Vibrant green grass, lush valleys, rock mountains, and absolute hell greeted me on the other side. This was what remained of our planet. The corpse of the Earth, gutted and harvested to be made into the floor of an infinite tower. I was in the middle of a large cleft within the ground, and the sun was beating down on my back, just like it would have on a hot summer’s day.

As my shouts subsided, they were replaced by another. And another.

That was when I realized I wasn't alone.

A sea of people entered my vision, each of them emerging from doors scattered all around me. There were hundreds of them, maybe thousands, and people flooded out from each one, babbling, crying, and screaming their lungs out.

Time stretched out as more and more people emerged from the doors. Most fell to their knees the moment they arrived, shouting up at the sky or crying into the ground.

I couldn't see Jemima among them.

[The tower administrators are bidding on your floor. Until then, your floor will remain towerless. Please standby, and don't annoy the minions. They get grumpy.]

As one, we paused. Different emotions crossed the features of the people around me. Most were terrified. Some were coated in despair. A few were calm, and an even smaller number looked elated.

I pushed my worries about Jemima’s fate aside for now. She'd survived deadlier experiences before breakfast than most people did in a lifetime. If anyone could thrive in here, it was her.

So, only one question rose above the others in my mind.

What the heck was a minion?

“What the hell is that?” Someone screamed.

The sound was shrill and loud enough to carry through the air, and heads rose toward the sky. Several people yelled, and others ducked down as shadows loomed over them.

Above us, a cacophony of bright red and black, pudgy, winged creatures fell from the heavens. Each of them had three eyes, and was about the size of my head. Their rotund stomachs bulged past a pair of tight blue and white pants with triangle patterns, and each had a bright red shirt on. Their expressions ranged from boredom to exasperation as they swooped down toward the ground and if I were seeing them anywhere else I might have laughed from the absurdity of it all.

As it was, I just felt cautious.

In seconds they were everywhere. Thousands of the creatures flew around us with wings that looked too small for their bodies. Most of them were carrying tiny staffs that looked like model anime toys, with twisted blue wood bodies and a shining black-turquoise crystal on top the size of a marble.

The first to arrive stopped in front of a startled woman.

“Move,” it grunted.

A strangled yelp escaped the woman and she dove to the side, letting the creature continue on its way. As it flew, the staff in its hand buzzed, and a series of glowing lines appeared inside the crystal at its tip.

It was some kind of rune.

Several people reacted quickly to the word the creature had spoken. None dared approach it, but the fact that it had spoken at all sparked hope in some of them.

“What's going on?”

“Can you tell us?”

“Where's my cat?”

A barrage of questions struck the creature in tandem, and it thoroughly ignored all of them. Like a mosquito looking for food, it swept along the ground, uncaring and faintly alien its movements.

It didn't take long for someone to lose their patience.

“What's going on here? Answer me!” A man shouted.

He pushed his way to the front of the pack until he was towering above the creature. The man was fit, which I'd noticed was a theme among the people who had passed through the doors, but the winged being took not notice of him as it hovered in the air.

“Damned little gremlin,” the man’s eyes were wide, and his face was haggard. Everyone could see he was at his wits end, and his questions quickly devolved into a stream of curses leaving his mouth.

When that didn't get a response, the man moved in front of the creature, blocking its path. A couple of people tried to stop him, but he pushed them back with a growl.

The creature paused when it reached the man, and it took in his form with cool indifference.

“Move,” it said.

The man stared at it. “I'll kill you.”

More of the creatures had landed now, but all of the attention was on the first. I curled my fingers around my hammer and stepped back. There was something wrong with that thing, and I wasn't the only one to see it.

“Move,” the creature repeated.

The man leaned forward until his nose was a finger-width away from the little monster’s own. The skin on its red and black hands were coarse, but when it tilted its head, I saw that the area around its neck and collar were smooth.

With a single motion it raised its crystal staff and lightly tapped the man on the forehead.

He stepped back, startled. “What did you do?”

A single pop was all we heard.

The sound wasn't loud, but the area was quiet enough that I could have heard a pin drop. It was accompanied by a shower of liquid and flesh, and the people nearest to the man shrieked.

He'd exploded.

“Moved.” That word was all the acknowledgement the creature gave us, and the sudden death quietened any and all objections as it continued flying.

“OH MY GOD.” A cry flew out.

The dam of silence was broken and people around me let out shouts of fear and horror. Those that had been closest to the man vomited onto the ground. People hurriedly ran out of the way of the other creatures, making sure their paths were completely clear.

“Humans, humans!” A loud void echoed across the skies, interrupting the growing panic. “I'm your guide for today. You can call me Minion Z.”

