CHAPTER 1: SO FAR, SO GOOD.

My name is Regis and it’s been six months since that horrible day. I still don’t quite understand what happened, but I’ve already gotten over it. No use living the rest of my days with questions in my mind that would probably never get answered. Well, if you can call this living…

I’ve managed to survive my first day by hiding inside of a crack in the wall next to where I appeared. I was scared and trembling, but what would you expect from a 14 year old boy who suddenly woke up in a place that smells of death and despair. I stood there for a pretty long time, during which a lot of monsters and large beasts ran around searching for prey.

Since I couldn’t stay there forever, I decided to steel myself and try my best to survive. I wasn’t planning on dying just yet...

I checked my pockets and my leather backpack that I had with me when all this happened. I was pretty lucky considering I was coming home from hunting with my father at the time, so I had a nice supply of raw meat, six sticks to start a fire, three small rabbit pelts, a money pouch, a water pouch, a small huntsman knife, a bow and six arrows.

The next few days after that were horrible. I even rationed my food so that I wouldn’t end up starving to death, but there was almost nothing else to eat anywhere, and even the sticks were useless, since monsters were roaming around and could see the bright light in this dark place if I ever started a fire. In the end I had to eat the meat raw and just keep the sticks for something else.

I did end up learning a few things along the way and i have survived until now.

I realized that anything I could scavenge is a blessing. Even rocks were a commodity in this place, so I decided to fill my money pouch with small rocks and pebbles that I rarely found. It was pretty empty in the first place considering I only had a few copper coins. The walls in this place seem unbreakable, and even the cracked walls can’t be chipped, so I assume they come from somewhere else. I even found two small branches, despite the hallways being almost devoid of vegetation.

Sometimes, every few days of walking, and if I’m lucky, I would find either some moss or vines on walls and I would try my best to collect as much as possible. It’s not very sanitary, but it’s possibly the easiest food I can procure without any danger involved. As for water, I do my best to extract all I can from the vegetation I gather, and on occasion I drink the blood from whatever dead beasts I come across. Even the bugs are a rare encounter.

Not much sleep is available to me since I have to constantly be on the move. I’m constantly tired and and out of stamina, but I make due. I barely get 20 minutes of sleep every now and then until something decides to lurk around. I always place 2-3 rocks around the corners in case something decides to sneak around, and they would end up hitting the small rock and make noise. This idea saved me on quite a few occasions.

In extremely rare cases I find some cracks in the wall large enough for me to sleep in, so I rest there for 1-2 days at a time. So far I only got a chance to find three human sized ones. To counter the smell I used the pelts from beasts that I skinned to cover the entrance.

I have yet to see any small animals that i can hunt, but about two weeks ago I saw two large beasts fighting between themselves, and as one of them died, the other ate a bit of it and then just left to search for prey elsewhere. I harvested all the meat I could and was able to get enough of the pelt to make a small hood to keep my ears warm. I guess that’s where the occasional corpse comes from.

It’s always dark and cold in this place. I think there are seasons, considering that the temperature changes, but there is no sun or moon or stars in the sky. I know for sure however that there is no ceiling, except for the occasional rooms that actually have one.

I found a few more interesting things, such as a half rotten corpse of some kind of horned man with leather-like wings coming out of it’s back. I took his clothes and stashed them in my backpack, however he did not have anything else i could use. Instead, I tried to harvest the wings, but they ripped too easily so it became an useless attempt.

There was also a time about a week ago when a skinny old man was running towards me and tried to steal my backpack, then run away. I tried to reason with him but all he would do is scream and cry while pulling on my clothes. Once he started running away from me with my belongings I shot an arrow in his back. I hit him in the spine so he was probably paralyzed, not dead, so I took back my stuff, pulled out the arrow and ran the opposite direction. If only he would have listened, both of us could have survived together. Not to mention, I now have a hole in my backpack.

This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

On occasion I still find some places where it looks like people tried to build shelters, but they are all abandoned and stained by blood. I salvage what I can, and I keep moving. If I’ve learned anything since I’ve been in this maze, is that staying in one place is a bad idea. Besides the fact that you run out of resources, most creatures tend to run towards sounds and lights, pretty much anything that gives signs of life.

Most often I have to either sneak or fight my way past monsters. I tried to shoot arrows into a beast once, but they bounced off of it’s back. I escaped death at that time by sticking my small huntsman knife into his neck when he pounced on me. I must have luckily hit an artery or something, but nevertheless I was scratched and bruised and my left hand had a very deep wound that took me quite a while to recover from. After I made sure nothing else was around, I patched myself up with some cloth from the horned man’s clothes and tried to harvest the meat. It’s back, however, was as tough as steel, impossible for me to even try to get it’s fur.

I should probably also mention the traps. Oh yes, the traps… The ones I have encountered so far almost killed me on multiple occasions. For example, entire rooms would start getting filled with sand, or beasts would come out of the walls in the hallways, or other kinds that I generally escape by running away as fast as i can.

Another type of traps would be the ones that full on try to kill you. Like how a wall starts falling down on you, without enough room to move away from it, or the classic spiked pitfall that comes out from a trap door in the floor. Those i can’t say I expertly avoided, because it was pretty much luck that decided I should live. For example, during spike trap I heard the mechanism and gears moving, and immediately knew something was wrong so i ran and somehow reached the edge just in the nick of time.

Whoever designed this place was a truly despicable person.

All in all, I decided to stick to the shadows. The small rocks come in handy pretty often to distract whatever lurks around and slip past them. The ones that have a very acute sense of smell, however, are very hard to deal with.They mostly chase me around for days until I can finally shake them off. I don’t see the same type of monster very often, on occasion i would see a type that i have encountered before, but the variety of creatures that lurk these hallways are too diverse.

This maze, of course, comes with a large variety of rooms as well. I once found an extremely large one that was pretty much a giant forest. I thought I finally found a way out, so I ran through it. It was infested by a monstrous number of large beasts that started chasing me. It was all for nothing in the end. On the other side, just like the way I came from, was another hallway. That was the moment I truly felt helplessness.

I also ended up regretting not picking up rocks, wood, or even getting the water from the puddle I had stepped on. But there was no way i could go back to that deadly forest.

I’m glad I have some kind of idea of on what this place is, but the chances of meeting my end around every corner is very high. Even being extremely cautious doesn’t help much in a death trap such as this.

Well, at least I’m alive... as for home, I gave up on it a long time ago...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This first chapter is kind of an introduction and explanation on how the main character survived so far in the dungeon. The next chapters will be following the main character in his attempt to survive. Also don't worry, there will be other people he will meet. Any suggestions are gladly accepted

I would like to know what you feel about the length of the chapter. If it's either too short or too long, and i will try to follow the general opinion.

If you see any mistakes, i would appreciate if you point them out. I have no proof readers and I pretty much end up re-reading what i write around 5-6 times to correct as many mistakes as i can.

And thank you very much for reading. *bow*

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~