The year 2019 marked the end of the human race in all of its glory. It happened over the course of a few hours. “It’s happening all over the world! I’m afraid this is the end.” News casters announced the end of the world as natural disasters pelted everything. Tsunami’s which engulf entire islands, every volcano erupting at once, earthquakes, tornados, and hurricanes destroying everything.
It was truly the apocalypse, not a single human had been safe from the destruction. However, miraculously enough, every single species other than humans managed to survive this ‘End Of the World” Apocalypse. It took no more than a few decades before the earth had been restored and reborn in full. Looking down at the rebuilt earth from a place which is completely unreachable by anything physical, a gigantic figure speaks. “The earth has been restored, as I have prophesied.”
As the figure waves its hand, the lost souls which were killed by the disaster are drawn into its palm. The souls then mish and mash together, eventually becoming one single soul. The newly created meek and scared soul looks up at its creator. It cannot make out it’s creator’s face, nor the exact shape of its gigantic figure...Only that it is vaguely human shaped. The figure then speaks down at the now lone soul. “You’ve caused a lot of trouble lately. Your sins cannot go unpunished, Human.”
The soul shaked and released a wet spiritual substance which seemed to resemble tears. “You’re to be banished to another realm which I manage. Where every other abomination is settled. The Nether World. You shall be the only of your species, for this reason, I have fused all of you into one. You shall suffer loneliness, ineptitude, and helplessness in the next life.” The soul wanted to speak up and plead its case to it’s creator, but how could it? It was merely a soul not even possessing a body, let alone a voice. “Now begone.”
And with the sound of its creator's voice, everything went black…
“Are you okay?”
As the soul’s consciousness slipped into existence, it could hear a strange voice which seemed to be coming from above. It’s eyes opened slowly, but they couldn’t manage to focus on anything for what seemed like a long time. “..Ugh..”
As its eyes had finally managed to focus, it saw something which resembled the face of a human right above it. Thick orange hair covering it’s head with cat ears, it has a distinctly human-like appearance, despite having an additional appendage in the form of a furry tail and its facial features being dissimilar from any ethnic group the soul was aware of.
It has clothes hiding it’s sexual organs, and it’s standing on two legs, so the soul could decipher that it’s intelligence is probably similar to the humans which existed in its old world. “Ahh!”
“-Ahh!”
The soul screams after it gazes upon the strange creature for a bit, which causes the creature to also scream. The creature hides behind a tree, and peaks out at the soul while shaking.“...?” After seeing the creature’s reaction, the soul believes that the creature is likely not a threat and breathes a sigh of relief. The soul then looks down at its own hands to see that it now, once again, resides within a human body. It is no longer a mere shivering soul. “...Who are y-you...?” The soul asks, surprised at the sound of its own voice which was a strange but perfect mixture of man and woman, in reference to its tone.
“Uh...my name is R-Rhubey..” The soul listened to the creature’s tone which, upon further listening, sounded like the voice of a young girl. [Rhu-, as in Rude. Bey, as in Bee. I see.] The soul thought to itself. “Wha-...What’s your name?” The feminine creature asks, expecting an immediate answer. However, the soul pauses at that question, and becomes lost in thought. [My..name…] It didn’t know what to say. In truth, it had very many names. A lot of which it didn’t even remember. After thinking for a few more seconds, the soul decides on a name to call itself in its new body, in this new world. It would call itself a gender neutral name of one of its favorite birds. “My name is Robin.”
The girl comes out from behind the tree and seems to have relaxed a bit ...but her relaxed expression quickly returns to its previous state as Robin stands up, and Rhubey’s eyes travel down ‘his’ body. “Gah!! You’re a man!?” As Robin looks down at his body, he quickly covers his chest and pelvic region with two different hands. He sees two grapefruit sized ‘melons’ sticking out from his chest, all the while touching a soft external organ in his pelvic region. [I see…] It wasn’t hard for him to figure out that he had been reborn with both male and female reproductive organs. Half of his soul was female, after all. After he explained his situation a bit, Rhubey gives him a large cloth to cover himself. Rhubey then takes Robin through the forest, to her home where a lot of other individuals with animal appendages similar to Rhubey are stationed.
“W-Welcome to my village Robin!” After Rhubey says such, Robin closely observes the village. It’s a place in the middle of the forest, and made up of small wooden huts. There appears to be around 100 or so villagers, many of which being teenagers and small children, who all come out to greet Robin with smiles.
“Wow, you’re so weird looking!”
“Yeah, yeah!” As Robin looks around, he notices that there doesn’t seem to be a single adult in the village. Only children and teenagers like Rhubey, who looked like a 14 or 15 year old girl. Robin spends most of the day talking with the children; who give him food, water, and shelter at the end of the day. He lays his head on a bed made of hay as he thinks about the day he’s had. [There’s only kids here...why is that? What happened to all of the adults?] Robin didn’t bother to ask such a question directly, as he had a feeling that there was probably a bad situation behind it.
