The Hellhole

"Catch him! Don't let him get away!"

A lavender night was again looming in the middle of the slums. Albeit the cloud of smoke was enough to shadow its lights away. Marking the end of another day of living hell, for every single one of them. 

Close small compartments with dozens of people living in them. Garbage around every corner of the alleyway. No food conjuncture, No working water pipelines, and almost no electricity. Populace dying several times faster than the birth rate.

It was the very same neighborhood Sigurd grew up in.

Jumping from the top of one of the close compartments. He rolled on the ground for a short length before hurriedly standing up, his eyes focusing on the chaser for a short moment.

"....They are persistent"

In the given hellhole of a world, there were still quite a few people who just wanted to live their life peacefully and in all honesty. Trying to live a fulfilling life through such poor conditions just by sheer will. He had met several people of that kind. 

However, Sigurd was not like them at all.

"Why are they so mad? I didn't even do much of a crime!"

Instead, he spent all of his life taking away what belongs to others.

Stealing food from those who have it. Stole water from those who have it. Stole anything you don't have from those who have them.

The only way you can have it all in this accursed world.

"Shit! He is fast"

Albeit with every successful theft, there always was an increased chance to be caught. After all, for his whole life, Sig had only ever heard that justice always will prevail in the end. Scums like him will always be apprehended in the end.

'But who knows? Might as well be worth a try.'

Sig, after grabbing a big pack of bread from the biggest mansion in the city, was running away from the guards. It was not a very new thing for him, as he was only alive by doing the same to several others.

But this time, he might have extended his hand too far out.

"Shit!!!"

Gritting his teeth, Sig noticed the guards constantly closing on him from behind. It was only a matter of time now, prompting a salient thought from within.

'....Maybe stealing from the government official's mansion wasn't the best of the plans'

Sig's eyes transversed between his chaser for a few seconds before suddenly turning to its right. He turned his whole body away and started running to the right with a slight bit of hesitation. 

Looking at him changing his course, the guards arbitrarily stopped, hurriedly discussing among themselves.

"Are you sure we should chase him there?.... You know what they say about the place right!?"

One of them responded from the side, visible fear dripping through his voice.

"....But if we didn't catch him. It will surely not end well for any of us and you know that. We have no choice but to chase him"

The other responded, gulping down a mouthful of saliva. All of them looked at each other warily, before reluctantly nodding together. 

"Did I finally lose them?" 

At a long distance away, Sig slowed down for a bit. His eyes trembled at the sight of the spooky scenery in front of him. No matter how many times he saw it. The place has always stood the same for all those years.

"....Why the heck is it called Stairs of Liberation?

I just don't get how giving away your freedom is liberating for anyone."

Sigurd took a shallow breath before taking a seat in front of the massive staircase, which stretched on for about half a mile in each direction. 

The dusty structure which from the front mostly looked like a normal wall was no higher than 15 feet. But, the moment the eyes wander to their destination, it without a doubt was going to get lost. 

After all….. it extended indefinitely.

Thousands of scientists and researchers tried every way possible to look for the destination of the mysterious staircase. Going as far as sending several satellites into far space, to catch even a glimpse of its end.

Although it was of no avail. The only thing they understood from their year's worth of voyage was… That they understood nothing. It could just never be explained by human standards. Not now, not ever.

Sig grimaced, remembering all the news he read regarding the mysterious place in the torn-up newspapers used by the officials. His eyes still garnering at the impossible sight in front of him.

"Works every time…"

For the longest time, he had used the same strategy over and over again. Whenever he was on the verge of being caught, he just started running toward the mysterious staircase.

Knowing no one ever was going to follow him all the way. 

For some reason, the massive staircase was visible from every part of the world. It doesn't matter wherever you are. You just have to be willing to move toward it, and after a while, you will find yourself in front of the Colossus stairs.

However, no sane person in his right mind will do that.

No matter how you look at it, the stairs were an insidious mystery in itself. According to the oldest human recorded history, it just mysteriously appeared one night in the middle of the planet and has stood still ever since. 

Regarding that, there were hundreds of thousands of records if not millions, of people trying to climb the stairs. Either illegally or with government-funded ventures. 

They all tried to find the answers to the thousands of the unknown but none of them ever returned, before it was banned to go near the ominous stairs at all. And with that again started the era of hopes and curses.

Some old timers say the stairs are a beacon of salvation, sent by the Gods to save humanity from their lifelong problems. While most of them believed it to be a cursed place where normal people can lose their minds. 

"It is all bullshit."

Sig, who has personally experienced staying near the mysterious stairs countless times, agreed with none of those claims.

The world had already gone to complete hell. It was sickened with debauchery and infighting. He only ever saw strong people fighting for power, while the weak were fighting for food and water. Fighting only to survive in the godforsaken world.

The morality of the world was twisted into chaos. Life had no meaning anymore. If you are alive and you wish to live in this accursed world, then you will have to fight for it. It is the only truth of the world.

