16 Final Push

"Damn it!" Maya's arms were dead. She couldn't lift either Athalos, whose body spasmed in a cross between someone in a rave and a twitchy leg, and Frina, who was so frozen and disconnected from her brain that a surviving chicken had almost pecked the feed clean off her face. Just before the chicken could peck a piece of feed near Frina's eye, Maya grabbed the chicken by the neck and flung it over the gorge behind. She called out to the dwarf, "Graff! It's like they're braindead!"

"I reckon those two have been long before we entered this dungeon!" Graff, basket of chicken slung around his shoulder, pushed with all his might at the west wall while Gregory handled the right side. His head was red as a tomato even to the texture. "Slap 'em! Punch 'em! Stab 'em! Anythin' to snap 'em from their sweet escape from reality!"

Maya slapped both their faces in unison and, while it felt great, she couldn't get one to wake. Unfortunately, she had no strength to punch; She definitely wanted to try because it seemed fun. She held her short sword high but, after seeing their petrified faces in anguish, retreated the blade back to its sheath. Stabbing wasn't an option. "Not working, Graff!"

"Leave 'em? Many fancy a solo act these days! It speaks to an artist's quality and fearlessness—"

"GRAFF!"

"R-Right! Uh, um…" Graff, flustered though there was no more space for redness on his smooth face, took a hand off the wall and stroked his excuse of a beard in thought. With one hand leaned on the moving wall, his feet slid the floor as if he was pushed on ice.

On the opposite moving wall, Gregory screeched at him. Nobody understood what it meant and chalked it up to Gregory doing bat things but the bat said, "Keep your pubescent hands on the damn wall!"

Graff was stumped as he leaned his back to the moving wall. His bourbon eyes drifted to the basket of freshly cooked chicken. "Nay… But maybe if we chew the food and feed 'em like baby birds— Ah! The health potions! Let 'em drink the potions, Lady Maya! We bought those for a reason!"

Maya completely forgot about the potions, the most important item adventurers packed on quests and journeys. The amount of times when they could've used them carouseled in her memory and each instance remembered, stabbed a dagger of stupidity on her back. She quickly rummaged through her bag, got a health potion, bit the cork off, pried Frina's mouth open, and poured the red liquid down her throat. "Come on! Wake up, Frina—"

"Good morning." Frina jolted upright on the floor. Her teal eyes were hazy but it was clear that her awareness had returned. She turned to Maya who recovered from a heartattack and fell on her rear with the empty vial in her hand. She casually stood up while she kept her eyes away from the gorge to prevent a relapse. "So. What manner of death are we looking forward to this time?"

"Oh my god, we should've bought bags of these. Why did we buy so little?" Maya was amazed at the empty bottle she held up. It was the same reaction she had when she tried out a new all-purpose cleaner for her apartment.

"The basket and bouquets dealt substantial blows to our coffers," confessed Frina. After all, transparency was what she and Graff practiced. But just like the gorge, she avoided any eye contact with Maya. With the hope to further stray away from the subject before the other things they bought could come to light, she assessed the predicament they were in. "The walls are closing in like the curtains of a play. We should run."

"Right! We should get mo— Athalos!" Maya had forgotten the man who shivered on the floor like a homeless man fighting off a city's winter night. She popped the cork of another health potion and flooded it down his mouth.

But Athalos didn't greet them as Frina did.

"Why isn't he recovering?!" shouted Maya.

"A swell mornin' to ye, Frina!" Graff raised a drumstick to her. He was seated, back to the wall that pushed him, with the basket on his lap as his plate. He took another bite and waved the chicken leg as he spoke with a mouth half-full, "Might I reiterate me humble suggestion to leave him—"

"Graff!" Maya and Gregory scolded him.

"Calm yerselves! It was merely a suggestion not a proclamation!" Graff tried to get up to help with the wall. His eyes bulged when he realized he couldn't. His belly had too much chicken. He thought he was just hungry but what went unnoticed that hit him like a submarine's torpedo was the munchies. He did his best to hide his shame. "I-I'm gettin' up! Hold the fort down, Gregory!"

Gregory rolled its eyes and snarled at him.

No matter how much Graff heaved himself forward as he tried to reach his feet, he couldn't stand up. He had no choice. He rolled over and, belly touching the ground, placed his hands on the wall and planted his toes on the ground. He cried out, "M-Me belly! The friction! It's burnin'!"

Maya didn't understand Graff's unsightly course of action. If she was in his place, she'd push her back off the wall to get on her feet. She kept the thought to herself for too long that her chance to tell him passed. Besides, seeing the dwarf, who was semi-safe in Gregory's back while the rest of the group dealt with the traps, in hardship felt like justice. "Heh."

Maya returned her attention to Athalos. She needed him on his feet and now. She brought out all the health potions she had left; Four were wedged between her fingers in one hand. She bit off all the corks and took a mental note to introduce bottle twist caps to the world. With no time to lose, she jammed all the potions into Athalos' mouth. "Damn it, wake up!"

