Silence.

That's all Timothy could hear at the bottom. Nauseating, all-pervading silence.

The nausea could have been a concussion, but at that point, he couldn't care less. Not about anything like that. Not when all he could see was the matted leaves and stagnant water that carpeted the floor.

Timmy had fallen down. He'd lost the game. Beyond that, he was at the bottom of a well.

*Stupid, stupid, stupid.*

Tim levered himself up with his arm, while his head throbbed. His body protested the action, as his nausea doubled and his vision blurred. Definitely a concussion.

*Stupid.*

Tim pounded his fist against the hard floor. Rage, humiliation and frustration bubbled up inside him. Why did he take that lunge? Why did he play that stupid game? Why did he want to be a Broken-Glasser, anyways? Just because of some skirt?

*Stupid'�*

#

Five hours ago, Tim shook Dick the Rick's hand in front of The Wall and thus began his initiation into the Broken Glass Gang. The Glassers were a bit of a local legend. Plenty of boys never became a Glasser, but plenty of future businessmen, politicians, and even a sports star or two had their roots in Fort Mercy's little ring of high-school troublemakers.

Pretty good, considering the group got their name from the illustrious ritual of throwing old beer-bottles at a concrete wall.

Though their actions weren't sophisticated by any stretch of the mind, they had a definite reputation. Members were said to be endowed with good luck, guile and charisma.

But there was a reason why every Jack and Joe wasn't a current member. The initiation ritual was dangerous. Very dangerous.

Regardless, Tim wanted in. He had the GPA, the looks, and the history of defiance. One thing he didn't have, though, was the proper motivation. Elsie shored up that weakness; all by her little, tight-bodied self.

She was a Glasser Groupie: a girl who followed the club, but was not an initiated member. She, being Dick the Rick's sister, had the rights of a full member, though. And she utilized this power by recommending Tim.

Tim wanted in only because Elsie wanted it that way. She provided the recommendation to her brother, so all Tim had to do was cut the proverbial mustard.

That is what brought them to the well.

#

Richard Mason wasn't proud of his name. Nor was he proud of the nicknames that came with it. But what he was proud of was his ability to make people like whatever he did. He'd crafted his new title from the insults thrown at him.

'Rick the Dick!'� they'd called.

'Dick the Rick,'� he'd corrected.

It stuck, at least among his friends. And eventually, it had spread. When he climbed to the leadership position of greatest authority, he'd completely demolished the ghost of his shameful title.

Shame, however, did resurface.

The candidate which he had accepted had just fallen down the well. And in a long line of leaders, and a long line of successful games at the Well, this was the greatest blunder to ever occur.

The Glassers had lost their luck.

Autumn leaves cascaded around the clearing in screens and sheets, following the lead of the north wind. But the four Glassers didn't move an inch. Bruce fell back from the rim of the well and onto his feet without moving a muscle otherwise. Tim had lunged when he had leaned.

Ellie put her hands up to her mouth. Rick looked at her, then to his second, Matt. Matt shook his head, looking quite unsurprised.

'He was cocky,'� said Matt, in a characteristic croak. An infection when he was five years old resulted in permanent damage of the larynx. The result was that he sounded like had just gargled gravel and thumbtacks.

Rick nodded slowly and eyed Ellie again. She was coming out of her trance slowly, when she broke it all together. She dashed to the well, leaned over and yelled for Tim.

#

Tim stood, stumbled, and finally leaned against the wall rather hard. Openly cursing, he tried to collect his thoughts like so many squirming eels. He looked skyward and saw only the ring of the well's mouth, opening into a monochrome sky.

*It wasn't overcast before'� How long have I been out?*
He yelled upwards, voice clawing at syllables, not speaking them.

'Help! Goddamnit, my head!'�

His vision rippled and he was forced to sit. Grinding teeth, pounding head, churning stomach: it was all too much. It was as if he was being slugged by Barry in 5th grade again. Over and over. It was a lurching, sharp pain that sent shudders up and down his body. Tim slumped down, unable to support himself.

Then, it went away.

His vision cleared, his stomach stilled, and all pain ceased. And not just for a moment. It was as if, for a split second, he felt an astringent substance bubble inside of him, and then there was nothing. He opened his eyes wide, and looked to the sky again.

Still gray, but at least the pain was gone. He afforded himself a small smile before standing.

That's when the sound began.

#

Matt's legs moved like pistons. His voice may've sounded like a chronic smoker's but Matt was the star of the track team, the unofficial 100-meter-dash king of the Pacific Northwest. The trail led down the Summer's Hill and into the city, neatly skirting the cliff that bordered the ocean. It was the single quickest way to and from Fort Mercy.

