His consciousness returned to him slowly in waves. He felt dizzy, and his stomach felt sick as if he was car sick.
His vision felt incredibly foggy, and he tried to blink away the confusion.
Pressing a shaky hand to his chest, he expected to feel the terrible chest wound that had ended his life.
However, he didn't find that at all.
Instead, he felt smooth skin beneath his fingers.
Huh? What's going on? He asked himself.
Sitting up slowly, he looked down, noticing that his red boat-neck shirt still had a bloody hole in the center. But now it was mostly healed.
I'm not wounded? But how?
He looked around and saw...nothing. The space around him was dark and empty of anything in particular. It was as if he was sitting inside a shadow.
"Where am I?" He mumbled to himself, the sound of his voice echoing softly.
The sky above him, if he could even call it a sky, was pitch-black. The air was still with no breeze or movement at all, so it felt awfully suffocating.
Anxiety began twisting his gut even further. He had never believed in an afterlife because the concept of it had always felt laughable to him. Yet here he was, undeniably conscious despite having tasted death just moments ago.
But now, he wasn't even sure that he died.
What exactly happened to me?
If an afterlife truly did exist, he always assumed that he'd be cast into some awful flaming pit and forced to endure endless punishment. This dark place seemed to defy his expectations but also meet them at the same time.
The feeling of isolation was just terrible.
Then, from out of nowhere, the air above him seemed to warp and waver as motes of light began to materialize. It was like a bunch of fireflies had begun swirling above him, except they weren't fireflies but shards of energy.
Their rotation got faster and faster, spinning above him so quickly that he could practically hear them cutting through the air like a turbine blade. Then, the shards of light began to clash against each other, causing flashes of light to light up the darkness around him.
With each consecutive clash, a rune was formed until a sentence was suspended above him. The sentence then proceeded to warp into readable text.
[Prepare yourself.]
Hill stumbled away from the suspended words, his chest heaving from the shock. These runes seemed to cause endless possibilities to shoot through his fragile mind.
Am I truly dead? Just what the hell is happening to me? Am I in an afterlife? What if it isn't the afterlife but something else? What mysterious power is causing all this to happen?
He didn't know.
Before he could ponder any further, the space around him suddenly changed. It felt as if the curtain of darkness impeding his senses had been pulled away, allowing him to perceive his surroundings in its entirety.
A bloody-stained arena materialized beneath him, the sudden smell of blood immediately hitting him.
The bloody platform he was sitting on was circular, surrounded by endless rows of seats that spiraled upwards into the darkness above.
The clattering of steel echoed sharply off the stone ground beside him. He glanced down and saw a sword lying there. Its blade appeared polished, but he could see the evidence of it being used before.
More shimmering runes formed in the air above the blade:
[Weapon Acquired: Sturdy Steel Blade]
Swallowing nervously, Hill picked up the weapon. Because he had never used a sword before, his grip on the handle felt awkward and wrong. He swung it once, then again, trying to understand the weight.
A guttural snarl echoed from the opposite side of the arena platform. Hill's head snapped upward.
Around ten paces before him, a human-shaped monstrosity stood before him. Hill's eyes widened as he recognized its features.
Thats...thats the bastard that killed me!
With skin that was melancholy blue and eyes that were bloodshot, the creature looked more like a corpse than a monster. The only differences that made it distinctly inhuman were its elongated claws and sharp, serrated teeth.
Fear rooted Hill in place, his muscles involuntarily trembling. His eyes grew wet with fearful tears, and his knees felt like they were about to buckle beneath him.
Do I have to fight this thing? But why? And what for? He wondered as he analyzed the creature, who seemed content on standing still before him. The runes that appeared before had told him to prepare himself, so it was clear that something was coming.
I guess I have to fight it—
The creature suddenly shot towards him. Hill barely reacted in time, blocking the incoming claw slash with the flat edge of the sword. The beast barreled into him, throwing him backward onto the blood-soaked stone beneath him.
His head snapped upward, eyes widening as the beast leaped upward. He raised the sword once more, blocking a heavy claw slash from slicing right through his skull. Its other arm swung toward him from the side as it fell, narrowly missing his face by mere inches.
Hill yelped as he rolled away, raising the sword again with his aching arms as the creature lunged in again. The sound of claws against steel echoed in the empty arena.
Shit! Shit! What do I do!? Hill frantically thought to himself as he felt himself backed up toward the edge of the circular platform. He absorbed another claw attack with the sword, pushing the sword against the creature's torso and shoving it away from him.
I can't hang with this thing for long. My arms are killing me.
Standing at the platform's edge, he wheezed as the creature again lunged in for the kill. But instead of blocking, he turned sharply and stepped to the side, causing the beast to shoot into his previously occupied space.
A sudden lightning surge shot through the creature as it slammed into an invisible barrier. Hill stumbled to the ground in shock as he watched the creature fall to the ground in a heap of smoking limbs.
There was a barrier there!? Thank goodness I rolled out of the way!
