This training is unfair.

When, what you used to take for granted is gone, you realise how much you miss it. Kato had come to understand this phrase all too well. He desperately missed the days when something or another didn’t try to kill him.

Snakes, thugs, and even those he thought were his friends. Every living thing he’d met recently wanted him dead, it was hard to not take it personally. ‘Maybe if they just got to know me, they’d see how cool I am.’

Kato could do a lot to assuage his fears of having a distasteful personality, these beings hadn’t even given him a chance. A much harder pill to swallow, however, was that the world wanted him dead. He might not have been the most spiritually inclined, but the coincidences were stacking up.

First, he’d been dumped in an endless tunnel, where he’d only found supplies once. It was starting to feel like the very land was conspiring to starve him out. Unfortunately for it, Kato refused to give in, surviving on his stubbornness alone, with what little sustenance that could provide.

When he found a world that appeared habitable, it was held out in front of him, just to give him enough time to stroke his desire for a better life. Then cruelly it was stripped away dashing his hopes and replacing them with a grey barren wasteland.

Now this, and the only positive Kato could think of was that it wasn’t grey, and he was looking, really hard, for positives.

It looked somewhat like the tunnel Kato had come from, but it was noticeably different, for one that place hadn’t stunk of rotting eggs, the smell by itself was nearly enough to make Kato retch, but he held strong, firmly clenching his gut.

Kato could hardly breathe, a noxious gas had filled his lungs and coughing wracked his body, this was his death. He knew it in his gut, yet a part of him yearned for more, ‘we will prevail’, the voice had come from nowhere and filled Kato with vigour. He ripped his right sleeve off and tied it around his face, covering his nose and mouth in an effort to filter the air.

It helped, but not enough. He looked around the location, his coughs loud and echoing. He had been thrust into another dark environment. Someone really had it out for him.

Kato had never seen anything like it. Living fire crawled across the ground, illuminating the area around it. In the patches of glowing red shadows of hulking monstrosities were cast out, a shiver ran down Kato’s spine. Certain his mind was playing tricks on him. He turned to gain distance from the ungodly flames.

His eyes were greeted by even more infernal depictions, towers of fire rising from the ground, spitting embers. Fissures running through the ground full of bubbling magma. Ash billowed out from one close to him, a storm of the tiny particles enveloping him, his hair caught and violently pulled back by the sudden onslaught of wind.

Bang! A fat bubble, larger than Kato’s head exploded, spewing blazing hot magma across the room drops landed just feet away from Kato. ‘I have to get out of here fast.’ He desperately thought.

Kato began his journey in the direction he hoped was the least likely to get him killed. The going was slow, bouts of dizziness plagued him, only interrupted by coughs that caused his whole body to shudder. His head pounded violently, it was as if the artillery that stood upon Redusk’s walls had decided to drill inside his skull, firing round after round of vicious throbbing that demanded Kato’s attention.

And yet he continued, he refused to be beaten, not by this. The environment by itself could not beat him, he would not lose, this he swore. His hand lethargically rose, and he drew a circle over his chest. “Cogul” he wheezed. “Help” his voice rasped a reminder that he was thirsty even before his body was attacked by the sweltering conditions.

Nothing happened and he didn’t expect it to, this place was probably hell. Or at least it looked like it.

Cut off from everything, he knew he was truly alone, for this was a place that not even the Gods would look.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Even if Kato was being overly melodramatic, Cogul wasn’t known for his benevolence, you didn’t get the nickname of defiler because you were such a nice guy. He wasn’t even really devout, there was no way he would get sympathy, not now, not when Kato only really prayed when he needed help.

The Vandots, the protective military core of the Mendots, and Cogul’s most staunch followers would have jeered at him and called him a leech. With demands for personal sacrifice for even the chance to beseech their god, but Kato could afford to give no more.

Snap! Kato’s head wearily turned in the direction of the noise, his eyes unfocused and bleary. ‘How were the sick and frail supposed to survive this’ he thought bitterly.

