This wasn’t my idea.

Betty glared at the fence. How on earth did she end up in this situation? Her family had been nagging at her, that’s how. Apparently, saying you wanted to spend your thirty-fifth birthday alone in a nice hotel room, eating room service, and watching pay-per-view movies was ‘sad’ and a ‘cry for help.’ 

If she ever found her way down from this mountain, Betty swore they would be the ones crying for help. 

Kicking at the rough dirt path in frustration, turned away from the chain-linked dead-end and tried to remember which forking path she hadn’t tried yet. Her family had brought her a walking tour of the highlands, and like an idiot, she had accepted out of embarrassment. The entire first day was spent trying to avoid the sweaty, comb-over sporting greaseball leading the tour. His eyes had never once been anywhere else than her tits and ass; it left her feeling distinctly unsafe. She had even gone so far as to switch rooms with a lovely elderly couple in case he decided to try and let himself into her room. 

This morning he had copped a feel on the way past her with a fake ‘oops’ and promised to find her later for a chat somewhere they could be alone. His breath stunk of stale coffee and cigarettes as he leered at her.

Social situations were not her thing. She knew most artists were portrayed as social butterflies who basked in adoration and fame. That was not Betty. She painted under an alias, never did live shows, and avoided any gatherings like the plague. The idea of some alone time with ‘mister sweaty’ made her gag. 

The first chance she got this morning, she had taken the left fork on the path instead of the right. More turns and twists followed. She got a lot of great shots for reference images; if only she could find her way back to the damn hotel. 

It was the only bloody building in fifty miles; how was it this hard to find? 

This path had looked familiar at first until she had found that fence. Who put a damn fence in the middle of nowhere anyway?

“Betty?” A feminine voice called. “Is that you, girl?”

“Missus Peters!” Betty beamed at the old woman. “I must have gotten turned around. I’ve been trying to find my way back for ages.” 

“Yes, dear, I’m sure you have.” She waved Betty over and patted her on the back. “Just kick ‘em in the balls.” The woman smiled kindly at her, “It’s a lot easier than getting lost in the Highlands.”  She thought for a minute. “Or just laugh at their cock,” She chuckled.

“Pardon?!” Betty squeaked. 

“I’m old, dear. Not stupid.” Mrs. Peters laughed at her again, “We’ve all been there.”

Blushing but unsure why, Betty nodded as they turned down a path that looked identical to the others. The sky was still bright, despite it being almost seven at night. The wonders of British Summer Time. 

A light mist started to gather as the two women walked back down the trails together. It turned out they had a lot in common. Both preferred their own company and liked to live quietly. Paula, Mrs. Peters, said her husband was the only person she wanted to be around for extended periods. He was her other half. Also, he had a large penis. Betty knew this as Paula kept mentioning it. It was strange listening to a woman of eighty talk about how her husband and her took walking tours to ensure he stayed fit enough to get it up. Strange and bone-crushingly awkward. 

Betty listened in silence a lot of the time. Paula didn’t seem to mind or even really notice. 

The mist closed in around them shockingly fast. Before long, they could see nothing but a small circle of path ahead of them. Betty was worried but was just happy the distraction stopped Paula from talking about her husband's penis.

A crashing noise came from off to the left and some strange laughter. It seemed distorted and inhuman, but Paula insisted it was just the mist. 

“We should head over there. We don’t want to get marooned out here,” Paula said.

“I don’t think we should leave the path,” Betty cautioned. She remembered the guidebooks had been pretty firm on that point. 

“Don’t be a scaredy cat,” The old woman patted her hand and headed off the path. 

“Wait, Paula! Fuck.” Betty hesitated for a minute. Then, she heard Paula calling out, asking if anyone was there. The laughter resumed shortly after that. Finally, deciding she could not let the old woman wander off alone, Betty swore and stepped off the path.

The mist swallowed her two steps in. She could barely make out the ground as she walked. It was terrifying. Betty continued to curse little old ladies, especially ones with penis obsessions, with every step. Then, after a minute, she came across a pine tree. That was weird; she had not seen a single pine tree all day.

For some reason, the creepy atmosphere made her hesitant to cry out. It reminded her of the feeling of walking down a street in the dark, that almost watched feeling mixed with the vulnerability of being alone.

The mist finally began to thin as she pushed on through what was clearly becoming a pine forest.

An hour later and Betty had to admit two things to herself. Firstly, she was lost. Secondly, Paula was nowhere around here. She wandered through the forest as the mist slowly receded. It was a crazy situation. The air felt warm and heavy with moisture. Utterly different from anything she had felt in the Highlands. The air smelled different too. A slight spicy scent hung in the air. It was not unpleasant. 

It just hadn’t been there before.

Staring out at the lake she had just stumbled across, Betty nodded. She was fucked. Like, have you seen this person who went missing kind of fucked. She had spent most of the day wandering around this little corner of the highlands. And there had been no lake. 

