2 Monica

Reincarnating hurt a lot more than dying.

Howard gradually fluttered his eyes open and took a deep breath. His heart slowly started to beat back to a normal rhythm before he looked around and tried to adjust to his surroundings. He appeared to be dangling from a set of chains on the main branch of some type of burned tree. 

Then the chains had started to break. Howard tried to find any semblance of hope when he looked down, but he didn't like what he saw. Beneath him, there were thousands of sharp spears planted in the ground like some strange type of devilish plant. 

It seemed like the prison guards had transported him to a mysterious desert, and his mind instantly thought of a survival game. Did he have to survive? They must have knocked him out in order to perform another experiment!

Howard took a deep breath and tried to swing to the edge of the cliff before he watched a small silver chain link slowly and gradually fall past his face. 

'Oh shit! Not yet!'

 Swoosh!

Howard's 1.8 meter tall body plummeted downward into the hot, rocky abyss thousands of feet below him before a spear took delight in stabbing through his torso. A haze of blood spread out of the wound before he wretched in pain!

"AHHHH!" Howard felt his body touch against the rocky ground beneath him, and saw the spearhead gradually line up with the rising sun. At least he appeared to be outside. He took a deep breath tried to calm down. However, the pain was almost too much to bear!

Three minutes later, Howard had no choice but to assess the situation. He could no longer grovel in pain. He looked at his blue dress shirt to try and find the severity of the wound. Luckily, the spear head had just missed his lungs and his heart.

'Come on! You can do this Howard!' Howard grabbed the spear and began to pull himself out of the death trap. If he didn't get out soon, he could tell that something terrible would happen!

In the distant expanse, that appeared to be an endless desert, a few students had been watching Howard dangling from the tree. One of them, a beautiful girl with green hair and blue eyes, instantly felt afraid for Howard. They were about to come! The zombies were about to come!

"Ow, can things get any worse!" Howard looked at the spikes sticking out of his body and carefully grabbed the metal rod in order to hoist himself forward. A large amount of blood flowed out of his body before he forced himself off the rock and down onto the floor below.

In front of him, a few hundred zombies marched towards him with bloodthirsty, wanton eyes. A few held swords and shields while others carried bows and arrows. They looked like zombies from Howard's favorite video game, hellscape shadow, a game he had played with Vicky every night for the last three years before she happily shot him to sleep.

"What are you guys doing?" Howard ambled away from a large flowing pool of his own blood, and smiled towards the incoming zombies. "Can you tell me where I am?"

ROAR!

A zombie rushed towards Howard at a quick speed, causing a large cloud of dust to appear behind him. He seemed to emit a killing intent of a primitive nature, and looked with a blank stare at Howards neck.

"Wait, I'm not wearing cuffs? Do the prison guards finally trust me?" Howard stepped forward and agilely spun away from the incoming zombie causing it to pathetically burst into the mountain behind him. "Does this mean I don't have to die every night?"

Howard reached down and picked up a silver sword the strange skeleton had dropped and laughed madly. The sword had a jewel at the bottom of the hilt, and Howard could feel his Ki starting to resonate against the blade.

One of the reasons Howard had been locked up was because he could use something called Ki. Ki was an energy that existed in the planet that could be chemically altered to form the five elements, fire, earth, ice, lightning, and wind. Only people with horns could use Ki.

When he was thirteen, he'd woke up with large brown horns on top of his head, and found out later in the day he could light a candle if he tried enough by sensing the frequencies of the Ki in the air with his horns. 

However, wherever he was, the Ki seemed much more significant. He tried to make a small fire ball before he seemed to get swallowed by a large cloud of smoke. 

A strange fire appeared around his body, complimenting his raised, flowing black hair that shot up over his head when he stepped forward.

Turning his hand, Howard sliced through the head of a skeleton and then held out his hand before a large spiraling fireball appeared in front of him. Looking at the skeletons, he laughed before a pillar of fire swallowed up the killing intent from the zombies in front of him.

"That's better. Wow, I feel a lot stronger down here," Howard had only been able to make a small fire ball for Vicky, but here it felt like a endless supply of Ki entered his body and activated his Ki Cells. "Now let's turn this into a game, shall we? Come here, zombies!"

Howard took a deep breath and focused himself before he reached down and picked up another sword, spinning it with his wrist playfully before he slashed the silver edge through the neck bone of a zombie. He smiled and turned only to find another hundred zombies running in his direction.

Stepping off his back foot, he went nearly 100 meters in an instant before slashing a zombie in half. To its right, a skeleton turned its skull in surprise while Howards slashed it into pieces.

Howard felt an overflowing power inside of him that kept getting stronger and stronger. Dozens of skeletons skulls flew into the air while he playfully went from zombie to zombie, killing each zombie with ease.

"There you go. No more suffering." Howard smiled and sat down in the pile of zombies while feeling the ground shake. To his right, thousands of more zombies seemed to be appearing from every direction. Instinctively, he knew he couldn't keep defeating them forever.

"Follow me! Follow me!" The green-hair girl that had been watching Howard appeared from a cloud of dust. She had the most gorgeous green blue eyes Howard had ever witnessed and a slender frame with the cutest button nose. She was dressed in black pants and had a white top on that grabbed against her beautiful frame. Behind her, she had a cute pair of white angel like wings on with a horn centered squarely between her brow. "The zombies are only on their third wave! We have to get to safety quick."

"Are you going to hurt me?" Howard tossed a skull into the air and blankly stared at the green haired little beauty standing inches from him. "I'm not in chains anymore, so I will fight back."

