just waking up. Nobody was in the dirt streets, but the sound of hideous laughter bounced off the walls of the canyon. I did not want to be seen on the bridge. I turned and sprinted the last few feet. When I reached the other side I stood and stared.

The sun rose over the land below. A golden road wound down to fields of wheat. Green forests ringed the horizon. There was so much land, and all of it, empty of smoogers! Just as I took my first steps, my stomach sank.

“If it ain’t pitboy out for a stroll.” It was the voice of Drasco Gubbins.

“The pet is off his leash,” his brother Blap joined in.

I spun around to see them emerge from a path that led up from the lip of the canyon. They carried the body of a boar on a spear. They must have spent the night hunting. Their dogs walked beside them. They dropped the boar on the ground.

“You’ve been hunting?” I asked.

“What are you doing out here, little doggy?” Drasco asked. He walked up and tried to pet my bald head. I kicked him as hard as I could. I aimed for his knee but I hit his shin.

“Get out of my way smooger!” I said. I dodged past him as he hopped on one foot. He held his shin in both hands.

“Blap, Get him!” Drasco said.

I sprinted past Drasco and ran for the distant fields in front of me. My lungs burned as I ran. I tripped on a stone and my hands flew in front of me. Gravel and dirt sliced into my palms. I blindly jumped to my feet and kept running. Behind me I heard the loping stride of one of their dogs. I didn’t look back. I just kept running. I heard a grunt and then the butt-end of a spear cracked against my head.

I fell to my knees. I tried to get back to my feet, but Blap leapt off the back of his hound and slammed into me. I felt his breath on my neck an instant before I smelled it. I turned, and he pinned me on my back with his knee on my chest.

“I got him,” he said. He held me there until Drasco caught up. I turned my head to see Draco’s yellowish purple toes inches from my nose.

“You shouldn’t have said that Pitboy,” Drasco said. His purple face was redder than usual. The warts on his cheeks were practically vibrating he was so angry. They hate being called smoogers. I coughed up a chunk of phlegm and spit it in Blag’s right eye.

“You’re both smoogers. Kraken will damn you both, you rotten wartfaced yellow-toed smoogers!” I yelled.

The first punch stung my cheek. The second punch split my lip. I curled into a ball and they both kicked me. After a while, their kicks and punches just made me numb. They beat me for a while. They beat me until they were exhausted. When they were finished they both stood over me, panting. Their dogs slept by the boar carcass. Stenchflies hovered over the dead animal. Drasco walked over to the boar. He reached into his bag and pulled something out. I was too weak to move. He limped back and handed a burlap sack to Blag.

“Let’s bag him,” he said. His voice was even and hateful. Blag took the bag and nodded. They pulled the bag over my head, and stuffed my whole body into it.

“Should we throw him off the bridge?” Blag asked. The sound was muffled.

“Nah, someone might see us. I wouldn’t want to get yelled at for killing anyone’s pet,” Drasco said.

“Please,” I said. “Just take me home, right away. If I’m gone when my dad wakes up he’ll kill me!” I said. A kick came through the side of the bag and into my back. I moaned.

“It would be just awful if it took him a few days to get home,” Drasco said.

“If he made it home at all,” Blag said. They both laughed. I was lifted and thrown over the back of a hound.

We traveled for at least an hour or so. I drifted in and out of consciousness. After a while I could tell that we were no longer going downhill and had moved onto flat plains. We stopped. I was hot. My mouth tasted like blood. I lay across the back of the dog and drooled into the sack. Sunlight came through the weave, but I could not see anything. A strange rumbling came from far away.

“Now?” Blag asked.

“Wait a second,” Drasco said.

“It’s coming. Let’s go!” Blap said. The dog began to whine. The rumbling grew louder.

“I can’t tell where it is,” Blap said. The hound shivered underneath me.

“Dump him,” Drasco said. They pulled me off the dog and I hit the ground. Some kind of reeds crunched under me.

“Let’s get out of here!” Drasco said. The dogs bounded away. The rumbling grew louder until the ground bounced. I felt around in the sack. I found a small hole in the burlap above my head. I tore open the sack with both hands.

As soon as the bag ripped open, golden stalks of wheat and pushed in. I climbed out of the bag. I blinked in the sunlight. All I saw was wheat. Tall, spiny stalks stood around me. It was over my head. I had no idea where I was. Three feet tall is the perfect size to be except when you're under a four foot tall weed. I tried to jump. I didn’t clear the wheat. My legs were sore from the beating. My whole body ached. I jumped again and this time I got high enough to see over the stalks of wheat. I only got a glimpse of what was coming, but a glimpse was more than enough.