Brandt Monte stumbled and fell. The kiss from Chester lingered on his lips — more from the shock than … than what? Back in the House, Brandt had messed up feelings concerning Chester. At times he had wanted Chester … but not exactly. He had wanted to know how Chester tasted — had wanted to know how Chester felt against his skin. But the desires hadn’t been a matter of love or lust. Chester had been messed up by their mutual horror story. While Brandt had escaped enough to live a functional life, the night had proven that Chester had improved little. Chester had remained broken and had become more dangerous.

And Chester’s infatuation had festered into something twisted and probably deadly.

The situation had become apparent very quickly. Brandt would either follow Chester into the storms or would end up dead in a flooded gutter.

Fellow House residents had called Brandt a ‘cold bitch’ and other names. They said he could only love himself, and that wasn’t entirely false — just not in the way they imagined.

Brandt had never loved anyone, had never felt attracted toward anyone — male or female. That lack of direction made teenage hormone hunting awkward. His interest in Chester was based on their friendship and not something else. Well, not really true. His interest in Chester had been based entirely on something else — finding someone to aid him in getting rid of his father.

After the funeral for their fathers, he discovered that he liked the homicidal maniac. He still did. And, he had poisoned the bastards so that Chester could finish them. All Chester needed was a bit of direction.

But, Brandt was still confused about the idea that Chester had a crush on him — admittedly the crush had been when he was trapped in the body of a girl. But if he had known, he would have indulged Chester, but probably not to Chester’s satisfaction.

And compared to the other emotional garbage between them, disappointing sex would not have even been a footnote in an appendix.

Brandt had been so distracted by the sudden events that he failed to notice he missed the floor. Then he was rolling down red sands under three big, red, full moons — head over heels and uncontrolled descent. He managed to roll to a side which resulted in him just sliding. He even managed to come to a stop when the dune leveled out.

A computerized voice said, “Introduction. Abyss First Leaf: The Shattered Gates of Hell.”

“Dang, lad,” a male voice said. A dark figure stood up — sand pouring off of a tarp the creature was hiding under. “Thou knows how to scare off all the fish.” One of its eyes gleamed in the night.

Brandt looked around — sand and sand dunes as far as he could see, no smell of the sea, no sound of waves. “Fish?”

The creature pulled off its tarp — careful not to dislodge its wide brim hat — and started shaking off the sand from the tarp and its poncho. “Aye, lad. All this floats over the World Sea. If thee burrows down far enough, thou can touch the sea, poke through the membrane with a spear and get yourself dinner.”

It folded up its tarp and stuffed the tarp into a pack. “It takes a while for the fish to settle down and come within poking range.” It looked up at the moons. “Not enough time now. Well, let’s get to safety. I have a camp this way.”

Brandt looked around the empty desert. “Safety? From what?”

Other ‘fishermen’ began to rise out of the sand. The first tossed its spear to the side and approached Brandt and looked him in the eye.

Yes, Brandt was sure the creature had an artificial eye — one of those that had the laser targeting option. Plenty of those who went into private security were paid to have an eye replaced to make them more intimidating.

“By the Foul Divinities.” It seized Brandt’s head to look at his ears or more specifically above his ears, to look at his teeth, to look at his backside.

Its one hand was flesh, and its other was metal.

“Oh, lad,” it sighed with sorrow and resignation, and then it shook its head. “Thou come along, else thee don’t want to be long in this world or any other. Wherever thee were goin’, thou got the wrong way about it.” It turned and set off. The creature had something like snowshoes to it from sinking into the sand.

Brandt tried a few steps, but he sank up to his ankles or more with each step. “Wait.”

“Nay, lad. The hounds will be sniffing around soon enough.”

“Do you have another pair?” He gestured to the wide shoes.

The creature sat on the sand and started to take its shoes off. “Nay, lad. Take these. I was hoping to avoid calling upon the Force — its use draws the hounds and worse like filings to a loadstone. Do thou have a blade?”

Brandt felt through his pockets. No multitool. “No.” He must have dropped it somewhere. He looked back up at the path he made by tumbling then by sliding down the dune.

“Here. Let’s get thee into these.” The creature swiftly got his feet secured to the wide shoes with straps like a lawn chair. It then offered Brandt a hand. “Up thee come.”

Brandt looked at the hand.

Claws — the hand of flesh had fingers which ended in black sharpened nails.

Brandt took the hand and was easily pulled to his feet.

“Now just walk the best thee can.”

“Thank you.” Brandt held out a hand. “I’m —”

The creature took a glance at the offered greeting and snapped a hand over Brandt’s mouth and hissed in his ear. “We never offer names in the open. It is too easy for the evil seers to overhear it and use it against thee.”

“Seers?”

The creature shook its head. “There will be time for answers when we get thee to safety.”

“Why are you doing this?”

It started walking again — even without the wide shoes, it didn’t sink.

Brandt fell in beside it, though he struggled with the strange way he needed to walk.

“Helping thee?” it asked.

“Yeah.”

“The short answer is this is what we always did — help others. The longer answer is there are too few of us left and too many things trying to drive us into extinction. If we can help someone else live to see another day, that is what we do for survival of our honor, our ethics, our species.”

