Archive of Our Own

The doors of the Maw are open, and it’s warm.

It is not, however, the first thing the Runaway Kid notices when they sneak through a hole in the wall to the Guest Area. The first thing they actually notice is the lack of sound. The Maw’s ever-present drone seems much quieter now, replaced with the distant sound of ocean’s waves. The sound of Guests’ horrid, sloppy eating as they shove food into their mouths without even chewing, swallow it whole just to stuff their faces as much as possible — it’s gone.

Runaway crouches down to peer through a tiny hole near the base of the wall, one just small enough for a Nome to squeeze through. While it’s much too small and much too low to get a good view of the main dining hall, it does allow them to see the bottom of the tables and dangling feet of the Guests in their seats, should everything be running as normal in the Maw.

Everything is not running as normal in the Maw.

Because when Runaway crouches down, they do not see the Guests’ dangling feet. What they do see are still, pudgy bodies collapsed on the ground, creepy masks knocked to the side and skin the colour of ash. Not one twitches, not even a finger when a Nome skitters by, and Runaway feels their breath catch in their throat.

The Guests are dead. Someone … someone killed them. Somehow.

Runaway is all the more cautious now as they pull away from the hole in the wall, and follow the chittering Nomes to another hole big enough for them to squeeze through, this one higher up in the wall only accessible by a stack of crates. They climb the crates and check the Guest Area again, before they lean back and look down at the Nomes who are standing at the base of stacks, chirping up at them.

“Do you think it’s safe?” They ask, which is a dumb question, because it’s obviously not. The Guests were dangerous enough on their own, but for something to have killed them …

The Nomes make noises Runaway equates with them shrugging. To be fair, whatever had killed the Guests seemed to be long gone, and if they were still hiding in the shadows outside — Runaway has dealt with monsters before. They can take this.

So they slip through the hole in the wall, and fall to the floor of the Guest Area.

The impact makes their knees ache and the air knock out of their lungs, but when they straighten up they find themselves in a wide, long room populated with tables still stacked high with food. The Guests are still dead, some slumped on the floor and some slumped over the tables, but all seemed to be facing the main walkway in the middle of the room. The one that leads to the stairs.

Slowly, Runaway creeps forward on silent feet, the quietness of it all making their skin crawl. The Maw was always moving, rumbling, and while the lights above still swing back-and-forth and they can feel the gentle rocking of the room, it’s still quiet. It’s too still. Gone is the sound of groaning engines and moving parts, gone is the rocking that feels like they’re going to war with the waves. It’s like the Maw has stopped, it’s like the Maw has died , and it’s now just a giant, empty corpse floating in the middle of the ocean.

A giant empty corpse filled with more giant empty corpses inside.

When Runaway gets close enough to a Guest that they can smell the scent of rotten meat on their hands, they pause and watch the body, making sure it isn’t alive. Sure, monsters aren’t alive in the way kids are, but they can still move and they can still breathe and they can still be dangerous. They can still kill.

But all these monsters are still dead. They don’t move a muscle when Runaway creeps by, guiding themself with one hand on the wall as they slowly circle the room towards the staircase. The Nomes follow at their feet nervously, and there has to be at least a dozen of them, circling their legs like leaves blowing in the wind. It’s warm in here, unnaturally so.

After a few slow, painful minutes, Runaway reaches the staircase.

It’s long and tall and winding, but Runaway hadn’t even thought it was real , so they don’t care how grand it really is. Kids spoke about it in hushed tones, they said there was an entrance at the top of the Maw that only kids could find, if they were strong enough to make it through the Guest Area. And nobody had ever managed, because even if they escaped from the Prison, escaped from the Lair, escaped from the Kitchens — you would never make it through the Guest Area.

The Guests could smell food as keenly as kids could hear footsteps, so the moment you stepped into the room, they were on you. There would be no escape from their gaping mouths and greasy hands, but at least those deaths weren’t slow. They killed you quickly, and even if you didn’t die immediately, you would probably just pass out from the shock of it all.

But here Runaway is, at the rumoured exit, the place of supposed freedom, and the Guests are dead, and they can see light coming from the top of the staircase.

The kids would say, too, that there was a door at the top of the staircase. It had an eye on it, like the Security Eyes, but instead of turning you to stone all it did was watch you leave. And it marked you, they said, as a kid who was strong and as a kid who survived.

Runaway does not know how those rumours started, and they were sure most of it was made up, but Runaway doesn’t know much about those types of things so they’re inclined to believe them. Especially since they can see the light that’s not from a fire or lamp at the top of the stairs, hear the crash of waves not echoed by metal, beckoning them closer.

Up a few steps and through the doors. Then they’ll be free.

Behind them, the Nomes chitter anxiously, and Runaway turns around to look at them. This is their last moment here in the Maw, and the Nomes had been ever so helpful and kind — Runaway likes them, cares for them even, after everything they’ve done for them.

“Do you guys want to come?” They ask. Because if they did, Runaway would take them, and they would make sure they were okay. Help them out. Just like the Nomes did for them.

The small creatures seem to take a moment to process their words, before they let out chittering noises Runaway equates with their displeasure — a few even shake their little bodies in the intimation of a head shake. Runaway’s heart falls, but they really should have expected this. A part of them already did, and had known the answer before they even asked.

