How much did I miss this? The fluffiness of a mattress, the warmth of such a perfect blanket and the peace I felt while waking up slowly were all something that felt like I didn’t experience in a long time. Yet it also meant something horrible for me. Whenever I would wake up on this exact bed, it also meant that I was missing something, or even worse something I didn’t want was added to me.

I was absolutely new to this soul manipulation thing the god was going for and not even knowing what actually happened to me was absolutely frightening. And the god, sitting beside the bed didn’t help at all. He was seemingly engrossed with a book in an unknown language but glanced at me from time to time as I stretched my arms. He was looking over to me so often, that it got on my nerves quite quickly.

“What is it?” The book seemingly vanished and the god smiled happily. I on the other hand was quite crushed by this behaviour. Whatever he did, it was successful judging by his mood.

“Nothing.” As expected, he couldn’t stop grinning at all and stood up quietly. “Should I train you now, or do you want to keep staying in the bed?” I immediately stood up and jumped off the bed, as I now had a clear path to staying alive. I smoothed my dress and followed the god, sure that this was the turning point. He did make one wrong decision in underestimating my motivation to get away from him.

“Why are you training me?” Still, I wasn’t that naive to think that he had no reason to do this whatsoever. I believed that this god had some kind of hidden agenda he absolutely wouldn’t share with me. Otherwise, some of his actions just wouldn’t make sense.

“It´s a secret.” His answer made me feel like I was the losing one here, although I couldn’t yet grasp how this was supposed to be the case. Even as I tried to get on his nerves again, hoping that he would tell me whatever he tried to hide, he just stayed silent and didn’t react at all. I continued nagging until we were in the backyard, which was as barren as the surroundings, but at least cleared from any stones.

Still worried about his secret, I stood in front of him and squinted my eyes. Something about him was different than usual, which was quite hard to detect as he was just human-shaped and was otherwise completely different. Still, his stature seemed to be a little different, although it was quite hard to even notice the difference.

“What now?” My hope was to get better quite fast, but I knew that I would probably spent more time than wanted with this guy.

“Try to dodge.” Without any other warning, he swung a pitch-black sword, aiming directly at my neck. It was too fast for me to react or even see where this mysterious sword came from, but thankfully he stopped just before it touched my skin. The left side of my hair fell to the ground, cut by an impossibly sharp blade. Shocked, I stared at it for a good while until I had the willpower to move a step aside from the blade that was still dangerously close to my neck.

“Okay … could you give me at least a little chance?” How was I supposed to ever react to that? In one moment, everything was fine, but just a moment after that, there was a sword dangerously close. I couldn’t even see everything correctly, let alone move away.

“Hmm … I guess we start at a level even a child could handle.” For a moment, I was hoping for some real survival tips, but then, the sword morphed into a short spear, aimed directly at my chest. “Run.”

Children level? What kind of child was he dealing with usually? Some kind of superhuman that could fly? I mean, he already stabbed me once before I turned around completely. This time he was a lot slower than before, but still too fast to react.

The wound didn’t hurt at all though. Just like before, all pain felt so incredibly dull that the wound didn’t incapacitate me in any way. Moreover, as soon as the spear left my shoulder, the wound healed nearly instantly together with my dress. Still, it was a strange experience and the only comparison I have is … well, a stabbing wound without the pain, so it is not something I wanted to experience that often. And thus, I ran away in a dark world, only illuminated by lanterns in the garden.

At first, I ran in a straight line away from him, making me the perfect target. The first spear hit my chest from behind, stabbed right through me and lodged itself into the ground. Immediately, I impaled myself further and struggled to get free, until the god pulled the spear out again. He was laughing while doing so and all in all, didn’t care about me in the slightest.

“Is that all you got? Why don’t you try actually evading?” I rolled on my back and wondered if he was insane. Evading? These throws that would make an Olympian javelin thrower envious? Angry at his impossible demands, I touched my still tingling chest and glared at the god.

“Again.” If this was how I was supposed to learn how to fight, so be it. There was no actual damage done in this training and I guessed that the god even wanted to train me for some unfathomable reason.

This time, I walked backwards slowly and monitored every movement by the god who was now equipped with a new, even longer spear. Did he wanted to make hitting me even more humiliating or did he gave me an actual chance?

It was probably both as he had already faked throwing the spear several times and even smiled satisfied each time I twitched. Seconds went by as I walked backwards and increased my chances of dodging further and he did exactly nothing. He apparently waited for something while always smiling self-confident.

This something was not that I stumbled over a stone, instead, it was just a blink of an eye that he used to throw the spear. By the time I noticed that he moved, the spear was already heading towards me. He didn’t intend to give me any chance at all with the longer spear. Instead, he just wanted to make sure that it got stuck as it flew right through my neck. I was pushed backwards by the force and soon found myself on the ground again, trying to get the heavy spear out of my neck while the god stood beside me, amused by my misfortune.

After quite some time of struggling, the spear vanished and my body healed again. I glared at him once more and stood up again, trying to forget the disgusting sight I must have given him. He wasn’t fazed by it one bit though, showing once again how insane he was.

“My, my, it looks like you had a bad day. Maybe you should have a shower to wash all the dirt away and even try to tame whatever this is supposed to be.” He pointed towards my hair which was obviously quite a mess at this time, but I was already way over the point where I cared about how I looked.

“Again.” I wouldn’t give up this fast. I was dead set on surviving the next time and immediately tried again, without much success. This time, it was my heart, but at least I managed to say upright somehow.

“Again.” I didn’t blink at all. For a full minute, we looked at each other in silence while I stood twenty-odd metres away. He grew bored before me and this time, I successfully twisted my body. Sadly, he didn’t aim for my upper body this time and instead blew off my whole right leg.

“What am I doing wrong?” While waiting for my leg to regrow, I continuously hit the ground in frustration. Expecting to get good this fast was probably not appropriate, but I needed to get better. Fast.

“You just aren’t good enough.” I gritted my teeth in frustration and threw some dirt at him. Did he want to anger me that badly? Did he expect me to be better while I was furious?

“Wow … really helpful.” It was apparent that he didn’t want to help me yet, so I stood up and walked a few metres away. The staring duel began once again.