Mazes & Monsters
Chapter 1 – Death
It was your average Wednesday morning in a generic office where we find a man stood next to a photocopier, his name is Andrew Green, at the age where he's in his thirty's he isn't in the place he thought he would be at this stage of his life and currently he was asking himself what happened, where did he go wrong.
Everyday life was for the most part boring and repetitive, he never thought that he would be an astronaut or a racing driver when he was growing up as most children do but he did want to help people and be a hero as foolish as that sounds, his dream was to become a Policemen or a Firefighter one day.
So he studied hard at school and got good grades, went to college, lived a good life and helped those in need, not out of a sense of obligation or due to a religion he followed, he did believe in a greater power but saw religions as companies getting rich from peoples beliefs. He did nice things because he always believed that people were too ugly to one another and that the world would be a much nicer place if we all just treated each other with more kindness and respect, a bit naive but that was his belief.
When he left college he decided it was time to apply for a career in either the Police force or the Firefighting Service so he filled in all the paperwork, passed the written exams and cleared all the interviews but when it came to the medical exam he was disallowed, the reason? He had a heart murmur.
The photocopier made an audible beep indicating that it had finished photocopying the files he need, so he picked up the copies from the tray and went to his cubicle to stare at the three grey walls around his desk. His work place did allow photos of loved ones and other types of pictures to be put up on to the walls as long as they were not deemed offensive to any of the other staff, he had a picture of his mum and dad standing next to him in his college cap and gown, his face was beaming with happiness and his parents with pride, part of him felt sorry for that twenty-one year old as he had yet to feel the weight of real life.
On his desk apart from his computer, keyboard and mouse was a bobble head of one of his favourite childhood cartoon characters, every time he felt a little down he would press down on his head and watch it bob up and down and side to side and feel a little better, but today he knew it wouldn't help, he felt trapped and unable to move on with his life, he slipped back into his day dream of his past, thinking hard about what happened.
He remembered the health test and how his childhood dreams were dashed due to something that he had no control over, to say that he was pissed off was an understatement. That night, he drank hard for the first time in his life until he vomited it all up, then while he was filled with self-loathing and liquid courage he went and picked a fight even though he didn't know how to defend himself and got the shit beaten out of him by two guys, part of him was feeling sorry for himself and the other part was just angry and how unfair life was.
After a few weeks of moping around he started to look for a job so that he could start paying rent to his parents, start paying off his college loan and somehow try and save up some money so that he could get his own place.
Thankfully, due to his good grades from college he managed to get a decent paying job working in an office. He thought that it was only temporary until he got enough money to get his own place, the job itself was a bit boring as all he would do would be processing data into spreadsheets and sorting through paperwork to make sure that the figures matched up, in the grand scheme of things it could have been worse, he could have been working in the sewers with all that shit and rats around his feet.
When he finally snapped out of his daydream he found that he had already done the majority of the paperwork he originally sat down to do, his work was so monotonous that he could almost do it in his sleep but just to be sure he scanned over the work he did in his daydream and found no mistakes.
Looking up from his cubical he saw the office clock ticking away on the wall next to the coffee machine, the reason it was there was probably to remind the workers getting their coffee to hurry up and get back to their desks instead of standing there drinking the bland tasting filter coffee that was bought on the companies dime.
There was only twenty minutes left of his shift according to the clock on the wall, it felt like he had been stuck in this office for so much longer than that, he looked at his watch to check to see if the time was correct, depressingly the time was correct so for the rest of his shift Andrew kept himself busy reading over todays work and tidying up his desk.
Finally his shift was up, Andrew said goodbye to his work colleagues that he had known for over five years now but didn't know much more about them than their names, their children's names and what pets they had at home, once he got to the main door of the building he put on his suit jacket and walked home.
The route he walked home was one that he had done thousands of times by now, so much so that he didn't even have to think about anything, most times his mind would drift off thinking about things he needed to do when he got home or about the plot of the TV show he was watching that night but today his mind slipped back into thinking about his past, by now years had passed and he was still at his 'temporary' job, he had moved out of his parent's house but he had only managed to move three blocks down the road into a one bedroom flat, it wasn't anything special and it was too small for more than one person, but the rent was dirt cheap, and it was an easy commute to his job.