This was the Nomes’ home. Runaway wasn’t sure how much of their memory they retained, or what their lives had been like before they ended up here in the first place, but they were sure that for many of the Nomes — the Maw was all they had ever known. Before or after what happened to them. And it might be scary inside, but the unknown dangers of the outside were even scarier.

Unfortunately, Runaway isn’t scared. And they know that no matter how close they were with the little creatures, they would not stop them from leaving.

“I guess this is goodbye then.” They say.

The Nomes chitter, and in a flash Runaway is suddenly assaulted by the tiny creatures wrapping themselves around their legs. They laugh, and do their best to lean down and pat their heads, feel their rough skin under their hands, and wrap their arms around them in turn. They’ve always liked the Nomes, and have found them fascinating. But now, knowing what they know, they feel the taste of bittersweetness on their tongue, making their heart sit heavy in their chest.

After escaping from the Prison with the help of the odd girl, the one in the raincoat, Runaway had ended up following a group of Nomes down into the lower decks of the Maw, stumbling across their hideout filled with coal. They had been running from the Janitor, who upon noticing the empty cages in the Prison (not just Runaway’s cage, might they mention), had gone stomping through the entire level trying to find them. Runaway was unsure what had happened to the monster, but much like the girl in the raincoat, Runaway hadn’t heard hide or hair of it since.

But when they had followed the Nomes into their hideout, helped collect coal and dodge the Janitor and everything else trying to kill them, that was where Runaway had seen it.

In the light of the burning furnace, the shadows casted upon the walls by the Nomes were not of their current form, but of a child’s. And it was in that moment Runaway realized that all the rumours the other kids had spread were true. Or at least some of them were, and Runaway had proof.

The other kids had said the Nomes were the spirits of children eaten by the Guests, reincarnated into smaller, safer forms. Some said the Nomes were creatures like animals, but nobody really knew if animals were real either (besides the rats and bugs that infested the lower levels, but those were just as blood thirsty as the monsters, so they couldn’t be real animals) so nobody had really believed that rumour. Some said the Nomes were babies, who would one day grow up to be kids like them, but since nobody had ever seen a baby either nobody could confirm or deny it.

But then some said the Nomes were kids twisted by dark, cruel magic, cursed into those forms by the Lady of the Maw. Any kid caught her gaze was transformed into one, and your body was stuck like that forever, while your soul was cursed to wander the upper levels of the Maw like a ghost.

Runaway doesn’t know if they believe the last part. But they believe the first bit, and they believe the Lady was responsible for the Nomes. Except something weird has happened now, with the dead Guests and unnatural stillness, and Runaway doesn’t think that was her doing at all.

They pull away from the Nomes’ group hug and shuffle their feet slightly, sending the Nomes scattering a few footsteps away. Most stop to look at them again, though a few scamper off to go investigate the corpses of the Guests. This group had followed Runaway out of the hideout and directed them through the Maw all the way up here, so they are sad to have to leave them, but sometimes you have to let things go. Runaway knows that well, even if they don’t always follow it.

“I hope you guys stay safe.” They say. Those are words sometimes whispered between children, the most comradeship they can offer, and they think the Nomes deserve it.

The remaining Nomes chitter back at them. Runaway wonders if they recognize the words and are repeating them back, or are just responding to the nonsense noises that they make. But it makes them smile either way, and when they turn around to start climbing the stairs, the Nomes watch them until the very last step.

The staircase is long and tall and winding, and their breath heaves halfway up, but they keep pushing. They had swam through the Depths and pushed coal through the Hideout and escaped the Prison, this was nothing when they were so close to freedom. They can see the light at the end of the staircase, warm and beckoning them upwards and onwards, and even if their body goes numb in anticipation they never stop moving.

They are so close. They are almost at the top, and then they would be free. Just like they always dreamed of.

They reach the top step, and pause for a bit to catch their breath, because the next step they took would lead them onto sand. The light up here is blinding, so blinding they have to shut their eyes and bring up a hand to block their gaze, unused to the brightness after having lived so long in the dark.

But even with their sight gone, they can still hear the crash of the waves, feel the wind on their skin, smell the salt in the air and taste it on their tongue. It’s those feelings that allow for them to pry their eyes open and step forward onto the top of the Maw, free of the confines of the darkness below.

It’s … it’s freedom.

The top of the Maw is tinier than they thought, but they honestly had no clue what they were expecting, so maybe it was exactly as tiny as they thought it would be. They’re not docked on a beach at all, but drifting aimlessly in the ocean, and there’s rock formations around them and large tower with smoke powering from the top and sand beneath their feet, almost as if the Maw is a landmass itself.

But the ocean is what their gaze is drawn to, the deep grey waters crashing onto the metal shore and making a ringing noise. Distantly, they hear the sound of what they think is a cawing animal (so maybe animals were real) and they eyes drift to the sky to see the swirling, wispy clouds moving together much like the water is moving below them. It overwhelms their senses for a bit, the sight of it all, and the knowledge that this is what had been hidden from them for so, so long.

Except Runaway blinks a few more times, and they notice something much more important.

There’s two kids standing on the shoreline.

Runaway freezes mid-step, taken aback by the sight, even more than they were by the sight of the sky and the ocean. Their breath intakes slightly, silently. They hadn’t expected anyone else to be up here. Nobody else should be up here, since the Maw wasn’t really a place kids escaped from often. That would defeat the purpose.