Brandt gave it a disbelieving side glance. “Always helped others?”

The creature remained silent for a moment then it gave a smile twisted by scars. “We weren’t always wise about it.” It shook its head, again. “Did thou know that every civilization has an immutable lifespan?”

Confusion crinkled Brandt’s forehead. “No.”

“We knew that fact, but we didn't believe it applied to us. We had achieved what would be called a decadent society. We had met all our material needs for all of our people. No hunger. No poverty. We made handcrafted gifts for each other. There was no, how-can-I-have-more attitudes. Instead, we had a how-can-I-make-you-happier system of beliefs? And that worked fine for us. It was bad for everyone when another civilization found us.” The creature brushed open his poncho and drew a sword hilt.

The other ‘fishermen’ gripped their fishing spears tightly.

Brandt saw the creature’s ponchos weren't true ponchos, but more like a rug or blanket with a hole for the head and neck.

Blood oozed out of the hilt the first creature had drawn. But the blood did not drip upon the ground; instead, it flowed to fill up an invisible container shaped like a curved blade — much like a samurai sword.

“When,” the creature continued in the same conversational tone, “we are jumped, I need thee to hit the ground and lie as still and silent as possible. The hounds attack both movement and sound.”

The blood of its blade solidified into ruby — glittering, sparkling, glowing in the moonlight.

Brandt heard the hounds sounding like a thousand cries-of-pain and screams-of-fear echoed between Brandt’s ears. All that sound coalesced into something approaching a single word,

Brandt blinked. What kind of howl or roar was that?

“On second thought, lad. We’re going to run for it. Do thou have a source of fire?” The creature started jogging.

“I have a lighter.” Brandt patted his pockets and then shook his head. “No. I must’ve lost it, too.”

The creature nodded. “No matter what, thou and the others keep running. I'll try to deal with them — at least keep them off of thee. If they catch thee, punch them for all you’re worth.”

“They are afraid of fire?”

The creature chuckled. “Not really. Fire is one of the few things which will kill them, but they aren’t aware enough to be cautious. Thou just punch them as hard as thee can. With luck, thy fist will get penetrate their skin, and thou can grab something vital.”

“So, yank a heart or something will kill them?”

The creature let out a laugh. “Nay, lad. Nothing in the Abyss is that easy.” Wings came out through the sides of its poncho, it leaped into the air, spun a handless cartwheel over the top of Brandt and brought its ruby sword down into a black, deformed thing.

Jaws and muzzle like a wolf, upright triangular ears, forearms like a gorilla, hind legs like a wolf, a tail like a monkey, and way, way too many tentacles promised to haunt his nightmares for decades to come.

Brandt stumbled and fell.

Tiny red dots for eyes seared their way into his darkest fears. The hound unleashed a sound someplace between a howl and a gargle. Tentacles whipped from its mouth promising to probe all of Brandt’s openings.

Screams-of-fear and cries-of-pain echoed between his ears as if answering the terror before him.

Brandt scrambled to his feet and ran.

He made it a dozen paces and then he saw two demons racing toward him.

Neither really flew. Feet ran along the ground, unfurling the wings which flapped once, twice, feet touching the sand for one stride, two, and then back into the air. They moved fast and stayed low — beneath the height of the surrounding dunes. Each carried a trident.

One slowed as he approached Brandt. “Who are they attacking?”

The other took a slightly longer leap and brought his trident down into another hound.

Brandt shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“Keep running it this direction. We have a light on. It will remain on until we return or we die.” He then ran/flew past the demon fighting the hound.

Brandt saw more hounds bounding over the sands toward him. He turned and fled.

More gargle howls and answering scream/cries echoed between his ears.

Punches — so many punches screamed out of his past pummeling his body. Cigarettes burning his skin.

Brandt knew he fell against the sand again. He staggered to move forward.

The lies he had to tell the medicos or else his father would ram his head into another doorknob — the doorknob was the lie. The punches were the truth.

Brandt tumbled into the sand, and the old lies and old truths tumbled together — pain, fear, screams, silence, tears. And then staring at the dead body of his father — no, not really his father. And Chester’s father lying dead next to the man who should have been a father. Yes, they both should have been fathers. They weren’t — not even in death.

He shoved himself upward to crawl toward the camp.

The poisoned piss their fathers called beer puddled on the floor mingling with the blood that oozed from the stab wounds.

The police hadn't even questioned Brandt or Chester. The House residents weren’t even the worth of digital space to open an investigation.

Howls that gurgled wormed their way into his memories like black tentacles until they strangled him squeezing his lungs.

He blacked out hitting the sand one more time.

“Easy now,” a motherly voice coxed at him.

Brandt looked up to see a kindly, red women with golden horns growing out of the front of her head — long thin, twisting horns like a gazelle’s. Her voice might have been motherly, but her figure shouted wet-dream-material.

He started to sit up, but her lovely hand restrained him.

“Not yet, dear. That pack of hounds unleashed a lot of howls into thee. Thou recovered right quick. Quick is good, dear, quite excellent. Just lie back and take it easy for a bit.”

