On a world called 'Monestopia', far far away from Earth, near a cave-like entrance of a quite dark and spacious cavern, a teenage boy whose name was Sam had been walking straightly back and forth over and over while holding his chin with his thumb and index. Sam was thinking deeply for a while of a way as safe as possible to smoothly lure and catch whatever kind of flying monster able to be tamed with ease and to definitely carry him down the pretty high cliff.
If his attempt to tame a monster was a success, then he would have hit the jackpot. The tamed monster wouldn't just help him get down the cliff into the forest, it also would be a great bodyguard fighting in his stead and protecting him from any danger nearing him. The reason for that was simple. Sam's fighting skills were below zero as his body also was extraordinarily weak. He used to not beat but get beaten up instead, Sam thought, shedding tears about this fact.
But Sam couldn't come up with a satisfying plan, not even a bit of a glimpse. As a result, Sam's eyebrows were starting to twitch as he then stomped his foot on the ground, annoyed by his current situation and being unable to find a good plan.
Of course, that didn't mean that Sam was stupidly fatheaded, unable to think out what solutions were better for tiny problems. It was just that his knowledge of Monestopia and its inhabitant creatures was greatly lacking.
Well, there was a good resource of information in his possession since coming to Monestopia, yet this fact was entirely wiped off of his head.
Yes, it was the book that talked about Monestopia, [Wonders of Parallel Realms].
In the end, to stop all the headache-causing thinking, Sam decided to go with a quite simple plan having rather high rates of it failing and being unsafe before he started to prepare the trap. He was doubting so much his plan's success probability, still, he had no other plan to apply as his time, until his supplies were completely consumed, was quite limited as well. Thus he took some stuff out of the backpack.
After quite a while of running around here and there, Sam finally finished preparing for the unlucky flying monster that would come to witness its final moments of freedom. He made what seemed like a typical hunting trap using the rope and some food that he had brought with him for such times.
Sam made a small circle-shaped loop with one end of the rope just looking like a lasso so that the remainder of the rope was stretched out and tied to a large rock near the internal end of the cave-like passage. The passage wasn't that deep, making the rope far enough to reach the outside of the cave, and for the looped end of the rope to be placed on the ground right in the middle of the cliff.
"Urgh, what a pain!" Sam grumbled.
After having done all that, Sam put some of his precious limited food inside the circular loop while sobbing over the food, and then, he rushed back into the cave to hide behind the same rock he had hidden behind when he had attempted to break the rune stone. Trying to be patient, Sam kept on waiting for the unfortunate prey to come, chuckling and putting a sinister smile on his face. In the meanwhile, the time was in the afternoon.
With time passing by, feeling like it was forever, Sam waited and waited and waited for endless hours as he was starting to get upset. His stomach gurgled in hunger so he ate some food while waiting. He quenched his thirst with some beverages while waiting. He even took his time doing shit while waiting, yet nothing came.
The longer Sam waited, the more annoyed he would become. This situation continued for more several hours until the sun was starting to descend, pulling its gradually weakening light along and calling for the dark night to come down and replace it with the brightly shining moon, still, it was yet to set completely.
At the moment, Sam got extremely upset and frustrated as soon as his patience had banged over its limits. So, out of anger, he picked up a stone from the ground and gripped it tight to then throw it out as hard as he could, thinking the idea was pretty bad and stupid. If not, then he was unlucky whereas his misfortune was considerably great and endless.
"What the hell is wrong with this never-leaving misfortune of mine?!" Sam shouted out. "It's driving me mad. At this rate, I'm going to run out of supplies even before going down this cliff. This will never work, it seems!"
The fact that his supplies were very limited was making him greatly anxious as they were enough for a few days only. That was why Sam had to get down the cliff, however way he would have to use, and find other sources of food and water as quickly as possible. Otherwise, he would die starving. He couldn't stay there anymore longer as time was continuously passing by. Not wanting to die starving, Sam was determined to do anything he could to survive so that he would be able to fulfill his goals for his mother, Elina, Sam thought.
