“Awake.”

A terrible headache thumped in his head, as if he’d forcibly woken up. He was sitting down, that much was clear, and he decided to stand up on the platform attached to a giant wall stretching to the ceiling and down beyond the void.

Did I hear something?

His eyes naturally focused in on the surroundings, but he couldn’t quite piece together what he saw. It wasn’t the airplane, or any spot or structure on Earth. Not the Earth he knew at least.

There were… bridges? Countless bridges stretched to another wall, except, they bent and merged and and snapped as if there wasn’t a bottomless void beneath them, and they were of a substance he’d never seen before. A purplish stone without any cracks or edges that also formed the walls, and everything else within his sight.

He tried to calm the headache by clenching his head and closing his eyes for a second or two. As he was looking down on the ground, he noticed that it was made out of rusty metal. It looked as if it had been snatched straight out of a fire escape.

Closing his eyes seemed to only further the headache, but massaging his temple seemed to work. He continued doing so as he inspected the area more. Behind him, there were two wooden doors with shiny golden knobs, connected to opposite edges of the platform.

Where are all the other humans?

If the windows from before were to be believed, the whole Earth’s population had been thrown into whatever this was: He should be seeing somebody considering the population of Earth.

It could be possible that he spawned far away from any other human. That was a possibility considering his location when the windows popped up. He was spiraling into the ocean in the middle of nowhere, and that meant only the other some hundred people on the plane would be in this sector.

If that was how they did things. Perhaps there was another reason they’d chosen to place him alone. Could it be personality or relationship based? It was also possible that people who were close would be put near each other. That would make good content.

Suddenly, he heard something.

At first it was a soft noise, coming from far away, growing louder as time passed. Bo focused on the door in the direction of the noise as tension built up within him. He could make out what the sound was now. Somebody or something moved towards him.

The door shook as a loud bang reached his ears. It kept shaking as whatever was behind it kicked and seemingly threw itself against it. There was a pause stretching for nearly ten seconds, before the knob slowly turned and the door opened.

A tiny, green goblin entered, and Bo immediately noticed two things. Firstly, he saw that it held a tiny black dagger that looked very sharp, and secondly, he noticed the saliva dripping down its mouth as it stared at him

“I slay, murder, kill, eat!” The goblin spat.

“Look tasty meat,” Bo said and pointed behind the goblin.

When it came to knife fights the best strategy was to run. Bo did exactly that. He quickly moved over to the other edge, opened the door and practically leapt out of there uncaring for how much he made the platform shake.

He heard the goblin take after him.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

If it caught up to him and they got into a fight, he was going to get hurt no matter how you slice it. Even if he were to manage to land a good strike from the get go, odds were the goblin would still find a way to shove its dagger into his abdomen. In this place, where there was no medics or doctors and he was seemingly alone, that was as good as a death sentence, especially if somebody else entered the fray.

The door had opened up to a balcony or a walkway depending on how you see it. It continued on for nearly thirty meters, a distance Bo crossed quickly. To his left, there was a platform ten meters beneath him, and also another balcony a little higher. To his right, and ahead of him, there were two doors.

He glanced behind him and saw the goblin sprinting towards him. It was enough to shove any contemplating thoughts out of his head and pick one of the doors. He pulled and yanked at the door ahead of him, entering before he looked what this room contained.

Eight pairs of yellow. slitted eyes stared back at him, freezing, his eyes wandered over the room. The creature’s were tall enough to reach his waist, had blue silky skin like frogs, and held wooden spears. Black-red blood smudged around their mouth and dripped down their chins. On the ground, three half-eaten humans laid.

Bo’s brain chose not to process that information for the moment.

“Fuck,” the goblin muttered behind Bo. It seemed that it was just as horrified by the scene as he was.

One of the frogmen stood up, and slowly shuffled towards Bo in the manner one would towards a wild animal, trying not to make it run away. I must be looking like a coward by now, Bo thought as he ran away. The goblin was behind him, and ten meters further back, the frogmen were running with their wooden spears.

He knew that if he continued running through doors he would stumble upon another strange enemy. If that happened, he would be stuck in a position of certain death. He needed to lose the frogmen. That was his priority, and he had a plan for how to go about it.

Below the metal platform he’d spawned on, there was another platform. He was fairly certain he could jump to it without hurting himself too badly. He ran through the thirty meter walkway, and back to the platform—he looked over the railing to find that the platform had moved.

No way it was that far away. Whilst before it had been almost below the platform he stood on, it was almost four meters away now. He could probably make the jump, but if he didn’t there was a seemingly endless fall in nothingness. His stomach lurched at the thought.

He shuffled backwards, past the confused goblin, and sprinted and leaped over the railing. In terrible anticipation, he glid through the air like an angel, and slammed into the platform, making it shake.

The metal clanged once again. His eyes jerked in worry to see if the frogmen had followed him, but he found the goblin hands clasping against the railings. The little fool had decided to follow him.

Despite the dizziness, Bo stood up and shuffled towards the goblin. His eyes focused on the frogmen who stood peering over the edge, bitter almost. It seemed they would not jump, a fact Bo was grateful for.

The goblin’s face which had been one of bloodlust and fierceness changed into one of full blow panic as it tried to pull itself up but found itself lacking the strength to do so. Bo had been in the same spot as the goblin once, except then it was two meters air and ground beneath him and not a deep seemingly endless void.

The goblin had dropped the dagger so Bo thought what the hell and grabbed its wrist pulling it over the edge. The little creature was surprisingly light weight. Bo dropped it on the floor and sats down beside it, taking this chance for a little bit of rest, but he kept one of his eyes stuck on the frogmen in case they decided to do something.

The goblin looked confused. It stared at Bo contemplating what to do and trying to push down the thankfulness in its chest. That shit was for weaklings. Two options presented themselves, either run back into the maze and hope that it spots another sweet human, or sit down and rest.

It glanced back at the frogmen, who were standing still. Scary. And then it glanced back at Bo who seemed to be focused at spot in the air. He saw a blue window which had seemingly appeared out of nowhere.

Tamer?

You have qualified for the class [Tamer]

Will you accept?

Yes/No