Soot Scamp
Written by Laura NettlesHe had never seen the rumoured sun. Damian’s eyes were so recessed into their sockets they were not visible from the profile. His hair, like other half human soot scamps, was as dark as the billowy coal dust that lined this layer of the underground labyrinth he called home. A labyrinth where large skittering creatures of long spindly legs and huge, oblong hairy bodies roamed, feasting with gnashing jaws on those who crossed their path.
Skritch. Skritch. In the outskirts of the tunnel network, the newly outcast teenager stiffened. The tell-tale sound of the elongated claws of a soot maven scratching along the brickwork of the tunnels reverberated through his bones. It was backed by the sound of it’s writhing, undulating hair brushing along the walls for purchase, seeking out any wayward creatures for food.
Varlet frogs swarmed past Damian’s feet, fleeing for their lives. Some could not hop fast enough and tried to wedge themselves into crevices where bricks were missing. It wouldn’t do them any good. While feel was the soot maven’s first mode of hunting, it also had a keen sense of hearing. If Damian did not still his breathing and heartbeat, he would be found and devoured. Soot scamps were more scrumptious than frogs.
Digging his grubby hand into the pocket of his overalls, Damian fished out a leaf of a small plant that grew closer to the center of the dark complex: cortardo. As he placed a round black leaf into his mouth, he pulled out the slow acting antidote, silio petals, and chewed them both. The cortardo leaf was effective immediately. Every beat of his vibrant heart dulled and thickened, slowing down as his limbs began to lose feeling. He dove into the dry well he called home and checked the catch of the metal grate above his head, making sure it was secure. His numb arms struggled to place his only blanket over himself, hiding him from the recessed eyes of the predator.
Skritch. Skritch. Scratch. Damian felt large patches of soot fall onto the fabric covering his face as the steel-like nails as long as his forearm grazed against the rusted iron grating. A hole in the blanket laid directly over his eye. He could see everything this time.
The creature paused for a moment, testing the latch with unnatural dexterity.
The screams of half eaten frogs rang in his ears. Damian couldn’t breathe. His ribcage was constricting further and harder, his lungs unable to inhale needed oxygen.
One second. The long, serrated talons reached for his face.
Five seconds. They stopped mere inches from his exposed eye, unable to come any lower into the well through the tight weave of the grating.
Ten seconds. A terrible gurgling sound emanated from the soot maven, its mandibles gnashing.
Fifteen seconds. Colors he had never seen in reality swirled in his vision, painting the soot maven in technicolor magnificence.
Twenty seconds. The colours morphed into even more dreadful hallucinations. Extra rasping heads sprouted from the hairy back of the monster, whispering his name with inhuman vocal cords. “It’s your fault your mother is alone. She’ll starve without you. You’ve killed her.”
Thirty seconds. ‘No. Mother.’
One minute. ‘I just have to make it a week. Then I can go back.’
Black circles dotted his vision, expanding and blocking any illumination from the dull bioluminescent purple moss that peered through the soot on the brickwork as well as his hallucinations. He was dying. No one would mourn him.
The soot maven grew tired of inspecting the metal grating and lumbered on down the tunnel, leaving Damian to his blind terror.
‘Will those… silio petals… work in time? Did I not… take enough?’
His own screams echoed in his mind. Coherent thought scattered.
What felt like metal bands constricting his chest began to lift just as the last long leg of the soot maven rounded the far corner, out of view. Air flowed into Damian’s lungs and his heart began to beat once again. He had survived one more hour.
Crack. Scream. The sound was so out of place and unexpected that Damian undid the catch and lifted the grate to see where it had come from. No soot maven, dirt devil, varlet frog or mud bug had ever made that noise before, only fellow soot scamps when being devoured. But there were none that ventured this far into the outskirts. Only the banished.
There, just at the bend in the tunnel where the soot maven had come from, sat the most colorful creature Damian had ever seen. She looked like him, but different. Her face was not that of soot scamp, but had human eyes that gleamed in the dark with wetness, reflecting the light she brought with her. She was wearing a dress with a full skirt of yellow. He had never seen so much of that color before. Above her was a split in the ceiling. Rubble laid around her. The light strapped to her head was brighter than all the plants he had ever seen and had the tint of many colors. Red, green, yellow, blue and purple.
It took her a few minutes to get her bearings, peering into the surrounding darkness. Finally, her eyes alighted on him. With a gasp, she cried out. “Oh, thank heavens. Where—”
He sprang to her and clamped his grimy hand over her mouth. “Don’t make a sound. You will be hunted and eaten,” Damian signed with his free hand. “They’re probably already on their way.”
Her wide eyes stared into his recessed ones as she nodded her understanding. He released her and she took a step back, shaken.
“Who are you?” Damian signed.
The girl raised a trembling hand and signed, “Rebecca.”
“What is that light?” he inquired.
“The lamp? Don’t you have lamps in this level?” She looked up at her layer of the labyrinth with longing. “How do you see without them? This moss gives off hardly anything to see by.”
“We make do. You’ll get used to it.”
“Get—”
He silenced her yet again with his hand.
“I’m not staying here long enough to get used to it. Give me a boost and I can climb back up. You can come with me!” Her bright eyes glowed.
The proposition was tempting. He could escape the soot mavens. He wouldn’t have to live alone in constant danger for the rest of the week.
Stories of the other levels flooded his mind. Here there were known dangers, up there was where myths lived. Yet, one was standing in front of him. A pure-blooded human. Not a half breed like the soot scamps.
