Home, Sweet Home

*Hunger and filth to the right, food made out of plastic and given flavour on the left. Yet they would rather look at me!*

*The world had descended into chaos when the creatures known commonly as nightmare beasts descended onto the world. They took over entire continents and pushed humanity to the brink of extinction before the main driving force behind it, the nightmare spell, decided to give the people a fighting chance and allowed them to obtain power and advance, so they could take on the corrupted beasts.*

*Such is the backstory of shadow slave, the world I have survived in for the past 15 years!*

In a slum of filth and degeneracy, a young man waddled through the street. His body swayed, as if he was drunk and was about to fall over any second. His muscles looked like nothing, they didn't even exist!

His skin clung directly to his bones and made it painfully obvious, that this young man had never eaten a proper meal in his life. If any qualified doctor saw him, they would immediately conclude his body had atrophied and he would never use his arms again. And they would be most right, he hadn't used them for months and even he doesn't know if he can use them anymore.

Every step, his knees gave out and some would say it is even a miracle he could take the next step, but the young man's eyes didn't look like someone of his disposition. His eyes had fire of anger and they burned of ambition! While the body they inhabited belonged to what can only be described as a malnourished child, the eyes, the gateway to the body's soul, were of a great evil.

The people of the slums were even lower than the ones of the outskirts. The slums was the place no one patrolled, no sane person would come here willingly. Some might think this would cause crime to be rampant, but no human wanted to come here, as once in, the only way out was as a dreamer, or as a soul descending.

The best way to describe it is to call it a Gu jar artificially created by humanity to turn those they deem worthless into useful. Those born in this area stay here and those from the outside are the only sustenance the ones in the slums receive, metaphorically and very literally. Those unwise enough to commit a "crime" against the legacies are sent here, but not without a cruel joke.

There are only 2 ways to acquire food in this hellish area, the expired goods, leftovers found in the trash, experimental food made of... Only titled with the mark "edible" the city dumps in the slums. The second method is all the new members sent there bringing in food.

Before being sentenced to the slums, you have the option of liquidating all of your assets and buying food with the money and the food you afford comes with you into the slums. Some are unwise and think they will be able to return and refuse, they fall into the latter category of food.

Those wise enough to do so usually are "convinced" to share said food and then join the rest of the scum. Those who don't share, well they usually go missing after a week of being unable to sleep.

In such a place, there is no strength, there is no law of the jungle, there is no anything. As no sane creature would willingly come here, there are no slum lords. No one rules anywhere and no one even has the strength to kill each other. The energy waste and risks associated with killing another is many times greater, than the scraps of flesh you would be left with, after others share in your food. Everyone is equally waiting for the other to die, so they can eat enough to not be the next to fall, an eternal standstill of whose will to live is stronger.

Surviving in such a place makes someone nothing but desperate and tempered. Such people are much more likely to survive in the nightmare spell's first trial... Or not! Most, if not all, die during the first nightmare and what follows that is a massacre and then a feast!

Throughout his life, Chiron has participated in countless such "events" and even had the pleasure of being a first responder to the invitation once. In such a place, the only way to survive is to feast on others and be consumed by the human Gu jar!

*And never have I stooped so low. Who said a human needs to do such things to survive?!*

Every step Chiron took was calculated in every way possible. From birth till now, he has made sure to not waste a single calorie in his body! Throughout the years, he has developed several body techniques to help maximize his metabolic efficiency. In the beginning, he failed more often than not and, luckily for him, his "clan" was betting on him awakening and they invested most of their "resources" into him. By the time the "clan" was massacred by his older childhood friend, his efficiency was nearing maximum and he had a decent amount to spare.

Every step he took was adjusted to make the best use of gravity and even the wind current at times to propel his momentum. He barely used his arms or even allowed his muscles to twitch to conserve energy. If Chiron said he was second best at movement efficiency, no one would dare to claim first place!

While some starved to death and still ate human meat and the "food", he survived purely off of the food brought in by occasional "new hire". Just the fact, that he would walk around without news of potential sustenance was enough to pull eyes from wherever he went, but Chiron cared naught!

His eyes were frozen in place, eyelids barely open enough to allow him to see where he was walking and his destination was "home".

Chiron approached a gigantic pit in the ground, a cursed place, where there was a construction site, that was never finished before the nightmare creatures attacked.

Inside the pit was a rotting and rotten corpses pile, a place so vile not even the "humans" in the slums would approach. Some spiteful slum men would rather commit suicide, than be eaten or starve to death and where they do that is commonly referred to as the "corrupted pit".

No one had the strength to spare to pull their bodies up and no one cared enough to do that either. Anyone who fell in, decayed there and never left the pit.

As the entire slum street stared at him, Chiron did the first out of character thing he has done in a decade. As he stood over the pit full of corpses, he turned around, wasting energy. His eyes opened as he smiled. Not a smile of a man resigned to death, but a crazed one, a smile promising chaos and, for the first time in nearly 6 years, he raised his hands.

Just this simple movement caused his blood to rush throughout his body and his heart beat at a normal pace for the first time in over a decade. His crazed face stared at the humans watching him and they all subconsciously averted their eyes, as Chiron's finally closed and he fell backwards into the corpse pile.

[Aspirant! Welcome to the Nightmare Spell. Prepare for your first trial!]