Page 41 of January Bell

“Well, you know, some worms are edible to some cultures,” Zan says slowly.

“Oh, absolutely not. That is revolting. I will not be eating these worms.”

“The worms are poisonous,” Ken’s voice echoes, and I clap my hands over my ears on instinct. “Don’t eat them. I promise you. If you get out alive—which your odds are not very good, since you haven’t even started the puzzle yet and you currently have fifty minutes remaining on the clock. You’ve spent ten of them being sad and staring and disgusted by the worms—I will provide you with a meal. You can request whatever you like, and I will make it happen.”

He waves his hand superciliously.

“But you only have fifty minutes, so you can either eat the worms and die a terrible death very quickly and then become worm food, or you can complete the puzzle and hopefully avoid being worm food as they grow. And you will be fed. Isn’t that fantastic?” Ken says.

“I liked it better when I couldn’t hear your voice.”

He simply turns back to what I’m starting to wonder is an imaginary camera ignoring us completely, other than glancing at us to narrate what we’re doing.

“All right, we’ve got to pick up the puzzle pieces,” I tell Zan.

“You don’t want to step on the worms,” he says. “That’s why you are in my arms.”

“Yeah, I know, but like, we can’t not get the puzzle pieces, so unless you can hold me and bend down to get them⁠—”

“I cannot do that,” he says.

“What do you mean? Can’t you just—oh,” I say slowly.

He doesn’t have room to bend. The hourglass is tall enough for him to stand in, which he’s not even doing very well. We’re both stooped in a weird, awkward position that will likely leave us incredibly sore later, trying to avoid the sand and keep him from hitting his head on the glass ceiling.

“You don’t think we could just, like, break the glass, do you?”

“No, I do not think so. This is a special glass that they have in my world. It is not breakable.”

“Oh, fantastic. All right, so the only way out of this is if we solve the puzzle.” I hold up a finger. “Which means that we have to collect the puzzle from the worms.” I hold up another finger. “And we have to do it without running out of time or becoming worm food.”

“Or becoming worm food,” Ken’s voice chimes in again.

“Thank you so much for that, Ken,” I say. “Really appreciate your timing there, buddy. It’s great stuff.”

“Okay, so the worms are going to eat us. I don’t know how they’re going to do that, considering they’re the size of my pinky finger⁠—”

I glance back down at them and quickly reassess the situation.

“They are, in fact, trying to eat my toes,” Zan says. “But I have a thick hide. You, however⁠—”

He gives me a long look, and it’s full of fear. Fear that I haven’t seen on his face before. Probably because this isn’t a challenge he can fight his way out of.

We’re both fucking stuck.

“I’m delicate,” I say acidly. “Got it.”

Some of that rage starts to rear its ugly head again, and I wonder if maybe that’s not a bad thing.

“The worms are eating each other,” Zan says matter-of-factly.

“Sick,” I say, glancing down in spite of myself.

Sure enough, the little fuckers are cannibalizing each other and growing much faster. The sand is filling up too, so they’re getting harder and harder to see. And the glass pieces are disappearing in the onslaught, buried under the growing worm bodies and the sand itself.

“Shitballs,” I say.

“Exactly,” Zan says.