“Hey bro!” I screamed while nearly tripping over a tree stump. “Chill out! I’m just a mercenary recruiter!” I looked back and saw an old man in a wife beater, blue shorts, and flip flops carrying a vending machine across his shoulders with one arm while chasing me.

It’s always crackheads with the super strength.

The old man swung at me with the vending machine WITH ONE ARM. I managed to barely duck under the blow, and quickly tackled the old man’s leg, causing him to fly forward.

I quickly grabbed my combat knife that I bought from a gas station and quickly did my best impression of a threatening warrior. “Listen, I don’t know why you’re after me.” I took a safety step back. “And honestly, I don’t care. What I do know is that if you keep trying to attack me, neither of us will go home looking the same.”

The old man let out a growl like an animal, and then proceeded to stand back in the way a creature with no bones would. He then lifted up the vending machine and immediately charged at me with a feral scream.

I immediately ran in the other direction, ran headfirst into a low-hanging branch, causing me to stumble backwards in shock, and began flailing my hands around to try to get the branch out of my face. Something connected to my back hard, and I was launched forward.

The impact was not the one you would expect from a vending machine-wielding crackhead, the impact felt more like a tackle than anything else.

A loud thump sounded to my left.

I quickly opened my eyes, which I hadn’t even noticed that I had closed, and turned my head to see the old man staring at me with his eyes rolling to the back of his head.

And a knife lodged in his throat.

“Oh shit,” I breathed as I quickly got myself up to one knee and quickly flipped the guy onto his back. “I'm so sorry, Um-” I then locked my sights on the knife and grabbed the handle. “Don’t worry, I’ll take it out!” I swiftly yanked the knife out of his throat. Thick red blood immediately burst out of his throat along with the sound of choked coughs. “Um, my bad. Let me stick this right back in!” I stabbed the knife right back into the old man’s neck and accidentally stabbed it deeper into the man”s throat.

I froze and began cursing myself as I just watched the old man bleed out on the ground.

I really just killed someone. I accidentally killed someone in the most pathetic way possible. Well, the guy did try to kill me with a vending machine. He really just picked up a whole vending machine filled with canned drinks…. Maybe I did the world a favor.

A hand swiftly grabbed my neck, and I’m pretty sure the entire forest could hear my scream as the old man who just died came back in record time for an Undead.

“WHHA-” I barely got out as the old man began getting up in that weird boneless way. He then lifted me off the ground by my neck at a perfect 90 degree angle like a dumbbell.

“Okay-” I coughed as I tried to pry the old man”s grip from around my neck. “Whatever you be taking, you need to stop.” I then began to punch his forearm as hard as I could, but alas, no effect.

Spot’s began to cloud my vision and suddenly the strength in my arms began to fade. I then eyed the knife in his throat, and as a last-ditch effort, I swiftly pulled the knife out and used it to stab him in the eye.

The old man screamed at the top of his lungs and immediately dropped me.

I began breathing in the fresh air greedily as I quickly began to regain my sight. I finally got back up to my feet and didn’t waste my time turning around as I began running as fast as I could through the woods.

It takes 3 days for a human to turn into a zombie. How the hell did he turn so fast?

And if that’s not the case, then what is he?

 A loud scream came from behind that was similar to the old man’s but much more grim and monstrous to be the same guy.

I continued running as fast as I could through the wooden path. Then I heard loud footsteps slowly gain from behind.

I sped up and began running faster than I ever had in my life, but even then, the sound of footsteps continued to gain on me.

I leaped over a tree trunk like an Olympic gymnast and managed to hit the ground without losing an inch of momentum, but even after the most athletic display of my life, I heard the old man do the same thing in half the time and possibly get a speed boost on top of that.

I began approaching a hill, and before I could even process the hill, the old man tackled me down it, and based off of the fact that I mostly landed on top of him throughout the entire trip down, I suspect he didn’t know about the hill either.

We then hit something solid that immediately broke us apart. I continued rolling down the hill for a solid 5 seconds until I finally reached the bottom.

I got up and was immediately about to make another run for it, but I managed to spot a giant hole in the ground that leads to God knows where. I slowly peaked over the edge and was surprised when I was unable to see the bottom.

It possibly leads to some type of cave. It did show that there was a mining area somewhere near here, this is possibly one of the emergency escape holes, just in case of some sort of cave-in.

Possibly a very old one at that.

That’s when I had an idea, a very terrible one that has a lot of risks, but based on how fast that guy is, there is no way I can out run him.

I quickly turned around and began looking around for the old man, and I spotted him looking around for me. I guess that knife in the eye did a critical hit on his eyesight.

Well, no shit it did.