But still, there’s two kids standing where the waves crash against the sandy metal roof, and Runaway stands behind them, so far unnoticed and heart thumping heavy in their chest.

They recognize the one kid immediately. It’s the girl they met in the Prison, the weird one, with sharp teeth and a face covered in shadows. She still wears the bright yellow raincoat, which Runaway thinks is kinda pretty even if it’s horrible camouflage against monsters — way too eye-catching. She’s holding hands with another kid that Runaway also recognizes from the Prison, the one she had been yelling for, and ran off to go save.

In the darkness of the Prison, Runaway hadn’t been able to see them clearly, but in the daylight they can now see the weird, blocky shape they had mistaken for a cardboard box is actually a paper bag that they wear over their head. Their coat looks thick and heavy, built more for bad weather than crawling through the Maw, selling the whole oddness of the two of them even more.

The girl in the raincoat had called them Mono . Runaway still didn’t know her name.

Slowly, they take a step forward against their better judgement, and the end of the chain on their ankle bounces on the ground, echoing. The two kids snap to attention immediately, whipping around but not letting go of each other’s hands. Except, when their guarded gazes settle on Runaway, they seem to get even more tense.

The girl in the raincoat stares at them. Runaway blinks.

“Oh. Hello.” They say. “You saved your friend.”

The kid in the raincoat doesn’t say anything, and Runaway shifts awkwardly, not sure of how to proceed from here or if they said something wrong. The kid with the paper bag beside her, however, tilts their head in clear confusion. Their bag crinkles at the movement, and Runaway wonders how they see out of those tiny eyeholes.

Raincoat kid looks back at paper bag, their fingers still interlocked, and Runaway notices the way they tighten together when raincoat kid finally says, “We met in the Prison. When your head was bloody.”

“Oh. Okay.” Paper bag mumbles, voice so croaky and quiet Runaway can barley hear them, and their bag moves ever so slightly, like a nod. Their voice doesn’t sound much like Runaway’s, but it doesn’t sound much like raincoat’s either.

Both of the kids turn back to their earlier position of watching the sea. They ignore Runaway entirely, so they don’t feel too bad about stepping forward to hover a few steps behind them. Not quite next to them, but not quite behind them, either.

But there is still a tension in the air, hanging between them, now that they have both acknowledged Runaway’s presence. There’s the caw of some distant creature, and the hairs on the back of their neck stand up, making them gulp.

“Did you guys escape too?” They ask, before wincing. “Sorry. Dumb question.”

The two don’t grace them with a reply, which is fair, and neither look back at them again. Runaway swallows, slightly off-put, and thinks of how they might have gotten up here.

By the time Runaway had picked the lock on their cage and escaped, the raincoat girl had already been in the other room rescuing her friend, and had still been in there when they had left. Runaway had honestly expected them to not get out of there alive, or at least not both of them. Maybe they had been who the Janitor had been searching for, because the monster had seemed quite frantic looking for just one lost kid.

But Runaway had gotten up to the top by using the Nomes’ passages, climbing through vents and gaps in the walls and avoiding all the main areas, the territories where the monsters resided. And the entire time, they hadn’t seen anything of these two, which means they must have found another secret way — unlikely — or they went the main way.

They went through the Guest Area. The area filled with dead monsters. Freshly dead monsters.

Runaway gulps again. But they have to ask.

“Did you guys … did you guys do all that below?” They speak up over the sound of the waves, dreading the answer either way. “To the Guests?”

Their heads move slightly to share a look between them. Neither answer.

Before Runaway can even process that information, the sound of water splashing draws their attention.

They look up, and see that through the thin mist settling across the ocean, a figure is emerging. It’s a rowboat, powered by two wooden oars, with a monster at the helm. Runaway is frozen in fear, muscles tensing up as they get ready to run, but neither raincoat nor paper bag make any move to do the same.

No, they keep standing there, and watch as the monsters approaches. Runaway watches them, and feels the tension from earlier increase tenfold, but it’s not aimed at them. It’s aimed at the monster slowly making its way through the waves towards them on its little rowboat, bringing with it the power and hatred that comes with all monsters.

The very same thing, Runaway can tell, is coming from the two kids.

It’s not the exact same, because they’re still kids, but it’s enough to make Runaway uneasy and frozen in shock and fear all the same. The monster approaches but they don’t run, even when they really should, because they think of the Guests down below rotting away like the food on the tables they used to feast on.

The monster stops on the edge of the water. The rowboat bobs up and down in the waves, and through the mist Runaway can see it wears a long leather coat and mask with sunken eyes and a floppy hat over its head. The two kids, the one in the yellow raincoat and the one in the paper bag, tighten their grip on each other and don’t move at all. Meeting the monster head on, with their own hatred and power and otherness swirling inside of them like storms.

The Ferryman. That was what the other kids called this monster, with the leather coat and sunken mask and floppy hat.

Runaway recognizes this monster. They just don’t know from where, and they think of the wind.

Take us aboard. Paper bag suddenly orders, but not in the voice of a kid, quiet and croaky like it had been earlier. It’s a voice filled with static, filled with power, belonging to a television screen — and Runaway knows that even if they don’t know what any of those things are. Back to shore.

The Ferryman regards them silently. Raincoat looks up at the monster, still holding paper bag’s hand, and says, Now.

Her voice is not staticky, but it is still powerful, and feels like smoke in Runaway’s ears. That makes the monster move, and it finally shuffles back. Then with no warning whatsoever, it suddenly leans down to scoop the two kids into its hand.

