You could hear them scampering, see their shifting shadows in the corner of your eye, smell their horrible piss. I knew they wouldn’t show themselves. Dreadful little things. Their squeaking, little voices betrayed them, though.
“Alright,” I said, holding up my lamp. I stared into the distant darkness. “I wanna talk.”
Around me, the squeaking swelled and then died away into silence.
A thud, something heavy. Again, a similar thud. Something moving in the darkness. A giant, multi-headed rat came stomping out of the shadows, its dozen red eyes gleaming in the flickering flame.
It walked on two legs, like a man, dragging its long, naked tail behind itself.
“What,” a voice emanated from its chest, “do you want?”
“Much,” I said. “With you, little. Why are you gathering here?”
“We gather as we will, where we will,” it said.
“But you are gathering. You’re pulling in rats from all corners and amassing under our city. Why?”
“The cheese is good,” it said.
“You’re a part of the history of this place, part of the nature of things. There are kings in palaces, men in houses, horses in stables, rats in sewars, and we all serve our part. So what, I ask, are you doing?”
“Why do you bother in our affairs, o man? Why do you leave your open country and come crawling into our darkness?”
“You have a job to do like the rest of us. You have a nature that you must perform. What is happening down here, what are you preparing for?”
As I asked this, I could hear the squealing, scampering madness all around me, hidden in the unseen darkness beyond my light.
The shadowed rats writhed as their king proclaimed, “I will not be questioned in my own kingdom. Leave,” it commanded.
I turned and left, knowing that war must come.
Tale Told 