Born Anew

Born Anew I

Ever felt like you want to die? Like life is worth nothing, and killing yourself would make no difference? Well. That is how I felt that night. That morning I was laid off from my job, then the girl I liked rejected me, and as a cherry on top someone sent the cops to my place. As any irrational guy in such situation, I allowed myself to drown in misery.

I left my apartment and headed to the local bar. As I walked down the street my mind wandered looking for a way out of my predicament, preferably one that would kill me once and for all. I was of course too much of a mopy loser to kill myself. Life, on the other hand, had made its choice.

I felt pain rushing through my body. I didn't know what was going on, but I was for sure dying. I saw a flash. Lightning? But there were no clouds, no rain. I was the unlucky idiot struck by lightning in a night of clear skies. I was going to die. Thoughts appeared in my mind. "I take it back! I don't want to die! Please God, don't kill me! I was wrong!" But it was no use, I died. My uneventful and pathetic life ended in the middle of the street, trying to numb my mind with booze.

Or so I thought. The blinding light faded and I found myself in a strange room. Dark, cavernous, filled with horrible markings on the walls. It took me a few seconds to adjust my sight, and before me was a masked figure. It was clothed in robes and its head was crowned by... Horns! No! Not horns! I was a good man. I never messed with anyone, and now I was before a demon.

"A- Am I in hell?" I muttered.

"Hell? Oh. Humans refer to Khuriala as hell. No. You are not in hell, neither are you in heaven." The masked figure replied.

"Where am I then? I remember I died."

"You are pretty much alive. Which means it didn't work."

"What do you mean? Did you try to kill me? You fu..."

"Shut up you imbecile! I was trying to summon a stray soul from far away lands! And instead I got a stupid human wearing industrial clothes!" The masked figure interrupted me. There was sorrow in its voice. "I will never become a summoner."

"Well. I am kind of a stray soul back home." I tried to comfort the guy. I really felt bad for him, even though he pretty much kidnapped me.

The masked demon skimmed through a book and then walked through the room looking at the strange symbols on the room. "This stupid book. I get it now! I wrote the wrong symbol because the ink was smudged."

"Second hand?" I asked.

"Yes." The demon spoke as it removed its mask, revealing a blue skinned male face. "Summoning books are not precisely cheap."

"Yeah. Good books are not cheap where I come from either. Well. I guess I am stuck here forever."

"Not exactly. If I brought you here, there must be a way to take you back to your world."

"But it won't be easy, right? I see that on TV all the time."

"Tee what? Is that some sort of monthly publication?"

"I guess we will have plenty of time to talk about it. I'm Bob Peterson by the way." A generic name for a generic man. I though myself as I uttered it.

"Robert Peterson? I was not expecting humans had such a familiar name where you came from. My name is Kraid Relka-rhan. Such a coincidence. We both carry the name of one of our parents in our surname." The demon extended his hand with a wide smile.

"I don't think 'nice to meet you' is the right thing to say in this case. I hope we can work this out dude." I shook his hand in response. Both of us were having quite a crappy day. But at least now I had hope we could sort it out together. "You just got a freeloader by the way."

"Nonsense! I was about to hire an assistant. Welcome aboard kiddo!" Kraid squeezed my hand with a grin on his face.

My new life just started. I totally had it coming.

...

Working for Kraid turned out better than expected. I became an errand boy of sorts for the novice demon sorcerer. In exchange he offered me a room at his place and food.

One would expect a demon sorcerer working on arcane arts inside a dark basement would live in some sort well guarded tower. Well, that wasn't the case. The guy lived in a cottage close to a small farming village. Demons in this world are neither villainous beings nor powerful warlords. Most of them are common folk, with a natural affinity for magic and a generous personality.

Kraid was not exception. After years of living alone, it was a pleasant change to live with a trustworthy friend. Eventually he became like a brother to me. The kind of weird nerdy brother who is always working on something in his basement.

Every now and then I had to deal with his experiments. His successful summons to be more precise. While he was skilled enough to summon creatures, most of the time they needed a beating before he could work on them properly. Of course that was part of my job.

Kraid continued looking for a method to help me find a way back home. To be honest, he probably cared about that a bit more than I did. Not that I didn't want to return, but living a simpler life with a friend in an unfamiliar land was a bit better than living alone in that boring city. There were only two things I missed, TV and snacks.

I was working on organizing some shelves when Kraid arrived with unexpected news.

"It is not working. I can't seem to find a way to send you back to your world." He looked frustrated, and clearly reluctant to tell me the truth.

"Am I stuck here then? Well. It could be worse."

"No. I just can't do anything about it. So I think it is time for us to change our approach."

"What do you mean?" I asked hoping that wouldn't mean we would take separate ways. He was my first friend in years after all.

"Well. If I can't make a portal, we are going to find one." He said with that crazed grin of his.

"Are we going on a quest then?" I responded slightly confused. "Isn't that like fantasy literature?"

"A quest? No. I wouldn't call that a quest. We are not looking for a mythical relic like Saint Meera's gown. We are looking for a scientific phenomenon. This, my friend, is an expedition!"

"So. Where do we start?"

"We leave for Mistbloom in three days. There we will find some useful information among the many scholars, and maybe hire someone."

And so we embarked on an adventure. Kraid insists on calling it an expedition, but it felt as a fantasy quest to me.