"Damn it!"
Hill gasped as his body disobeyed him once again, walking towards the abomination standing just ahead. His legs trudged forward like they were possessed, each step betraying every frantic command he issued. The abandoned warehouse loomed around him. It had been a train-loading station before the apocalypse, but was now reduced to a cavern of rusted beams and debris. Faint beams of dying sunlight filtered through the darkened translucent glass, casting shadows that danced mockingly at his plight.
Throughout the eight months that he had spent surviving on his own, he had never encountered an Irregular. That is... until now. The Irregulars, unlike the regular plague beasts, were rumored to possess supernatural powers. Back when he would occasionally encounter other humans during his scavenging missions — which never seemed to happen nowadays, probably due to the possibility that everyone else was dead — Hill heard many unpleasant things about the Irregulars.
He was told that if he were to encounter an Irregular, his only chance of escaping was to run away as fast as possible.
But as he stared at the oozing bullet wounds that he'd inflicted on the Irregular, he couldn't contain his anger.
'Run' they said! Those fuckers told me to run!
A manic giggle escaped his lips.
And look how well that's going.
The numbness that had blanketed his limbs faded away, allowing him to reclaim the distance between himself and the Irregular. Well, just before his body was once again compromised, forcing him to resume his walk towards death.
His crimson eyes zeroed in angrily on the pulsing appendage that dangled from a growth on the forehead of the Irregular. Up close, that thing was hauntingly human. It wasn't twisted into some unrecognizable mass of meat, but preserved in a gray custodian's outfit. Only the hollow eye sockets and that glowing lure betrayed the rot from within.
The green glow was fading into the veiny, translucent skin that coated the lowest portion of the appendage. Within five seconds, the numbness would fade away. However, that process took three seconds as well, leaving him only two seconds to create distance before the next pulse.
In essence, he was stuck in a loop. One that he couldn't escape from no matter how hard he tried.
Even so, I can't give up like this. He grimaced, darting backwards just as he regained control of his legs. If I can't escape... I'll just go in for the kill!
But that wasn't going to be easy. He'd shot it several times, but the damn thing had tanked all his available ammo. All he had left to kill it was a rusty butcher knife, and as he stared at the Irregular, who was standing ramrod straight like a statue, he had a feeling that the bastard had something else up his sleeve.
The lure pulsed again, grabbing hold of his body. He stepped forward, but as he did so, a plan began to churn within his mind.
He glanced down at his arms, and then at the butcher knife strapped to his thigh.
Alright. This is it.
He waited, observing as his body took an involuntary fourth step before freezing up, indicating that the foreign control had let up. Then, just as the numbness faded away, he drew the butcher knife and grasped it tightly.
The lure pulsed. But now, Hill was closer than ever.
His legs locked into motion again, propelling him those dreaded steps forward. But this time, Hill didn't fight the pull outright. Instead, he used the momentum, leaning into it like a wave he could ride rather than resist.
The loop was now broken. He approached, drawing closer with every pulse.
Fifteen feet.
Ten.
Five.
As the control relented and the numbness crept in, Hill readied himself for what he was about to do. The second his motor functions were restored, he swung the butcher knife towards the irregular as hard as he could.
He overestimated his reach, but managed to nick the lure, drawing a thin line of green ichor that splattered on the concrete below. The beast flinched hard, the lure flickering erratically for a split second as if it was disrupted.
That's it, Hill thought as a bright, unhinged smile split his face despite the fear, fury, and anticipation boiling inside. His fractured mind always betrayed him like this. Eight months alone in Agshaka's ruins had done that to him.
He reset his swing and tried again, aiming for the neck this time. While his gunfire had missed the mark, he was up close now. There was no way he would miss anything vital. Especially the neck.
Suddenly, before his blade could reach the delicate surface of the irregular's neck, the irregular's head tilted unnaturally. Seams along its skull began to quiver... and then split open. From the top of its skull to the base of its neck, four sections of skin and bone unravelled like the petals of a flower, revealing several spiraling rows of sharp teeth.
Hill's eyes widened.
That's not good.
His knife bit into one of the unraveling petals, clashing loudly with the exposed teeth. He tried to back off, but the lure pulsed, causing numbness to consume his body. His knife hand froze in place, refusing to obey his instructions.
No, no, no—
There was nothing he could do.
He watched in horror as the maw of the beast clamped around his neck. Bursts of unimaginable pain overwhelmed him.
And then...
Silence.
...