"In any case, I guess I should prepare a grave for me as well," said Sam.
Not long after complaining about his bad luck, a Flying Monster, that was flapping its wings while nearing down, unexpectedly landed on the cliff and approached the food inside the lasso-like part of the trap before it started to slowly eat mouthfuls. Silently watching the monster in disbelief, Sam then couldn't help but make a happy jump to the air as soon as the hope of him surviving refilled him after he had almost lost it.
This flying monster had a dinosaur shape and somewhat a humanoid muscular body with sky-blue feathers covering its whole body except for the featherless head as well as an oval area in between the chest and abdomen where it was heavily covered with white ones rather than blue. It also had clawed hands and wide wings on its back. It would've looked cute if not for the vicious-looking dinosaur-like shape of this monster that gave it brute looks.
Standing still for a moment out of surprise, Sam couldn't believe fictional monsters existed for real. Yet, his way out to survive unbelievably laid on such a fantasy monster that was standing not far from him right in front of his very own eyes.
It was really real. This world had strange creatures like monsters for real. It felt like Sam had been transported to a game rather than another real world. How could such a thing exist for real with no one on Earth aware of this fact, or to be more specific, how could Earth be totally empty of such brutal creatures? Sam thought, still unable to believe his eyes.
Well, he had to admit it, he was completely taken by the matter. Of course, he didn't let his guard down as he knew well that monsters were said to be ferocious and merciless.
Sam shook his head to snap out and gain back his focus. The first monster Sam had wished to tame was a flying monster. For that, he was still celebrating internally as he put a creepy smile on his face.
Once the monster's feet got inside the looped part of the trap, Sam gave the rope a yank that made the loop lock its legs together while subconsciously moving as if he was performing a celebrating dance. The result was, that the monster got trapped. Panicked, it was trying to fly away, but every time the rope was fully stretched out, it would pull the monster back down.
'Don't try, baby. You can't escape my perfect trap,' Sam thought, snickering and putting a sly grin on his face, narrowing his eyes. 'As you see, you are my first prey for taming experiments.' Although it was just a simple ordinary trap, Sam had made sure to make it extra perfect, by making strong knots and using a strong rope, to make up for its weakness, yet he hadn't tested them out, and that was a big mistake.
As the monster was desperately trying to escape the simple trap, Sam noticed that the monster's wings were moving up and down oddly. It felt as if something was hampering them from flapping smoothly.
'Why would a flying monster flutter strangely like this?' Sam wondered. With him accustomed to seeing birds hovering over him every day at school or outside, he was, to some extent, able to tell that there was something wrong with its way of flapping its wings.
But due to him relatively knowing nothing about the monster's traits and features, he was quite unsure of whether that was normal or not.
After some time thinking, Sam decided to ignore this whole matter as he had some other more important things to think about, for example how to accomplish a successful taming attempt. He thought he should give it a try full-heartedly as it sure would be greatly useful for now and also for the future.
'Now, I have to find out about how to use the taming ability,' Sam contemplated, holding his chin with his hand. 'I guess I'd be able to use the ability by learning its initiating and deactivating requirements as well as its limits. I'm even sure that would greatly help me reach my goals.'
After the monster got tired from the numerous attempts to escape, Sam cautiously walked up closer to the monster, afraid it might suddenly do something to harm him, and he then started to make gestures with his hands, thinking one would be the key to initiate the ability.
Therefore, Sam shouted "Tame!" with every gesture he made. He even made a thumb up and also made the middle finger up even though it was an impure gesture, keeping on trying gesture after gesture for some time but all to no avail.
"I know I have to try out other things in order to learn how to tame. But what should I try?" Sam sighed in disappointment. Still, that wasn't able to back him away as he still had a strong determination.
