A ghoul walked into the right door, dressed in a brown ragged robe which paired alongside their sunken black eyes created an aura– a faded dark mist clouded every footstep they took as they walked into the pure white door.
He didn't wake. One blink and he was standing before a hardware store: purple-bricked, mold-streaked, abandoned tire tracks choking the yard. He laughed.
"I'm back home in Invalia for this challenge…" The ghoul's voice was dripping with glee bouncing once before peeling off his robe. There was no flesh beneath — only a hollow ivory skeleton.
"Famine…." An ethereal voice spoke from above, alerting the ghoul below.
Famine looked up. The night above him was charcoal, stars blacked out. A golden spiral uncoiled inside his skull and ran down his bones, tinting the mist citrine.
"Yes I am Famine, former owner of Tombstone Hardware." He answered slickly.
"Liar…. You are a kingpin of drugs– a serial killer whose infamy rivals the Devil himself." the ghastly challenge voice spoke, each word pushed the man further and further into the store until the door closed.
Famine was trapped in the building, the reception half destroyed just as every aisle. A green EXIT door shimmered into place. A countdown appeared above it. "One hundred seconds. Reach the door. Tell me when you are ready."
"Hold up." Famine spoke, "How does this… test my past?"
"Someone like you has no fear or regret, you are the danger so you must see how it feels…"
"I provide the best product. Saints spike their wine with what I supply. It makes you feel a spiral– madness is nature you know." The ghoul spoke, twiddling his skeletal fingers before pointing directly at the door. "Your challenge? Want me to be a play thing? I play with the bastards, the world is mine. Not anyone else's, not even the Gods."
"Do you want to start?" The challenge voice spoke with a hint of rage fuelling.
"No, I don't think I will." The ghoul flicked his hands around creating a pack of cigarettes and a lighter for him out of thin air– to smoke on, "Whatever I imagine happens so I imagine my success right here."
In an instant the ghoul appeared in front of the door, he opened it to view a large drop there.
"Fool…"
"There was no exit, you tried to kill me– pathetically, even if I played fair." Famine spoke, "I'm a horseman, one of the set. We disbanded — so what? You want me to be upset that I built a livelihood? I don't regret hurting people. That's not… my problem."
"Who cares about that!?! You broke the challenge!" The voice spoke enraged as a celestial avatar of a hydra screamed, pitch black scales and the only reason it was visible was due to the white silhouette outlining it.
"I don't care…" Famine stated before pointing a finger gun to his head, "Boom!"
The ghoul snapped into consciousness inside his cocoon. He jerked free — sticky, greasy membrane cracking under him — and collapsed onto the floor. Around him pods bubbled: Some hissed and trembled; a few were already dead-silent. Not all would wake. Famine felt neither fear nor sorrow. He felt an opportunity.
A skinny teenage elf in pink—bow slung over one shoulder—peered at him. "You look scary, Sir Famine!" he chirped.
"What do you mean boy?"
"Less ghoul, more beast," A lich spoke– the necromancer was cloaked in a purple wizard cloak, it pointed at Famine's hands. The skeletal exterior grew claws similar to a slight amount of fur being around his body.
"Perhaps it is due to my success in the challenge." Famine spoke with eloquence.
A hulking harpy waddled over and gawked at one of the pods, the silhouette of an Imp lying there, unconscious– "Is that Zero? That bastard killed one of my kin– I'm going to-"
Famine moved like a predator. The Elf blinked. The Necromancer was already reciting a maze story — a labyrinth from their trial.
"Stop it." Famine's voice was velvet. He stepped forward and punched the harpy in the chest. Her heart left her as a squelch and a crimson fountain. The room only glanced; death here was an expected expense
The elf piped up again, cheerful. "I'm Jonah, and this is my buddy Lichness." He pointed at his companion with a grin, as if they hadn't just watched a murder. "When we woke up, two pods were already open — some kid with horns and the Seventh Saint, Saraline. They walked out with some goo girl. She was hot. Anyway, we've been waiting here since."
"We saw many deaths," Lichness spoke– "When we woke up we also saw a blue yeti in a cocoon– he didn't live though as we saw the cocoon tear him apart, blood and guts flying everywhere inside as the pod shook violently."
"Well, they failed and we're alive so let's leave." Famine spoke, his demeanor never changed.
"Sure sir!" Jonah muttered, grabbing Lichness and hurrying out as Famine followed soon after as they left the challenge room to go back to the auditorium.
Behind them, a cocoon cracked. A mermaid burst out — Medean skin, baby-blue eyes, pink hair threaded with beads. She hovered gracefully, scanning the pods. Her gaze landed on the harpy's corpse. She giggled, as if it were decoration.
She drifted to the Imp's pod, perched beside it, and polished the shell with gentle hands.
"Don't worry, Zero," she cooed, a neon smile gleaming. "Invalia can live with people like me if you die. I understand. Nil Aries, at your service." She tilted her head like a fan at a sick play.