Sigurd suddenly scoffed, his thoughts wandering in the direction of speculations and hopes.

"How could such problems be taken care of by some magical stairs? When it only always asks a single question."

[ Brave Warrior! Would you give up on your freedom for the sake of Humanity?]

As soon as he heard the strangely familiar voice in his subconscious. Sig turned again to face the platform of the ever-extending stairs.

"Already for the hundredth time. No!"

Sig had to answer the strange voice every time he came close to its vicinity. He was pretty sure too, it was the same voice, people believed will make them go insane.

"Bunch of dimwits"

Sig after his countless ventures knew, it was a question the tower asked every time until you answered it. In reality, it was neither a curse nor salvation. 

And he of course didn't want the misunderstandings to be cleared just yet. After all, it was his only safe hiding spot.

Sig smiled to himself, before letting his frail body on the grass near the giant gate of the tower. Even in an overpopulated world, due to their unfound fear of the unknown. Nobody ever lived near the mysterious stairs, leaving at least several kilometers of radius around it empty.

The morning was nigh. The night stars were about to be dispersed by the orange sunlight. Sig looked at the beautiful view in front of him with an unmoving gaze before letting out a tired sigh.

" ... I need to return to the orphanage."

He stood up from the ground, dusting his worn-out t-shirt and trouser. 

Until again a familiar voice registered through his ears.

"So you are an orphan huh? Well for the kind of scum, you are. It suits you well."

His face instantly paled as he jumped up in surprise. Standing up in the other direction, he quickly started running away without a moment's delay.

"Where do you think you are going?"

But the man appearing behind him was too close to let him go. Grabbing the collar, the man threw him at the wall of the mysterious staircase.

"GAHH!!!"

Sig's eyes shook as he winced in pain on the floor. Looking at the guards surrounding him from every direction. He finally realized how he had miscalculated something very crucial for the first time.

The fear of their master overwhelmed the fear they had for the unknown. If they were about to die anyway, they of course will choose to rather die trying.

"...L-Listen we c-can talk it out."

Sig took a few steps back, trying his hardest to find a way out of it. 

"Shut Up! First, let me show you what I do to the thieving bastards. If you survive that, then sure, we can talk it all out."

After that, Sig for the first time thought the pain could be worse than death. 

"AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"

The sight was plain horrid. He was thrashed around by all of the guards to every nook and corner. While all of them took turns brutalizing him in the worst way they remembered.

The pain of having your internal organs failing. The pain of having your eye gouged out…. It was all beyond words. There was no way to describe the feeling of pain. It only continued…. until he just couldn't feel anything at all.

Finally after an hour or so of harrowing torture. The sun rose on the horizon, illuminating the dark world with its never-ending light, and also with its harmful counterparts.

"...We should head back now. I am hearing a constant voice in my head for a while now."

One of the guards responded while shuddering, and the others agreed to it almost instantly. Taking the bag of bread from the ground, they stepped away from the bloodied boy on the death door. 

"....B-bl…"

Sigurd lay on the ground with blood soaking all over his body. With the one eye that he had left, he tried looking at the source of binding light and the beautiful scenery surrounding it.

His face beyond the condition to candid any kind of emotion hung low, as his other one hung on his face, connected by one of his veins. The warm feeling slowly spread across his body due to the rising sun.

However, it did not last long. Soon, Sig found himself slipping through the cold grasp of darkness. He could already feel the grasp of death closing on to him, the waiting eternal darkness at the end of everything.

Culminating every internal injury he had, he knew there was no way for him to survive anymore. It was all futile to resist the grasp of death.

'.....Ha'

He took a mental sigh, surrendering himself to whatever fate was about to come. 

"....He…"

Sig tried to let out a final chuckle, but his body didn't respond. It was only one minor mistake on his end which resulted in this outcome.

Well, it didn't matter now. Now he was going to die and be forgotten like every other human. 

The one thing he ever so despised.

[ Brave Warrior! Would you give up on your freedom for the sake of humanity?]

The familiar voice of the stairs extending to the neverending sky again asked in its usual robotic manner.

Sig in turn tried to shout, but his voice never came out. He coughed blood violently, before gritting his teeth and trying again. Though, however much he tried, his already punctured vocal cords were not in any way capable enough to help him shout.

'.....For the sake of humanity??? I will much rather kill them all!' 

Enraged by the circumstances of his demise, Sigurd cursed the mysterious voice in his mind.

'And about giving away my freedom? Fucker! I will happily choose this pitiful death thousand times over. So you can fuck right off.'

The tower again went silent and Sig found himself slowly losing consciousness. Until the familiar voice again resounded around in his mind, louder…. and more ominous than ever Sig remembered.

[Rejected! The creator has rejected the wish of the candidate.]

'....What the fuc-'

[Candidate! You will immediately be transported to the 1st Stair of Liberation.]

'No! No! No! No!'

[...Prepare yourself for the first trial.]