While Sam was deep in his thoughts, mumbling to himself while his back facing the monster, with him unaware of what it was doing, it was intentionally and quietly stretching the rope so that to loosen the knot of the rope tied to the large rock, that had started to loosen beforehand by the monster's first hard attempts of escaping the trap.
...What a smart monster! It had noticed the knob was loosened a bit. Thus it shifted its eyes towards the human in front of it so as to make sure he wasn't focused on it and started to unfasten the knob unnoticeably. It continued until it succeeded.
Unlucky Sam, he turned back to the monster to try other things, hoping he perhaps would at least get, as a result, even a slight glimpse of how to initiate the taming ability or magic or whatever, if not fully.
But unexpected to Sam, what he saw was a very damn free monster instead of a trapped one. Giving him goosebumps before gulping, the monster was glaring at him while, as though, snickering sinisterly. Sam's heart sank in horror as soon as he felt the heavy pressure the monster's anger was emitting, causing his body to shake nonstop.
'Oh, damn it. I'm so doomed!' Sam cursed inwardly.
Once again, Sam felt like this was his end, thinking he wouldn't be able to explore his mother's world even a bit. He nonstop cursed in his mind at his terrible fortune, that had been glued onto him since he knew himself in life.
If one were to experience a bit of luck as terrible as Sam's, they absolutely would get defected mentally... maybe? Sam thought for seconds before snapping out. Now was the worst time to wander in his thoughts of unnecessary things aside from how to get out of this grave situation.
Sam turned away silently, and without any delay, he launched his body forwards, running away from the monster as fast as he was able to exert into the only way he had; the cave-like passage. The only laughable thing in this situation was that as soon as he moved his legs running, he started to scream in a lady-like voice with him being unaware of that.
But the moment Sam had moved, the monster didn't just stand still in position, it too broke a leg after him quickly. Strangely, the distance between them neither widened nor shortened as it continued to be unchanged for a while. Sam, noticing that, felt as if the monster wasn't serious at all and was just playing around, yet he ignored that and thought it was better this way so that he hoped might survive as his chances were higher this way.
Reaching into the cavern, Sam could barely see as its only source of light was the sunlight coming through the passage, still, he was able to spot the bulging rocks and avoid them. Nevertheless, Sam kept running deeper in before he reached the end and started to run along the round wall of the cavern. Of course, the monster still didn't get closer. Was it really just playing around?
This situation kept going until tiredness started to do its job on Sam, spreading its effects throughout his body, blocking it from keeping itself at the same speed. In another word, Sam was slowing down. However, so far, he did a great job breaking his limits by holding on running for some minutes based on his terribly weak stamina if he had one.
Still, this got the better of him as his guard got down. Contrary to Sam, the monster's stamina did never reduce. Well, the wildlife of the monsters made their bodies quite strong to adapt. Thus it was no wonder it could run for quite a long time at full speed, what if it wasn't at full speed? Of course, it would run longer. And that was the case with the monster. The monster was chasing Sam next to half its speed.
Not letting such a gift go off, the monster took advantage of Sam being off-guard as it closed the distance in no time and swung its claw upward at him. Luckily, Sam had evaded it by ducking reflexively down, it was partially though, as it scratched his back, making him feel pain.
Although Sam used to feel pain from all the beating at school, this one got quite more effect. Perhaps him being terrified made the effect even more intense, or the monster was just too strong for Sam, making the effects of a small scratch extraordinary. As a result, the pain made a total change to his voice; from lady-like screaming to a manly one.
'I need to get out of this situation before I get killed by this freaking damn monster, but how?' Sam thought, panting.
Trying to appear as pitiful as possible, Sam looked at the monster with teary shining eyes like a baby to make it pity him as a last resort. After all, it was a living being that might have feelings and emotions. Even so, doing so was so risky as the chances of his plan working out were pretty low. Nevertheless, the monster unexpectedly almost fell for that. Taking the effect to some extent, it showed some mercy, letting its guard down quite a bit.