Runaway feels terror stab through their heart and takes a step back, yelping, suddenly terrified that they’re going to watch these two kids die and that they’ll be next. But the Ferryman doesn’t kill them. It doesn’t even make a move to harm them. Instead, it just disposes of them on one of the benches in the rowboat, and grabs the oars of the boat again. Ready to follow these two, strange kids’ orders. Ready to go back out onto the sea, back to the shore, back into the outside world.

And then the realization hits Runaway that they’re still not entirely free.

Sure, they made it up the staircase and through the doors, but they’re not docked on land anywhere. They’re still on the Maw, just not inside of it, a transition point between freedom and captivity. The only way left to go is either back down into the depths of their prison or across the sea into parts unknown, and they know that the first option is impossible. Now that they’ve gotten this chance at freedom, they can’t go back into the darkness.

But they can’t cross the sea by themself, and here are two kids who can make monsters bend to their wills, with a clear passage across the sea that Runaway has only ever dreamed about drowning in.

There might not be a chance like this again. And they have to take it.

So they clear their throat, and ask as firmly as they can manage, “Can I come along?”

The two kids look down at them, as if they had completely forgotten that they had been there. Then, they look at each other, entire sentences passing with one glance. Runaway waits, a tension they can’t name hanging in the air. They know this moment is important, because it’ll decide how the rest of their life will go — if they’ll be stuck here on the Maw forever, or if they’re able to cross the waters and escape. Because they have a feeling, that if they don’t leave now, they’ll never be able to leave again.

The monsters were dead and the waves were pouring in. The Maw had been sinking for a long time, but now it feels it is toppling completely.

After a few excruciating moments that could have been entire lifetimes for all Runaway knows, raincoat and paper bag step forward, and with their free hands not holding onto each other’s, they lean over the edge and offer them a hand up.

The tension dissipates. The waters recede.

So Runaway gets onto the boat, and leaves the Maw behind.

▩ ▵ ▩

When the kid wakes up, they can’t see anything.

At first they think they might have gone blind, or had something covering their eyes, but once they blink a few times their vision starts to adjust. It’s just dark here, in whatever room they’re in. Now that their vision is adjusting and they sit up, they can see it’s not completely dark, like it seemed like it was before.

There’s a dim light hanging from the ceiling, gently swinging back-and-forth, which makes their stomach swoop when they realize they are also moving. They plant their hands on the surface beside them, trying to ground themself, but find that only a thin, wiry surface is beneath them. A bed? They don’t know, they can’t remember if they ever seen one before.

They can’t remember where they are. Or even how they got here. They just … they just don’t remember much. At all. Nothing concrete, anyways.

When they reach up and run a hand through their hair to try and ground themself more, they feel the grittiness of sand caught between shaggy locks, and the smell of wind and grass still lingers in their nose. Their feet are calloused, and when they run a hand along the bottom of their one foot, they brush off dirt and wood chips. When they close their eyes again, the dim light above them almost seems like sunlight, hiding between the leaves of the trees.

They do know that they have to get out of here. Something about this place is … is wrong . It breathes and moves like a forest, like a beach, but it’s artificial. It’s hungry, longing for something, and the kid feels a horrible, sinking feeling in their chest as they look around and find they’re not alone in the room.

There’s more beds, wall-to-wall, crammed together in a line. Most of a child in them, curled up into a tight ball or laying with their back against the headboard, as far away from the foot of the bed as possible. Some have blankets, some have pillows, but some don’t have either. Some beds are empty, and some don’t even have mattresses, like the entire room was thrown together haphazardly without any thought to whether or not they had everything they needed.

The entire place smells odd, too, like metal and dirty water and something rotten, meat left out in the sun for too long, bloody and moldy. The walls and floor and the ceiling are all made of metal plating bolted together, and none of the kids in the beds are moving, and the light keeps swinging back-and-forth, never stopping.

This isn’t where they’re suppose to be. They have sand in their hair and wind in their nose and dirt on their feet. This can’t be where they’re suppose to be.

They … they need to get out of here.

Standing up, they go slowly as they crawl to the end of the bed, silent on their knees despite how the mattress squeaks every time they move. And another sound, the jingling of a chain, and the cold feeling of something heavy around their ankle.

They go to take another step, and something pulls on their leg, and they trip.

They land flat on their stomach, the breath knocked out of them, and push themself to their knees to see what had caught them. They peer down, narrowing their eyes to see through the darkness, and roll their ankle experimentally. There’s something clamped around it, rubbing at their skin, and when they reach down to feel it they find it’s cold and solid and heavy. Metal. It’s a metal cuff, and when they follow it with their hand, they find it’s attached to a metal chain.

They tug at it. It makes a loud clanking sound, metal knocking against wood, and when they peer over the edge of the bed they see the end is attached to the foot of the bed. They don’t remember how this got put on them, or who put it on them, but their heart starts pounding in their chest and they know, without a doubt, that they need to get it off and they need to get it off now .

The entire room creaks. They hear something cry, far off, but they reached down and grab the chain with both hands and pull on it, as hard as they can, but don’t succeed in anything except for making their hands red and raw. Tears prickle in the corner of their eyes from the strain, but they keep going and keep going, despite the noise it makes, because they need to get it off.

“Shush!”