Cursing her family, little old ladies, eerie mist, and everything else, Betty sat and leaned back against a reasonably comfy tree. The light was failing. There was no point stumbling around in the dark. Just before she closed her eyes, Betty grabbed a reasonably sized rock. A girl could never be too careful, after all.

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Betty was woken as the sun began to rise once more. It was not the light that woke her but a breaking twig. Several, in fact. The sounds got closer as Betty drew her legs up, hiding as best she could behind the tree trunk.

A creature walked past her, two hooves clacking against the stone at the lake's edge. Betty stared in horror. It was a little over five feet tall, with muscled legs stuck out of… Bermuda shorts? A tank top covered its top half; a long prehensile tail waved randomly between them. From behind, she could not see the face itself. Just the long black hair in a ponytail and two ram-like horns, one curving back behind each pointed ear. It swayed slightly while it drank from a bottle in one six-fingered hand. Its arms looked human other than that, and the color of the skin. It was white. Like marble white. No color at all. 

The other hand reached around the front of the shorts, and a second later, a stream of liquid splashed into the lake. Betty crouched with one hand over her mouth. The rock she had carefully chosen last night had rolled away while she slept. It was next to the strange creature’s hoof.

 She tried to stand, to run away. 

A branch cracked under her foot. 

The creature spun woozily towards her. Its face looked human, except for its eyes. They were too large for the face; It blinked at her. Its eyelids blinked… sideways. 

She opened her mouth to scream, but it threw the bottle at her, striking her on the shoulder and knocking her back onto the ground. The bottle shattered next to her as the creature grabbed a fallen branch and beat her with it. 

Betty tried her best to defend herself as the blows rained down. Finally, the branch broke, and the monster threw itself on her, its hooves kicking at her feet as it fought. Fists slammed into her breast and ribs before its fingers locked around her throat and shook. Betty scrambled at hands that were strangling the life from her. Finding no purchase, she searched with her hands, looking for anything to get the monster off her.

Her hands closed around something soft and squishy. The monster froze, its eyes widening. 

Betty squeezed and twisted with everything she had. 

A high pitch wail came from the horror as it fell back. Betty let go and scrambled for the first thing she could find, her fingers closed around the glass bottle, and she turned and thrust in one movement. The broken bottle caught the monster in its throat; its blood was as red as hers as it squirted from the slash. 

Gurgling, it clutched its throat, and bloody foam filled its mouth. The creature flailed and twitched for almost two minutes before finally going still. 

Betty had seen this movie before. The monster always came back to life. She got a large rock and smashed it into the creature’s head repeatedly. Once it was definitely dead, she crawled over to the lake and cried, shaking as she washed the blood from her hands. 

She was sitting there, rocking back and forth, when a chime sounded in her head.

Trinity System Unlocked

Title System Unlocked

Achievement System Unlocked

Achievement Unlocked!

First Impressions - 

Meet a native of a new world and immediately kill them

3 levels awarded

Achievement unlocked!

What conscience? - 

Kill a sentient creature without hesitation

3 points awarded

Level Up!

Level Up!

Class System Unlocked…

Choose class….?

“What? No, Help me!” Betty screamed,

Class assigned : 

Slasher

Slasher - 

You are the thing that goes bump in the night.

The monster in the shadows,

Kill the weak, the evil, or the convenient.

Just Kill Them All.

Skill Unlocked: 

Slasher’s Step - 

Short-range teleport to anywhere in sight.

 Skill Unlocked: 

Slasher’s Senses - 

Your prey can not hide from you - sense the essence of living creatures.

Skill Unlocked - 

Slasher’s Regeneration - 

The mana of your victims is absorbed and heals any damage you suffer.

“What the fuck is going on?” Betty cried as she looked at her bloody visage on the lake’s surface.

Trinity System Online…

Assessing…. Complete

MInd: 2

Body: 2

Spirit: 3

You have 8 points to assign.

The recommended assignment is….

Mind: 4

Body: 6

Spirit: 5

Accept?

y/n?

“Please, why is this happening?” Betty wept.

Accepted….

You have been transported to another world; the first inhabitant of that world you met, you killed.

You are the alien, the monster, the abomination.

Expect them to act accordingly.

Kill to Survive,

Kill to get stronger,

Kill to live.

……Good luck…..

You’ll need it.

“This can’t be real,” Betty muttered as she washed the remaining blood from her. “It can’t be.” She repeated this over and over to herself as she got to her feet and walked blindly into the forest. Whatever was going on, being found next to a dead body was a bad idea. Even if the body was a monster.

People never exactly stopped to ask questions.

And what did it mean she had been transported to another world? That was impossible, surely. She had just been walking! 

Wondering if she had been drugged somehow or was suffering a psychotic break, Betty walked off into the pine trees. The spicy scent in the air lost on her as she tried to make sense of what had just happened. Her mind kept flashing back to the creature. The message had to be wrong; it had to be.

Her dazed mind fought to insist it was impossible. 

It was impossible, right?

Right?