“Please…”

              She looked up at me with a solemn face. Her short blonde hair was ruffled and her black eyes looked to be on the verge of tearing up. Her crumpled lab coat showed signs of tearing but she didn’t care. She should have stopped.

              “Please, tell me,” she said, finishing her earlier words. “It’s better to get it out of your system rather than keeping it and suffering all by yourself.”

              Her reddened cheeks and her dry lips crumpled into a sort of smile. I have to say, that smile was pretty forced and quite unpleasing to my eyes. She really should have stopped.

              “Please…” She went back to her old line. To say the same thing over and over again, it seemed that she had no idea of the thing called creativity. Her tears slid down her crinkled cheeks and some snot was escaping her nose. Disgusting, don’t you know any manners? If I were you I’d have just gone to the bathroom or something so I won’t bother anyone. However, it seemed like her crying activated something in me.

              “Nothing’s wrong,” I innocently said, tilting my head sideways. I had always seen this in anime so I wanted to try it out. Though, honestly, I doubted that it looked as good as it did in the shows.

              She looked at me and her light crying turned into hearty sobs. Honestly, what’s with her? I gave her an answer but now she’s louder than she ever was. I mean I’d be pretty content with an answer instead of a blank stare. Geez.

              A person came in. It was a man, brown-haired and short in stature. His dark-brown eyes darted across the room, finally landing on the weeping lady. Huh… weeping lady, eh? That sounded like a ghost from those horror stories that the others spread. Those spooked me out a lot. Well never mind me, the man rushed towards her and started to comfort her with pats on the back and by saying that everything’ll be alright.

             When the lady calmed down somewhat, she fell into a light sleep. G’night, lady. Or maybe good afternoon? I mean it was still the afternoon…

             Interrupting my thought process, the man motioned for me, in the ‘politest’ manner, to get the hell out. At least that’s what I assumed it was as he actually said nothing to me. Nevertheless, I followed my assumptions and went out of the room.

             “Ha~ah,” I breathed out a sigh of relief. Finally, that boring session was over. Don’t really know why I was sent in the psychiatric ward when everything’s fine and dandy. In fact, that woman should get a checkup. Who cries for no reason, anyway? With those thoughts in mind, I walked over towards one of the brown couches. You know the one in which you wait for hours on end? Yeah, that’s the one.

             I sat on the couch and was enveloped in its soft goodness. What a nice couch. It’s really soft and fluffy. Really soft and—huh?

             Before I knew it, the couch ate me. It literally ate me! Or something like that. But the thing is that it, kind of, ate me! My whole body was engulfed by the couch and I just marveled at the spectacle. It was really cool! The weird sensation of something enveloping me gave me chills that somehow excited me. Oh boy!

             I couldn’t see anything anymore. I tried to speak but no sound ever came out. An idea sparked up in my mind and I started to ‘communicate’ using my mind. Anyone there? It’s just me! Totally fine and not dangerous. Don’t be afraid whoever you are.

             No answer came be it through my mind or through physical means. So, I waited.

             Boring! It was an absolute bore and headache to just wait. Even if it was just ten minutes, I didn’t want to wait! To hopefully resolve that issue, I started thinking up of legendary tales that may or may not have been real. Though I thought that the former was much better.

                                                                    *** *** ***

              I could feel and hear the rumbling and crashes of the walls in here, the tower. The roars of the siege weapons could be heard and along with it, the cries of those unfortunate enough to taste their power. The walls had stood tall against the siege but, now, it probably only needed a little bit of catapult shots till it falls. I had to be quick.

              In a rush, I grabbed the chalk and started on the framework of the magic circle on the floor. I couldn’t put in all the nitty gritty details of the circle, but, with the bare bones of the formation, I was sure it was going to work—albeit less effectively. Alas, I had no time to mourn for it. They were coming.

              Wildly sliding my chalk in and around the circle, I was stopped due to the unmistakable sound of the walls collapsing. No! Biting my lips till it bled, I went on overdrive to try to finish the circle.

              “Faster, faster, faster, faster, faster!” My lips chanted on as if it was really a spell that would hasten my movements. Though there were spells for that, casting them would make me have to focus my attention on realizing the spell into existence. But unfortunately, my attention was solely on finishing the magic circle. This meant that to cast the spells, I’d have to stop doing what I direly needed to finish.

              “Raagh!” The yells and shouts of the invaders reached my ears along with the sounds of slaughter they brought with them. Sweat drenched my back and my face was becoming more unsightly every second. I will not fall now! My plans will not be foiled by those self-proclaimed ‘heroes’. I will survive! I will be the victor!

              As I was about to finish the final touch, the door barged open and a strong gust of wind removed the chalk from my hands. I glared at the new ‘visitor’. It was a knight wearing slightly dented silver armor. Some light reflected upon his somewhat bloody armor and it reached my eyes, making me squint.

              “Your vile misdeeds have gone on for far too long, Arva!” His words had an echoey ring to it as his visor was closed. He brandished his blood soaked sword as if he was trying to intimidate me. But that didn’t work. I just gazed at him with blood-thirsty eyes, not saying a word.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

              He seemed frightened. His sword was in a defensive position and I could hear his breathing become less collected. I smiled. Yes… fear me…

              But something must have ticked him off. Before I was aware of it, my right arm was gone.

              “AAAAHHH!” I yelled in agony, kneeling because of it. I looked up expecting to see him but he wasn’t there. Suddenly, a “Heh” came from my back. No! No! NO!

              In a last ditch effort, I held my wound and used the blood to finish the magic circle. With no moment wasted, I yelled out, “Ohr Ikorm!”

                                                                     *** *** ***

              “One million seventy-three thousand five, one million seventy-three thousand six, one million seventy-three thousand seven, one million seventy-three thou—eh?”