Instead of going to sleep, Robin spent the entire time wondering about his situation. He could vaguely remember his conversation with ‘that being’, his creator who stood above him in every way. Although he was aware of his soul being made up of 7.7 billion souls, he didn’t remember much from the lives that the souls which make up his own lived. There was only one thing which he could clearly remember, and that was the agony and sorrow that they felt in their final moments. A feeling which Robin had fully inherited from the souls. It truly terrified him, the power of that being, the ‘God’ that a good portion of the souls which make up his existence prayed to every day. The feeling of betrayal that those souls felt... He also thought about that god’s final words before sending him off. [‘The Nether World’...huh…]
When he first heard the phrase, he had thought that it would be similar to the idea of ‘hell’, a place where he would suffer eternal damnation in hellfire at the hands of evil demons far more terrible than any human could imagine. However, that didn’t seem to be the case so far.
The village of children seemed to be well kept by them, at the very least. The teenagers were good at hunting and gathering nuts and berries, so they weren’t particularly worried about starving. The place didn’t seem too bad considering the situation...but… [There’s something deeper behind this place.] Just as he thinks as such, he hears birds chirping, and realizes that it is already sunrize.
By the time Robin had gotten up and out of bed, the sun was already well into the sky on a fairly warm day. He hears a loud rumbling noise coming from the center of the village where he had been taken to yesterday. He quickly jogs over and nimbly hides behind a hut to listen in on what was happening.
“We want it now, understand?”
“Y-Yes..”
Robin looked over to see three figures. Muscle bound men with green skin, which was covered in warts and acne. They all stand well over 3 meters tall. He looked down to see the people who they were talking to. Rhubey; and three other teenagers who had introduced themselves yesterday as Nupinu, Kuroki, and Gergo. All three of them held their heads down as the leader of the three large creatures spoke.
“You know what happens when you disobey us, right?” The large green man wraps his hand around Rhubey’s entire head. “Y-Yes mister Oogak…” Rhubey responds with a shaking voice, as Robin looks at the situation with an expression filled with anger. Without thinking, Robin jumps out from behind the hut where he had been hiding and steps out right behind Rhubey and her friends. “...Who are you?” Oogak asks while releasing his hand from Rhubey’s head. As Rhubey turns around to see Robin, her face is filled with horror which strikes down to her very core. “My name is Robin.”, “...What are you?” Oogak looked at Robin curiously with a serious expression. “...I am, a vampire.”, “Gah!?”
At Robin’s words, everyone collectively held their breath. A vampire!?
Robin didn’t know this at the time, but in this world vampires are less similar to creepy monsters of the night who feast and secret and more akin to walking natural disasters who harshly feats upon and enslave every race they come across. Although they are solitary creatures, a single vampire has enough power to wipe out entire villages. A terrifying existence which cannot be reasoned with, that’s how they’re viewed in this world.
The three Ogres noticeably began to shake in terror just from hearing the word. One of them even took several steps back before stumbling off of their feet on reflex.
“Gah, dammit! ****! We’re leaving for now, but we’ll be back in three days!” The three green men hurriedly rushed off from the village in a terrified frenzy, leaving it in a state of shock. “R-Robin, are you really a vampire?” Rhubey asks Robin. “No, I lied.”
“Nuh- Why’d you do that!?” Rhubey bites her tongue while trying to release a quick comment, but quickly recovers. “I didn’t like how he treated you guys.”
“If Ogres and people like you exist here, I figured that vampires are also a thing in this place, and if they’re anything like the legends I know, Ogres would naturally be afraid of them.” As Robin looks over to Rhubey, he can see that she’s visibly shaking. “B-But...now they’ll come back with a force strong enough to take on a vampire.”, “You’re right.” Robin smiles. “Now, you just have to defeat them in battle.”
“Defeat…” It was official in Rhubey’s head. Robin is insane. Even though there were more villagers here than there were Ogres, the natural strength and toughness of an Ogre made it impossible to defeat them in battle, especially with a force made up of only children.
Robin puts his hand on Rhubey’s shoulder and somehow, as she looks at his confident expression, her shaking stops. “Listen Rhubey, more than anything, war is about outsmarting your enemy and advancing ahead of them to the next stage.”
Robin says before yelling out to the other children who are shaking, scared and crying. “I will teach all of you about the art of war!” Robin says with a thunderous voice as he stomps on the ground beneath him.
This tale is a story of humanity itself living on in a new world after being annihilated by god. The most awful, most terrible abomination ever given life. The human.
