“What kind of naming sense is that… Did I do all that yesterday?”

The kitchen table was covered with papers with all sorts of drawings for traps and notes for how to install them.

Matthew slowly remembered his determination to see this through yesterday. It was still inexplicable now that he was sober, but he felt like going through with it anyway.

‘Plus, now that I seem to have worked very hard for it, even if I don’t remember, it would be a shame not to use all this.’ he thought, trying to come up with any justification he could.

He quickly washed his face, gulped down a couple of glasses of water and dumped what remained of his liquor from the day before into the sink.

He cleaned up the table and organized the plans he had come up with, sorting what was useless drunken garbage from actually implementable ideas.

For 6 days straight, he worked on clearing the area around the portal gate, building traps and setting them up. The bed and table were gone to the side, leaving a wide area in front of the gate free.

‘Alright, it’s been 10 days since the portal appeared now. Everything I could set up as a trap is ready. There still hasn’t been any contact from the detection team and the portal release still hasn’t happened.’

Matthew was sitting on his bed, sharpening a hunting knife he bought three years ago. He got it as a token of determination and sharpened it every time he felt lonely or angry at his idle situation, even though he never used it. 

He was facing the portal gate behind all kinds of traps. Portal gates resembled round and slowly moving vertical whirlpools that were floating just above ground. They did not have a set color, but were mostly dark shades of purple or blue. 

Just as he was about to leave things for the day and go to sleep, the alarm he set up to detect any change in the gate started blaring. The whirlpool’s movements were accelerating.

He quickly got up and fixed his gaze on the gate, his knife in hand. All his senses were on alert.

Not a second later, a wolf head started exiting the whirlpool. It slowly got fully out of the portal gate and assessed its surroundings. 

“Shit shit shit, here we go! Do or die, Matt, do or die.” he rapidly said to himself.

As he said that, the wolf noticed him and started growling. 

“Fuck!” Matthew exclaimed, growing a bit agitated after their gazes met.

The wolf took a stance and jumped. Or rather, it tried. As soon as the wolf was out of the portal, it triggered traps and its neck and one of its paws were caught in metal wire nooses. As it tried to move, the snare traps pulled the paw and head apart and traps with shotgun shells were fired at the side of the beast.

Wires laid on the ground below the body were pulled up, then to the side, violently thrusting the wolf into a spike wall. After that, an anvil dropped square on its skull, multiple blades were launched at its body and a carpet of caltrops was flung all around its paws. 

Matthew was still standing, his eyes wide open, watching the events unfold as planned. Except for one detail. In a blink, the wolf snapped the cables that pulled on his body, and continued to advance towards Matthew, visibly unaffected by all the traps.

“Fuuuuuuuuuuck! I knew I should have just called to signal the portal when nobody came!” he yelled, flustered.

The beast jumped, closed the few meters that separated them in an instant, its mouth aiming directly at Matthew’s throat.

Matthew barely had time to react, and pushed the head of the beast to the side right before it reached his neck, purely out of reflex. With no time to think, he tried to stab at it following the movement, but the beast evaded before jumping back up. Matthew tried to dodge the jaws but only saved his neck. The beast ended up biting hard on his right shoulder.

Matthew struggled out of the beast’s jaw, ripping skin and muscle on his shoulder, and staggered back from the pain. He switched his hand holding the knife. He could barely feel his right hand anymore. 

The beast did not stop and pounced at him once more, jumping straight to his neck again. Matthew managed to dodge the jaws but was pushed down on the ground. The wolf shot onto his torso and aimed for the neck as the sole target.

“Uwaaaaaa”, he yelled as loud as he could.

Matthew tried to stab at the incoming face. The claws were piercing into his chest. He closed his eyes in pain when liquid poured onto his face and he heard a whimper.

Matthew opened his eyes. His vision was dyed red. The knife had scratched the wolf’s palate and blood had fallen on his face. The wolf retreated its head shortly before trying again, still going for Matthew’s throat. 

“Just fucking die!”

He stabbed one more time at the face coming onto him. This time, the knife penetrated the beast’s eye. Pulling its head back, it pushed harder on Matthew’s chest and clawed deeper into his skin.

“Waaaaa”, he screamed in pain and fear. 

Matthew stabbed and stabbed again at the wolf’s face with everything he had. Blood was flowing all over his face and he could not see anything, but he kept stabbing and yelling. He had no idea how much time passed or how many times he stabbed. It continued until he heard a ringing sound.

…

‘Did I die? Was I killed by that beast? I can’t see, I feel heavy… There’s a weird metallic taste in my mouth?’ he thought, flustered.

Matthew turned his head and spat. As he did that, the blood that had pooled before his eyes flowed down and he could see again. He tried to wipe his eyes but his hands bumped over his chest. There was the body of the wolf laying on him, a knife plunged into its throat.

‘Huh? So I did manage to kill it, but passed out, then?’

He pushed the body to the side and noticed a floating window over his head.

[Congratulations!]