Father Jean-Luc Delance opened his eyes, or at least, he tried to open his eyes. Nothing seemed to physically happen, but the world gradually faded into being around him. Materializing in his consciousness via a sense that was not sight.
Nor could he feel anything. Nothing was hot, or cold, no limbs felt stiff. His body did not seem to sense the world around it in any meaning of the word. An eerie feeling to a human male. He tried to extend his fingers, finding a complete lack of sensation from his hand. He tried to sit up and found he was already aligned vertically, standing. Silence enveloped him.
Is this what Hell feels like? A void of nothingness where you cannot even feel pain. Maybe the fire and brimstone comes after they bore me to death. He mused.
Last thing I remember was Brother Peterson smashing through the side of the confessional booth with a tire iron. What a douchebag, vandalizing the church like that. I hope the prick joins me in Hell!
…
No… That’s not what I want. Aah… I hope the police go easy on him. His cheating hurt Sister Peterson. Drove her to the confessional booth everyday as she blamed herself for not being enough. Please god, give him the opportunity to make things righ-
“GOOD, YOU ARE AWAKE.” Boomed a voice from nowhere.
The floor shook with a force great enough that Jean-luc could feel his incorporeal soul vibrate with baritone echoes. Without physical ears the sound was unpleasant but lacked any sense of pain, giving him the sensation of being violently shaken. He would have worried about a traumatic brain injury, but he did not seem to possess a physical brain.
God? He tried to call. Failing to vocalize anything.
“YOU MAY CALL ME THAT IF YOU WISH.
I AM YOU.
AND YOU ARE A TEENY TINY PIECE OF ME.”
Boomed the voice of probably-not-god.
That’s as clear as the book of Revelations. Are we in purgatory? Why have you brought me here? This does not match up with any depiction of heaven or hell-
A new rumbling shook Jean-luc’s world. Painfully jarring his soul as the world teeters on the brink of an earthquake.
“ANNOYING WORM!” Shouted not-god.
Jean-luc had a strange sensation pass through him, as if the world coiled into a middle finger held back by a thumb. Tensing against each other until the middle finger broke free to flick forward. Meeting the rising earthquake with not-god’s own tsunami. An earthquake shook the world as the two forces met.
“DID I KILL IT?” Wondered not-god.
“THERE IS YOUR FIRST MISSION,
GROW MY CHILD,
PLANT YOUR ROOTS,
SPREAD OUR SEED.
MAKE SURE THE WORM IS DEAD.
DON’T LET IT EAT ME.
FOR I AM YOU.
TOODLES.”
Toodles… What in the world?! Hey! What just happened? God, or uhm. Not god… Help me out here! Or at least answer my questions you… me? Stammered Jean-luc.
No response was forthcoming, and he had the distinct sense of speaking to an empty room.
Abandoned right when I need you most. Maybe this is heaven after all… No, don’t let yourself get snarky with not-god. Wallowing in bitterness hurts me the most. Find something to occupy yourself with. Idle hands are the devil’s tools, even in this… World? Chaos? I don’t know.
Jean-luc turned his mind outward, focusing on the world around him instead of his past. Stone walls gradually came into focus through a form of vision he was unfamiliar with. Wherever he might be was no longer a concern. His new vision saw the world in a 360 degree point of view, allowing him to perceive what was in front of him as well as behind him all at once. Stone ceiling, stone floors, and stone walls surrounded him. A mundane view that might have comforted him, had his body been present. With his new sight it was clear that he occupied zero physical space. His body was gone.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Okay, don’t panic Jean… Try walking in a circle. He thought.
His view shifted as he moved through space, silently floating through stone stalagmites. Objects that should have inhibited his movement gave him no trouble. Though the view from inside them made him want to blink his nonexistent eyes. No light existed in the tunnel he was in, but he could see without any difficulty.
I should be panicking… How can I be so calm?
He tried checking his pulse, only to find that to be an impossible task.
Hard to panic if you don’t breathe and lack a heartbeat.
Where his body was or how he was perceiving the world remained a mystery. One that no longer troubled him. Expanding his sight he found an immense, vaguely rectangular area several miles wide. Stone walls did not seem to hinder his sight in any way, although there were hard boundaries on all sides. Above and below him lay solid stone a boundary that repeated itself to his left, rear, and front. To his right the boundary was mostly stone, save for one corner of his existence where there seemed to be a lack of anything. A wall of nothing that he could not see beyond.
I’m already creeped out enough, no reason to go poking the abyss.
Narrowing his focus, he found tunnels criss-crossing his domain. Emptying into a flat plain near the nothing and a vast open space filled with dozens of crude huts. An unusual section of marble ruins caught his eye, though they were far to his rear.
Aiming his mind at the huts his vision focused there, instantly teleporting his consciousness to them. Sixteen felt tents occupied the large space, congregating near one of the entrances. Luminous moss and dark lichen covered the stone, scattering blue light throughout the chamber. Natural formations of stone and stalagmites bordered the crude homes, hemming the village. Ten small hominids wandered between two tents, aimlessly bumbling through the tents.