I looked up and saw one of the pudgy creatures zooming toward us, fixing up an imaginary bow tie as it zig zagged across the air. Unlike the others it had a little hat on its head, and a face etched with panic. When it reached the puddle of human remains it blanched, shot us an apologetic look, and then waved its staff.

The globs of blood, flesh, and bone rippled and pushed into the grass. Dirt parted to let the bits through, and they sunk deep into the world until they were out of sight.

“Don't worry, he’s not dead. Not exactly, he's been added to this floor. Repurposed for a greater cause,” Minion Z scanned our expressions, and then his pudgy shoulders drooped. “But I know that won't be comforting to you.”

I gripped my hammer tighter. That explanation didn't make me feel better, and several sobs told me that the others were feeling the same.

"Please move aside for my compatriots. They are preparing the tutorial for all of you, and will not tolerate interruptions." Minion Z coughed, forcing his voice lower and puffing his chest out to look more professional. "Yes, you heard me. The tutorial.

Minion Z deflated. "You don't know what that is, do you?" He looked at the blank and terrified expressions around him. "Fine. Fine. All will be explained. For now, I'll gather you into your tutorial groups. Please refrain from killing each other, you will need help to survive what comes."

Objections floated up toward the minion but he smacked them away with a wave of his staff. Again, glowing lines appeared within the crystal, and people cried out as the ground lit up.

Barriers rose up from the dirt, hexagonal in shape, and I heard several cries as people were bounced and herded into groups. The barriers quickly dimmed and disappeared, but I confirmed with a push that they were still there.

My hexagon held twenty five people in it.

[The tutorial will begin in: 0:59.34.]

"In one hour you will enter the tutorial," Minion Z's voice echoed throughout the plains. "All will be explained there."

His eyes lingered on me, his bushy brows furrowing thoughtfully.

Then he moved on, zipping around the hexagon and looking focused.

I quickly realized I'd gain nothing from watching him. So, I turned my attention to the group I was sharing this jail with. Each of them had different items in their hands. Some wielded weapons, others had mundane items like a rope and clipboard. One person even had a handheld console.

If these things were given to them by the System as a reward, did that mean all of the people around me had different abilities?

I hadn't had time to ask Jemima what skill she'd unlocked from her reward box before we'd been separated.

“Relax.” A voice interrupted my thoughts.

A hand gripped my shoulder, and I tensed. The owner was a man with stormy eyes and greying hair.

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“Relax,” he repeated. “None of this is real.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

Instead of answering, the man just smiled and moved on to the next person. He clasped their shoulders, and I saw them jolt in surprise.

“What the hell was that about?” I wondered.

“That’s strange,” a female voice said from my side. “Are you speaking Afrikaans? I can understand you perfectly.”

I turned to find myself facing a girl with bright eyes and a smile that was out of place with my surroundings.

“Hello,” I kept my voice neutral. “Who are you?”

“Victoria. Hi. It doesn't matter. I just wanted to know if you're speaking Afrikaans.”

I shook my head and she beamed at me as though I’d handed her a bottle of water in a desert.

“It’s English,” I said. “All of my words are.”

“Yes, yes, I thought so. But I still understand you perfectly, which makes sense, since this is hell, obviously,” Victoria nodded to herself. “Seven billion of us got raptured. I'd say that's pretty good, but the rest of us are going to be tortured for eternity.”

Oh great. She was just as weird as the last guy.

Victoria must have seen the expression on my face because she laughed. Then she placed a hand on my shoulder, which appeared to have become the default gesture for all of the strangers around here.

“I know it's hard to believe, but it's true. I saw them. Two horns, wild and jagged, were engraved in my doorway,” Victoria shivered. “The sign of the devil. And his demons poured forth from the door, coated in flames and burning all they touched. I only survived by hiding, and sneaking past them. I don't know why they had me speak with his general, but I survived that too. Or perhaps they let me survive so that the torture can continue.”

Her rambling soon turned into mutters, and I heard various biblical terms within them. But it was something else that snatched my attention.

Her door had two horns?

I thought back to the entrance Jemima and I had taken. Three eyes had been carved into it, each with a different emotion on its face. And surrounding us had been giants with the same features, with no sound or sight of flaming demons.

“I didn't see any demons,” I said honestly. “But I'd appreciate it if you could give me any information about them. Just in case we run into them again.”

“Likewise,” Victoria nodded. “But first I have to warn everyone else. We must form a group. If we live longer, maybe some of our souls can be saved. I—I hope so. Lots of us have weapons.”

"I appreciate the thought," I said. "But all I have to offer is a hammer."

I glanced at her hands and spotted a buckler made of gold and white strapped to her arm. It had silver pentagram patterns across its surface, and I could feel my [Crafting] skill activating as I examined the craftsmanship. The ability poured information into my mind, and then I felt a smidge of surprise when my skill discovered that I knew most of what it was trying to tell me already.

