by Dei Walker

In her headlamp’s dim light, Mirrim traces the shapes on the ancient stone wall. They resemble claw marks more than runes, but she tries to speak them anyway. She shapes sounds and twists her tongue around impossible syllables with growing ease. Her fingers catch on jagged stone, slicing skin.

In the subterranean darkness, something moves. Her injured finger pulses. The marks glow as the sounds grow ever louder, an arrival accompanied by gusts of cold, stale wind.

We’ve been gone so long, something whispers longingly in her skull. They made us leave. We will reward you for bringing us home.

Dei Walker

Dei Walker a linguist, fibre crafter, and author living in China. A queer speculative fiction and romance writer, her stand-alone short stories have been published by Duck Prints Press. She has short stories published/forthcoming in their Many Hands and A Truth Universally Acknowledged anthologies as well as Inkd Publishing’s Impulse anthology.