Jean-luc watched them for several minutes, endeavoring to comprehend what he was seeing. The ten hominids were short, half as tall as the doorways leading into the huts and shorter than the windows. An indication that they were the tent builders. Their ears extended six inches beyond bald skulls and their mouths glistened in the dark. Warning those around them to stay out of reach or encounter the double row of sharp incisors.
Green, shark teeth, long ears, and short… I never truly thought demons were real. Let alone a physical being.
Giving the demons a more thorough examination he decided to follow the largest one. To his chagrin, blue text appeared in front of him, displaying a confusing assortment of information that he sensed was connected to the hominid before him.
Name: Gurk
Class: Goblin
Rank: 1
HP 5/5
Respawn: 600s or 50,000 MP
Strength 4
Agility 2
Intelligence 2
What on god’s green earth is a goblin? Wait… That sounds familiar, where have I heard that name? Doesn’t sound biblical… hmm… I recall some of the younger guys talking about a video game with goblins. Oh, of course! There are fairy tales with people like these goblins. They always seem to be the villain’s flunkies though. I wonder where the big baddie is. Maybe he stepped out for some milk.
Gurk picked up a rock, hefting it’s weight experimentally, as if he planned to skip it across a pond. Jean-luc glanced around the goblin, knowing there was no open water anywhere in the village. Gurk grinned broadly, and smashed the rock into a goblin’s face. Hooting with glee as blood squirted from the goblin’s nose. Cartilage snapped and the other demon goblins jumped with excitement, echoing Gurk’s hoots with calls of their own. In seconds they had joined the violence, mercilessly beating the bloodied goblin. Jean-luc looked on in horror. Disgust filling his mind as he watched the green devils murder one another.
“600s” Appeared in Jean-luc’s consciousness. Separate from his vision but as clear as a phone screen at midnight. 600s became 599s, then 598s, clearly indicating some sort of countdown. In front of Jean-luc the murdered goblin dissolved into the stone beneath it, leaving behind a wooden club. Gurk snatched up the club, dropping his bloody rock in favor of the larger weapon.
Another goblin saw the club, catching hold of the weapon before Gurk could gain full control of it. A challenge he answered by biting into the goblin’s throat, his double row of teeth tearing into his opponent’s esophagus. Black blood gurgled around his teeth and the goblin flopped onto the floor. Leaking blood until another 600s countdown appeared in Jean-luc’s mind.
This hapless goblin left behind a fur hat. One that Gurk plopped onto his bald noggin, marking him as the only goblin wearing anything more than a loincloth. Seven pairs of eyes watched the violence unfold, slowly piecing together the facts. In fact, they were so slow that both 600 second timers counted down to zero. When they expired two identical clones of the dead goblins wandered out of a nearby hut. Joining their fellows as if they were old friends.
Gurk roared a laugh, and swung at the nearest goblin, a short creature by the name of Gob. Gob was not about to be caught slacking and ducked. Narrowly dodging his death, wasting no time he fled, scampering out of danger on all fours. Not that he needed to fear. Gurk’s club overshot and connected with yet another goblin, knocking the bystander senseless. Leaping atop the downed goblin he proceeded to smash his neighbor’s skull in, not ceasing until the goblin dissolved into a pair of shoes. He bent over to claim his prize, giving the other goblins an opening so wide that even their peanut sized brains saw it.
Seven goblins jumped Gurk all at once. Eagerly beating him to death with an assortment of teeth, fists, and rocks. Violence gave birth to more violence and soon the goblins were embroiled in an unarmed battle royale that Father Jean-luc Delance did not have the stomach to watch.
They're insane! My neighbors are insane! Beating each other to death for… A pair of shoes! If it was about a woman I would at least understand but this is utter madness!
Wanting to be anywhere but there, Jean-luc forced his consciousness away, heading the direction he assumed was north. While he was able to phase through stone he stuck to convention out of a deeply ingrained habit. After all, humans could not walk through solid walls and when he did so it gave a profound sense of unease. As though he were living in a video game nightmare with Collision turned off.
Instead, his consciousness floated through rough hewn tunnels, floating through their corridors on his way to nowhere. Without legs he did not tire, leaving him to examine his new world. The tunnels were rough hewn with an even diameter. Six even grooves ran along the tunnel walls, as if they had been drilled and reamed, or had been carved in the earth by some creature with six evenly spaced protrusions. Horns capable of carving furrows in stone.
…Shai-Hulud? Thought Jean-luc, imagination running wild after the goblin madness.
Dune was one of the few books he had the opportunity to read before his ordination. It was a strange mix of advanced technology that sparked his imagination only to be unsettled by the magical mumbo jumbo.
Jean-luc followed the tunnels for hours, seeking a sanctuary that did not manifest. Hunger did not trouble him, nor did thirst. Were it not for the ten 600s countdowns that constantly reappeared in his mind he would have lost all sense of time. There was no light in the tunnels, and little life. Constrained entirely to small patches of fungus and the occasional rodent.
Eventually the worm tunnel he was following changed, breaking through a wall of white marble. Polished stone walls greeted him, the first sign of civilization he had encountered in this strange dream. A face with deeply set eyes and thick beard appeared on the wall opposite to him, as eerie as it was reassuring.
Please let me find some decent folk here. I’m not sure I can handle more goblin parties. He thought, pressing into the marble hallway and turning right.