Megarock squeezed. The impact was like being crushed by a mountain, Sparrow felt his bones start to liquify. Sparrow’s fists broke open and they were pushed towards his chest where a small mark the shape of death had started to glow.

The air left Sparrow’s lungs as they collapsed. Megarock’s fingers closed and the air around the lake grew silent.

Megarock stared at his fist.

‘That’s it.’ He said, turning his fist upside down and letting go.

A raggedy shirt and pants fell from his hand and drifted to the ground. Megarock stared at them as they landed. He reached a hand up and picked a rocky booger out of his nose that had been bothering him the whole fight.

****

Sparrow lay in a pool of darkness. He could feel nothing. See nothing. Hear nothing.

So this is what the afterlife feels like. He thought. It’s not so bad.

But as time dragged on it slowly dawned on him that it was that bad. He had nothing to think about, nothing to do. The seconds dragged on like hours and the minutes were like eternities and there was no end in sight.

As time passed Sparrow started to revisit the only distraction he had - his life up until that point. He spent days cringing at mistakes he’d made. Weeks crying at the ill that had befallen those he loved. He thought of his grandma, alone in her bed as the harsh winds of winter arrived to freeze over the turnip fields.

And then the blackness started to dim, like a wet cloth being pulled from his eye sockets. Flames sprang up, but they weren’t warming flames, they burnt his hand the way ice does.

The flames formed a circle. They spun and spewed freezing coals across the ground.

Sparrow curled into a ball whimpering as his naked body shivered and shook. He saw his face peering back up at him from the mirrored floor, ice had started to curl around the beginnings of his beard.

‘Hello Sparrow.’

The air around Sparrow warmed slightly, carefully he clambered to his feet.

In front of him stood the Demon Queen, tall and regal and beautiful and wicked.

‘Its been a while since I saw you Sparrow. Her eyes trailed down his body, to rest at his hips, then moved back to his face ‘And boy… you’ve grown.’

Sparrow swallowed, but there wasn’t enough water in the world to ease the pain in his throat.

‘Am I dead?’

Beside the Demon Queen was a little hunchbacked demon with a tablet in its hand, the demon chuckled to itself, ‘You’re certainly not alive hoo-man.’

The Demon Queen raised an eyebrow, ‘No, you’re not dead Sparrow, you’re only mostly-dead and there’s a big difference.’

‘So…’ Sparrow shifted his feet and the big toe on his right foot broke off. Sparrow gasped, ‘So can I p-please go back up to the earth.’

‘It’s not as easy as that hoo-man,’ the little demon snickered, ‘Seven sins you must face.’

‘S-sherry?’ Sparrow said, remembering her name, ‘I-I’m cold and my toe just fell off and I really want to go home.’

The Demon Queen sighed, ‘I’m sorry Sparrow, if I could spare you I would, but some things just have to be done the proper way. Besides, if it weren’t for the mark on your shoulder, you’d be the size of a pancake.’

Sparrow’s sobs echoed into the darkness.

‘Seven sins you must face, hoo-man. Wrath, sloth, greed, envy, gluttony, pride and lust.’ A string of drool dropped from the demon’s mouth, ‘lust is my favourite hoo-man.’

The Queen scoffed, and walked over to Sparrow, her hand on his bare back was warm, ‘It’s not as bad as it sounds. It’s just a few little challenges that…’ From behind her came a sound like a stampede of men. The noise grew and grew until it surrounded them, the demon queen touched his cheek and smiled, Sparrow realised he was the same height as her, ‘good luck,’ she whispered.

And then she and her demon were gone. Swept away into the vast blackness, and the thundering sound of men running continued.

A miserable grey light appeared in the sky, thunder cracked and then on either side of him walls of men appeared. They were running towards eachother, large battleaxes, spears and swords in their hands.

Sparrow was trapped in the middle.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

He instinctively wrapped stoneskin around himself, then dropped low as the two armies clashed either side of him.

Lucky, he thought, that training’s already coming into us-

A spear pierced his side, sending blinding pain through his kidney. His body shook and rage built inside of him. Why hadn’t stoneskin worked? That thought was followed by, who cares? I’m not taking it lying down.

He spotted a sword on the ground, it sat next to the outstretched fingers of a warrior who’d died with an axe buried in his skull.

Sparrow seized the sword, exploded upward and started swinging.

He didn’t really have a target, just a burning desire to see the idiot who’d speared him pay. Blood trickled from the open wound in his chest, but while the pain was hyper-intense, it didn’t slow his attacks.

As he swung he cleared a small circle around him.

Warriors who’d been fighting hand to hand turned away from eachother and faced him.

‘Come on then!’ Sparrow yelled, ‘I’ll take you. I’ll take all of you.’

