Doom

It had been exactly 2,007 days since Vincent reincarnated. Outside, the sun almost reached its zenith, illumination the plain stone room.

His small figure stood in front of the large table, the only furniture aside from two crude hand made wooden chairs. A shiver ran down his spine, and a bone chilling cold invaded his body. Was it the cold fall or just another shadow of the fear that gripped his heart?

With trouble he pulled the heavy book towards him. His foots unsteady on the chair. On a normal day, his tutor would help him. Today however nothing would be normal.

On the cover of the book, mysterious and elegant straight lines formed the ancient words for manipulate and metal. He had spend his last years learning the language from an old tutor his father paid. The old man had used the branches of beech trees to teach him the symbols. Vincent had picked it up fast, with a perfect memory.

Finally he managed to janck the grimuar over the edge. It almost fell down, jet he embraced it with his arms, his live dependent on it.

Vincent remained like this, biding his time. Nothing happened at first, jet he did not move a single muscle. He did not dare to.

Then, as if god decided to send a dark omen, a shiver ran through the whole wooden structure, letting dirt fall down and disturbing the animals and humans alike. The whole earth seemed to come alive.

He could hear loud shouts and chants of war echo through the air.

"What is happening?" The voice of his mother sounded in the garden, her voice was concerned,

hysterical.

"Enslave them!!" "Die!" "Do not let them flee." The voices were coming near, and Vincent carefully poked his head out of the window.

Like a black tide, hordes of men ran out of the wilds towards the small village. They were armed to the teeth, and their gamberson and mail were painted in red colours. Blue tattoos glowed on the most fierce warriors.

Some even used magic to summon flames and wind.

But it was not nearly the end of it.

In the sky a rift was forced open by two hands, almost as large as horses. A horned head stuck its ugly face into the world, red and menacing. The demon tried to force the rest of its unholy body through the crack in the world.

Suddenly the earth broke open and shook, bringing down structures and men. Out of it a skeleton with a tattered old road emerged. Lightening flashed out of the dark sky, hitting the sorcerer. Jet instead of shattering the old bones, it brought them to life and filled the hollow eye-sockets with power.

"Finnaly, I am free!!"

The demon noticed the new thread and shot a blazing ball of fire down to kill and burn the rotting corpse. The spell however flowed down a glittering shield, the lich had cast, like water and poured on the open field setting the bandits in flames. They died screaming and suffering.

Than the blood flowed out of the charred bodies towards the centre of the wasted village, into a now revealed cave. There black hooded men were chanting in union offering their own flesh.

Out of another rift shot black tentacles that shimmered with purple light giving one the feeling of madness and insanity. The coiled around the now halfway decedent demon lord, as if to devour him.

The keep was long since burned down, only the small room that housed him remained unscaled.

Vincent was shocked at the power and might displayed. His very mind was shaken as he grasped the book with white trembeling fingers.

His parents were nowhere to be seen, all he could see were corpses. Maybe they were among the sacrificed. Maybe they died from the shock.

His insides were churning and he almost lost himself. Choosing those options on a blue neutral screem and seeing his new family getting slaughtered where worlds apart.

He only now ded he realize, maybe he did like them at some point. Now it did not matter anymore.

The nightmare however was not over jet.

In the distance Vincent could hear howling beasts fighting against the hordes of bandits while the earth shook and the monsters battled in the sky. The lich seemed to be helping whoever was losing, perhaps hoping to weaken them both.

Then it came.

Like a streak it glided over the sky beautiful and majestic. Falling, right towards him leaving a blazing trail.

Time seemed to have come for a stop. He felt his skin burning in the heat as the fragments rained down destruction, announcing the arrival of the apocaplipse.

Was the system unable to save him from its own madness.

In that moment the lich cast a live saving spell but something interfered, changed the target.

Vincent felt his body and mind disperse, scatter in a thousand parts. He saw nothing, but he felt like he drifted away. Free.

~

Reality came crushing down like a road-roller. The soft floor, covered in leaves dampened the impact of the short fall.

Light shone through the gaps between the leaves – bright and beautiful.

It had nothing of the earlier madness.

Vincent grasped for air, his pupils widened and he almost passed out. The shock of what happened was immense.

He knew that it would happen, even when he chose these options, only that it looked like a game back then.

'Calm down, survival comes first.'

His body seemed mostly fine, and his clothes still functioned aside from the burned edges.

'The book!' In panic he looked around him, only to find it laying a few meters away from him.

'This was madness, absolute insanity.'

He fell back onto the floor, laughing. Tears streamed down his face.