Chapter 1. A Fateful Encounter

"This sucks."

A nameless girl in red silently mutters to herself as she walks through the darkness.

What could I have done? What should I do next? These thoughts came to her as quickly as they left.

Planning for the future is futile – she is wandering across unknown lands without a concrete objective.

'I must find food. I must find water. I must find shelter.'

A part of her screamed from within, desperately seeking survival and self-preservation. Those thoughts were born from instinct – her built in will to live.

Thus, the young girl struggled through many lands over a multitude of terrains. She had come across many companions, forming both bonds of mutual hardship and survival.

Likewise, along with those companions came death, and those trusted friends and family she had parted with death.

'…It would be nice to at least find a good place to die.'

Dark thoughts occasionally came, and they left just as quickly as the rest.

Thinking about it is a waste of precious time.

Reminiscing the past will not change anything.

Planning for the unknown is an impossible task.

If living were so painful, what would await me at death?

'Death is like an eternal slumber. Awaiting me is a dream perhaps?'

Since the fate of death is inescapable, the girl wished for a gentle dream at the end.

She could not go back to those times.

Time will not stop for her, so she must remain in the present.

'I can't escape this reality, so I guess I'll keep going today.'

In this cave dimly lit by crimson crystals, she searches for any kind of edible sustenance.

The dim lights scattered in the endless dark does not illuminate her eyes.

Shadows seemed to sway with the breeze, and the wind seemed to sound like faintly audible laughing.

'It's getting cold'

She clutched the red rags patching her body, covered with patches stained in a rusty dark brown from all the dried blood and sweat.

Only a distant hope came in mind –

'The flow of air means the surface is close!'

Following the wind, the young girl crawled through the dark corridors and crevices of the cave. Using no other sense but the feeling of the cold wind against her bare skin, she arrived at the source of the wind.

A dead end with an opening just large enough for a small child like her to fit through.

Beyond the hole in the wall was a chasm with the bottom imperceptible from sheer height.

Grrrr

'…!'

The sudden sounds from her stomach brought her back to her senses.

What was she doing all this time!?

Exposing her body to wind made her lose body heat.

Spending so much time chasing after an exit that did not exist instead of finding food.

She no longer had the strength to keep moving for much longer.

The young girl looks back at the crack.

'Could this be my escape?'

Jumping out of this cave would indeed be a way out.

…but the end result would be the same if she rested right now in the cave.

'Either way, it won't be a good place to die.'

In both outcomes, she would die leaving nothing behind.

Nobody to mourn or remember her existence.

Nobody who would even find her remains.

With her remaining strength, she cursed the life she had to live.

'It's ugly.' This tortured existence.

'It's broken.' This cursed world.

'... I have gone quite the distance haven't I?'

She thinks to herself before leaning against the closes wall.

Diligence and instinct had helped her survive until now, but one detour out of pure curiosity ended it all.

Fate had not been kind to her today.

'I wonder if I can see them again.' The girl wondered as she thought back on the many faces she had known.

The kindnesses she experienced, through chance encounters of fate, came flooding back through memories. Kindnesses of fate to bring together people, to find a meal, to avoid becoming a meal, and to have good company.

However, fate is fickle and unbiased.

As fate brought her companionship, it also brought loneliness.

Losing someone important is only possible if you had someone to lose.

She closed her eyes; casting out what little she could see in the dim red glow.

'If death meant an eternal rest, then I will live forever within an eternal dream.

I could not escape my reality, so I had no choice but to accept it and keep playing this game of life.

I kept searching for some semblance of hope… a kindness somewhere in this world dyed crimson.'

As she closed her eyes, preparing to resign herself to a peaceful death, her last thoughts were a bitter complaint over her inability to escape her life filled with suffering.

Indeed, deep within her soul she still held on to hope…

…

..

.

Splosh!... ssslich…sssloch

A wet, slimy sound can be heard echoing in the cave.

'…'

As if fate was mocking the girl, the sounds of a meal had appeared just outside of reach.

She had no energy left to move her limbs. She was so tired, she could barely open her eyes to find it.

What were the chances of finding this thing in the dark?

What are the odds of catching it before it runs?

Without the strength to even move an eyelid, there is no chance at all for the poor girl.

Splotch...

'…Huh?'

The source of the noises had been next to her the whole time, and had just come in contact with the young girl's left leg.

'I…It's within reach!'

Suddenly, she felt a warm feeling along the lower side of her leg.

'Ah-!'

The creature was trying to eat her.

It must have realized that she was on the verge of death and decided to grab an easy meal.

Embarrassed by her arrogance for thinking she would be the hunter and enraged by her accursed fate, the girl suddenly felt a wave of energy overcome her.

It is commonly reported that just before death, a person will suddenly gain a surge of energy in complete contrast to their earlier state.

Fueled by this lucky timing of this burst of energy and adrenaline from an attacker, she sprung up and took a blind swing in the dark…!