              A white light appeared. My sight’s coming back! It’s coming back! Finally, after one million seventy-three thousand seven and a half seconds, I can see! Wait, if I can see does that mean that I can speak? Hurriedly, I opened my mouth and said—no, shrieked,

              “I’M FREEEEEEEEE!!!”

              I widened my eyes, allowing more light to be seen, at the revelation. Soon, the white light turned into different colors and I was able to make out blurry shapes. I squinted my eyes to sharpen my vision and I was finally able to see where I was.

              “Wai-whah?” I stood dumbstruck as I watched the oncoming sword take a slash at my head. Well, crap… I brought my arms up to cover my head—my arms, for some reason, were unusually quick in doing what I made it do—and waited for the blow with my eyes shut.

              Clang.

              Unlike what I expected—which, by the way, was the sound of my tearing limbs—the sound of metal on metal was heard. My eyes slowly unraveled themselves to the scene before me. In front of me was a stupid looking man wearing outdated plate armor. He seemed a bit surprised but I let him off cause I, too, was shocked. The sleeves of my grey jacket were ripped but apart from that, my body was completely fine. The sword that was destined to hit me, however, was broken with the top on the floor and the lower part on the hands of the knight cosplayer.

              The sword looked real enough. The rip looked real enough. And I’m sure as hell that the time I spent in the stomach of that couch was real. So I looked up. Just like those characters that just awakened or something. But I liked one certain character too much to let the joke slip by.

              “Hey,” I told the psychotic cosplayer while barely being able to hold back a massive grin, “I think I’m Saitama.”

              “…”

              Oy, oy, oy, don’t give me that awkward response! At the very least, try to seem like my joke was funny at the very least. Don’t ignore me, it’s really awkward, y’know?!

              A slight ruffling of clothes alerted me that someone was behind me. I wanted to look behind me but I didn’t want to think of what that psychopathic cosplayer would do to me while my back was turned so I just ignored the dude behind me. I mean an armored guy was way more menacing than what seemed like a normally clothed dude, right? But that so called normally clothed dude that I couldn’t see grabbed my legs with his filthy wet hands.

              “Oy, git’off me!” I said as I looked behind. “You— Whoah!”

              Apparently, that so called normally clothed dude was not actually a normally clothed dude—it was another goddamn cosplayer! A wizard, at that… I looked at him with an imitation of a deadpanned face. But as I had more time to look, he really looked like a wizard. Greying hair, sky blue eyes, a pretty long beard, an old man’s face and with his get up and everything he looked like a great wizard. Sadly, though I loved the effort in making his getup, I really felt that adding all that blood and gore was unnecessary. I mean, where’s your arm?! The hell’s your backstory?! A wizard that had his arm cut off? No, that just won’t do…

              I was taken out of my musings when the wizard cosplayer said some incoherent blabbering.

              “Say what again?” I asked him to reiterate what he said but he just started to talk even faster. Before I knew it, he was yelling some more gibberish while pointing behind me. I tilted my head until I was able to catch what he was trying to convey. I forgot about the psycho knight.

              “Oh cra—”

              Clang.

              A metallic clang came from my head but unlike the first time, my head ached. I held my head with both may hands, crouched, and groaned in pain with my eyes closed. Holy hell! That hurt! Like a lot! Teary eyed, I looked up at the bum-head that decided to bang my head with something really painful.

              “Piss off,” I hissed. But that guy really didn’t know basic instructions—not that piss off was something they taught in school—so he just attacked me with what seemed to be a green blur. His attack connected with the side of my abdomen and I tell you that was painful as hell!

              “Ow, ow, ow, ow…” said I as I staggered about. I looked up at the psychotic cosplayer. “The hell’d you do that for, eh?!”

              There was no response other than a resounding kick to my face. All sense of control over my body and I gracefully flew like a bird in the sky. Well, at least a bird in stormy weather.

              Bang.

              Dust flew all around and I coughed heartily. I was stuck in my position as something prevented me from moving my legs or waist. I struggled to squint to see my surroundings but what I saw was really… um… shocking?

              What lay ahead of me was the inside of a rather large western-styled fort (with walls) that lay devastated under siege. The fort gates were wide opened and, when I looked at it carefully, the gates had dents on it. The stone walls that stood about probably many-a-me high had crumbled into a pile of scorched rubble. In the vicinity, there were what seemed to be corpses strewn around the grass while there were groups that were fighting.

              “Hmm…” I looked at the set in front of me. “This is really high-budget.”

              Immediately after that, a small tug pulled on my numb legs. What I noticed, though, was quite amusing. The upper half of my body extruded out of this stone tower while my lower parts were probably still in the room with the psycho and wizard-wannabe… -mun.

              Again, my lower half was pulled but this time with a lot more force than the previous one. The wall around me started to make some noise and soon, I was pulled back into the room. As soon as I was pulled back in, I began coughing and dusting away all the little buggers known as dust away from me.

              I felt a hand grab my head so I did what anyone would have done in that situation. Bite it.

              “Aaah!” someone screamed. That person was presumably that extraordinarily rude guy that grabbed my head.

              Never mind him though. I tasted this wet but irony liquid in my mouth. Yummy. The metallic taste stuck to the roof of my mouth as if it was pudding that begged to be eaten. Yummy. It’s fine liquid texture was without any unnecessary additives making it very… yummy. But aha! I will not let this craving consume me because I know what it truly is. So I licked my lips and rubbed my eyes.

              Opening my eyes, I saw a group of men dressed in medieval knight armor. I’ve gotta say, those weapons they carried on them looked real sharp n’ scary. So, I raised my hands and said, “I surrender.”