Bruce stumbled to keep up behind him, wheezing and swearing. Nervous by nature, Bruce often crumbled in high-tension situations. That was why Matt had chosen to take him along, rather than leave him at the well, and risk him going bugshit. Regardless of Bruce's mental constitution, Matt had been surprised that Bruce had won the game.

Well Chicken was the name that the Broken Glass Gang had issued to it. But it went by many others: The Well Game, The Game, Chicken Shit, The Drop, and so on. The rules, however, did not vary.

The two participants would stand on opposites sides of the Summer's Hill well. Each would mount their side of the rim and would attempt to unseat the other. If one's foot were to leave the well's rim, then they would immediately lose.

The rules of conduct were simple:
1. Only open-hand contact (no punching).
2. No kicking whatsoever. Feet are for moving and moving alone.
3. If you fall, fall backwards.

If one of these three rules were violated, the offender would immediately lose all chance of entering the Glass's ranks. Matt wondered briefly about Tim's fate, before he refocused his thoughts on the trail ahead.

*His life is more important than his membership right now.*

#

Tim remembered the dogs, chained in his neighbor's lawn back when he had lived in southern Oregon. Thrashing against the metal links, they lunged and dove towards whoever walked across the sidewalk. Whenever Tim had passed, he made sure to walk quickly and ignore the animals, thinking that they'd calm down. One day, though, he broke his habit.

He crossed in front of the lot, stopped halfway and looked directly at the dogs. They were a trio of German Shepherds, poorly fed and nurtured, left to their own devices. The lawn bore the scars of their destructive tendencies.

When the dogs began their chorus of snapping teeth, Tim couldn't help but hear the resonant layers of melancholy beneath them. Under the sound and fury, under the raised hackles, under the glinting eyes'� There was sadness. A deeply mired, seething thing, that clung to the synapses and assaulted the nerves.

That was the first thought that came to mind when the noise began. Tim couldn't quite put his finger on it. And that sadness resurfaced, but not within him. He felt it as he did with the dogs. But there was nothing here to attach this emotion to. This grinding sensation of loss'�

The sound tensed and relaxed in rhythmic patterns. It had a texture, almost. That of claws against coarse wood, but with a quality of wind through the passages of a cave.

Ragged breathing? No, Tim couldn't think of it that way. He would just drive himself up the walls and not in the way he wanted to.

He stood, shook away the dizziness, and began to plan.

#

Ellie continued to call Tim's name. The well offered only echoes in return.

'Give it up,'� said Rick, 'he's not going to respond.'�

Ellie chewed her nails while she responded. 'Well, I don't see you doing anything, Rick.'�

'Ellie, there's nothing *to* do but wait.'�

She spat, aiming away from the well. He was right, she realized, but that didn't make the ache stop. Nothing he could say would.

Her eyes scanned the ring of trees that defined where clearing began and forest ended. No answers there, but she kept looking. It was the best she could do to push the memory from her mind.

Last night, the Glasser-hosted party celebrated the return to Mercy-District Schooling in a suitably sarcastic manner: most of the party members were hammered by the time Saturday morning made its subtle debut. As students stumbled forth into the night, a few remained at the Mason house.

Two of the remainders were Tim and Ellie. Both of which had taken up residence in Ellie's room. It was after fifteen minutes of sweaty promises and tensed muscles that she asked that he join.

She'd seduced him into the well. No way around it; it was her fault.

Sure, she hadn't *meant* to'� but she *had.*

She looked into the well again and whispered Tim's name.

#

Tim sat, pondering the swelling sound around him. But he guessed, quite casually, that it was merely a side effect of stress and a concussion. He was quite possibly going insane, but for some strange reason he did not care.

'The cost of lust.'� He laughed.

These walls and the ever-growing pulse around him, the guttural, visceral throbbing, were his only company. After all, his friends had abandoned him. He called for them, but they didn't answer. They'd probably run as soon as he'd fallen. A convenient time to escape.

It would make a good headline. 'Son of drunkard found in well after X days of searching.'� He wouldn't put it past them. Not any of them.

That's when he felt something underneath him.

Tim stood rapidly, looking down. Around him the floor of the well took on a curious texture. A soft, peeling growth that danced between rust and flesh. Only the floor was covered now, but the thing was undeniably expanding.

Tim's thoughts were a jumbled flurry. *A fungus? A mold? What in God's name'�*

Then something clicked. The sound was coming from this thriving tumor. And the sound resembled a heartbeat more and more for every moment that passed. Then Tim realized that he wasn't alone at the bottom of this well.

