A Bizarre Journey ep 34: Local Man Builds Language, Upsets Mountain

I finally stood up and brushed the ash off my clothes for the last time.

“I have to go,” I said. The words came out harder than I wanted. “She’s still waiting.”

Chủ Tịch Nhỏ tried to look unimpressed and failed. The rest of the pack went quiet in that sudden, complete way only children can. Even Consequences, who had spent the entire game session radiating pure contempt, hesitated when I reached for it. The snake’s coils loosened just a fraction — the smallest, most reluctant concession to not wanting the moment to end. I noticed immediately.

“Oh?” I cooed, leaning down. “Is someone getting soft? Is the terrifying wedding-murderer feeling sentimental? Should I compose a ballad about your hidden heart of gold?”

The snake thrashed so hard it nearly took a strip of skin off my wrist. I took that as a yes.

Before I could step away, the smallest boy pushed something into my free hand. It was a rough bracelet woven from the pale tunnel vines and three tiny phosphorescent fungi that still glowed a soft green. The workmanship was clumsy and perfect.

“For the person you’re looking for,” he said, very serious. “So she knows you didn’t forget.”

I closed my fingers around it and felt something in my chest tilt.

“Thank you.”

They led me the rest of the way through the Root Road, taking a narrow side branch that smelled of damp earth and avoided the meadow of memory-eating flowers they described with exaggerated horror. At the far mouth of the tunnel they stopped. I put the bracelet carefully into my pocket, right against my chest, and lifted the lyre and the still-offended snake in farewell.

The moment I was alone again the quiet felt different.

My mood had lifted in spite of everything. I walked, talking to Consequences like the world’s worst therapist.

“They were just kids,” I said. “Building a whole territory because nobody came for them. You saw it. Don’t pretend you didn’t. You let that one wear you like a scarf for twenty minutes.”

The snake gave a small, almost thoughtful shift instead of its usual violent protest. For a few steps we existed in a rare pocket of mutual understanding: two reluctant companions who had both, briefly, been claimed by a pack of dead children and were pretending it hadn’t mattered.

Then I walked face-first into a wall.

The impact was perfect and humiliating. My nose took the worst of it. I staggered back, eyes watering, cursing in three languages while Consequences radiated the most judgmental energy I had ever felt from a reptile.

I looked up, still holding my face.

A mountain rose in front of me — sheer, black, and so sudden it felt personal. It blocked the entire path out of the forest like the underworld had decided I had experienced enough personal growth for one day. Set into the stone at eye level was a face carved from rock, its mouth already opening.

“Answer the riddle to pass,” it intoned.

I didn’t even let it finish.

“Time. A candle. A shadow. Hope. The letter E. A coffin. Silence. My remaining dignity—”

“Incorrect,” the face said. “You are temporarily banned from answering.”

A small glowing X appeared in the air in front of my mouth.

I stared at it, then at the mountain, then at the snake.

“Okay. New plan.”

I tried climbing the lower slope with the lyre strapped to my back. I made it four meters before sliding back down in a shower of loose shale.
I tried bribing the rock face with the ash-leaf cigarette I still had. It did not care.


I tried threatening it with Consequences. The snake refused to cooperate.


I tried singing. The mountain actually seemed to lean away from me.

I was sitting in the dirt, nose still throbbing, considering the merits of simply lying down and becoming a new geological feature, when a figure fell from somewhere high above.

The shade hit the ground in a controlled, practiced sprawl, stood up as if the impact had been a minor inconvenience, and immediately began climbing again without a single word of complaint.

I watched them go, then looked at Consequences.

“…We’re following that one.”

I scrambled after the climbing shade with everything my childhood had ever taught me about stealing guavas from the tallest trees behind Loc’s old school.

Fingers jammed into cracks. Sandals scraped uselessly against black stone. The lyre banged against my spine hard enough to leave bruises shaped like regret. Consequences swung from my free hand like a furious pendulum and made its opinion of the entire activity known with constant, judgmental coiling. The other shade was already far ahead, moving with the grim efficiency of someone who had attempted this mountain many times before.

I closed the gap out of pure stubborn panic and called up with my brightest, most disastrous charm.

“Hey! Fellow climber! Love the form. Really clean technique. I’m Orpheus — legendary musician, temporary mountain enthusiast. You come here often or—”

The shade flinched so hard at the sudden voice that his hand slipped. He fell.

I lunged for him on instinct and only succeeded in peeling myself off the rock as well. We dropped together in a brief, undignified tangle of limbs and one extremely offended snake. I somehow twisted so that he landed on top of me instead of the other way around — my body turned into the world’s worst life jacket with a wet, painful thud that drove the air from my lungs.

We lay in a heap at the base of the mountain.

“I’m so sorry,” I wheezed, still pinned. “Completely my fault. I have a problem with greeting people at the wrong altitude. Are you hurt? Do you need—”

The shade punched me cleanly in the jaw.