They flinch at the sound of another’s voice, and whip around to see that there’s a girl in the bed beside them, who through the dim light they can see is pressing a finger to her lip where she’s crouched on her knees. She wears what looks like to be a bed sheet cinched at the waist, and she has the longest hair the kid has ever seen on anybody. Long hair is dangerous, it can get you caught or trapped or pulled, but this girl has dark, tangled locks falling below her shoulder blades, twisted into knots in front of her face.

When she sees she’s caught their attention, she doesn’t remove her finger from her lip when she says, “Quit moving, or all of us will get killed.”

They don’t get the chance to ask what she means before the door opens.

The girl dives to the bed, curling up so tightly her limbs seem to disappear. Her blanket dress fans out around her, making her look like just a pile of fabric, and the kid follows her example. Flatten themself down, make themself look as small, as unnoticeable as possible. They don’t have a blanket to hide under, but the darkness works in their favour right now, hiding their form from searching gazes.

They might not remember much, but they do know about monsters, and the … the thing that just opened the door is certainly one of them.

In the darkness, they can’t see much, but they do hear it. They hear it’s loud, sniffling breath, hear it pat down the floor for lost children, hear it shuffle around and groan and creep and search. They peak an eye open at one point, and through the cloud of darkness that envelops the room, they see it’s unnatural arms and blind, sunken face. And they close their eyes again, and they wait.

Eventually, the monster passes by, out of the room through the other door. A few minutes pass as they wait with baited breath, on the chance the monster will come crawling back around. But when it doesn’t, and the only thing they can hear is the pounding of their heart in their ears and the groan of the room rocking around them, they slowly uncurl from their form and bring their knees up to their chest.

They check the cuff on the chain again, squishing their fingers in the small gap between their skin and the metal, and finding they can barley fit their pinkie. No chance of wiggling out, then, unless they break their foot — which still probably wouldn’t have worked, and was also just an incredibly stupid idea. They couldn’t get out of here with a broken foot, after all, they would die immediately.

Hesitantly, they tug on the chain again, and flinch at the rattling noise that comes with it. They look around, and find no other children have moved at the disturbance and they hear no angered monster’s cries, so they slowly pull again. It clanks. It’s a thin chain, as far as chains go, but still securely attached to the bedpost, so no hope there. Besides, they would still need to cut the chain off even if they got free from the post, because running around with all that clanking would be a death sentence.

The chain does seem old, though. They can feel the bumpy surface of a metal covered in rust, and smell it in the air. Their hand comes back stained red when they drop the chain back to the floor, and start crawling again. They have an idea now, and it might not work, but it might also work, and if it does that means they can get out of here. If they dodge the monsters, that is.

“What are you doing?”

They freeze, and turn to the girl beside them again. Her words are quiet, but firm, and her eyes glitter in the darkness. She’s sitting up now near the head of the bed, looking a bit more calm than last time, but still on edge. She brushes a strand of hair behind her ear, and it falls back just as quickly.

“Getting the chain off.” They reply, because it should be obvious. The girl shakes her head.

“What, tryin’ to run away?” She says it like it’s a joke, like it’s supposed to be funny, but they don’t think it is. “You can try, but nobody manages. They all end up dead.”

They won’t. They know they won’t, because they can still taste the wind and smell the sea, and that means they have to get out of here, of this place, no matter what. “I won’t.”

“Ya’ will. Everyone dies in the Maw.” The girl replies, as casual as if she’s talking about where she’s going to find her next meal. They notice the odd word she uses, the Maw — is that where they are? Is that where they’ve ended up? Where they need to escape from? “‘cept for me, I won’t. When I get outta here, I’m gonna survive.”

She seems awfully boisterous of the fact, confident and self-assured. They don’t think that’s such a good thing to be, because that can get you killed, but they’re not gonna tell her what to do. They’re just gonna tell her what they are going to do.

“I will too.” They announce, because they will. They’re getting out of here, they won’t be like the others. Maybe everyone dies here, but they are not everyone.

“Hmm.” She hums in thought, barely audible, before she points to their ankle. “Can’t with that thing on ya’. And it’s hard to get off.”

They look down at the cuff around their ankle, and grimace, hating the feeling of it rubbing at their skin. They need to get it off, now, before the feeling gets worse and they try ripping their own foot off instead. They don’t know how anybody could stand this, the feeling of being chained.

They look back at the girl, and their eyes drift to her ankle. They notice, shockingly, that it’s bare. There’s a cuff around the post of her bed, but no chain attached. Some of the other kids are the same way, unattached, but a few are kept down just as the kid is. “How did you break yours, then?”

“Mine wasn’t as tight.” She says, the earlier prideful tone returning. “So I wiggled my foot an’ got out.”

She stretches her leg out towards him, and even in the dim light the kid can see the ugly, bumpy scars marred across her ankle. She probably didn’t have to break her ankle to get out, but skin would definitely be rough forever, and they would be surprised if she hadn’t twisted it the wrong way while trying to get out.

They don’t have that option, though, so they continue their slow crawl to the end of the bed. There, they grab the chain and pull as much as it up onto the bed as they can, making it tight like a rope. Then they sit up on their knees, and wrap it multiple times around the bed post, until it’s tight and secure when they give it a small tug.

The dark-haired girl sits on her bed silently, and watches. She rubs at her own ankle, feeling the scars, and blows a piece of hair out of her face.

The kid grabs the chain with both hands, braces their foot against the footboard of the bed, and pulls .