Hill eyed the creature, who was slowly getting to its feet. He gritted his teeth.
This is my chance! While it's weakened!
Raising the sword above his head, he lunged toward the creature and brought it down with all his might.
The jolt of steel slamming into stone shot through his arm, causing him to cry out in pain. Somehow, the creature had recovered, leaping away to the center of the platform.
Noticing his failure to hit it, it lunged in once more. Unfortunately for Hill, he was too slow to raise his sword.
Its claws tore across his chest, shredding his shirt and causing blood to splatter across the ground. The feeling of claws scratching against each of his ribs caused him to scream in pain as the creature dragged him to the ground.
He staggered backward towards the edge, clutching his torso as the monster stalked after him. It also seemed hobbled, but it wasn't bleeding like Hill. Blood dripped from the boy's chest, soaking his red shirt in an ominous darker color.
"Stay—stay back!" Hill gasped, raising the sword defiantly once more.
Tears practically streamed from his eyes, but he couldn't care less. There was no time to even worry about pain. Adrenaline was pumping through his veins at an unprecedented rate. Never in his sixteen years of existence did he ever feel so...motivated.
Before the creature could even lunge in, Hill rushed forward with malice.
Its inhuman eyes widened as the sharp edge cut through the air in a singing arc of steel, slicing through skin and bone before it could escape. With a roar muddled with blood and mucus, Hill tore the sword out of the creature's flesh, severing its right leg above the knee.
The creature howled in pain, a guttural and ragged sound. But it wasn't finished.
As Hill raised his blade again, the creature threw its weight against him, knocking him off balance and forcing him to the floor. Hill coughed up a mouthful of blood as his back slammed into the ground, but the creature pressed down on his chest with its weight. It wrapped its arms around him, digging its claws into him and pushing forward.
Hill hacked at the creature's back but couldn't get the proper leverage to put strength into his cuts. The beast continued pushing forward using its one good leg, driving Hill's body across the ground and toward the platform's edge, right toward the invisible barrier.
Fear shot through Hill as he realized what the creature was trying to do.
This bastard's trying to fry me!
Sensing the incoming danger as his body was forced closer and closer to the edge, he wedged his arm between the creature's torso and his torso and rolled to the side, throwing it off.
But not without having chunks of flesh from his sides and back torn off by the creature's claws.
Feeling his vision blur from blood loss, Hill pushed himself to his feet. The pain from his new wounds didn't seem to register in his mind.
So much so that he didn't even notice the creature shooting towards him. He felt something give away in his chest and looked down.
Sure enough, the bastard had stabbed right through him once again. His vision blurred.
The memory of his sister dying before his eyes—her agonizing screams, the spray of her blood, her empty gaze, and an inhuman hand piercing his own chest—caused his remaining blood to boil.
"Not...again," He muttered, staggering backward as blood began to well at the back of his throat. His crimson eyes seemed to tremble as his anger began to skyrocket.
The creature seemed to notice something was wrong and immediately swung with its other arm, aiming for his neck. But Hill leaned forward, causing the swing to miss as he butted his forehead with the creature's forehead, his free arm grabbing at the back of its head as he forced the two of them together.
The creature tried swinging again but suddenly lurched backward as Hill plunged his sword into its stomach. Blood poured out of the wound as he retracted the weapon, only to slam the blade back in once more. And again. And again.
Despite his own torso still being pierced by its arm, he continued to stab the creature over and over again. Each stab was accompanied by a grunt from Hill, whose features were contorted in rage as the two staggered to the ground.
The creature finally managed to yank its arm out of Hill's body, who groaned in pain and slumped forward. It proceeded to roll away and crawl backward, its body completely covered in wounds that gushed with blood. It was panting heavily, and its gaze was filled with fear as it looked up at Hill.
The boy staggered to his feet, his sword still clutched tightly in his hands. He limped forward, his face devoid of any expression. As he reached the creature, who was now crawling backward with only one remaining leg, he raised his sword above his head.
But...nothing happened. Instead, the boy collapsed onto the ground, the life fading from his crimson eyes. The boy's sword clattered to the floor beside him.
The creature also slumped to the ground, its breaths coming out in raspy wheezes. Its eyes also began to fade as a pool of blood began to form beneath it. The two corpses began to grow cold, and the air was filled with the smell of blood and ichor.
The two of them had perished.
----
High above, hovering in the darkness of the arena's ceiling, several runes flickered and formed a message, but there was nobody to read it:
[Congratulations, Hillel Tehom, you have slain a Plague Beast.]
[You died.]
[
[Analyzing soul conditions...]
[Conditions satisfied. The failsafe will be initiated.]
[You have been cursed with
Hill's lifeless body began to glow. The runes above began to shine like miniature suns, and a beam of darkness shot out and enveloped Hill's corpse. Then, just as soon as it had arrived, the light faded, and Hill's body vanished along with the blood-soaked arena. All that remained was the darkness and a single sentence.
[Welcome to