Bats flew around me, even more than I saw previously. I didn’t know how they did it, but they certainly improved my sour mood drastically, even as I saw the hollowed-out stone shell outside their home. Still, they didn’t attack me at all which was quite nice as it meant that I had a shelter for now, something I desperately needed to think.

How on earth … or whatever this planet was called did I want to get out of this place? It definitely seemed to be underground, but there had to be a way to reach the surface and a safe place. Frustrated that I couldn’t follow the woman because she was too fast and I was still weakened back then, I went through my options.

First of all, was obviously to stay here forever and die because of thirst. Not a great option and definitely not something I wanted to pick. The second option was as bad or even worse in my opinion which was obviously to go out and search for a way to escape this place. This way, there was at least a chance to survive, but it was more probable that I would die nearly instantly. After all, there could be more of these crabs out there and the spider I saw … well, I was glad that it was dead.

“You aren’t going to help me, are you?” The bats were obviously more occupied with flying around or sleeping on the ceiling than actually conversing with me and never answered my call for help. Still, I didn’t exactly count on them in the first place although they had shown me a base level of intelligence by bringing me the dagger already, but they also stole my food and left me behind. One of them even sat on my head, interrupting me completely in trying to find another way out of this.

Obviously, there was none and an hour later, I squeezed out of the crack in the wall again with my little new friend resting comfortably in my blonde hair. We kind of got along if I didn’t move my head too abruptly but if I did, then he would rudely pull on my hair, something I had to endure twice already.

After stepping out, I directly turned right towards where I met the large crab. Slowly but surely, I peeked around the corner and exhaled loudly. The crabs had gone away and the corridor was now completely empty. The surface here was a lot rougher than the place I woke up in and had more in common with a cave than a handcrafted tunnel. I obviously chose another route and followed the tunnel I woke up in for several minutes. The tunnel didn’t change at all during that time, it was always the crystals on the ceiling that lighted up a boring stone and here and there, corridors that split of from this path.

I considered taking one of them but quickly dismissed this thought as I heard an ear-shattering cry coming right out of the path I just wanted to take. And so, I followed the tunnel I was already on, wary about any more crabs or other creatures and stayed as silent as possible. So silent in fact, that I could hear a conversation in the distance without being spotted. Naturally, I couldn’t make out any words as I didn’t understand the language in the first place, but I was at least sure that these were humans or another intelligent species.

I sneaked a bit further and soon found myself on a stair that lead into a large hall, filled with bright campfires and beings that were quite grotesque to look at. They were probably just a few centimetres shorter than me but had a disproportionally large head and pointy, hairy ears. Their skin was green and most of them were nude, but that wasn’t even the worst part. Their teeth were way longer and more crooked than any dentist would find acceptable, with some of their teeth even sticking out of their closed mouth.

Their teeth fitted perfectly to their eating habits though. They were chewing on raw, uncooked organs from all kinds of animals. I nearly gagged loudly as I saw what they were eating, with blood spewing nearly everywhere and faeces rotting in the corner. If this was their hygiene standards, I shouldn’t be surprised what they were doing to their fallen comrades, but I grimaced nonetheless as I looked further into the room.

In the middle of the large hall was a field full of bones, completely unlike what I had seen in purgatory. The ground was clearly littered with new bones which still had some rotten flesh on them and a pyramid of all their prey´s and tribesman´s bones stood tall in the centre, nearly two metres high with a simple throne on top of it. A king, munching on an arm, that I could clearly identify as that of his underlings sat on it, overseeing the disgusting activity around him.

His whole body looked different from the others as he was taller with around two metres in height, but also had clearly defined muscles everywhere and surprisingly even clothing. With a mixture of disgust and fear, I looked at the long metallic spear, resting against the side of the throne. It was clearly made by a more … civilized blacksmith and it didn’t take long for me to realize where he got that from as I laid on the ground peeking just above the stairs.

Disgusted, I robbed back, with a horrible odour filling my nostrils, but something else as well. It was just slight, completely overshadowed by anything else, but there was something that smelled incredibly good. I felt myself twirling in a field of roses with my mum, saw the sun shining on the rings of Saturn and felt like this was the perfect smell. Roses, incense, whatever you take all couldn’t compare to this underlying smell. I shuddered even more and didn’t even want to find out how these ugly, naked creatures could create something this great and finally crawled around the corner. The scent, both the horrible and the sweet one lessened considerably and I finally had a clear head again.

“Breath in … breath out … this world isn´t full of these creatures, so calm down … I am going to get out of here, I just need to calm down.” I was hyperventilating, shocked and in quite a bad mental shape. That day, I saw these ugly creatures. I saw cannibalism. I saw a carnage that was beyond imaginable. I saw how someone enjoyed the demise of another so much that he needed to build a throne out of it. But worst of all, I finally realized that the crab wasn’t a single incident. The spider, although dead, was also on my mind together with the screams I heard earlier. This place was filled with creatures that wanted my death and I was incapable to fend off even one of them.

“… I just need to learn how to fight. Problem solved…” As easy as it sounded, it really wasn’t. Without any training partner, I would just die countless times, something I had to avoid at all costs. There was the option of finding the woman I saved again, but I realized that this was quite a hard task.

One last time, I looked inside the large room, right into the eyes of their king who was staring directly at me. He grinned wildly, grabbed his spear and stood up, shouting loudly at his subjects. I immediately turned around and yelped as I felt the airflow of a metallic spear flying just past me and impaling itself deep into the stone wall. I was astonished by the sheer strength and would certainly stand there in awe for several minutes if it weren’t for the shouts that came out of the room.