He did have the odd girlfriend or two from time to time but he had never been in love with any of them, most of his adult years had been quite lonely as all that he seemed to do was go to work to earn just enough money to exist but never move on. He did have friends though outside of work and his neighbours were always nice to him as he would lend a hand to anybody who asked, especially the old lady that lived opposite from him who reminded him of his own grandmother, after he would do the odd job for her or repair something in her apartment she would always comment on how much of a nice young man he was and that she should introduce him to her granddaughter but it would never happen, she probably didn't even have a granddaughter and she was just being nice to him.
He arrived home in the nick of time as the imminent grey clouds over head decided to start raining heavily, he had managed to get into the lobby of his apartment building with only a few drops of rain on him. Looking back through the glass door he watched people scrambling for cover as the rain came down faster and heavier than a few moments ago, he climbed up the stairs to the 2nd floor forgoing the death trap that was the buildings elevator, he unlocked his apartment door and went in.
When he would get home from work he found that most of his free time was spent reading books or watching TV, he did have some hobbies like rock climbing and running but his main passion was an RPG called Mazes and Monsters where he could live out his fantasies of being a hero (and sometimes an antihero) for three to five hours every week, usually on a Wednesday of every week unless people had conflicting schedules, he smiled to himself, last time they had sat down to play they had to leave it on a cliff-hanger and today they would be able to resolve what ever Tom had install for them (Tom was the GM for our current campaign). His life maybe in a rut and nothing really changed in his life, he didn't have the drive or ambition to do anything about it, it just seemed that defeating terrible monsters in some fantasy world was easier and more achievable than doing anything to change his current situation, he knew that this was called escapism but truth be told he didn't give a flying fuck.
After having something to eat Andrew quickly showered and put on a pair of jeans and a printed t-shirt with an abstract tiger on the front, feeling full and clean he grabbed all of his gear that he would need for tonight's campaign, shoved it all into his backpack and left his apartment.
Five hours later he was heading home from Tom's house and was feeling good about himself as he walked home that night. His party had defeated a powerful wizard and his pet dragon at the top of the deadly tower that they had been grinding through for the past two sessions, they had saved the noble's daughter and had even levelled up, his character was now a level 14 human paladin, he was starting to get quite powerful but for Andrew it was a love hate relationship with this character as roleplaying him was tough due to his vows he had made as a Paladin.
Looking up at the night sky Andrew stopped, due to the clear sky he could see a few of the stars in the nights sky but most of them were hidden thanks to the city's light pollution, foggy breath escaped his mouth, the seasons were defiantly beginning to change from Autumn to Winter.
Thankfully he had brought his thick coat with him but he had forgotten my gloves, slung over his right shoulder was his backpack containing his M&M gear, it weighed a fair bit due to all the books but thanks to his thick coat it wasn't digging into his shoulder all that much.
As he walked home Andrew's hands started to get a bit cold so he lifted them up to his mouth and breathed some warm air on them and rubbed his hands together feeling some warmth if only for a moment, next week he was defiantly bringing his gloves.
The air that night was so cold and crisp that he couldn't help himself, taking deep breaths of fresh air into his lungs as he walked, it was almost as refreshing as the air you get after a rain storm and it brought a little smile to his face.
Home was now only ten more minutes away and soon he would be in his warm house with a cold beer in his hand but as he began to turn the corner onto the next street he thought he smelt something a bit off, a strong acrid smell almost as if something was being burnt.
Stopping, Andrew looked around and couldn't see anything, he looked around the area near him for a bit but he saw absolutely nothing, the only thing that he could see was someone running towards his direction on the other side of the street.
It was a young man with shoulder length brown hair and in all likeliness he was probably just going for a late-night jog but just something about the way his eyes looked was a bit off, as he drew closer he caught Andrew looking at him and almost immediately he turned his face away from him and held his hand over his face.
"Something is not right here" Andrew muttered to himself.
