6.

Suddenly Nowar felt very alone and very hungry and a little bit afraid. Before, he had just been contemplating a snack, but now that his backpack was gone, he found that he was ravenous. He hadn't eaten anything since breakfast, how long ago? Hours and hours surely.

Nowar wondered if he should just quit this adventure, go back up the tunnel to Budsurry School. He glanced over the parapet down the sheer drop to the grey stone street below. He was just in time to see a small figure carrying his backpack scuttle off into the shadows. It seemed to walk on two legs, it was about the size of a child, but something about the way it moved gave Nowar the distinct impression that it was not human.

Down the long spiral staircase he ran, round and round, as fast as he dared. Hunger was, for now, forgotten. Finally, he was off the stairs, breathing hard, into the dim, empty street. Nowar paused, dizzy and out of breath. Deep, deep in the rock below him, he felt a surge of rumbling from the hidden machinery.

Nowar set off in the direction he'd last seen the small thing, the furtive figure carrying his backpack. Tall grey buildings loomed on either side, and now they felt grim and somehow menacing. Nowar's stomach rumbled: after the initial burst of excitement and curiosity from seeing the strange thieving creature, he was fiercely hungry again. He felt in his pocket and --what luck!-- found a ziplock bag with a few semi-crushed fig newtons inside it. Suddenly he no longer felt quite so small, and the city didn't seem nearly as threatening. Somehow, he felt much braver too.

It was a big strange city too, and it wasn't laid out in a nice orderly grid like Manhattan: it was all twisty and turny, intersecting grey streets that all looked pretty much the same, and tall buildings mostly without feature of distinction. Nowar realized that he might be a little bit lost. He was no longer entirely sure in what direction the road back up to the surface lay.

Then he heard a noise, a small furtive noise from inside a nearby building, otherwise unremarkable, except for the door, which was ajar.