Darren opened his eyes, feeling the warm light illuminating his face. The happy chirping of birds entered his ears, clearing his groggy mind. He suddenly felt a sticky thing on his skin to which he gazed at it and saw a mud covering his whole body.

“W-what in the world is this?” Darren mumbled, perplexed. He just couldn’t understand what was happening. The last thing that he could remember is when he was playing games last night when a dangerous person, who turns out to be a serial killer murdering through states, entered his house. He recalled that he panicked back then when he saw that man and the last thing he saw was a creepy, psychopathic smile on his face.

A headache filled his head for a moment, before it disappeared. He stared at the nearby trees in daze, his mind replaying how he died in the hands of killed repeatedly. It made him nervous. He didn’t know what in the whole wide world is happening. He just know that he died, maybe, and he was in afterlife.

“So this is the afterlife, huh?”

Darren struggled to stood up, his feet sinking on the soil, leaving behind human foot marks. His back leaned on a tree. Calming himself, he stared at his mud-covered body and pondered for a moment. The afterlife is actually similar to Earth, he thought, wiping away the mud from his hands.

Suddenly, he felt the ground shaking, vibration entering his body, as though there was an earthquake. A large, green-skinned humanoid entered his eyes. It has muscles bigger than Arnold Schwarzenegger. Its right hand held a huge mace made out of wood. On its other hand was a metal chain.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

“Wait, is this actually the afterlife?” Darren gazed at the huge humanoid fearfully. He recognized this creature clearly, even more so after he saw its ugly green face with yellowish fangs leaking out its mouth.

It was an orc! A creature from many fantasy novels. It was often depicted as a cruel monster with extreme bloodlust. It was always associated to evilness.

Even with a distance of ten meters between them, Darren could feel its dangerous aura wrapping on his body. The hair on his skin prickled up, his pounding heart screaming at him to escape immediately. He wanted to do what his intuition wanted, yet his legs betrayed him. His legs turned jelly, losing any strength to be of any use.

“F*ckin hell!” He cursed, trying to regain control of his legs yet he still couldn’t do it. The overwhelming fear that came from his heart made his body incapable to do anything at this moment.

At this moment, the ground shook again. The huge orc started to move towards him, its face wearing a ferocious expression like how predators stare at its delicious prey.

“H-hey dude… Can’t we just talking about i–”

Just as he was about to finish his sentence, he instinctively dodged to the side, hands on head. An object entered his vision which moves at an extreme speed. It smashed at the tree and to the ground, splashing the mud away. When he gazed at it carefully, he recognized it to be the metal chain that the orc had.

As another shaking occurred, another wave of weakness pervaded throughout his body. His uncontrollable fear, despair, and many kinds of negative emotions began to leak out.

The orc raised its arm, lifting the impossibly huge mace, its gaze feels like penetrating Darren’s skin.