His thoughts were confirmed, as a voice spoke in his ear.

#

Matt had far outpaced Bruce, but neither cared. Matt was almost to the Fort Mercy Fire Department building. Storefronts shot by as he sprinted down Main Street and to his goal.

But Matt wondered; did the seconds he sought to retain really matter? Was Tim already dead?

Matt didn't know, so he kept running through the thinning crowds of an autumn afternoon.

Though Fort Mercy bordered the sea, its economy was not entirely dependant on the waters. It was, first and foremost, a tourist-driven town. High prices and seven different restaurants were definitely a side-effect, but there was another. The town had to look its best. It had to be a gem in the sands of the Pacific Ocean.

Matt, like the average Fort Mercy resident, was aware of the beauty around him, but numbed to it. Even as the sun sunk into an inferno of oranges and reds on the horizon, he kept his course. Besides, like his mother said all the time, Matt had a chronic case of tunnel-vision.

And finally, he reached the end of that tunnel.

The FMFD Fire Hall quickly transitioned from a red blob to a smeared peripheral ghost as Matt dashed inside. A pair of firemen were tending to a truck when he entered. One visibly aged, but wiry and tall, the other shorter and stouter.

'Tim's in the well,'� Matt said, stamina somehow permitting normal speech.

'Timmy? Hell, want us to call Lassie?'� said the stout fireman through a chortle.

'Tim *Cleary*, asshole,'� said the other who quickly followed his words with action.

Matt watched him hail the other firemen, hoping that they had not run out of time.

#

'You aren't alone,'� it said. *She* said.

The grime surrounded Tim now, as it crawled up (and *through*) the walls and further constricted the already claustrophobic space. As the growth progressed, it throbbed like the sound accompanying it. It spoke again, a whisper in his ear.

'You're with me now,'� she said.

'Who are you?'� Tim found himself whispering to match her tone. Her voice was high, fey. Tim looked for a source, but found none.

'I'm lost. Like you.'�

Tim recalled the dogs. The melancholy that layered itself underneath the vicious exterior.

'Lost in this well?'� He asked. It seemed absurd to him. He couldn't tell why. *Maybe because you're talking to a well,* he thought.

He felt the grime shift around him. The voice, if a disembodied presence could, *nodded.*

Immediately he began to doubt his sanity. Standing, he spoke. 'No, no. You're not real.'�

'I'm not?'�

The sheer innocence of her statement blindsided Tim. How earnest it was and yet childlike. He couldn't respond, so she continued.

'You're not alone anymore. You're not lost anymore. And neither am I.'�

Her voice swelled with the ever-increasing pace of the heartbeat around him, which had almost fallen into the background. Tim only listened as the grime around him formed a cradle underneath him. Cupping him, comforting him. He sat, fitting perfectly into the space. Wrapping his arms around his knees, he felt his eyes grow warm.

He was horrified to find that he, for once in a long time, felt safe.

#

Rick held Ellie now.

Moments earlier, Ellie had called Tim's name, and the weight of the silence afterward was more than she could bear. Her body lurched as she sobbed, and Rick could only stand idle.

What could be done but wait? What could be done at all?

The firemen approached quickly, without any hesitance. Paramedics followed while Bruce and Matt brought up the rear.

Ellie released Rick without a word and made her way to the edge of the clearing. Rick, Matt and Bruce joined her and the silence remained. The rescue-workers lowered a rope and a fireman went down, into the hole.

Minutes passed before Rick spoke. 'It's over.'�

'What?'� Bruce said.

'I'm disbanding the gang. Tell any other members you come across.'� With that, he turned, and walked to the path to Fort Mercy.

Bruce swallowed, looked between the well and the path Rick was taking. After a moment of thought, he looked at Ellie, opened his mouth to speak, but shut himself up. He followed Rick's path, eyes fixed on the ground before his feet.

Matt and Ellie stood, watching the rescuers. The one who'd gone down the well surfaced and then spoke with his co-workers for a moment, then walked towards the two teens. His face was easily read. They knew what he was going to say.

Ellie sobbed.

#

Comfort'� Horrible, horrible comfort.

The grime around him was no longer a growth but an embrace. Safety, unseen in the household of David Cleary, was here. Here at the bottom of a well, in the grip of a thing he could never comprehend.

Tim felt the warmth that a mother could never provide him, he felt the heat of passion, he felt his fury and guilt pour outward.

'What's your name?'� he asked, emotion welling in his voice.

'Whatever you want it to be'�'�

He sobbed. 'Ellie'� I'll call you Ellie'�'�

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