Organs were thrown away, weapons were picked up and a king stomped of bones as he dashed out of the room, following me, running while tears blocked my vision, and the bat that grabbed my hair, completely unfazed by the current situation. I wished I had this iron will, but I clearly lacked in that regard. I didn’t want to die again and I certainly didn’t want to be eaten. I didn’t want to live in this world, but every possible way out of this dilemma was taken from me. I just had the option to run, but I quickly realized that there was nowhere to run to. I was sure that even the bats couldn’t stop these things and their king. And honestly, I didn’t want to endanger them further.

I gently grabbed the bat on my head and with protest, I threw it in the air while running. It glared at me for a second but quickly flew back to its home, probably only worried about its comfortable resting place. I ran for two more minutes, but each time I looked back, there was this large monstrosity following me, a retrieved spear in its hands. This thing grinned, enjoying my despair and didn’t even catch up to me as I ran a bit more slowly. It was playing with me, completely aware that it was much stronger alone and even more confident because of his hundred or so subjects that followed behind him.

I couldn’t run away, no matter what I tried and I realized that. If I would run for too long, this thing would get bored and simply kill me in one strike. Running faster was also not an option because I already ran for my life for quite a bit. I was pretty desperate and just wanted to sit in a corner and cry, but I still managed to formulate a simple plan. If this king was so arrogant as to give me a chance, I would naturally use it.

He didn’t see me as a threat and thus didn’t strike me as I slowed down gradually. I was feigning exhaustion and was breathing heavily, just to fuel his arrogance even more. At one point, I turned around and stopped, waiting for what this thing would do while holding my fists in front of my face. It was a challenge, spoken just by my body language and I knew that he would accept. I just knew it as soon as I looked at him that it would be too boring for him to just kill me. Somehow, I understood that he wanted to see me suffer as soon as I looked into his eyes from the distance and realized that he wouldn’t, no, couldn’t ignore this challenge in front of its underlings.

It casually threw the spear to the side and laughed loudly. I had to look away from an open mouth with disgusting, foul and sharp teeth inside. It opened its arms wide and showed me its palms, indicating to me that it would allow me to strike first, without any defence from its side. Arrogance at its finest. Just because I was a little girl now, did he really think that I didn’t know how to hurt someone, especially someone like it? I stepped closer and prepared to swing my fist at his muscle packed belly.

“Magical …. Fist!” I kicked him right between the legs. He howled in pain and his hands immediately raced downwards but stopped midway as I turned around and wanted to run away. So far, so good. Everything worked out like I hoped it would, but what I didn’t calculate for was his pain tolerance. Before I made two steps, he was already back to his senses and running after me. It took just two seconds or so to tackle me to the ground brutally. I scraped my hands and knees as I tried to bolster my fall, but that was the least of my worries right now. I tried to stand up desperately, but this guy quickly stepped on my small feet and broke a few bones with his weight.

I screamed and nearly blacked out from the pain I never felt before. Sure, being poisoned wasn’t nice as well, but I was in delirium back then. As my bones broke, I was fully conscious and didn’t know how to deal with something like that.

Quickly afterwards he grabbed me by my neck and lifted me up while tears were rolling down my cheeks. I was just barely hanging in there as we made eye contact once again. His eyes were glowing in an angry red and even back then, I noticed that it was probably not the best decision to hurt him like I did.

He continued to squeeze my neck, trying to suffocate me, but that didn’t work out. I couldn’t breathe at all, but strangely enough, I didn’t need to. Frustrated, he threw me on the ground and retrieved his spear, this time smiling quite horribly. Before he could do anything to me, I tried out something that worked quite well for me so far, at least with the evil god. In pain, I tried to talk which worked surprisingly well considering that he just tried to choke me to death.

“Have you ever heard of the police? You know, the guys in this wheeo wheeo car? Well, I guess sirens were different on different planets, but whatever!” He stopped for a second, but still grinned wildly. Did he think I was spewing out my last will or something? In any case, I didn’t really talk to him, more to myself. I just needed distraction from the fate that awaited me once again and the pain in my foot.

“They will come to you! And then … “ I imitated a pistol with my hand and pointed my finger towards him. “Bang! Shot for crimes against humanity, rest in peace. And if you aren’t shot for that … well, the police on this planet is quite backwards … sucks to be green I guess, but don’t worry, there are hotlines for everything. Trust me, I once read that there were hotlines to fix your telephone. Can you imagine that? You need a telephone to get your telephone fixed and if you are lucky, you wouldn’t spend ten hours with shitty musi-“

It seemed that he realized that I wouldn’t stop talking and didn’t even grasp accurately what was happening around me anymore. I was just barely there in the first place, spewing nonsense as much as I could, trying to push my fate just a bit further back.

It didn’t take long until the tip of the spear slowly bore itself into my chest. I screamed and barely noticed that he enjoyed every second of this as I was forcefully pulled out of this black world that just started to engulf me again. Slowly but surely, he pushed the tip deeper until it broke a bone and with it, punctuated my left lung.

Sadly, he immediately pulled out after that and repeated the same process on the other side. My world was just filled with pain by then and my lungs quickly filled up with blood. I groaned and coughed as he stabbed me once more with his spear inside my belly, seemingly delighted that I didn’t die as fast as I hoped.

It took him six thrusts to finally murder me completely which I found … quite unfortunate.