That gave Sam a chance to stealthily reach his hand into his backpack and take out the only weapon he had in his possession. As soon as he grasped it, an evil smile stretched across his face.
'Heheh, this special weapon sure will end it immediately... as it already has done to me,' Sam thought, snickering. 'I can't wait to see what could this damn monster do against such an ultimate weapon.'
Yes, this ultimate weapon was the same rune stone that could have destroyed Sam's future of becoming a father. And now, the monster would taste the pain he had experienced once before.
Swinging his arm fast, Sam hurled the rune stone as powerful as his strength limits allowed right before he ran in a blink of an eye back to the same large rock so to hide behind it one more time, especially hiding his most sensitive area. He hold his nether area as soon as he recalled the pain he had undergone.
Every time the rune stone hit a solid object in the cavern, it bounced. It kept on bouncing everywhere with its speed increasing progressively. The more times it bounced, the faster it became, making the stone eventually reach a state to be barely seen.
Sam couldn't have noticed its progressive increase of speed before now since it had never bounced more than three times before so the change was unnoticeable. But now, he could. That made him wonder about and question this odd stone even more. Was it natural or man-made, and were there other odd stones like this one in this world?
'My curiosity's going to kill me. I want to know what kind of stone that can bounce like a ball? It's my first time seeing something like this,' Sam thought as he decided to look into this matter later on if he survived now, only to satisfy his nagging curiosity.
The monster was confused. It kept trying to follow the bouncing stone with its eyes, hoping to find a way to make it reach a stop, but if not possible, then at least to avoid it.
Unfortunately, the monster couldn't keep tracking the movement of the stone as it was getting harder to be seen each time it bounced. In the end, the stone smashed into its goal which Sam wanted it to reach, which was the monster's nether area.
Right after leaping out of his hide, Sam started to uncontrollably laugh at the monster out of mockery before saying: "you are very stupid to face me. You should have run away when you got the chance. But now, there's no way I'm going to let you before I successfully tame you. So, be ready for the worst."
While its body was bent down holding where it was hit, the monster couldn't hear a word from Sam's mockery clearly due to it suffering the resulted pain of the impact of the too fast bouncing rune stone smashing on its body.
The impact was in no way simple, and that was owing to the too-high speed of the stone, so it wasn't strange to suffer such heavy pain even if it had hit on any other place on the body.
Unknown to Sam, the monster's pain had lasted for a few minutes before it started to gradually lessen, enabling it to freely move, but still it didn't. During that time, Sam, carelessly, was walking over to the monster closer and closer as he was hearing the monster howl, thinking it wouldn't be able to move freely any time soon based on how greatly unbearable was the pain, after all, he had already gone through the same unbearable pain, or that was what Sam thought.
Honestly speaking, Sam was definitely making a grave mistake as he had already approached the monster. The moment he got close enough, suddenly, its howling stopped, and its body was starting to lift off the floor while glaring at him with its eyebrows twitching up. It was immersed in extreme madness.
With Sam watching the 180-degree sudden change of attitude, he unnaturally flinched as soon as he realized that. It had been luring him to get closer enough from the beginning.
'Wasn't this damn monster suffering the pain?' Sam wondered, panicked. 'How the damn heck can it still move this easily as if that wasn't painful at all! Was it just pretending to lure me? Do monsters really have such intelligence?'
Sam's mind was being messed up with so many flooding questions. Looking for answers, Sam got only two explanations. The first one was that its genitalia was situated on another site on its body that he couldn't spot the exact location due to the feathers rather covering, while the second one was...
'It must be a female flying monster!'
The second explanation was more likely than the first one for the monster to be the case, or that was just what Sam thought.
In fact, there wasn't any evidence to confirm any of the two. And it even might far completely be another thing. But all of that shouldn't be thought of right now as Sam's most important priority now was to desperately come up with a plan for his survival.
'Oh, mommy. I'm so damned... again,' Sam thought while trembling the moment the monster started to stomp up to him.