He was about to shout out to the stranger when a warm yellow light caught Andrew's attention, it was different than the street lights that lit the way home, it was warm and inviting almost like a log fire….wait a minute it was a fire, looking for the source Andrew saw the front door of a house begin to smoulder as it began to catch fire, shit, what the hell was happening?
Suddenly he realised what was going on, that man was most likely an arsonist that had started that fire, quickly Andrew dialled 911 and reported both the fire and a brief description of the arsonist to the phone operator, outside of the house was a blue hatchback so he knew there was probably somebody inside, "shit I have to get them out, its past eleven o'clock so they're probably in bed" Andrew knew that he should wait outside for the fire department, that was what common sense would dictate in this situation but you know what, fuck that shit, he wasn't just stand there and allow people to die.
All of his life Andrew had always wanted to be a hero that saved people and now this was his chance to do something important with his boring pointless life and give it some meaning, he was going to go and get those people out of there.
But just one question, how?
The front door was now fully masked with flames, if he was going to do this then he would have to go and look for another way in, there was probably one around the back of the house that would be probably locked tight and he didn't have enough time to kick the door down judging by how fast the fire was spreading.
That left him only one option, the living room window which luckily was quite large, quickly he ran to the window and swung his bag into it with all his might, the glass cracked a bit but stayed in one piece, after three more strikes it began to shatter and on the forth swing he was in, the living room was large with two sofas, a TV stand, coffee table and a chest of toys for where the children played; shit there are children in this house.
As fast as he could Andrew ran up the stairs and went into the first room that he could see, the smoke was much thicker up here and it was starting to get harder to breath, the first room was the bathroom, there were only three more doors left on this floor, thankfully the next room he barged into was the master bedroom, laying there in bed was a single figure, a woman.
Rushing over to her side he shook the woman harshly to order to wake her up but her speech was drowsy, lifting her up Andrew rushed down the stairs past the flames, the smoke was getting really dense now and the fire was spreading even further, after dropping the woman on the drive outside her house he went back into the burning building.
"I have to get everyone out" that was all that Andrew could think of as he pushed past the flames, the heat was getting almost unbearable now as the skin on his face and exposed hands began to burn and blister but his adrenaline was pumping and it helped take the edge off of the pain.
There were only two doors left on the top floor and one if not both had to have children in it, coughing in the thick smoke he opened the door to discover it was an empty room, probably a guest room Andrew thought as he sped to the last door which was finally the children's room.
Inside there were two little beds with a boy and girl inside that couldn't have been older than five.
Scooping them up Andrew went back to the stairs only to discover that the flames had now started to creep up them, there was no way that he could climb down those stairs and not be burned to death, his head was starting to get dizzy from all the smoke he was breathing in and it was getting harder to concentrate, his mind started to become fuzzy as he started to feel so very sleepy, Andrew knew that he was losing consciousness, he had to get out or all three of them would die.
There was only one thing left to do to escape the building, he had to jump out of the window, he didn't have enough time to throw the kids mattresses out the window for them to land on, so bracing myself with a child in each arm he opened the kids bedroom window and shifted each of his legs past the windowsill.
Andrew jumped and with a thud landed on his feet followed by the crunching sound of bones snapping that could be heard coming from his legs, he felt nothing for a split second before unbelievable agony radiated through my body, Andrew had never felt anything close to this level of pain before in his life as the edges of the bones grinded against one another, he had broken both of his legs.
The adrenaline coursing through his body had finally stopped and all he could do was cry out in pain, the two kids were fine as he had taken the full brunt of the fall and had dropped them when he landed, thankfully they didn't seem to have been hurt at all.
Tiredness like a heavy blanket started to envelop Andrews body as the smoke inhalation took its toll, his limbs felt so heavy as if they were made from lead, he tried with all he had to fight against the crushing need to close his eyes but it was a battle that he could never win.
Andrew had achieved what he had wanted to do all of his like, he had saved three people that night, pleased with his efforts he decided to finally let go and finally rest his eyes for just a second.
Yes, sleep sounded very good right now, as he began to close his eyes as the sight and sound of a fire truck came into view, then darkness.
Three lives for the price of one, not a bad deal he thought as his body finally stopped breathing and lost consciousness, that was the end of Andrew Green.