Piety

『Chronicles of the Blood Tower』

Religion was something Rasmus looked down upon. Later as he grew older in his forsaken life, he understood where the concept of Religion came from and why people came to seek it out. But, overall he thought it was useless and unnecessary.

Religion to him, was for the people afraid of dying. People, who had inexplicable fear and wanted to believe that if they acted accordingly and racked up so-called 'positive karma' they would go on to please the Gods above and grant them happiness after they died.

He obviously didn't care for the specifics of Religion but, he would have to be an idiot not to understand the concept of Hell or Heaven.

Looking at the land before him he had no words.

'If there's a Hell, then this is fucking it'

There was nothing. Literally nothing except for air and rocks. The abnormally hot heat only played a natural effect on one's thinking that this was Hell.

"If only there were chains, blood and a small red imp with two horns on his head…."

Rasmus muttered to himself. Naturally, He was assessing his situation and trying to understand what the hell had happened to him. Was it re-birth? What about teleportation? Was I judged on some scale and deemed a serial killer needing to go to hell? Nonetheless there was nobody to answer him.

He slowly started to walk in the direction in front of him, and realized the heat was a little too much to be wearing a shirt right now, so he took off his shirt from the scrubs he wore at the hospital.

His thin, bony frame wasn't exactly the most attractive sight to look at but, then again who the fuck cared? He continued to walk aimlessly and realized that he didn't exactly set directions. So, he looked up at the sky.

That was a mistake.

Rasmus' eyes widened as he saw what tore apart his thin line of peace at that moment. 5. Yeah, 5 blood red Suns. Or moons, it didn't matter he was definitely not getting back to Earth anytime soon. Not that he had any particular wish to do so as there was nothing there for him anymore, but it still frightened his 16 year old adolescent mind.

He started to think to himself,

'I'm definitely not getting back into a fucking hospital bed for life and I have no plans on dying right now'

Naturally, he didn't want to die. But, the problem was food and water. Basic necessities like shelter, nutrients and most of all, if he was stranded he needed communication. He remembered the studies that colleges did about whether the average human could live alone.

The answer? No. At least, not if they wanted to stay sane.

However, he still couldn't find anything in sight besides the dull pebbles and rocks among the red land accompanied by the sweltering heat and breeze along with it.

Hours had passed and the Suns didn't show any signs of going down. He could make a few guesses to why that was happening but he didn't bother to use the logic he had from Earth since this was obviously… not Earth.

Rasmus' sense of anxiety during this time was slowly creeping up on him and he tried to force it back down. His mental state wasn;t doing so well due to the lack of water and food as well as monotonous walking.

Several times a minute were the same creeping thoughts of,

'Will I die a meaningless life again? Where are the people here? Is there any kind of life here?'

He knew these thoughts weren't going to be anything helpful so he reverted back to what he started to do in the hospital bed. He picked up a terrible habit of berating his life. Cursing the world, but mostly cursing his mother. It was naturally a screwed up way to think because, while he may have never been told the cause of death related to his mother. Why should he blame the dead? But, the answer to that was leading in the direction of missing both parental figures after that and leaving the 10 year-old Rasmus to fend for himself.

Finally, after what seemed to be hours of walking, Rasmus heard a noise. To be more exact he heard a low sound of something being dragged. He quickly turned his head in the direction of the noise and ran as quietly as possible towards it.

As the sound drew near, Rasmus finally spotted someone. No. Something.

Standing at around 3 meters tall was a bipedal creature that he had never even seen before. His blood seemed to freeze still and cold sweat dripped down the back of his neck. If he had to tell someone what exactly he saw he would say one thing.

Demon.

With 2 large curved horns at the top of its forehead, the creature was breathing roughly. It's skin couldn't be seen with the naked eye because of all the brown, rough fur that covered its body. It was leaning slightly forward as in its huge muscular arms it was dragging a club made from some kind of black metal in one hand, and in the other it was dragging what seemed to be some kind of overgrown lizard that was about 5 times bigger than a komodo dragon back on Earth.