The chain rubs their hands raw and their arms ache after only a few minutes, but they know that they can do this. The chain is old and rusty and already weakened in places, and if they pull it enough and strain it enough, it might snap. And even if it doesn’t, it would probably break the bed post, and then they can use that to break the chain. They can do this. They can do this.

“That’s not gonna work.” The dark-haired girl snarks, and they elect to ignore her, and ignore the strain on their muscles and their aching hands and the burn in their lungs, and they just keep pulling, and pulling, and pulling until —

The chain snaps.

The momentum sends them falling onto their back with a ‘oof’, but the loud crack of the snapping metal makes them recover quickly and scramble back to the headboard, in case the monster heard the noise and came running. But a few beats pass without anything happening, and their heart falls back into its normal rhythm. When they reach down to feel their ankle, they feel the cuff, but it’s not longer attached to anything, and they’re free.

They look over at the dark-haired girl, and find that from underneath the strands of her hair, her eyes are wide. Shock written clearly across her face, she recovers fairly quickly, leaning back on her heels with a shake of her head that sends more strands falling out from behind her ears.

She huffs.

“You’re kinda dumb, runaway.” The girl with the dark hair says, blowing a lock out of her face. “But you’ll probably last.”

And they do last.

Longer than the kids who get turned to the stone by the Security Eyes, longer than the kids who get wrapped up and sent to the Kitchen — and longer than the girl with the dark hair who falls prey to the Leeches and leaves Runaway her flashlight. They call her the flashlight girl, and send a silent thank you when they pick up her namesake left behind. And also a silent apology, because she deserves that much, when she whispered I hope you stay safe to them before she slipped out of the room with her bedsheet rope.

But that was how the Runaway Kid got their name, in the dark with metal digging into their ankle and the smell of wind in their hair. It’s also what they decide they’ll spend the rest of their life doing, with their borrowed flashlight in hand and Nomes trialing at their heels, if only because it wouldn’t be in their nature to not.

So they hold their flashlight with two hands, and they run.

▩ ▵ ▩

They ride in silence for a very long time.

Runaway is tense as a board at first, casting fretful glances over to the monster at the front of the boat. The two kids don’t seem concerned at all, and the monster doesn’t even glance their way, so by the time the Maw has completely disappeared over the horizon Runaway has calmed down enough they don’t feel like they need to jump overboard to escape. A weird feeling grows in their chest when they can longer see the Maw, the shape of it becoming a speck which becomes nothing, and they swallow it back down.

It’s the feeling of everything they’ve known becoming one with the ocean, they think, like it wasn’t as big and as grand and as important as they thought it had been. It’s the feeling of knowing everything they left behind is gone now. It’s the feeling of knowing everything in their life, everything they know, was trapped in the place and is now free.

It’s the feeling of not knowing what is coming next.

They sigh and let their grip on their flashlight lax, and eventually set it beside them on the bench, before shifting on their knees to look out over the edge of the boat to the sea beyond. The ocean is a dark, washed-out blue, foam curling on the edge and unidentifiable objects bobbing in out of the waves. It seems calm currently, but they have heard the way the water can crash against the metal walls of the Maw, and know that it might not last.

But for now, it seems calm, and they allow themself to bask in the smell of sea salt. The air is so fresh out here, it fills their lungs more than the stifling air in the Maw ever could, and they have to close their eyes for a moment to appreciate it. Even if it’s weird, even if it’s scary, whatever comes next is better than whatever they left behind.

No longer are they trapped, fighting for their life in the dark. No longer do they have to worry about monsters lurking around dark corners, hiding in pits, stirring underneath the waves.

At that thought, their eyes pop open, reminded of the monster they had to face before. The Granny had been just a rumour amongst kids of the Maw for as long as they had been there, but then it turned out it was real, and Runaway had just narrowly escaped with their life.

Sometimes if they close their eyes for too long, they think they’re back there, pushing through the water as the sound of ominous, bubbling ripples follow them as they swim. They think of the sound of its laboured breathing, and its screams when they pushed the electrifying box with the weird pictures on it into the water, killing it in an instant. Sometimes they still feel like they’re trapped in the Depths, soaked to the bone and lungs filled with water instead of air.

But then they breathe again, and their lungs fill with air instead of water, and they don’t think there’s any monsters hiding under these waves. The ocean seems like a monster itself. The only monster here is one at the front of the rowboat, and they spare a quick glance it’s way only to find that it still hasn’t looked at them.

They glance the other way then, at the two kids sitting beside them on the bench. Neither of them have moved since they got aboard, still holding hands and staring out onto the ocean. Runaway can just barely see their chests moving, and it’s slightly off putting, but they suppose they must be tired.

They think of what happened on top of the Maw with the monster, and they suppose something else could be going as well.

“Where are you guys going?” They ask, just to break the silence. These two obviously came from outside of the Maw, and now they’re going back to it, the outside places.

They’ve heard rumours of things existing outside, places of cities and cliffs and caves, and the smell of the ocean clogs their nose so much it’s hard to breathe. Paper bag turns to look at them, before glancing at raincoat, then back at Runaway before they reply, noncommittally. “Wherever.”

Runway is somewhat taken aback by their reply that they only blink stupidly for a minute, unsure of what that answer means. Does it mean they’re just going to wander? With no destination in mind? That’s … that’s weird for Runaway to think about, because whenever they do something, they have a goal in mind they focus on, because if they don’t then they get lost and getting lost will get them killed.