Throwing its fist out to Sam's stomach, it smashed him with only one blow, lifting his body into the air and sending him flying backward onto the far-end cave wall, causing him to immediately pass out. It was a complete loss.
*****
In a time when the reddish-orange light of the sunset invaded the sky and earth, filling them with its color, on the green grass-filled garden of the average two-floored house, Sam, as a child, having a small cut on his hand, was sobbing while Elina was sitting next to him calming him down.
"M-mother, why do the cats still run away from me even though I really like them?" Sam said, looking at Elina with teary eyes. "Even Katty scratched me when I was playing with her." Katty was his first pet. It was a white cat with green spots.
"Don't worry, son," Elina replied, giving him a gentle smile immersed with motherhood. "When you get older, you're going to be able to make them love you... because you're somehow talented in this."
That calmed Sam down a bit before he replied, "how am I talented when the cats get scared of me quickly?"
"Have I lied to you before, Sam?" Elina asked.
Sam contemplated for a while, making Elina start to feel nervous and start to worry about his answer before he responded, "n-no."
"Phew. Then just believe me. You are way so talented," Elina said after feeling reassured by Sam's answer. "The most important thing is YOU to live and get quite older in order to reach that point."
Then suddenly, the surroundings, the air, the atmosphere, the light, everything drastically changed, and they were now tossed into the basement with blood splattered all over the place. The gently smiling face of Elina was now covered with blood, and a hole through her abdomen came to exist.
"You must live, Sam," she repeated with her voice echoing inside his head.
Seeing that, Sam started to scream and cry at the top of his lungs with his hands holding his head, and his body kneeling. "MOM, NO, DON'T LEAVE ALONE!"
It was right then when he woke up while calling: "MOM!". It appeared to be a dream... a nightmare for correction. He was sweating buckets and breathing mouthfuls. His head felt heavy, and his body was sore. He touched his head gently to see if there was a severe wound.
'Oh, it was just a dream,' Sam thought. 'It reminded me of my childhood with my mom.'
Looking around him, he noticed he was surrounded by pitch darkness only. The smell of blood had entered his nose, for he thought how the dream felt so much real as he was still able to smell blood.
There wasn't any source of light, not knowing whether it was night or he was in another place having no source of light but thought he, more likely, was in the same cavern, and the flying monster somehow had let him be. Soon after recalling the dream once more, Sam just placed his hands on his face before starting to cry.
'Ooh, mom... you've been alive till yesterday. I still can't believe you're gone. How could I live alone? Ooh, mom, I can't bear this.'
Elina's death meant to Sam as if eternal darkness had conquered his lonely world, casting its endless night throughout his world. However, there was that small light inside him comforting him to some extent. He didn't know whether or not it was because of Elina's light that had entered him.
Well, the grief and pain of losing his mother would still always overcome him. He would never forget that in his whole life. But also, he would try to adapt to live along with this grief inside his heart. Otherwise, sorrow would overwhelm him utterly, and he would be able to accomplish nothing, let alone live properly.
While still wailing, the time was passing, and a light could be seen spreading into the place through some holes, revealing his surroundings. Once Sam spotted the light, he was already calmed down and looked around him. He had thought he was in the same cavern, but he seemed to be wrong.
Sam found himself inside another spacious cave with a high, half-domed ceiling continued with a curved and sloped wall filled with holes. Perhaps the holes were man-made for illumination. This sloped wall was facing another straight vertical wall that made an angle with the ceiling. Its shape felt like one of a quarter ball.
"Aaaah, my..my goodness!" Once everything got clear, Sam suddenly jerked hard and began to crawl back away from what he was seeing. He was in a place full of corpses of variable creatures, including humans. It seemed they were the source of the bloody scent.
"W-w-what the hell is this?" Sam stammered, panicked. "W-w-where am I?! W-what brought me here?!"
'Am I going to be dead meat just like these?!'
*******