Skritch. Skritch. Looking down the tunnel, Damian saw the soot maven had returned. A lumbering skuttle told him another soot maven was at the other end too. It was too late to hide, douse the light and stop their hearts. They would have to climb to the next level if they wanted to live.
Damian slid back to the dry well and grabbed his prized grappling hook he used for navigating the collapsed and sunken parts of the labyrinth to scavenge for food. He threw it up into the rift above them and shoved the girl to the rope.
The soot mavens were now close enough that Rebecca could see them against the black, coal dusted walls. She screamed and started shimmying up the rope as fast as she could.
Claws swiped at Damian’s shoes, slicing his soles as he followed her and her light into the bright unknown. The girl clambered up to the next level and reached her hand down for him. He took it and pulled himself up. They were safe.
The lantern was blinding to Damian, especially with the obsidian walls reflecting its rainbow colors. So strange. He ran his fingers down the hewn walls to examine their multifaceted smoothness. There was no soot coating his rough hands when he pulled them back to inspect them.
“Thank you.” Rebecca gasped while laying on the floor a few feet away from the opening, out of breath. Her gasps were sharp and laboured. Damian had been taught at a young age to never breath that loudly. “What’s your name?”
“Damian. Where are we?” he signed. He squinted through the steady light emanating from the lantern still strapped to Rebecca’s head.
“Oh, you can talk up here. Nothing too big is attracted to noise,” she chuckled.
Would she lie to him? It was too risky. Never talk outside the citadel. The lesson ringed in his mind. He signed the question again.
“Well, we are on the outskirts of the labyrinth. Tunnel 594 offshoot B, if you want to be precise.” She got up, dusted off her dress and adjusted the lantern.
Slowly his eyes began to adjust to the incessant light and blinding colors. It was some kind of bright illumination contained in an array of scavenged chips of colored glass from broken bottles and other paraphernalia, splashing the walls with brilliant hues. Rebecca’s face was cast in a red while the rest of her was in blue and yellow.
Finally, he noticed a cord leading from her lower back, trailing off into the comfortingly dark tunnels. “Where does that lead?” he signed.
“Oh, it’s so I don’t get lost. It leads back to the main citadel. I should probably go back. Come with me?” Her voice was soft and sweet. Inviting.
“I’m an outcast.”
“Not here you’re not. Besides, it’s dangerous to be out here alone in the dark and I don’t know how long it will take those creatures down below to leave. You’re here already, might as well make the most of it before going back home.” She looked at him with pleading eyes. “At least meet my family so I can thank you for saving my life.”
Damian gave a silent sigh. “Alright. But then we come back here tomorrow. The soot mavens should be gone by then.”
“Deal. Now, follow me.” She turned on her heel and began following the cord down the tunnel, her multifaceted lantern illuminating the way. The colors reflected in mesmerizing patterns off the irregularly chipped walls, disorienting Damian with their beauty. He stayed behind Rebecca a few feet as she led the way.
Left. Right. Middle. Far Right. Second Left. Right. Damian tried to keep tabs of the directions in his head so he could find his way back himself if necessary. After the twelfth turn, he gave it up as a bad job. He could hear mining pickaxes in the side tunnels they did not go down, so at least they were not completely alone. He could find help if they got separated.
The air pressure was different in this section of the labyrinth, a rhythmic wind gently caressing his skin. A large cavern opened up ahead of them. It was the largest Damian had ever seen. At the back of it was a large towering city of stone with many lights twinkling in windows.
“Wow. Do no dangerous creatures come to check out all the lights?” he signed.
“Sometimes, but we know how to defend ourselves from them. It’s worth it.” She began scrambling over well-worn rocks towards what looked like a gap in the rockwork that was the front entrance to the city of light.
The city seemed to breathe, yet there were no people visible from this distance. The silence of no vocal voices was comforting to him, yet seemed off if Rebecca’s behaviour was anything to go by. He slowed down to take in more of his surroundings.
Water dripped from the vaulted ceiling high above causing an incessant small splash every few seconds to his right. The air rushed into the cave, then out. In, out. Why would the current change so often in such opposite directions? His guts squirmed in trepidation.
“What are you doing, Damian?” Rebecca called out from farther ahead. Her dress billowed in the breeze; a beautiful sight. So much yellow. Too bad he didn’t trust her anymore.
He turned and began to run back towards the entrance of the cave.
“No!” The girl’s voice morphed and deepened, vibrating off the rock walls.
The vibrations intensified and the ground began to rumble. Damian looked back and saw the city begin to move, its towers swaying precariously yet the lights never going out. Instead, they began to flash in patterns along the length of the city from front to back, like they did on mud bugs. Huge swaths of the stonework separated from each other like shifting continents revealing pale, squishy flesh of a creature. Tendrils shot out from it’s soft body like sharp spikes seeking him out.
Damian couldn’t help it and screamed for the first time since his mother had slapped him to shut him up when he was five. Antennae-like appendages speared through his stomach, impaling him like a varlet frog on a stick. His screams became hoarse and wet. He was a dead man.
Desperately, he looked to Rebecca. She was limp and hanging high in the air, a glowing lure no longer animated that had brought him to his death, her job complete. She was never really a human. He had fallen for it. A deep animalistic chuckle emanated from the city camouflaged creature. He was going to be eaten. There was nothing he could do about it.
Reaching deep into the pocket of his overalls, he pulled out a clump of black cortardo leaves and placed them in his mouth. He would not live to feel the piercing teeth or burning stomach acid of the abomination.
His chest constricted tightly, his lungs burning for air, his vision darkening, comfortingly familiar. His final whisper: “Mom, I’m sorry.”
Date Modified: 11-22-2025
