Phaolo awoke.

  What could he remember? He had been in an explosion and woke up once before in this cave, fully dressed, clean, and unharmed. He had checked the walls for an escape. Most of his attention had focused on searching for cracks or clues in the brightly lit walls. So, he had never noticed the firebolts. It had felt like he’d been in a second explosion and everything went dark all over again.

  But when he woke up the second time, his body was shoved against the wall. He tried to roll on his side when he discovered the burnt stump of his lower left leg attempting to move a foot that didn’t exist. Another raggedly burnt stump simmered, smoking slightly where his lower right arm used to be. Not long afterward a brand pressed into his forehead; he hadn’t been paying attention to Azoria despite her voice being so clear in his head.

  The freshly introduced mark oozed hateful tendrils that caressed his face in shadow before they slid down his neck and over his shoulders. They stopped short of going too deep below his collar. The excruciating pain drowned everything else as time morphed into slow-motion. Phaolo clutched his head, arched his cracking spine, vomited, then cried as he curled up over his own spill.

  He all but embraced death on the granite when the evil one herself appeared again in her slick white heels with dark stockings patterned with bats. The nurse’s uniform skirt clung tightly to her hips. A giant syringe with a long thick needle, comically so, rested across her palm. With a swirl she pointed it at him. The needle penetrated below his rib cage to release its contents directly into Phaolo’s stomach.

  “Pull yourself together and complete my mission if you want more.”

  She vanished without another word, leaving him to writhe. After a few minutes the pain began to break. A stray thought broke into his head. He wasn’t thinking only of making the pain stop. His head no longer felt like it was burned, peeled, and crushed in a vice at the same time.

  The tendrils retracted. They slipped quietly into the brand. The glowing faded in the pattern of a shutting eye. It left Phaolo with a still aching brand of burnt crispy skin that resembled a closed eye or half moon depending on how one viewed it. He opened his eyes and noticed something in front of his face. His hand. His hand still smoldered in front of his nose. It laid on its back with a pill bottle clutched between its tightening fingers. The number 3 was labeled prominently on the bottle. Phaolo braced the bottle against the palm and twisted the cap to see three large red and black pills. After peeking, he closed the cap.

  Phaolo grabbed his hand, but remained unsure how it could do him good. The jagged wound with splintered bone and burnt flesh did not lend to any hopes of reattachment. But he wanted it. And not far from the wall laid his foot, still set inside his fancy brown shoe. He could not stand, so he slid on his belly and put the dismembered foot on his back as well.

  His head spun. What did he remember? Dying in that explosion, then this cave, then smacking face first into the cave wall from what felt like rocket launchers blasting his limbs. But nobody packed that sort of weaponry, at least nobody near him. He’d seen only people in various civilian clothes, perhaps a burkha or two. Maybe that was it! It could have been some type of grenade from behind.

  But why him? He hadn’t been bothering anyone. He’d dodged a fight, watched a fat man start slicing a corpse, and turned away in disgust to look for a way out of this place. There was some stupid announcement about powers he refused to pay attention to. But then that voice, it was the demon woman all over again. He’d no sooner turned to look, filling with rage, when he smacked the wall and the lights went out, everything became nothing.

  Was it really some kind of magic, some kind of game, some kind of system? Then here he was, already way behind the eight ball. His pool shark days were over at this rate. Movement came slowly but the smooth floor allowed him to slide around on his belly. The huge cave made it difficut to decide a direction with his cloudy vision. Something must have happened when his forehead had hit the more jagged curves of the wall. At least it wasn’t bleeding anymore thanks to the brand.

  His limbs shook. That kind of pain, just the thought of it returning made him want to puke up the nothing left in his stomach. His pants were already soiled. It felt terrible, like being an insect in a cage. All he could do was drag himself along and hope for some further mercy. He found nothing yet.

  The demon had said to pull himself together. Perhaps she meant something by it. Maybe there was a chance to reattach his limbs? Perhaps he should try checking the system to see if he had any abilities to help? Where had that thought come from? What system? What abilities? That sounded like some nonsense. He lifted a shaking finger in the air and swiped slightly. A screen appeared in front of his face. Despite his vision being blurry, he could sense the information and numbers so long as his fingers pushed through the hologram even slightly.

  Phaolo Ngo

  Agent Of The Well

  So, he had no powers? He couldn’t tell if his numbers were good our bad. There was nobody and nothing to compare them with. And Well Child? What kind of hellishly cruel sick joke was this place, this system?

  He began moving, faster, towards a person, an old man, sitting on the floor and staring towards the ceiling as he played with a needle and thread. If he could see it properly, his eyes were only slowly coming into focus. He needed help or he surely would die soon if death was possible here.

  Why had he been sent to hell?

  "What have I done to deserve this? Haven't I been obediant? Have I not gone to church every Sunday? Have I not generously tithed!? I have always said my prayers, used my rosary, made my confessions. So why am I in this place!?"