"That's good craftsmanship," I said. "Was that your first trial reward?"

"Yes, this is my Aegis, the shield of an angel," Victoria raised the shield reverentially to my eyes. "Don't worry Ben, I'll get us through this. I promise your soul won't remain damned.”

She turned around, trying to look confident, but a sob escaped her lips. Then she paused, adjusted her posture, and moved on.

“Hell,” I murmured. It was a theory, but not one I liked.

The lush green grass felt like ash underneath my feet, but I didn't believe her words. Hell wasn't here, but I'd seen too many weird things in the past day to deny her outright.

If the System wasn't lying to me, then there were several Towers. Each might have different monsters inside them, including three-eyed giants and horned demons. Maybe she and I had even entered this floor from different towers.

If that was true, then there was a chance that Jemima had been sent somewhere else. Maybe that's why she wasn't here.

[The tutorial will begin in: 0:23.45.]

“I heard that!”

A loud shout slapped against my ears and I whirled around, my hammer rising in my hands. What I confronted was a man with a leather coat, ironed shirt, pristine pants, and a golden watch.

He raised his hands and cocked his eyebrow at me, “she's wrong. None of this is real.”

It was the same man from earlier. The one that had told me to relax. He had done the rounds and he was glancing around with a smile on his face.

The man strode up to me until he was only a foot away, his breath touching my chest. He was a full head shorter than me, but his voice was calm and his stormy eyes held a hint of insanity. “You're all just part of my dream. A horrible, terrible nightmare. And for some reason I can't wake up.”

He gestured to his right arm, where there was a cut in his coat. Red liquid had dried around it, and I realized that he had pinched his skin until it bled.

“Norwood’s my name,” he held out his palm, and I saw a nasty scar running through it, scabbing as though only recently healed. “You must be the part of my subconscious that likes hammers.”

“Ben,” I said. I didn't shake his hand because it would mean switching my hammer around. “Hi.”

“A pleasure to meet you, me,” Norwood chuckled. “How novel the human mind is. So capable of terror and joy in its imagination.”

“Uh, right,” I took a step back, clutching my hammer. Norwood didn't seem to notice, his attention turning to the sea of humans around us.

“And what guardians kept you at bay?” Norwood asked, but his mind was clearly focused on other things. “My mind conjured grand monsters of the ocean, but they flew along the air like birds.”

The man twitched, and then shook his head, his eyes clouding over again.

“Lucky for me, this is all my dream. But even dreams require work to overcome. A team. Will you join me, Ben? Together, we can wake to a new dawn,” He gazed deep into my eyes, expecting a reaction. Whatever he saw there startled him.

“I'll think about it,” I said, turning my eyes away from him. His stare was too intense for comfort.

His eyes widened a fraction, and a smile crossed his lips. "A powerful dream indeed," Norwood said. "When the tutorial begins, be sure to stand by my side."

Before I could reply, he wandered off, and I was left there to think about what he'd said. The man was clearly off his rocker, but looking around I could see similar situations playing out across the valley.

I hadn't been given time to rest, and so I hadn't thought about my situation that deeply. It helped that I was hammered for most of the waiting time. Apparently, most people had come to their own conclusions about what was happening.

With a sigh, I took stock of my group. Fear made for quick bedfellows, and Victoria and Norwood had quickly taken over the captaincy of the group. Both were surrounded by people who looked at them with hope in their eyes.

How had they gathered them so quickly? For Victoria, the hope and desperation in her follower’s eyes gave me my answer.

She motioned me over with her hand, her buckler shining as it reflected the light of the sun. Her group was larger than Norwood’s by two people, and I saw several of them making the sign of the cross.

“Ben, over here!” Norwood called out. “To me, my hammer!”

Why were so many people surrounding him? Victoria had her shield and religion, but I didn't know what Norwood had going for him.

His group turned their attention to me, and I saw that they all had pleasant expressions on their faces. None of them looked worried about the impending tutorial and there was something about the sight of their smiles that sent a shiver down my spine.

When she saw me looking at the other group, Victoria crossed her arms, annoyance in her gaze. I turned away and cleared my throat awkardly. Clearly, both people wanted to be the leader of their group, and so a divide had formed.

Only one person stood apart from both groups, a lone figure standing still on a patch of grass.

It was a kid, and he was crying.

Ignoring the beckoning group leaders, I strode toward them. “Hey, kid.”

My tone had come out gruff and annoyed, and I paused.

Talking to children was never my forte. In fact, I generally tried to avoid them. But today was an exception, and as I reached the child, he tucked his hands into his stomach, badly hiding the video game console in his fingers.

“I'm not, I'm thirteen,” the child replied. Then he looked up at me, startled. “You speak Japanese.” He wiped away his tears and put on a brave face. “I'm Toji.”

