Vampire Infection

So I jumped.

But I didn't feel a thing. There was no sensation of falling or what you'd normally expect from jumping down a hole, even as I disappeared into the darkness I felt as if I was standing on solid ground the entire time despite clearly falling.

A few minutes passed and I was beginning to grow impatient in the darkness and I mean this was true darkness, not even my night vision allowed me to pierce this darkness it was literally a void that I was floating through.

I tried to think of more words to describe the darkness but there were none, it was just pitch black. As if light had stopped existing but I could easily see my entire body as if I was illuminated by a torch, 'Did the gods really make this place?' I couldn't help but think about this seriously.

If beings like 'gods' really existed I'd really overestimated by own abilities, this world was much larger than I'd imagined it was simply unimaginable that the heroes in myths were simply trained to fight the wars of the Roman Empire. I couldn't help but thinking of other myths and legends, were there unique Roman and Greek gods completely independent of one another despite being technically the same or were they one and the same?

But it wasn't worth asking questions that with my current strength I had no right to know the answer of, I was simply too far off from possessing the same level of strength as those 'heroes' I couldn't even understand their strength let alone what being a 'god' was.

Eventually my descent ended but the scene I was greeted with was different to what I'd imagined, I literally descended through the clouds on an entirely new land – I'd expected walls and corridors like a labyrinth under the Earth but instead I was greeted with lush fields and trees that stretched on for miles.

There was a sun hanging in the sky and I could only imagine that a moon also existed in this place, it was its own individual world in wherever I was. It was only when greeted with such a sight that I truly knew how limited my understanding of the world was.

When looking on the expansive land I couldn't understand how or why the humans of the current era had no knowledge of their own history, how had we forgotten the reality of the things we now considered 'myths' and blinded ourselves with science and technology, this clearly expanded outside the scope of what could be explained with science.

"Astonished?" A voice echoed in my mind, after my experience with that self-proclaimed 'spirit' I was certain that this new voice was speaking directly to my mind. Yes, new voice. This wasn't the same thing I had been speaking to in the chamber and was something new, its voice sounded feminine and soft as it echoed in my mind.

I could only calmly nod in response at the question, there were many words I could use to describe this place but they were all replaced by astonishment as I looked at the vast lands that spread out for miles seemingly unending.

"Where is this?" I asked, knowing 'she' could hear me. A soft laughter echoed in my mind like the giggling of a young girl and I couldn't help but think of Lea, the girl I'd watched get shot.

The moment she came into my mind something happened, she appeared in front of me: Lea but not Lea. "Is this form more comfortable for you?" She asked looking at me curiously; scanning me from head to toe before nodding slightly for what reason I don't know.

All I could do was nod in shock, she'd read my mind… or my memory. "Don't worry I can only feel things you're strongly conflicted about, like the death of this girl… Such a shame she died so young." She said shaking her head, "This is the World of Trials – the place where all challengers of the Trials are placed to perform their tasks. But right now you're the only person here; I've not had a visitor in centuries you don't know how lonely it's been!" She complained whilst still looking at me curiously as if she didn't know what to do with me.

"You're different." She said suddenly, nothing else. Before turning and looking at the world, "I've been so lonely…" I heard her mutter; quiet enough that I probably wasn't meant to hear it.

"How was he?" She asked suddenly, turning back to face me with a smile plastered on her face. It was slightly disturbing to watch 'her' talk with Lea's body so I averted my gaze and looked at the sky. "Unpleasant." I responded curtly, I knew who she was talking about after all there was only one person she could be talking about, 'it' or 'he' was the only other thing I'd spoken to on the way down here.

She just chuckled slightly at my response and nodded her head, "Sounds like him, he probably tried to kill you too?" I nodded in response and she giggled, "He was always like that with other races, he's probably still trying to convince himself the Empire didn't collapse despite the lack of challengers for centuries.

"You know what I am?" I asked worried, if these were trials for humans then wouldn't that mean I was at a disadvantage? "Oh don't worry! There's nothing like that, this is a world made by the gods why would they put a race that they created at a disadvantage in these fair trials?" She answered logically, her response made sense. If the gods didn't want a race to exist then why did they allow it to be created in the first place?

"You probably suffered to that guy but don't worry about him; some of the idiots are still clinging to their memories of ancient eras that were millennia's ago. I'll let you in on a secret, since your race is reappearing in the world there's bound to be other races that resurface after time and the human race will finally rediscover their lost history to fight back, a history that was intentionally wiped from existence due to a certain group." She said mysteriously, but with these few sentences my entire world view had been overturned.

"So what are 'levels'?" I asked curiously, knowing she probably knew the answer after living for so long. "Oh them, a person is born with a level in fact every living being in the multiverse has a 'level' binding them. Whether they can see it or not depends on the laws of the world but it's there, even I have a 'level' but it's irrelevant since my role doesn't require me to be stronger than I already am. The human race was the strongest race in the last era because they slaughtered races, non-human races, like yours to increase it. That's why the world will become chaotic after a few years." She said matter-of-factly like she was giving me a history lesson which, in a way, she was.

I couldn't stop myself from gasping in both amazement and shock, to sum it up it meant that a war with humans was unavoidable because they would slaughter to increase their level. Then a scary puzzle began to be filled in in my mind: This world where levels decided ones social status was unfair, so unfair that people had already begun to fight back with acts of terrorism, they were desperate to do anything to improve their standing in the world by any means necessary.

When non-human races began appearing in the world more frequently and people began to kill them as 'monsters' and see their levels increased they would be excited, every human would be on the hunt to kill 'monsters' to increase their own level. If what I was thinking was true it was a plan that had taken years if not centuries to put into effect, to completely wipe out the history of the world and replace it with falsehoods before creating inequality to incite war in the future.

All this time the human race had been preparing for war without even realising it, we'd been subject to unfair treatment so that we would do anything to improve ourselves, even thrust ourselves into danger to fight against other races but now I was one of the races that'd be marked as a 'monster' I couldn't help but shiver at this revelation.

It was too frightening to think that this had been planned…

"Sorry to interrupt you but we need to get started," A cheery voice interrupted me suddenly I'd almost completely forgotten she was in front of me before she spoke, "The first trial! Trial of Combat!" She grinned before waving her hand and this time I was falling.

I was falling from the 'platform' that'd been holding me in the air and was hurtling towards the ground from a frightening height, I was sure that even if I did survive this I'd be as flat as a pancake when I hit the ground.

"Bang!" A sound that sounded like a small meteor hitting the Earth echoed across the world…