I took a deep breath as I took a step forward. “HEY!” I shouted as loud as I could. The old man turned around, and my blood went cold as the current old man somehow managed to grow tentacles out of its neck like some type of octopus.

He then charged at me with his hands aimed for my throat, with the blade still in his eye. I got myself ready while eyeing the old man’s right hand and said a quick prayer that the one move I learned from a comic book wasn’t a bunch of malarkey.

As soon as he was within 2 feet of me, that’s when I made my move. In one swift movement, I grabbed the old man’s right arm, slung it over my shoulder, and used his momentum to send him flying into the hole.

But somebody in heaven must be out for me today, because out of nowhere, the old man’s head popped off like a bottle top, and tentacles immediately shot out from around its neck and grabbed my ankles.

I was yanked off my feet and was quickly being dragged into the hole with the creature. “NO-N-NO!” I panicked as I was trying to stop myself from falling into the hole. But it was no use as I was suddenly hanging on to grass strands and air.

“Well, damn,” I sighed as I turned around and saw the endless darkness that I am now falling into, and in the midst of the darkness, the headless old man was still clawing at me and trying to kill me. I stared at him for a moment, and then felt a bubbling rage as I quickly turned around and began searching the air for his head.

I turned around and saw the old man’s head flying a foot above me, still bearing the knife I lodged in his eye socket. I grabbed the head, pulled the knife out, and threw his head as hard as I could. His head hit his chest, and I quickly began diving after him.

I then grabbed him by his chest and began stabbing him repeatedly as I yelled, “If I’m going to die, I might as well make sure you are too!” The creature laughed as he grabbed his own arm, snapped it, pulled it off as if it was a chicken wing, and made himself a spiked bone out of his arm stump.

“Let’s die together!” The creature laughed as he stabbed my arm. We then began to go stab for stab as we continued falling.

Each stab was painful, but instead of me stopping to worry about the wounds sustained, I just kept stabbing as hard as I could.

No point in worrying about it anyway.

After what seemed to have been a hundred stabs, the creature finally stopped moving, and his body went limp.

I let out a sigh as I let the creature go, and as soon as I did that, I could practically feel the adrenaline wearing off and my body feeling light and cold. My body slowly began to turn around and face the sky, and honestly, it looked pretty nice. A speck of light, shining in what seems to be an endless darkness. I guess, in a way, that can be the meaning of many moments in life and in history.

Wow, look at me having deep thoughts in a hopeless situation.

I laughed to myself as my eyes slowly began forcing their way shut, and then there was a blissful silence.

Alright, so where will I go? Heaven? Hell? The Labyrinth? Please don’t let it be the Labyrinth, this is as much fighting as I would ever want to do in my life.

I then began feeling something shaking my body despite the numbness in my body, and I surprisingly slowly opened my eyes despite my current condition, and was met with deity.

She had tan skin, pink and black lips, weirdly hypnotizing emerald green eyes, and snakes for hair. She’s wearing a light blue outfit that I can’t make out yet.

I smiled brightly at the Gorgan. “So this is heaven?” I looked around, but quickly returned my eyes right back to her. “Place could use a little work. But if all the women here compare to your beauty, then consider me staying permanently.”

The woman raised her eyebrow for a second in confusion, then let out a small laugh. “This isn’t heaven.” she said plainly.

“Oh,” I said while looking around again. “Makes sense.” I sighed, but still returned my eyes right back to her. “Well, consider me one of hell’s soldiers then, my deity.”

“Your not in hell either,” she said while dragging her hands to my chest. The hand movement sent a shiver through my body, and before I could even say anything, she began ripping off my shirt.

“Woah woah woah,” I said while grabbing her hands and laughing due to nervousness. “Okay, this is kinda embarrassing, but to be honest, I’ve never done this before. So can we start off slow?” I said while breathing hard.

The woman looked at me as if I was crazy as she showed me her red hands.

“Your not dead,” she calmly delivered. I then focused in on her hands and noticed the blood dripping down them. “You fell from the ceiling along with that monster.” She pointed behind me. I turned around and saw the creature I fought with the knife still in his neck. “And Im doctor, and currently the only reason why you’re still alive.” I turned around and saw the doctor’s outfit around her very distracting figure.

“Oh,” I said simply as I began remembering all the embarrassing things I just said recently. I slowly let go of her hands and laid back down while closing my eyes.

“So can I start mending you now?” she asked as she already began touching my chest again.

“No, just please let me die.” I sighed while covering my face to hide my embarrassment.

She let out a laugh as the sound of faith magic began to sound from her. “Why would your deity let you die?” she jested.

Lord, why couldn’t you just let me die?