Plootch!

Without even drawing the dull rusty knife on her side, she struck her foe with her bare fist.

...…..

The girl's fist seemed to have penetrated her opponent's body and the attacker seemed to have stopped moving.

'…Well that was easy.'

In the dim lighting from the glowing red crystals in the cave, she could make out the creature.

It was a large white pillbug with an orange eye-shaped organ on its back. They were one of the creatures she could hunt in the cave, and she had eaten them before.

Somehow she had managed to pierce the soft orange organ blindly in the dark, which was the magical organ and heart of the creature.

When she had hunted these pillbugs before, they would roll up against a wall at eye level and open the organ, giving them the appearance of a glowing eyeball on the wall. The spikes from the shell even look like eyelashes from far away. These bugs make anyone who stared at them nauseous and confused, They had hard outer shells but were more like slugs underneath, so they were normally killed after turning them on their shell.

'I guess I got lucky.'

She hastily took a large bite out of the fleshy bug.

Fate was kind to her after she stumbled into a trap through her own fault…

…Or was it fate for her to find this place at all?

Were all the events up until now fate? Or could I have changed the outcomes if I had acted otherwise?

"What is fate?"

It was the first time the girl had paused to question things.

And the question she uttered was met with silence.

What is fate?

Is it something predetermined?

'If fate is predetermined, then there is nothing I can do to change it. But if I do nothing, then my fate is death.'

Having lived through hell and survived everyday through her own hands, she concluded that fate could not be predetermined.

Who determines what fate brings?

'Since I can't even predict a second into the future, it certainly isn't me.'

Was there a higher power dictating the course of events in the world? If there were a higher power, why would he care about someone so insignificant? Having traversed many lands, the little girl understood the true scale of the world. The sublime scale of it all made her acknowledge that her existence is not special and if any existence is watching over her, it was not a benevolent one.

Does fate actually exist?

'…I don't know.'

It dawned on her that the concept of fate itself might just be a myth. An abstract concept for explaining away coincidences in retrospect. A lie told to give false hope for what it promises to bring. A tool to cope with the insufferable reality of life.

As the girl finished her thoughts, so too did she finish engorging on the raw flesh of the pillbug.

She rested for a bit to let the food settle in her stomach before getting back up and resuming her endless stroll through the caves.

It had been so long since she had seen the outside world.

When she first arrived, the cave seemed to be a safe haven from the powerful monsters of the surface.

After wandering inside it for so long, she wished to see the sun again before she meets her end.

"Hmm!?"

The dimly glowing red crystals scattered throughout the walls and floors of the cave were glowing ever so slightly brighter.

'No, I must be imagining it.'

'I just ate after all,' she thought. 'This must be due to me coming back from the verge of death.'

…But it was different.

The lights were definitely brighter, to the point where she could see nearly the entire room of the cave.

Was there something laced in the pillbug?

She had eaten hundreds of them before, both raw and cooked. At first eating them raw made her sick, but she had no choice as there was no way to start a fire in the cave. No kindling and no tinder meant that most of her meals had to be eaten uncooked.

Because of this, she kept to a limited diet of things she knows to be safe to eat raw. This is to prevent poisoning from eating unknown creatures.

Aside from the improved lighting, she experienced no other anomalies.

'Whatever, right now I gotta find some extra food and water!'

With some newfound determination, she briskly walked towards the path she came from.

'Huh?'

A loud rumbling could be heard from the direction of the tunnel she was heading towards.

"Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"

A huge torrent of water came flooding into the tiny room she was in.

"Hahh….Hahhh"

Quickly looking around the room, now illuminated enough to clearly see all the walls, she saw that there was hole several meters above one of the walls.

'This must be where the pillbug came from…!'

If this pillbug came from that hole, there must be more in there!

Suddenly, as if a diety from above heard her call, both food and water appeared before her.

'Hehe, this is great.'

A wide grin etched across her face.

'I'll use the incoming water to float up until it stops, then I will climb the remaining distance to the tunnel. I can kill one or two and book it back down here with the fresh water.'

The water quickly filled the small space, and the young girl had swam and drunk from the water. She had begun to swim closer to the wall with the tunnel when she noticed a sound.

*Crack….Crack*

'OHHHHHHHH NOOOOOOOOOOOO'

That's right!!!

The room was on the edge of a cliff! And the walls were already cracked! If it fills up with water, the walls would burst!

Desperately trying to swim to the nearest wall to cling onto, the nameless girl could barely maintain her breathing as she panicked at the thought of plunging to her death.

*SPLASH!*

"WHAT THE FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-"

The cave entrance above her – the one she had planned to enter for food, suddenly erupted in a flood of water just as the one below it.

In an instant, the walls collapsed and girl was swept away by the enormous mass of water.

As she fell, her screams could be heard resounding throughout the mountainous cliffs for miles.

Thus, the nameless little girl who questioned fate fell...

Howling into the abyss.