I am not a masochist

  With a pained gasp, Kato stumbled back. The world was shattering around him.

  He tried in vain to fight gravity, but it was to no avail. Slowly his body sunk through what had been thick stone but was now little more than a blurry grey outline.

  With a desperate lunge his hand shot forward, stretching towards the aged wooden frame and the burnt picture it held. He wouldn’t let it go. Not now. Not after his past had been lost for so long!

  His eyes locked onto it desperately, trying to glean something, anything at all! A slow tear crept across a ragged face, as the inevitable grey took that too.

  “NO!” Kato shouted in a burst of emotion as his past was smeared into an unrecognisable haze. Somehow even more lifeless than before.

  His body seemed to fall in slow motion. ‘I’m not ready to go.’ Kato thought panicked and pushed back against the real world in favour of this fake one where his problems were only in his head.

  He didn’t know if he’d ever see this place again. Hell, he hardly knew if this was even what this place should look like. For all he knew this was just some stress induced amalgamation of what he could still remember.

  The real world pushed back, and Kato finished falling with a soft thump. His eyes clenched shut and he prayed that he wasn’t where he feared.

  Slowly, his eyes blinked open. The world had returned to normal. Or at least to a different type of strange.

  Shaking his head slightly, he tried to clear his mind. This was not the time for debating the enigmatic mysteries of what was now his life.

  Focusing slightly, his forehead tightened, and he took in his surroundings.

  Faded, grey smoke of a fire long gone lightly wisped through the air. The scent of what he had known to be destruction just hours before replaced by the comforting memory of dying embers warming him in the chill of a cool night.

  He smiled ruefully. Kato had spent many a good night by a fire whether in his own dwellings or someone else’s, who had also graciously donated to him both their belongings and warmth. And all without even their knowledge. Some people really were too generous.

  A slight smile tugged at his lips. It was a slight and involuntary motion born from sudden relief as the spasming pain fled his body within an instant.

  Better still, the faceless man was gone. If he had ever been there to begin with. But Kato wasn’t one for questioning his own sanity… not anymore… or at least he was trying not to be…

  ‘Enough dwelling!’ Kato resolved, pushing himself off freshly turned dirt to find his footing.

  “Great!” He proclaimed suddenly, as he felt clammy dirt push between his toes. “Which joker did this?” He laughed slightly, half hoping for a response, half scared he’d get one.

  To his great disappointment or relief, he didn’t.

  “What type of person steal someone’s shoes while they’re sleeping,” he muttered, glum, wilfully disregarding that he had done the same many a time before.

  He sighed, then called out louder than before. “Ok rock, or voice or whoever. You can come out now. I did it, I beat your little trial and had just oh so much of a good time doing so.” A pained smile forced its way across his face. He wasn’t about to let the cruel taskmaster feel any satisfaction from his torment.

  After all his suffering should only benefit himself. Kato paused, a tendril of worry slipping around him. That line of thinking was far too cult like, and he’d just seen it kill hundreds. Was he really that prepared to let it do the same to him?

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  A voice coughed slightly startled, and the frantic rustling of papers could be heard. “Uhhum that was faster than expected” the male voice cleared its throat slightly. “One moment please,” it continued. Now the picture of helpfulness.

  Then its voice shifted, booming out. “So, the prodigal son has returned, and oh what wealth he has brought!” The voice shifted again its kind demeanour fading into one with an audible sneer, “look around you!” it spat. “This death, this destruction, you caused it all just so you could call yourself better than your peers.”

  “That’s not why I did it!” Kato interrupted shouting suddenly, he was not prepared to let this man besmirch his good name. “And they weren’t my peers.”

  “Ahaha,” the voice laughed slightly, “so you are a Puritan? Who walks the path alone?”

  “No,” Kato replied confused, ‘why did I feel the need to speak out, you’re here on a mission, you shouldn’t be trying to make a good impression. You shouldn’t be trying to make any impressions. Remember your training! Briefly Kato thought about super sneaky shimmy mode, but he dismissed it. That wasn’t the type of thing that worked against omnipotent, incorporeal beings. He paused. Or at least he thought it didn’t, who knew the rules here? ‘This may need to be considered.’