Or so he thought.
Death — as he imagined it when he was younger — should've been a consuming silence so severe that no thought could possibly form.
However, the sensation of something cold pressing against his skin begged to differ. He opened his eyes and gasped.
He was seated in the center of a circular platform, surrounded by a towering cage that reached endlessly into the darkness above. The ground beneath him — a luminous marble — reflected the light coming from the burning white torches that were fixed to the cage in ascending rows. A mass of darkness swirled around the platform as if the platform was in the middle of a colossal tornado.
He sat up, grasping at his throat in search of the grizzly wounds he expected to be there, but found none.
What?Is this a dream?The afterlife?
His eyes narrowed.
Didn't I die just now?
He wasn't sure, but based off of what he was seeing with his own two eyes, he could only assume one thing.
This has to be the afterlife.
While it was true that he held the position that there wasn't an afterlife for most of his life, it wasn't because he truly believed it. In fact, he believed the opposite.
He simply didn't want it to exist. It would be too cruel.
Heaven, hell, and everything in between. It all seemed more plausible than life being the product of luck and millions of years. However, he wasn't religious. He never was. Instead, the apocalypse — which descended unto Earth upon the surface of a meteor — was the reason for his beliefs.
When the reports of a meteor landing in the golden plains of the Peridian Empire reached the news cycle, many people just shrugged it off. Sure, a meteor hitting the surface was an incredibly rare occurrence, but it wasn't something to go crazy about. It had happened many times throughout history. And this time, it only created a small crater and a decently sized wildfire.
But a week after the meteor's descent disappeared from the news cycle, the Peridian Empire collapsed. Apparently it was due to a rapidly growing horde of zombie-like creatures that were dubbed as 'plague beasts'.
The world was taken by surprise. It had been an unimaginable reality for the mighty Peridian Empire to fall so quickly. Especially because their might rendered them so powerful that even a global coalition of countries couldn't defeat them.
Many celebrated due to their deep seated hatred of the empire. They assumed that the horde could be contained on the shores of the empire — which spanned the entirety of two continents — and potentially annihilate them with nuclear weapons.
But then they crossed the ocean. It was the work of the irregulars, no doubt. One by one, countries fell like dominos, eventually reaching Edonesia, the country where Hill and his family dwelled.
That was when the apocalypse became a reality to the scrawny red-eyed boy. It was also the moment where he began to believe in earnest that an afterlife existed.
This was due to a strange phenomena that he was subjected to during the early months of the apocalypse: the death of his family.
As their bodies were ripped apart in front of his eyes, Hill had noticed two things.
The first was his mother falling limp... and then mutating into a plague beast.
And the second, his father and sister falling limp... and then vanishing from existence.
These two cases were a constant and observable phenomena that happened to anyone that died to a plague beast. Hill had witnessed plenty of death to confirm the theory.
I—I guess my body vanished, eh? He asked himself, standing to his feet as he looked around the lonesome space. Is this where they were taken?
Then he froze.
Or maybe...I was turned into a plague beast, and my consciousness is now here? An uncomfortable feeling settled in his gut. Could this be a prison for my soul?
A sudden pressure descended from above, crashing down upon his shoulders. His gaze whipped upwards, where he saw a figure descending from the darkness above.
It had two sets of black, bat-like wings that flapped loudly, emitting a horrid sound that sent shivers down Hill's spine. Clothed in white and gold embroidered robes, the figure looked lavish and royal, almost like an angel. But it barely had a face. Its head was simply a skull wrapped in pitch black skin, with glowing vertical slashes of white replacing its eyes and mouth.
It hovered in the air for a moment... and then the slash of its mouth expanded horizontally into a crooked smile.
"I must confess... " It began, its voice deep and heavy. "I didn't expect there to be any earthlings left alive. The trial chambers have been silent for many months." Its smile widened. "It appears my patience was not wasted after all."
The figure clapped its hands together, sending a thunderclap through the empty space. Hill flinched hard, falling to the ground as his eyes caught hold of a dark green smoke swirling together below where the figure was hovering. The smoke solidified, condensing into a shape that Hill recognized immediately.
It was the irregular that killed him. The one with that damn lure.
But before Hill could do anything about it, a series of glowing runic glyphs materialized out of thin air and swirled around his body before smashing into each other, forming a series of characters that Hill was somehow able to understand.
[5:00]
Hill's eyes widened.
Is that a timer?
The figure's voice boomed loud overhead.
"Welcome,