My hand shoves him away since I can’t retaliate with harsh words like usual. Will laughs as he finds his way back to his sitting place on the concrete floor beside me. His shaggy golden curls look annoyingly blood-free compared to the rusty clumps of it soaked into the strands of my short, dark brown hair. The style looks awful, but I can’t deal with the way it rubs against my neck when it grows out, and neither of us are exactly hairstylists, though my appearance has never bothered me. Despite being on the shorter side for a twenty-something-year-old man, I’ve always been athletic and rather nimble. While Will can use his size to overpower the monsters we’ve given the name The Glyphs, I’ve had to resort to more ranged attacks. It’s a dynamic that works well for us. It’s kept us alive this long. Or it had, until I decided to go out on my own for a supply run today. The makeshift bandage Will has patched around the gash on my throat is a far cry from proper medical care, but I’m still alive, and my throat still works despite being slashed and squeezed nearly to collapse by the Glyph’s sharp body. 

“Stop daydreaming, Ethan. You need rest. We can’t afford to stay here any longer. You are lucky it’s just your neck. If I hadn’t gotten there-”  His voice trails off with the subtle breeze that washes over the old warehouse roof we’ve called home for the past few nights. There is an unspoken question between us, or perhaps it’s more of an accusation. It’s not like Will to hold his tongue, which is why it’s so easy for me to tell that he is. “Why didn’t you fight back? How could you give up? Were you going to leave me here alone?”  Those questions must be plaguing his mind. I can practically see the hurt in his thoughts just from the way he’s slumped up against the wall. Yet for once, it seems he’s decided to take the delicate route, and I find myself incredibly relieved. I don’t want to hear the answer myself. 

It’s been a week since Will sliced up the Glyph that almost took my life. “Will! Stop fucking around and kill the damn thing!” I’m watching him taunt a lower rank Glyph. It’s from a language I am not familiar with, but it looks similar to a Chinese character if I had to guess. If you can’t read them, the Glyphs are generally harmless. While we haven’t totally figured them out in the last four years since they arrived, we’ve deduced a few solid truths about them: 

1. You must understand their origin language for them to be able to hurt you. 

2. For English Glyphs the start of the alphabet is the weakest. The further down you go, the worse they get. However, there are a few exceptions to this rule.

3. They are all made of unearthly black scales that make them impenetrable by any normal weapons. 

4. There are two main things that kill them (we think)... Our hands and rubber. 

5. They can build off each other to create Words and if you see one… run. 

6. They can do worse things to you than death.

The Glyph squirms and lets out a shriveled croak of a sound under Will’s boot as he finally wraps his rubber-gloved hand around its throat. 

The swelling around my neck has gone down enough to let me squeeze out rasped sentences. Though it’s been replaced by an angry, molten bruise. I’d willingly stab Will in his tiny little brain for a bottle of Advil. To no surprise, the higher beings of this universe have yet to grant me such an opportunity.