But maybe that’s just how things work outside of the Maw. It’s not like they would ever know.

They can’t remember much before their time in the Maw, only flashes of sand and waves and the wind rustling through leaves. The Maw is the only thing they’ve ever known, and now that they’re confronted with the actual, tangible possibility of living outside of it — they’re scared. The monsters inside the Maw were bad, but who knows how much worse those outside could be. Who knows how dangerous the other places could be, not caged in by groaning, metal walls.

These two seem to know, though.

So maybe if … so maybe if Runaway stays with them for a bit, they can survive long enough to learn how to live on their own, before they can start running again. Besides, these two are clearly very smart, and they’re clearly very powerful, if they can kill the monsters and make them listen to them.

They’ve already allowed them on the boat. So what’s a few more steps?

“Can I come with you? When we get to shore?” They ask, before they hurry to explain more. “Just — just for a bit. I’ve just … never been outside before. Of the Maw.”

At their words, the two kids both turn to give them identical, blank stares. Runaway feels much like how they think rats caught in traps feel, pinned in place, even though they can’t see their eyes. The otherness is back, the one that makes the hairs on the back of their neck stand up, and they regret their words immediately. But they don’t take them back.

These children are strange, but they’ve seen the way they act. They’re not like the other kids in the Maw, and Runaway has to show them they’re not like those kids either. They’re strong. They can keep up. And right now, they have to manage that, because these two kids are their only chance at survival and they would very much like to keep living.

They don’t want everything they did to get here to be in vain.

Raincoat turns to paper bag and tilts her head minutely, the fabric of her raincoat shifting slightly at the action. Paper bag doesn’t do anything with their head, but their hand not holding onto raincoat’s clenches into a fist, nails digging into their palms. Runway thinks, maybe, they can hear them mumbling softly to each other, so softly their breaths barely pass by their lips.

Mostly, they’re just confused on what they’re doing, and think they’re a bit weird.

“Don’t be stupid and get us killed.” Raincoat suddenly says, turning to look directly at them. Runaway remembers the way her eyes looked in the Prison, the wild determination in them, and just barely manages not to audibly gulp.

“Okay.” They say. They’re strong. No other kid in the Maw managed to do the things they did, except for a few who died along the way. They can keep up, and they won’t get anyone killed.

“I’m not joking.” Raincoat leans forward, and it sounds like she’s sneering, though she never lets go of paper bag’s hand meaning she ends up dragging their arm behind her. “Got it?”

The otherness comes back, tasting like smoke on their tongue, and Runaway puts their hands up. It’s like making friends with a Nome, they think of vaguely. You’ve got to prove you’re not a threat — in this case, a threat to their survival.

“Okay!” They exclaim, letting their hands fall down to rest on their legs, the fabric of their torn pants rough underneath their palms. “ Jeez , you’re tough.”

Raincoat leans back with a slight huff, and settles back down next to the other kid. She doesn’t seem angry anymore, placated, and her hand settles on top of paper bag’s where it rest on the bench between them. Runaway feels a tension dissipate in the air, and paper bag even seems to glance their way momentarily, before looking back out at the ocean.

They seemed to have passed. Passed what, they don’t know, but they don’t think they’re in danger of these strange, other kids anymore.

They should probably stop calling them that, but they still don’t know their names.

Well. If they were going to stick together …

“What’s your name?” They ask quietly. “The other kids call me Runaway.“

The name worked so the name stuck. They knew some of the kids, they never had names either, so they named themselves after things they found lying around, or cool words they made up that they thought sounded neat. Some had names they remembered from before the Maw, and some changed their names so often Runaway gave up trying to remember them all.

He has no clue how these kids got their names, or if they have any at all. The one in the paper bag, the raincoat girl had kept shouting Mono , but that’s such a weird word Runaway isn’t sure if it was a name or some word meant to indicate her displeasure.

But maybe they came up with it in their own, so Runaway won’t judge.

Raincoat looks at paper bag, who shrugs minutely, and she turns back to Runaway and points to herself. “Six.”

Paper bag copies her movement, except they splay their hand across their chest, dirty fingers spread out to grip at their coat. “Mono.”

Oh, so Mono was their — his? — name. It’s still a bit weird, but Six is a bit of a weird name too, but so is Runaway. So, yeah, they still won’t judge, but they are glad that it seems like both of the kids are able to talk to them now. Six had said Mono’s head had been “bloody”. That probably made him a bit quiet.

“Nice to meet you.” Runaway says, half meaning it.

Neither of the kids reply back, but Mono stares at them for a moment longer than Six, and his bag shifts slightly like he’s inclining his head at them before turning back to look over the waves. It’s unsettling, the way they move in sync, and how — how impassive, unfeeling, they both seem, with their faces cover.

Even the monsters showed emotion sometimes, gleefulness at catching prey or anger when they escaped. They remember the Granny, and its cries of pain as the electrified water sent it sinking down to the bottom of the Dpeths. The only monster Runaway had ever seen that hadn’t been like that, that had been cold and emotionless and statute-like, had been the Lady.

But the Lady had always been different. Even an idiot could figure that out.

The Lady was the leader of the Maw, the one that kept all the other monsters in line. The Lady was perfect, and no one ever saw behind the mask poised delicately on its face. The Lady was …

The Guests were dead, and the Lady was many things, but it also valued the Maw above all else. Runaway knew that too, and if someone had killed the Guests, the Lady would have killed them.

