The moment the familiar, nauseating lurch of spatial transition seized him, Michael squeezed his eyes shut, his knuckles white on the scooter's brake handles. He focused on the one thing he could control: counting. One… two… three…He forced the numbers through his mind, a rhythmic incantation against the vertigo that had plagued his first journey. The green, swirling chaos beyond his eyelids promised a disorientation he was determined to avoid this time. …eight… nine… ten.
He opened his eyes. The world swam for a second, then solidified. No vomiting. A triumphant, whispered "Yes!" escaped his lips. His plan had worked. Before his vision had even fully cleared, his hand, acting on pure adrenaline-fueled instinct, twisted the scooter's throttle to its limit.
The recently serviced engine, a stark contrast to its usual sputtering protest, roared with a surprising vitality. The 'little donkey,' now laden with its bizarre cargo, shot forward out of the cave's mouth. This entire venture was a gambler's final, desperate throw of the dice. Michael's logic was grimly simple: after the battle he'd witnessed, both sides—the minotaur-led pursuers and the monstrous Ogre—would have a vested interest in his return. The cave was the obvious place for an ambush. His only chance was speed, a head start fueled by the element of surprise. Success meant potential riches to erase his debts; failure… well, failure would render his debts permanently moot.
The fact that the cave interior was empty was a promising omen. Heart hammering against his ribs, he burst out into the blinding daylight, his eyes frantically scanning the barren, sun-scorched landscape for threats, for an escape route.
What he saw nearly caused him to lose control of the scooter entirely. A jolt of pure, undiluted terror shot through him. There, not ten meters to the left of the cave entrance, lay the Ogre. It was a still, mountainous heap of pale flesh against the yellowed earth. A strangled gasp caught in his throat. Instinctively, he wrenched the handlebars, veering away from the colossal form and gunning the engine toward the downward slope that promised open ground and distance.
But as the scooter began its descent, a sudden, sharp realization cut through the panic. He slammed on the brakes, the tires skidding on the loose gravel. Something was wrong. The creature hadn't stirred. It wasn't lying in wait; it was lying in state. The image flashed back into his mind: the countless wounds covering its body during the fight, now likely festering and septic. This wasn't a predator lying in ambush; it was a mortally wounded beast awaiting its end.
He turned the scooter around, a strange, magnetic curiosity overpowering his sense of self-preservation. He approached cautiously, stopping a safe distance away. Up close, the extent of the damage was horrifying. Cuts, gashes, and what looked like old pellet wounds covered its bulk, many weeping a yellowish pus. The smell of infection and decay hung thick in the air. Yet, against all odds, the massive chest rose and fell in a shallow, ragged rhythm. It was clinging to life by the thinnest of threads.
Emboldened by its utter helplessness, Michael dismounted, picking up a fist-sized rock. He threw it with a nervous jerk. It bounced off the Ogre's bulbous forehead with a dull thud. The only response was a slight quickening of its labored breathing. No roar, no furious charge. It was utterly incapacitated.
Steeling himself, Michael approached, the cheap kitchen knife feeling absurdly small in his sweaty palm. The Ogre's single, enormous eye cracked open. It was a bloodshot, pain-filled orb, but it held no malice. Instead, it fixed on Michael with a look of pathetic supplication. A low, guttural stream of words rumbled from its throat, a language of grinding stones and seismic shifts, utterly alien to any earthly tongue.
"Do you… speak English?" Michael ventured, his own voice thin and reedy in comparison.
To his utter astonishment, the Ogre responded, its voice a deep bass vibrato that seemed to shake the very ground, yet flavored with an accent so incongruously refined it was ludicrous. "Honorable human sir," it rasped, each word an effort. "Might you… assist poor Zach? Should you save me, I swear upon the spirits of my ancestors to be your most loyal bondsman. Though…" it added with a touch of pragmatic concern, "you would need to ensure Zach is fed. Properly fed. A perpetually empty belly makes for a very poor servant."
Michael stared, his mind reeling. The situation was beyond absurd. Here he was, bargaining for his life and future with a critically injured, London-accented Ogre named Zach. The potential upside was immense—a personal bodyguard of such formidable power would make Cinder Town infinitely safer. But the risk was equally colossal. What was to stop 'Zach' from simply devouring him once his strength returned? An oath to ancestral spirits? How much stock could one put in a monster's honor?
Yet, the sheer desperation of his own circumstances pressed in on him. He was already gambling everything. What was one more wager? The plea in the creature's eye seemed genuine. He made his decision. "Alright, Zach. We have a deal."
The method of salvation, as it turned out, was brutally simple. "Sustenance," Zach rumbled. "Copious amounts of sustenance. My constitution is… robust. Given enough food, I can heal. It will take… perhaps seven days. A healing potion would shorten it to three, but I assume you possess no such elixirs."
Food. That, Michael could provide. He also set about the grisly task of field surgery, using his knife to cut away the rotten, putrid flesh from Zach's worst wounds. It was a nauseating process, the stench making his eyes water. Zach, however, endured it with stoic silence, his attention fully captured by the box of synthetic ham sausages Michael had produced.
The transformation was both comical and alarming. The moment the first plastic-wrapped bundle was placed near him, Zach, who moments before could barely twitch, managed to sit up. He tossed the entire bundle—plastic and all—into his cavernous mouth. A look of profound, almost ecstatic bliss spread across his grotesque features as he chewed once, twice, and swallowed. He sat in silent reverence for a full minute, savoring the memory of the flavor.
Michael was halfway through the gruesome task of cleaning a particularly nasty gash on Zach's shoulder when the Ogre's voice interrupted him, now noticeably stronger and laced with a newfound, cunning charm. "Master? A question, if I may. This… 'ham sausage'… are there additional quantities? I should have mentioned earlier—they call me Zach the Voracious. To achieve a state of mere satiation, I would estimate requiring… ten more boxes of this divine sustenance."
Michael looked up sharply. The pathetic helplessness in Zach's eye had been replaced by a gleam of pure, unadulterated greed. The scales fell from Michael's eyes. He hadn't acquired a mighty protector; he had acquired a colossally expensive, bottomless pit of a stomach. A sinking feeling settled in his gut, colder than the fear of the minotaurs. The question was no longer whether he could save the Ogre, but whether he could afford to.