Rasmus tried to quiet his breathing as the creature looked anything but friendly and started to move his feet backwards as slowly as possible. The creature was no fool however, and started to sniff the air as if he could smell something like Rasmus who was over 100 yards away.

Rasmus didn't want to think he was suddenly being thought of as the prey in its hands. But, the next actions pretty much shattered his wish into pieces. It abruptly, dropped the lizard it was dragging and shot a very intimidating look towards Rasmus. A look that could only be described as one thing.

Prey.

It started moving it's huge legs and started to run towards Rasmus while heaving out heavy breaths as it was exhausted from it's hunt earlier.

And Rasmus did what any teenager abandoned in a Hell-like planet would do…

"FUCKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!"

Rasmus bolted from the place he was standing seconds ago and screamed at the top of his lungs praying anybody, anything really would take pity on him and save him from that thing that was chasing him.

Slowly the creature was catching up to Rasmus as he was sprinting the fastest his hospital bed legs could run. He turned his head over his shoulders to look at the distance between them and got a closer look at the creature.

'Holy shit, that's a bloody Minotaur!'

The creature as it was closer to Rasmus than it was originally was now identifiable as the creature from Greek Mythology and it was getting close enough to swing its club at it's prey.

"AHHHHHHHH!"

It was honestly a pitiful sight. A bed-ridden teenage boy running away from a mythological creature. The outcome was obvious. Until the last moment.

BOOOOM!

All of a sudden, the ground before the Minotaur collapsed as it was swinging its club in an arc towards Rasmus. A huge hole opened up and what seemed to be a Giant worm thrusted itself at the Minotaur's lower body. Obviously, the Minotaur wasn't on his first hunt as it dropped it's club immediately and put it's two arms in front of it in an attempt to block the circular maws of the seemingly carnivorous worm.

Rasmus naturally was blown away from the sudden appearance of the worm and turned around shocked to see the battle of monsters in front of him.

The Minotaur's stamina wasn't the best as it was tired from it's previous hunt as well as the chase it was having trying to catch Rasmus. But, it wasn't like it was nervous or so it seemed, as it let out a ferocious roar clearly enraged by the disturbance from the worm for interrupting his new hunt.

The worm's maws were caught by the Minotaurs hands as it gripped tightly on the worm and flexed its muscles to the extreme to apply tons of pressure onto the carapace of the worm. The worm cried out a weird screech and rotated it's jagged teeth suddenly at a speed so fast it looked in place to the human eye.

The bladed teeth sunk into the grip of the Minotaur and forced itself free from the titan of a monster. The minotaur was forced to release the grip it had and seemingly rolled backwards to pick up its club but the worm was faster this time and jolted it's body forward to sever the arm reaching for the club.

The Minotaur wasn't quick enough to react to it's arm reaching for the club but prepared to sacrifice it while raising it's other arm high and smashing it's elbow into the worm's upper body.

SKREEEEE!

The worm got away with the arm of the minotaur but was dealt a nasty blow that dug into the body of the worm spraying it's blood everywhere.

Rasmus was so frightened that he didn't realize his body was reacting in a strange manner. His body while watching the fight was shivering so much that he pissed his scrubs from the hospital.

The worm screeching out loud decided this minotaur was a complete bastard that needed to die here and now, and seemingly in response the minotaur thought the same and opened its mouth to chomp on the wound made earlier from hitting the worm with his elbow.

What happened in the next second was probably the luckiest thing that could have happened for the boy with urine stained pants cowering in the corner from the fight of these two beasts.

The Minotaur ripped it's teeth into the opened flesh of the Giant worm and tore straight through it right as the top part of the worm tore through the chest of the Minotaur with it's razor-like teeth.

And then, their bodies collapsed.

Rasmus didn't know it yet, but this was just the start of his survival on this barren wasteland and the first step towards gaining an unimaginable gain and loss.

Chapter 2 - Fin