Frina thought she saw the pupils of Athalos look at her for help but she remembered he was blind and thought nothing of it. She rolled two more health potions to Maya. She then strummed The Grace of Wind again and ran off to the other side. "Apologies, Lady Maya. I won't die for that one. Come and run."

"Frina! Where are you— Goddamnit!" Maya pounded Athalos' chest in frustration and a small geyser spurted from the red overflowing lake in his mouth. She didn't blame her. She couldn't. The walls were closing in fast. She took the two potions off the floor, opened them, and shouted, "Please work!"

Maya stuck a potion into Athalos' nose. While it may seem inhumane, her reason for this desperate act stemmed from her earlier encounter with the bat and an arrow lodged in its nostril.

Athalos felt the burning effects of the healing potion run through his sinus. With one eye flickering, a reaction that meant the return of his senses or a step closer to ruin, he tried to speak but his mouth was swamped with red liquid and the clatter of bottles. "L-Lady… M-M-Maya-"

Maya failed to notice Athalos' words and turned him on his side. She looked at his bare rear, his pants were ripped by the spiked ball prior. She held the potion up. "I don't know if this will work but, where I'm from, there's this thing called suppository medicine."

Athalos' eyes widened in panic at the potion bottle, like a mere powerless being at the whim of gods. He didn't understand the word but he knew exactly what would happen. He drank and drank. He breathed faster and the potion lodged in his nose had its contents sucked up. There was finally room in his mouth for his words to be heard, "Sto—"

"Please work!" Maya jammed the final potion right between his cheeks and into the Athalos' most protected hole. Palm on the potion's base, She jammed it deep.

"HEEE!" Athalos teeth clamped down and crunched the glass bottles. The pain of the miniature slashes to his gums didn't amount to the piercing damage from below. He spat out the glass shards and wailed, "Why?! Why wake me for shame?!"

Graff and Gregory held their butts from the phantom pain.

Frina shed a tear for Athalos. It was the most she could offer in condolence.

Maya felt an ounce of guilt but all she cared about was that Athalos stood up, though still spasming for nether reasons. The walls were five tiles wide now and she'd do anything to save them from a pancake's fate. Hand still on the health potion's base stuck to his rear, she pushed him forward. "Run, Athalos, run!"

"AYE! I AM! I'M RUNNING FROM YOU, YOU SON OF A— OH HOW MY RESPECT IS TESTED! HNGUH! WHY MUST YOU GO DEEPER?!" Athalos blared as he ran at top speed with Maya's assistance and physical encouragement.

While Athalos endured both pain and shame, he also felt relief from the potions' effects. He was visibly confused. Then he veered left then right, Maya's hand on the potion slipped and had moved him like a ship's rudder. Holding his staff to his chest, he shouted over his shoulder, "Straight line, Lady Maya! Go in a damn straight line! Please! If you have any mercy left, do not break the potion's neck!"

The space between the walls was three tiles wide and the gap continued to shorten with every passing second.

Frina was already past the walls' collision course. She first took the chicken basket to safety. Then she helped Graff get on his feet and continued strumming for Maya and Athalos.

"Bless ye, Frina. Any more and I would've literally shed some weight." Graff rubbed chicken oil on his stomach to soothe the burn, his iron armor couldn't cover all of his belly.

"Keep pushing. The bat's done more than you," said Frina bluntly.

Two tiles wide.

Graff and Gregory's backs were against each other. He needed something to slow the walls down. The dwarf shouted at the two who were running for their lives. "Yer staff, Athalos! Toss it here!"

Athalos hugged his staff. "What?! I would never part with— HOW DEEP IS THY LOVE!"

Maya twisted the bottle a bit, not even half a rotation. She was past any other conversation that wouldn't lead to their survival. "Throw it."

"A-As the lady commands!"

Athalos threw it and the staff surprisingly made a beeline through the gap. However, just as everyone was amazed by the blind man's throw, the staff hit Gregory on its neck. The bat yelped then landed on the ground unconscious.

"GREFFODIL!" Graff hadn't given up on the name. He went to the bat's aid and hauled it off away from the wall. He pounded the ground with a hammed fist. "Damn ye! I swear we'd all have an easier time if that one was on our foe's party!"

"It's Gregory," Athalos scoffed and the potion bottle on his nose fogged.

Frina retrieved the staff and placed it just in time between the two walls. But the staff hardly bought them time. It bended from strain then snapped into two. The two halves flung to the safe area but one slapped Frina on her face with the force of a hundred mothers. She was out cold, again.

Graff plucked two wasp stingers from his head and raised both arms in the air in anger. "Is it me or is everythin' turnin' to shit real fast?!"

One tile wide. It was half the width of an alley.

"Keep going! Keep going! Move it, Athalos!" begged Maya. She ran sideways while pushing Athalos forward with her whole body. She was like a bossy sprinting crab.

"I'm doing my best given my recent attachments!" Athalos' face turned to the light. He had to because otherwise and the potion in his nose would be crushed. But the potion on his rear was far more dangerous. The whole wall was pushing it down and he was desperate to stop the advance. "AAAH!"

BANG!

A cloud of dust erupted and the two walls finally high-fived in the middle.