I stopped a couple of feet away from him and looked at him awkwardly as I tried to think of a conversation topic. The first thing I wanted to do was offer him comfort and help. But that was just insulting at this point.

How did a kid make it through that horror?

“I'm Ben,” I said. “Did the others talk to you?”

Toji shook his head, and annoyance gripped my heart. It didn't take a genius to work out that Norwood, for all his talk of this being a dream, wasn't willing to take on the burden of a child. The saviour of souls, wielder of the shield of angels, Victoria, was no different.

Apparently, her shield was meant for those who could pull their own weight.

“Stay calm,” I said. "And breezy."

Damn. I'm really bad at this.

The kid stared at me and a chuckle escaped his lips. “You're really bad at this.”

“Yeah,” I grunted. Then, with my job done, I turned around and walked away.

My embarrassment definitely didn't factor into that move.

A few steps later I realized I was being tailed.

“Why are you sticking to me?” I asked.

“Can't I?” Toji replied.

“I don't know,” I pursed my lips. "I think they'd take you in if you asked. Look at how confident they are."

Victoria and Norwood watched us carefully, their eyes moving from Toji to my hammer. Any weapon was a good weapon in their minds, and neither wanted to discard a valuable body. If I insisted, they would likely take the kid in.

“They act confident, but they still left me behind. My mum told me about people like them. She says…'' He gulped, struggling to get a word out, and recovered after a few seconds as I waited patiently. “She said…wolves disguise themselves as sheep herders. That some people want to show the world that they're special, but they also want to win and make sure everyone else doesn't. But everyone looking out for themselves makes society collapse.”

“When everyone is trying to survive, no one wants to carry the extra weight,” I replied. “That's not a bad thing. It's just common sense. Plus, I'm not sure if you noticed, but I'm not exactly rushing to group up.”

Toji nodded. “You're alone, you spoke to me. Those two pretend they're leaders, but they don't want me because they're not planning to leave those other people intact when they're done showing off. They're the wolves, so, that means you're the nice one for talking to me.”

“You'd be wrong,” I said. “I was just being stupid.”

“My mum says that sometimes that's all being nice is,” Toji countered.

The words he spoke were eloquent, and far beyond his years. I wasn't sure if that was because he'd survived the horrifying trials required to enter the tower, or if he'd survived because he'd had that mind set.

Either way, Toji was a child, and as a child he was worse at lying than he thought he was. I could see it written in his face, no matter how brave he was trying to look.

He didn't believe the words he was saying, no matter how good they sounded.

“Very logical,” I said. “Your mother sounds like a wise woman.”

A smidgen of pride crossed the boy’s features, but it was quickly replaced by sadness. The cause of that emotion was recent. Raw.

“Now, what's the real reason?” I asked.

“I’m scared,” Toji grimaced. “You scared too. That's all.”

“That's not a good thing, kid,” I replied.

“At least you're not a liar.”

There it was. For this kid, a connection was as simple as empathy.

“Um, what do you think?” Toji asked, his voice pulling me out of my thoughts. “Is this a punishment? Or a dream?”

That was a good question. One that I didn't think I could answer honestly.

Then I saw him blinking away tears, and I softened my expression.

“I've never been the kind of person to deny what's in front of me,” I replied. “I got told this was a tower, so, I think it's a tower. Besides, a dream can't be beaten. Neither can hell. But a tower can be climbed.”

The ghost of a smile cracked over Toji’s lips. “I like that.” Then he hesitated. “Ben, I don't want to be alone. Even if I'm useless."

A sigh escaped my lips. "Me neither, Toji."

I took a step forward, and then looked back to see Toji waiting nervously.

"Come on," I nudged my head toward the others. "Let's go."

The kid's nervous expression retreated, though he still didn't quite smile, and he caught up to me.

And a blue box stopped us in our tracks.

[The tutorial area is prepared. Please follow the instructions of your guide.]

All of our eyes turned to the sky. Minion Z was hovering above us, his three eyes gazing down upon the world. A massive door appeared underneath the guide, and he lowered until he sat atop its arch.

“Each floor is a world. The dreams, hopes, and histories of a planet and its inhabitants. Some you will never experience. Others will only pass you by as a breeze. This is because the only way to enter these floors is through a trial. These trials can encompass a room, or a building, or even the entirety of the floor. The tutorial is one such trial.” His voice was sharp, and his words imprinted themselves on my mind. “Come.”

This time nobody objected.

As we stepped through the door, the world blurred around me, warping and twisting. The grass vanished, replaced by a carpeted floor, and the light of the sun dimmed as the celestial body was hidden from sight. Minion Z was our guide, and his words echoed in my ears.

“Welcome to the tutorial.”