Brandt shook his head. “What about the others?”

Her face wrinkled into a smile. “It will take more than a pack of hounds to bring down Weapons Master Atasar Roar. Elnham and Anonas, both want to be his next disciple, will make outstanding showings. The fishermen, they are good with their spears; they might be insufferable for a few days.” She turned back to the cooking pit. Her body rocked seductively as she stirred.

Brandt made it up onto an elbow. “So that is what they were saying.”

“Who, dear?”

“The hounds. They kept saying, ‘Roar.’”

She paused. “Don’t be silly, dear. Hounds don’t talk.”

“They don’t?”

She turned back to him and smiles and motherly aura gone. Beauty turned to stone. “Only hounds and those evil, vile bastards who train them and unleash them to eat children can understand what they say.” The happy motherly presence returned. “So, thou didn’t hear them talk to each other. Did thou, dear.”

Warning received. “No. No. It must have been the hammering of my heart messing with my ears as I ran for my life.”

She nodded and pointed with a ladle. “We have some water over there. How about thou wash up. When Atasar returns, he’ll have some fine fish for us to eat.”

He hung his head. “About that. I scared away the fish when I fell into this place.”

She sighed, but the smile turned inviting. “Portal accidents do happen. Unluckily for thee, the nearest working portal is in the middle of the most hostile place in the Realm.” She waved a clawed hand as if to clean away the words. “I have some fresh bread in the oven, and there is plenty of stew to rewarm. Don’t thou worry about going hungry, dear. I won’t have any guest of Atasar’s go hungry — it would reflect poorly on his lineage. Just thou wait and see, he’ll bring back a proper haunch or two of good hound meat.”

Brandt nodded and hid his uncertainty about eating something so black and so frightening and so crawling with tentacles.

Then he noticed his chin had bumped into something about his neck. He touched it and felt a collar there. “What?”

“Oh, that.”

Brandt decided that her smile, even with fangs showing, must cause men to pant.

She continued, “I decided to train thee.”

He blinked. “What?”

“Thou art now my slave disciple. Thou may call me Mother Succubus.”

Brandt tried to get to his feet. “A slave? No.”

“Disciple, dear. Thou emotionally twisted one person to kill for thee —”

“— But that was —”

His legs refused to hold him. He clung to the bench he where he had laid. His knees hit the floor.

“— But thou let him go, and now he is out there alone and dangerous. If thee had made him a slave, the world would be much safer.”

“I’m not into slavery.”

She knelt beside him. “Hush, dear.” She stroked his hair. “We have responsibilities. Sometimes we need to make sacrifices — hold the dangerous ones close, cradle our creations, protect the innocent. Does thou know how many people thy first experiment has killed?”

Brandt shook his head. “No. I don’t want to know.”

Mother Succubus nodded. “Our first, the first one we twist to love us, is always the hardest. We need them. We break them. We don’t know how to fix them. So, we leave them. They murder by the dozen. Let me teach thee.”

“So, now I’m going to be a demon?”

Mother Succubus shook her head and softened her voice. “The sand, the food, the water, the air — it is all contaminated.” She sat on the floor and pulled Brandt to her. “Our enemy has been mutating us for their own sadistic pleasure.” She stroked his hair. “They sealed the world’s exits until we become the ravenous monsters they desire us to be.”

He pulled away from her and sat on his own. “I won’t accept that.”

She smiled, but the warmth wilted quickly. “I am sorry. All I can offer is to teach thee to be strong enough that when thou escapes, thou can make those who deserve it pay. That thou can fix thy first. That thou can lead others when thou needs to.”

“That is the price for my soul?”

She seemed genuinely shocked. “Soul? Thou art a First Human. Your souls are not yours to sell, trade, or barter. One cannot steal, con, or otherwise acquire your souls.” She frowned and sighed. “Our enemy enjoys possessing, controlling, and devouring souls, but they cannot do that with thine soul. Still, they can mutate thy body and regulate thy thoughts. And all in the initial wave of First Humans are dead. So, thou still needs to be cautious with thine life.”

She stood and helped him off the floor and aided him to a chair at the table. “Still, death does not look the same for thee. We believed that the universe was shattered so the First Humans could come, and that shattering has made thee harder to kill.”

“How does that work?” Brandt asked.

Mother Succubus placed a shot glass of amber liquid on the table. “Thou can drink this and find out.”

“What is it?”

“Poison. Many praise its taste before it kills them.”

“It won’t kill me?” He studied her.

She shook her head. “It will try, but thou art a First Human. No one here knows how to kill a First Human. We only know that the first of you are now dead.”

Brandt studied the liquid. What was he missing? He almost smacked his head. “Beyul, version number.”

“Beyul 2.0 — Beta Release 019.”

Brandt nodded to himself. Somehow Chester had shoved him into one of the Beyul games. He picked up the poison and downed it.

“Poison failed,” Beyul commented to Brandt. “This is your first attempt to discover a way around the block preventing you from leaving ‘Shattered Realms’. Neither departure condition has been met for you to log out of ‘Shattered Realms’. The poisoning attempt is ignored.”

Wait. What?