"No idiot! I'm in your class!" The girl grabbed his hand and fiercely pulled him out of the pile, dragging him in the sand for several meters. "Damn it! Stand up! There will be millions of zombies in a couple hours!"

"Millions?" Howard flipped up to his feet and looked at the zombies. "Well, I usually am told to stay put until Vicky arrives. Do you know where Vicky is?"

"Vicky? There are no adults down here! Please! Listen to me idiot!"

"Okay! Okay," Howard grabbed the little girl's hand and ran with her into the growing, massive sandstorm brewing in the dark abyss. "However, I still don't know where we are. Is there anything you can tell me?"

"No! We're going to run into the fourth wave! Go faster!" The green haired girl held out her hand and formed a massive icicle spear. Grabbing it from the air, she tossed it forward at thousands of zombies, causing the ground to freeze and hundreds of wanton, evil stares to disappear into ice. "Damn it! Why are you so dense! Do you want to die?"

"I'll just revive," Howard tugged his arm back and stopped running. "I'm tired of getting chased."

Howard held up both his hands and created two more swelling, fiery masses that began to grow larger and larger in the air. Stepping forward, the two masses of fire instantly broke the sound barrier and crashed into a crowd of chasing ghouls.

Green blood shot into the air, and a large fire cloud shot into the air and broke through the sandstorm. It seemed like the chasing monsters had quieted down, however, ten seconds later thousands of more zombies came from every direction.

"NO! You're going to draw more! Please trust me," The girl grabbed Howard's wrist and tugged harder this time.

Howard sighed and looked at the little girl shooting off ice spear after ice spear while jogging further and further into the sightless frontier. Nothing for miles could be seen besides screaming shadows of zombies and skeletons, mindlessly aiming for their deaths.

In the midst of all this death, Howard couldn't help but find the one beautiful spot in the darkness.

"You're really pretty. Who do you sleep with at night?"

"What do you mean who do I sleep with at night! By myself!" The little girl's hand blurred and caused a tidal wave of ice to send hundreds of more zombies flying into the air.

"We're almost to the mountain! Once we're there, the zombies won't be able to approach us!"

"Can't we just defeat them all?" Howard swiftly burgeoned the silver edge of his blade and twisted it through the head of a nearby zombie!

Boom!

A powerful surge of wind knocked back dozens of creeping skeletons before Howard finally noticed a strange oasis forming in the distance.

Seeing this, he stepped off his foot and jumped into the air, landing by a lake with the girl in tow. Noticing his strength, the girl immediately thrust her hand from him, sending a slap towards his face while he looked at the peaceful scenery in sight.

"Idiot! If you could jump like that, you should of done it earlier! My name is Monica! You're supposed to protect people in your class."

"Hi Monica. You're so pretty. Can I touch your horn?" Howard hadn't met another teenager in four years, so his joy seemed to emit from his little, tiny body. She had beautiful blue eyes and the sweetest angry snarl on her face. "I'm sorry, but I haven't told you my name. I'm Howard."

"Hmph, don't you dare touch me horn, and don't you dare sleep with me at night!" Monica hadn't met anyone as bold as Howard before, but even being around him caused her to blush with anger. She had heard about Howard along time ago on the news and the dozens of people he'd mercilessly slaughtered on the day of his awakening.

She still remembered going to the movies the day before her horn grew out of her head, and smiling and laughing with her family. That all changed a few days later.

Once she grew a horn, she got swallowed up by darkness, and fell into a pit of mental despair. Even now, walking Howards towards the one safe haven on this part of the Dark Bloodlands., she still felt like a cloud of death and destruction was weighing her down.

"You look sad. Why are you so sad?"

"My family sold me to the devil, literally." Monica pointed at a small convenience store with dozens of shattered glass windows. It had a small tower of skulls by the open doorway. "What about you? Aren't you upset that you're one of the one in a billion children with a horn on his head?"

"I like to see the bright side of everything," Howard followed her into the convenience store, and looked up at the flickering, broken fluorescent lights shimmering on the ceiling. The store had mostly empty shelves, but a few bagged goods littered on the floor.

At the back of the store, an atm could be seen flickering next to a large statue of a gargoyle.

He chased after Monica and walked into the back of the store, finding a room of shattered glass with two tables. Monica sat down on one side of the table before opening a can of grape juice and tossing him one.

"I don't have anything better. The teacher comes here and gives lessons once a day," Monica blushed and crossed her arms. "Now sit down and drink with me! If you try and run away, I'll kill you!"

"Why are you so upset?" Howard opened the grape juice and quickly gulped all of it in one sip. "We're not on Earth anymore, right? Where is this place?"

"Teacher calls it the Furnace," Monica tossed away the grape juice into a pile of disparate objects in back of the storage room. Sets of clothes laid barren on the floor in different sorted piles. "The Furnace is where they put people like us to burn for all eternity?"

"Why? What did we ever do to them?"

"I don't know! I'm sixteen!" Monica tossed a bag of chips at Howard and pointed at the entranceway. "Anyways, teacher is already here. She comes here to give the students missions."

"Okay, but why won't you sleep with me tonight?" Howard crossed his arms. "Vicky isn't here, so you're going to sleep with me, okay?"

"Ugh, I do whatever teacher wants," Monica grabbed his hand and pulled him towards the entranceway. A massive woman, at least three meters tall, towered over them with a shadow that seemed to spread endlessly into space. The lady smiled at the two children and sat down, causing a large cloud of dust to spread out in two directions.