First to try their luck was a swordsman, who swung his blade in an arc that barely missed Sparrow’s head. Sparrow ducked, dodged an axe, then plunged his blade through the swordsman’s heart.

‘Come on!’ Sparrow screamed, ‘Come ge-’

His sentence was cut in two by the arrival of a blade through his chest. The blade drove upward, cracking ribs and wracking his body with pain. Another sword plunged in, then another. He lay there gasping for air, while blood pissed out of the man holes in him and his bones screamed at him to rest.

And then he died. The soldiers went away. And Sparrow was left lying next to the little demon.

‘Welcome back hoo-man.’ it said rather pleasantly.

‘I died.’

‘Yes you did hoo-man, but fortunately for you while you are in the underworld there is nowhere else for you to go, so you will return to wrath until you have passed that obstacle.’

‘You mean I have to go through the again?’

The demon gave an energetic nod, ‘and again and again and again until little hoo-man gives up and I get to eat its internal organs.’

Sparrow shivered, ‘Is there like a secret to not getting stabbed?’

‘No secrets hoo-man. Only wrath.’

‘Right…’ Sparrow took a deep breath, well I suppose I should start getting ready to-

He was cut off by the scream of warriors from either side of him. The warriors seemed even more wrathful then before as the two lines of them thundered towards eachother.

One side carried red flags, the other side blue. Sparrow wondered why they were fighting in the first place.

But he didn’t get to wonder long, the two sides clashed together like waves in the ocean, and once again Sparrow felt a spear peirce his side.

He gritted his teeth adn started yelling at the top of his voice ‘Back off! Back off you idiots. Out of my way.’

As he screamed he swung his sword in wide arcs that crashed into their blades and axes. Fingers and arms littered the ground around him until once again he’d cut a circle around himself.

Sweat dripped down his forehead and into his eyes, his arms throbbed front he exertion. And then all the swordmen in the circle around him stepped back and were replaced by women with spears.

‘Oh damn…’ was all Sparrow got to say before they moved as one, plunging their spears into his body.

****

Sparrow’s chest heaved as he woke up in the darkness.

‘Hello hoo-ma-’

‘Shut it.’ he yelled at the demon, ‘damnit, i’m never going to make it.’ He paced around, ‘can I switch, start with slothfulness, or, or lust or something? Surely lust has got to be better than being stabbed in the neck a hundred different times.’

The demon nodded its little head, ‘Lust is much better than wrath for you hoo-man. But… you must past through the door of wrath first. This is the wei.’

‘The wei?’ Sparrow groaned, ‘whatever.’

The demon was gone, the warriors were coming and Sparrow decided he just didn’t care anymore. As the armies charged towards eachother he got on the ground and lay down, his heart was pumping. Although he’d beent through it twice the pain was still going to be just as real.

Swords clashed, there were sounds of dying from around him and then some idiot stuck his spear through the side of Sparow’s chest.

Sparrow gritted his teeth and reached a hand out, fully intending to burn the spearholder’s face off. But no flame would come from his palm, so he dropped his arm back to his side and waited for another soldier to deal the killing blow.

Maybe next time i’ll try to get behind one of the armies, Sparrow thought, attack from behind while they slaughter eachother.

Someone tripped over his head and Sparrow’s eyes watered as a shin-plate whacked his nose. A body fell on him, stifling his airways. When he breathed all he could smell was sweat. Anothercorpse landed on him, he tried to roll, tbut then someone stabbed his ankle and he froze.

He gritted his teeth as gradually the battle around him grew quieter and quieter. Eventually there were only two warriors left fighting in a field of corpses.

The blue warrior ducked under one of the remaning red warrior’s swings, then plunged his blade underneath the red warrior’s armour.

A grunt came from the red warrior as he brought down his sword in a flash of silver, bright red liquid exploded from the blue warrior’s neck.

The blue warrior fell forwards, the red warrior fell backwards, with his opponent’s blade still embedded in his chest.

Silence.

The sound of breathing came from beneath a pile of bodies, then a grunting. A corpse’s head flopped to the side, and then Sparrow’s arm appeared. For a moment he peered around at the field of bodies littered around him.

‘Well,’ he said, standing up and clutching at the wound on his side, ‘I guess I did it.’

In the distance Sparrow saw the demon, and the young traveller started walking towards him, occasionally tripping on body parts or axes.

‘Good job hoo-man.’ the demon said, ‘You are cleverer than you looks.’

Sparrow nodded his head, ‘Right… can we do something a little less painful now? Perhaps lust?’

The little demon cackled, ‘Oh no hoo-man, that is not the way of things. After wrath, comes sloth, then greed, envy, gluttony, pride, and lust is last.’

Sparrow sighed, ‘Okay then, let’s get on with it I suppose.