[Welcome, Sin.]

A young man found himself on a grassy floor, shivering and naked. He was still in the dregs of drowsiness, which had enveloped him when he was…he was…

‘I can’t remember anything,’ the man thought with fright.

[The Trial has begun. Your mission is: Survive. Good luck, Sin.]

There was a whisper resounding in his head, and when he looked up he could see words of silver floating in his field of vision. The words were displayed in an unfamiliar language, but he could nevertheless read them.

Just beyond those words was the star-filled night sky, that shone like a tapestry of light.

‘What is that voice and why is it calling me “Sin”? My name is clearly…’

He couldn’t remember his name.

‘Sin it is,’ he sighed as he got to his feet.

The words shimmered and faded when he looked away. Surrounding him was a beautiful grass plain, and the blades of grass shivered with the wind. Up above was the beautiful sky, littered with a thousand stars. In the distance, a grove stood tall, as if reaching for those very stars.

Sin shivered, realizing his starkness. “Where the hell did my clothes go?” he said aloud, his voice hoarse and unfamiliar. A gust of wind quickly swept it away.

‘And what the hell is this place?’ he thought inwardly.

It was beautiful, but he felt unsettled. His lack of memories and being in an unfamiliar place were all very startling. The voice that had whispered in his head was also odd.

“Survive,” he breathed. “… Ominous.”

That went without saying.

Shaking the dregs of disorientation and confusion away, Sin decided to head toward the grove in the distance. It was the only thing in this enormous field that stood out.

He walked carefully. His body felt quite wonderful. He couldn’t recall ever feeling this good. Granted, he couldn’t recall anything. However, caution was important.

He continued to echo the whisper in his head: ‘Survive…’

The grass blades cradled his calves and ankles as he walked, tugging at him.

Sin suddenly realized why he felt so uneasy. Perhaps it was due to his grogginess earlier, but he realized now that he was unnerved by the silence. The wilderness usually contained a multitude of sounds. Crickets would chirp, at the very least. But there was nothing here. No sounds…

‘Not even the grass is making a sound,’ Sin realized with fright, his heart beating faster.

‘The wind is blowing the blades left and right, but the grass isn’t making a sound.’

Come to think of it, the last thing he had heard was the whisper in his head. And his own voice, quickly silenced by the wind.

As he walked, the grass seemed to tug at his ankles more. Still deep in thought about the utter silence, Sin failed to realize this oddity.

He sniffed the air.

‘What is that smell?’

It raised the hair on his body, and he held his breath as he neared the source of the smell.

‘Safe to say I’m not on Earth,’ he thought as he became more solemn at the sight before him.

A large, human-like body was lying on the grass. The blades around it were shimmering with crimson drops but swayed in the wind as if unfettered by the heavy droplets.

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The human proportions of its body were where the similarities between it and a human ended. It was much larger than any human could be and would have probably reached up to three meters in length. Strong muscles, dark fur, a bestial face with protruding fangs and small horns adorned the fallen abomination. It had dark grey rags in the form of clothes wrapped around its body, reminding Sin of a burial shroud.

Why had something so seemingly powerful fallen? Or rather, the better question was of who or what had brought the beast to such a sorry fate. There was nothing but grass surrounding them.

The beast was dying, breathing a series of short rasps and bloodied gurgles. Each was carried quickly with the wind.

Sin stepped closer, highly alert. Something was wrong here. It didn’t make sense. What had slain this beast? Would it come for Sin?

His hands moistened with tension and his heart thumped heavily in his chest.

Suddenly, the beast’s eyes locked onto Sin. Sin felt his heart stop, his forehead immediately breaking out in a rush of sweat.

What he saw in the dying light of the beast’s eyes scared him more than any malice could.

It was pity.

Just like that, the beast died silently.

Unbeknownst to Sin, a single star within the tapestry above sputtered out and died.