Pain exploded white across my face. I tasted blood. The next few minutes dissolved into the most unnecessary brawl I had ever participated in: two people who had already fallen off a mountain now rolling in the dirt throwing tired, angry, pointless hits while a bound snake watched with open contempt. We only stopped when the shade finally sat back, chest heaving, and glared at me with pure exhaustion.

That was when I noticed he never once opened his mouth to curse me out.

I froze mid-wipe of blood from my lip.

“…You can’t talk.”

He stared at me.

I switched to yes-or-no questions immediately, the way I used to when clients were too upset to form sentences.

“Is this the right way out?”


Nod.


“Is the rock face the only path, without climbing, of course?”


Nod.


“Does the riddle change every time?”


Hard stare.


“Have you ever made it to the top?”

A shake of his head.

“Then why keep trying?”

He just looked at me. Unanswerable. I had slipped into open questions again without noticing. He kept staring until I raised both hands in apology.

Above us the carved rock face activated again, voice grinding like stone on stone.

“Shade. Answer the riddle to pass.


I am the weight that stays when memory leaves.


I am the door that opens only for those who have already entered.


I am what the living call unfair and the dead call home.


What am I?”

I turned to the silent shade, hope sparking hard and stupid.

“Do you know the answer?”

He nodded once, firm.

“Then say it! Answer and we both get through—”

The words died in my throat as the realization landed all at once.

He knew the answer.


He had probably known it for a long time.
 But he could not speak it, so the only way through was to climb and fall and cling onto whatever reasons he had left to keep going. This was a rigged game for him at the first place.

Guilt hit harder than the punch to the jaw.

“I’m sorry,” I said, quieter. “For the fall. For the stupid greeting. For all of it.”

He didn’t acknowledge the apology. He simply stood, rolled one shoulder as if the entire brawl had been a minor delay, and walked back to the base of the mountain. I tried to stop him — hand on his arm, voice rising — but he shook me off and began climbing again.

He fell on the third meter.
Got up.
Climbed.
Fell again.
Got up.

I counted.

On the thirteenth fall he hit the ground in the same controlled sprawl, stood up with the same unbroken quiet, and turned toward the rock once more. Something in my chest twisted so tightly it hurt. The determination was absolute. No theatrics. No complaint. Just the decision that falling thirteen times was still better than stopping.

Consequences made a small, mocking sound in its throat. I shushed it harder than necessary.

Then I stepped in front of the silent shade, lifted the lyre, and put on the same reckless confidence I used every time I had no actual plan.

“Shall I introduce myself again? I’m Orpheus. Legendary musician. Extremely qualified to solve communication problems through the power of extremely questionable art. And we’re getting you through that damn mountain.”

I stared at the shade’s rounded eyes, the rock face, the lyre, and Consequences, and did what I always did when the situation required actual competence: I invented something ridiculous and committed to it with my entire chest.

“Okay. The rock only accepts your answer. You can’t talk. So I’m giving you a language.” I held up the lyre. “Seven strings. We’ll treat them as letters. Low to high: A, E, I, O, U, and then the two highest for consonants we actually need—N and D, because I’m pretty sure the answer involves both. You point at the string you want. I play it. Consequences—” I lifted the snake, who looked like he was drafting a formal complaint, “—taps once for ‘wrong letter, start over’ and twice when the word is finished. I will speak every letter out loud as we build it so the rock hears the answer forming in your code. Clear?”

The shade stared at me like I’d just declared war on the concept of simplicity. Then he nodded once, sharp and decisive.

What followed was pure underworld performance art.

He pointed. I plucked. Letter by letter the word assembled itself in the air between us while I narrated like a man possessed.

“A… no, wait—he’s correcting—U. N. D. E. R—”

Consequences gave a single furious tap whenever I jumped ahead. The shade kept pointing with absolute focus, correcting me with tiny jabs of his finger until the full shape locked in. Two sharp taps from the snake finally cut through the chaos.

I turned to the carved face, raised the lyre like a microphone, and declared:

“These are not my words. This is the language I built for him. The answer is the Underworld.”

There was a long, geological silence.

Then the carved face groaned like a mountain forced to accept a technicality it despised, and the entire rock slab lifted upward with a grinding roar, revealing a dark rectangular door.

I lost my mind in pure celebration.

“YES! LET’S GO! LEGENDARY MUSICIAN STRIKES AGAIN!”

The silent shade stood frozen, staring at the open path like he had forgotten what hope looked like. Then the shock cracked into the brightest, most wordless happiness I had seen since entering this place. He grabbed my shoulders and shook me once, hard, before pulling me into a rough, brief hug that smelled of stone dust and relief. I hugged back like we had been friends for years. Consequences dangled between us in open disgust and made a sound that clearly translated to I hate both of you.

We walked through together. The moment our heels cleared the threshold the rock slammed shut behind us with a finality that said the mountain never wanted to see us again.

On the other side a small group of shades was waiting.