  But before he could continue planning strokes of genius never even dreamt of by even the most accomplished scholars he was interrupted.

  “Not a Togeran like the rest who are focused on success through joint suffering,” they mocked with disdain. “Not a Puritan, who walks alone, but…”

  “My oh my, the elusive third chapter. We haven’t seen a Riseran join the order, not here, not for a very long time,” they laughed again.

  “Perhaps not since I, myself, walked the path you now follow. I should warn you though. The path of someone who not only takes suffering but wilfully seeks to expand upon it again and again is not an easy one.” They paused, “but then again, I’m sure you know that.” They cackled as if the two were kindred spirits sharing a moment of camaraderie over an open secret.

  Kato’s eye twitched slightly, they were taking his statements all wrong. He wanted nothing to do with this infernal order. And he certainly wasn’t some perverted masochist like this voice apparently was. But he had the sneaking feeling that response wouldn’t fly here, so he, with a tight-lipped expression, just nodded slightly in response.

  “How delightful,” the voice laughed again. “You are an interesting one, aren’t you? What is your name boy? Participant 8672 doesn’t quite feel right anymore."

  Kato’s eye twitched again, ‘they don’t even bother to learn their members’ names?’ Kato questioned, disgusted. Then paused. That was probably a good thing. If the order tracked its clergy better, he doubted the voice would still be laughing.

  He paused, thinking. Now was the time to reinvent himself. Sculpt himself into someone new. Give himself a name fitting for kings. He racked his brain, scanning memories from long nights where he read faded parchment by candlelight. What was the link that powerful names from legend shared?

  “The Third,” he blurted out, before his mind could refute it.

  “The Third?” The voice replied confused.

  ‘Damn it,’ Kato thought he had just been upset about them naming their members numbers and now he had done it to himself! He rubbed a hand over his face in frustration ‘at least I didn’t name myself Floor Guy, but still, The Third, really?’

  “Yes,” he replied steadily, but the word was drawn out, reluctant and accompanied by a slight reddening of his pale features.

  “Your name is a number?”

  “A title,” Kato countered quickly. “The Third of… many things,” he nodded assuredly, he had played that off spectacularly.

  “And your real name?” They asked.

  “Kato,” he replied without even thinking, ‘great now saying that nonsense about The Third actually means nothing and what’s worse you’ve just compromised yourself. I have?’ Kato replied to himself shocked, but looking down he saw that everything was where it should be. ‘Your name. Your name was compromised…”

  “-lla,” he added quickly, “Katolla.” He said again, ‘that was far too close.’

  “Well, Katolla,” the voice continued, none the wiser, “that marks the end of the third and final trial,” it laughed again, “though I am sure a Riseran like yourself will find other ways,” they paused. “To entertain yourself.”

  Kato’s eye twitched again, he wasn’t a crazy masochist, and he wanted no part of the ‘entertainment’ that they were referring to, he knew that was code for hurting himself in worse and worse ways.

  “Thanks,” he muttered.

  But there was no reply, the voice apparently gone.

  A moment later the ground erupted. A familiar large rock rose to the surface and with it two shallow green orbs that now stared level with his eyes. ‘Has it gotten bigger?’

  The third and final of the shallow indents began to pulse in the same sickly green as the other two before finally joining them.

  With a low groan the stone expanded outwards.

  Kato took a step back.

  Then it cracked down the middle.

  He stared at it for a moment, then stepped back again, before running till he was far from the curséd grey monolith.

  The crack widened. The sound of the stone splitting filled the air before suddenly, it stopped. Two planes of symmetrical rock split perfectly from the monolith, toppling to the side.

  In their place stood a small wooden doorway, with the words ‘service exit’ discretely engraved across the top.

  Praying to Cogul and all that was good it wasn’t a trick, Kato stepped through.

  Chapter 1

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