But the two kids who had done so were sitting across from them in the boat right now, after ordering a monster to bring them aboard, still alive and well.

Runaway doesn’t shiver, but they come close to. Kids don’t kill monsters. That’s just a fact of life. Sure, some might get lucky — you can lead one over an edge where they’ll go tumbling down, land a lucky hit on a cabinet that sends it crashing down on top of them. But all in all, kids can’t really do much, except run away and hide and using their surroundings to fight back.

They can’t kill the monsters by themselves. Except these kids can, and that makes them — it makes them something different.

They’re still kids, Runaway can tell, because monsters can’t fake being kids without imperfections showing. But still, there is something that sits underneath the surface of their skins, creeping in the shadows of their hoods. Runaway can feel it like the way they felt the grinding of the Maw around them, could feel the Nomes chittering in their ears like actual words.

There’s something strange with these kids, but Runaway doesn’t think they’re going to hurt them. They had many chances already, and they had allowed them to come aboard, to follow them out into the world wherever the boat ends up docking. They’re still kids, so they’ll still think like kids, which means not being stupid. And it would be stupid to bring someone along with them just to kill them later on.

So, Runaway marks them down in their mind as … well, not friends. They haven’t ever really had a friend before, most kids don’t. But they’re … allies. Sure. That works.

They won’t hurt each other, they’re going to work together . So it’ll probably turn out okay.

Runaway breathes out a sigh, and looks out again at the glimmering sea. It seems to be shining now, a deep blue instead of murky grey, and they’re slightly taken aback. The sea has never looked like that before, and they lean back away from the edge, confused and worried. They grab for their flashlight, still on the bench beside them, and feel the warmth of it on their skin. No, not the flashlight’s warmth, it’s not going.

It’s — it’s the sun .

Runaway cranes their head up just in time to see the grey, swirling clouds part in the sky. The sky had always been grey, never anything but, even if they know deep in their heart that it wasn’t supposed to be that way. They don’t know what it was supposed to be like, but it couldn’t have been the depressing tone it always took, whenever they were lucky enough to sneak a glance out of the porthole window.

Except now the cloud are parting to reveal a pale, blue-orange sky, and a shining sun coming up over the horizon.

The sky looks like something they could only ever dream of, painted in a pale-blue colour, almost white, before it melds into a brilliant orange the closer it gets to the sun. The sun, which they can’t look away from despite how it hurts their eyes, after living forever in the darkness of the Maw. It’s just so bright , making their entire body tingle in warmth they’ve never experienced, as it pulls everything into its shining, blinding light.

Runaway can hardly breathe. Maybe this is what they were always trying to run to.

“Oh.” They mumble, unable to contain their amazement. The two other kids on the boat, the ones they almost forgot about, look at them with heads tilted in opposite directions.

“What?” Six asks, not quite kindly but not as snappy as she had been earlier.

Runaway looks at her, then back at the sky, unable to bare parting with the sight of it for too long, like if they glance away it’ll disappear. It’s so unlike anything they’ve ever seen before, so bright and warm and beautiful, they don’t know how Six and Mono aren’t as amazed as they are. But maybe they are, and they just can’t see it behind their masks. Maybe they’ll see their faces eventually, but not right now, when the sun is all that grabs their attention.

“I’ve never — I’ve never seen the sunrise this close before.” They finally manage to explain, managing to find their voice again, though they’re sure it is still full of awe. Their eyes water, and they don’t just think it’s from the light hurting their eyes. “I’ve … I’ve only ever seen it through the portholes. I can’t remember it ever being like this.”

Mono and Six both stare up at the sky for a moment longer, before Mono turns to them this time, and Runaway still can’t see anything behind his paper bag. But in the sunlight’s shine, it’s not as imposing as it once was, and Runaway imagines that one day, if they stick around long enough, they might find it endearing .

“We’ve never seen it like this, either.” Mono tells them, and — and Runaway blinks at him.

The words are spoken evenly, calmly, but with a hint of tension hidden underneath. But Runaway doesn’t mind it, the corner of their lips curling up, and they look back at the sun. Those words feel … it feels sorta like an offering, a declaration of peace. Runaway can stick with them for now, they’ve been accepted, they’ve been trusted to not be stupid and not get them killed. Even if it’ll just be for a little awhile, this tiny bit of information shared — it binds them together.

And maybe it’ll end up being for a bit more than a little while. Who knows. Certainly not Runaway.

“It’s pretty.” They reply back, resting their chin on their arms over the edge of the boat, blinking back the tears in their eyes. The warmth of the sun and smell of the ocean and the sound of wind blocks out all other senses, including the radiance of otherness coming from the kids beside them, and they’re sure they’ll get used to that in due time, too.

They’ll get used to them, and to the sun, and to the freedom of air in their lungs. They’re able to now, and they’re so excited to survive long enough to experience it.

“Yeah.” Mono says. “It is.”

And the three of them sit there, in the rocking boat piloted by a peaceful monster bent into submission, free of everything trying to keep them trapped in the past forever and ever. It feels like daylight is finally breaking in their lives for the very first time, after eons of darkness and rain and smoke.

For all Runaway knows, it really is. And for the first time in their life, they don’t feel like running, and they’re content to see what the next step brings.