The one I had helped broke into a run. A girl shade stepped out of the group and met him halfway. They collided in a quiet, desperate embrace. Around them the others—five or six more—stood watching. None of them spoke. Not a single voice rose in greeting or question. The silence was complete and sudden and wrong.

My shade turned and pointed at me with both hands, then at the sealed mountain, then at me again. The meaning was obvious. He did this. He got me through.

They surrounded me in a wave of wordless gratitude. One pressed his forehead to my shoulder. Another clasped my wrist with both hands. The girl offered a small, glowing fungus like a flower. I did what I always did when people needed me to be larger than I felt: I smiled, clapped backs, invented nicknames on the spot, and let the charm turn the moment into something almost warm.

My shade picked up a stick and began drawing in the dirt with quick, practiced strokes. A mountain. A stick figure climbing. A cluster of the pale underworld flowers. A second stick figure waiting below. He pointed at the girl, then at himself, then mimed a long fall with his hand.

He had gone up to pick flowers for her and simply slipped.

The girl watched the story appear in the dirt, then punched him lightly in the arm. He gave her an awkward, lopsided smile that was so ordinary and so alive it hurt to look at. Their entire relationship sat in that small exchange—no grand speeches, no strategies, just the quiet fact of someone climbing a mountain for flowers and someone else being angry he had fallen.

Something bitter bloomed under my tongue.

I thought of Quynh in the wedding dress. The way she had said yes like she was accepting a group assignment. The years of sitting at the same table, of listening to her argue about gods, of wanting something she had never once offered back. Their simple, wordless care made my own feelings feel suddenly large and ridiculous and one-sided.

I looked at the rest of the group more carefully while the conversation of gestures continued. Every single one of them communicated with hands or sticks or expressions. No voices. Not even a whisper.

The realization settled cold and clear.

These were Kyrios’s victims. The ones he had beaten until the sound never came back. An entire small community of people who had been deliberately silenced and then left to build whatever life they could in the dark.

I closed my fingers around the vine bracelet in my pocket and said nothing. The bitter taste stayed.

~~~•••~~~

They started piling things in front of me.

Underworld currency — thin, dull wafers of pressed ash and bone that felt too light in the hand. One shade emptied a whole pouch. Another added a small stack he had kept wrapped in leaves. The girl placed three more on top with careful fingers. It wasn’t much by any living standard, but the way they offered it made the gesture heavy.

I shook my head and pushed the pile back.

“I don’t need payment. I just need the way to Hades’s palace.”

The silent group exchanged looks. My shade — the one who had fallen thirteen times — picked up the stick again and added more details into the map in the dirt: a winding path, a wide river, and, blocking the final stretch before the water, a cluster of aggressive marks that needed no translation.

Kyrios’s gang controlled the route to the river.

I stared at the drawing longer than I wanted to. Everything in me wanted a clean path. There wasn’t one.

“…I’ll find a way through,” I said.

The shades went still. The girl tilted her head. My shade wrote one word in the dirt with a questioning stroke:

Why?

The old answer rose first — I’m trying to get someone back — the same sentence I had repeated since the courtyard. It was still true. It just no longer felt like the only true thing.

I thought of Chủ Tịch Nhỏ and the Root Road kids building a territory because no one came for them. I thought of the voiceless circle sitting in the dark with their sticks and their hands and their stolen sound. I looked at the people in front of me who had already paid more than anyone should pay and still chose to climb mountains for flowers.

“Because someone has to,” I said. The words came out quieter than usual, but steadier. “And because when I reach the palace I’m telling Hades exactly what Kyrios has been doing. All of it.”

The effect was immediate.

Something moved through the group — not sound, but a change in the way they held themselves. My shade stepped forward, pressed one hand flat to his chest, then pointed at me and then down the path toward the river. The offer was clear. He would take me through.

I didn’t hesitate.

“Yes. Please.”

Relief and a sharp, bright gratitude hit at the same time. I clapped him on the shoulder the way I would have any friend who had just agreed to walk into danger with me.

They formed a rough circle in the dirt and began planning with sticks, gestures, and the kind of focused silence that was louder than talking. The strategy was simple and humiliating: I would travel as one of them. No lyre on display. No visible blood. No warmth that could give me away at a distance.

The girl scooped a double handful of the cold black mud that collected near the roots and waited.

I sighed, handed Consequences to my shade for a moment, and knelt.

They worked quickly. Mud went across my arms, my throat, my face, the back of my neck, anywhere living heat might show. Someone pressed more of it into the leaf bandage on my calf until the smell of blood disappeared under the smell of wet earth. The lyre was wrapped in broad leaves and slung close to my back like any other piece of scavenged weight. Consequences was returned to me with a look that clearly said if you get us killed I will bite you out of principle.

When they finished I looked like a slightly damp, poorly made shade. The disguise would not survive close inspection, but it might survive distance and speed.

My shade checked me once, gave a short nod, and pointed toward the path.

We moved out together — a small cluster of the silenced and one warm man pretending to be the same — heading straight toward the stretch of underworld that belonged to Kyrios the Unrelenting.