***

Sin made sure the beast was fully dead before stepping even closer. The blades of grass nearest to the corpse were tinged a slight red as if having absorbed the blood. A dull sword, nicked and cracked, lay in the beast’s lifeless hand. It, too, was covered in blood.

‘It didn’t die without a fight. The thing that killed it must be wounded,’ Sin thought, his mood lightening. However, it dropped quickly again. ‘Wounded or not, I’m toast if it finds me.”

Deciding to solve two of his problems at once, he began to strip the corpse of its belongings. He felt a tinge of guilt, but even that was swept with the wind.

The grey rags were far too large for his smaller body, but he managed to make it work. He cut a few jagged strips of material using the dull sword and used them to fasten the cloth to himself. He ended up with a loose, grey shirt, with sleeves that fell to his elbows. It was fastened at the waist. He also now had some baggy pants that were fastened at the waist and ankles, looking similar to boho-styled pants. The remains of the roughly rectangular strips at his waist fell and flapped in the wind.

‘Much better,’ Sin thought, feeling a dull feeling of achievement. He felt it slip from him, though, and he frowned.

Come to think of it, Sin had been rather apathetic. Sure, he had felt fear at the sight of the beast and the thought of what killed it, and confusion at his predicament. However, he felt these emotions were too weak, quickly fading. Taken away.

This growing sense of unease never seemed to slip, however. His intuition was not an emotion. It would continue to tell him there was something very wrong with this place.

He picked up the dull sword and glanced at the stripped corpse. It stared back at him judgementally, as if knowing that he had robbed it. Sin sighed and bent down to close the beast’s eyes. His remorse flitted away as abruptly as it had appeared.

Sin sighed. ‘I need to get out of here. I feel like I’m going to go insane.’

With the dull sword in his right hand and rags to shelter him from the cold, he pressed onward towards the grove. It was closer now.

His thoughts wandered as he continued his journey. ‘If this is not Earth, then where am I? This thought alone should frighten me completely, but it doesn’t.’

He turned to look at where the corpse lay as he thought. The corpse was large, and so should’ve been visible from a few meters away.

However, there was nothing there. It was as if the corpse had ceased to exist. The grass rippled in the wind all around him.

‘Shit. Did the killer of the beast come back for the spoils? No, that doesn’t make sense. There’s nothing around for miles, except for the grove.’

Feeling a slight tinge of fear, he continued his pace a lot faster. He gripped the sword at intervals, tension permeating his body.

It was all quickly gone again. Sin’s pace slowed, and he almost forgot why he had felt so tense.

‘What is wrong with you, idiot? Keep your head on straight.’

The grove was even closer now.

***

The grass pulled at his feet and his pants.

It was at that point that he started to notice this weird occurrence. The pulls were becoming stronger, and Sin had to walk faster just to stay at the same pace.

‘This… this damned grass!’ he thought as he gritted his teeth.

Each step was becoming harder and harder.

The grove was closer now. It was dark, but the darkness seemed welcoming and tantalizing compared to the starlit, strange plains. The wind had also picked up.

“Goddamnit!” Sin shouted, but he almost couldn’t hear his voice. It shot away as quickly as he uttered it.

The grass blades had become like thousands of tangible hands that grabbed at his feet and ankles. When he pulled his feet forward, the blades would never break. They stretched with him until they couldn’t anymore, and then let go, but they never broke. And it was becoming almost impossible to break free from their grasp.

The grass nearer to the grove had become longer and more wild. It started to grab at his thighs and waist, too.

The grove was up ahead, filling his vision. Where the trees started, the grass seemed to stop, as if it didn’t dare intrude. The grove promised a haven. It could also have promised disaster, but Sin was desperate to leave the plains.

His desperation started to dwindle, however. As the grass pulled him back, he started to succumb to the force. He started to forget why he was moving forward with such determination.

“No!” he screamed. He couldn’t even hear his own voice.

When it finally became impossible to walk, he looked up at the grove weakly. It was so near… it was right there! And then he succumbed to the grass.