He didn’t see anything not even a shadow thrown out by the fires that burned seemingly without fuel.

His mind had given up on the rational it seemed. Snap! Another sound produced by a phantom apparition. Kato looked for the source but found nothing, he was getting more and more certain these noises were figments, produced by a feverish mind. He had heard of this before, auditory hallucinations tricks of the mind playing with his senses.

The sounds of a grinding chain, slapping against the ground joined the chorus of noise assailing him. It was as if a monster, once chained, had escaped its confinement and now walked the world, dragging its once fixed bonds behind it.

Currr the grating metallic noise grew in volume, yet Kato persisted.

He did his best to ignore the sounds plaguing him and continued on, to what he didn’t know. ‘I will not give up’ this mantra had begun in his head several minutes ago and had since continued non-stop, filling him with determination and the will to succeed. He would not falter. These were his thoughts right up until the moment he collapsed and met the ground with a heavy thud.

Kato lay there on the hard stone floor; it was surprisingly cold considering his surroundings. He breathed heavily, his eyes struggling to stay open. ‘No, I will not give up’ he tried to push himself up but found that he lacked the strength to do so.

He reached his bare right arm ahead of him, grabbing onto a lone protrusion jutting from the ground and began to pull himself forward. He made it less than halfway, his arm faltering and falling to the ground, his strength abandoning him. He switched to his left but found that it couldn’t even drag him forward an inch.

He lay on the ground. His left arm outstretched hopelessly grasping onto the lump of rock in front of him. His right arm lay limply in a crook by his head, he desperately pleaded with his limbs, but they refused to listen, locked into place. So, this was it.

They say when you know for certain that the end is nigh, you see what you did with your life. What Kato saw would’ve made him sick if he wasn’t already. His life flashed in front of him. Fights with his parents, the last time he saw his dad, his mother retreating in herself. Smiles, laughter and shared special moments interrupted the bleakness, weaving the good with the bad. But it was rare. So much wasted time and nothing to thank for it, missed opportunities and regrets had followed him, through it all.

‘That will not be my story’ he thought fiercely.’ This would not be his end. His body surged forward, resolve flooding his limbs. He moved an inch. If that. A last futile burst of strength and that was it. His eyes closed.

Kato woke up shaking, unsure of how long he had slept for. It could have been seconds; it could’ve been hours. ‘We will prevail’. The voice again. Here for him when no one else was.

The bag on his hip trembled, violently.

Kato was tempted to ignore it, his earlier resolve tempered by the harsh realities of his situation, but he did not.

His right hand moved slowly to the bag. It was a feat of impressive will, getting his limb to move at all. Defiant in the face of his weaknesses, he clutched the bag, feebly struggling to unhook it from his side.

The violent shaking intensified, and the bag slipped. “No” Kato gasped, the word escaping from his cracked lips. The bag had hit the ground and turned on its side. Kato knew he did not have the strength to reach for it again.

But the bag continued to shake and for the first time since he’d picked it up, something had come out.

Six gelatinous chunks, vibrating so violently, that Kato thought they were about to explode. He mentally braced himself, ‘I’m not even going to have the dignity of going out with a clean death’, he thought sardonically and couldn’t help but chuckle bitterly at the irony, the hollow sounds from his cracked lips marking the grim play on words, that just about summed up the cruel absurdity of his journey getting here.

Disregarding Kato, the chunks began swirling through the air. Kato tracked their patterns, enthralled by the hypnotic movements. Suddenly three of them collided, morphing into a blood red eye that shifted, becoming fixated on him. Its pupil pulsated once, twice, before settling into the guise of a pitch-black sword.

The other three then formed into a second, level with the first. “Guess you came to watch me die, as I did with you, huh?” Kato rasped bitterly; a hollow laugh followed his words.

The eyes ignored him and surged forward, upturning him, and striking his chest, where they melded into his very being.

Kato felt rejuvenated, more strange symbols spun across his vision and strength returned to his body, as he rose again.