His peaceful sleep was instantly shattered by the horrendous, ear-piercing shriek. It was a shriek belonging to thousands of lost souls, screaming for release from the monstrosity that had devoured them.

He knew what made this shriek and it was nothing good. The instant it ripped through the air, he had been woken. He was prepared for these situations, God knows how many of them he had faced before in his relatively short lifespan of twenty years, and the sad thing was, he had encountered relatively few of these dilemmas.

He cursed and jumped out of bed. The thing shrieked again, rattling the walls of his two-roomed home. He glanced around it quickly, searching for his important belongings. His gaze passed over the flimsy plywood dresser, hand-crafted by him. It passed over his resting mat, and then his actual bed, both also flimsy, made of straw loosely tied together with woven ropes. There, in the corner, he rested his gaze. That was where his necessities were: a long sword, sturdier than anything in this home, made of a steel tinted with a faint blue, small runes lightly engraved in it, swirling, beautiful symbols that could entrance even the most churlish mountain climber. This sword had been passed down through the generations of his family, most recently belonging to his late father. Right beside this sword was a small jug of water with a leather strap attached to it. This rarely ran out of water in these areas, he lived very near a large river, one that was often called the Jiet, but he simply called it his livelihood. This river kept the area very fertile, good for farming, not like he did much of that, and he always had plenty of water. He caught fish for his breakfast, lunch and dinner in the river, and occasionally managed to get larger game animals that came to the river to drink. He grabbed these two items, slinging the strap of the sword's hilt around his shoulder along with that of the water jug's, and quickly glanced around him, trying to gauge what the beast outside his home was doing.

"Why here? Why now?" he asked himself under his breath. "How in all the eight hells did it find me? I've been quiet, kept my nose clean, done nothing to attract attention. So how in the eight hells…?" A thought flickered through his brain that it probably wasn't even from any of the eight Hells, but from the ninth. He immediately dismissed this thought with a wave of scornful rejection. The ninth Hell? he thought. What are you? A child? To be thinking of such imaginary places! There were, as was common knowledge among his people, eight hells, each one growing in horror and macabre. There was some thought of a 'ninth hell,' where all the creatures from the preceding hells gathered to form even more horrible beasts, but it was a tale told around fires on feast nights, to scare those gathered. Those thoughts passed through his mind, but they didn't take precedence. The most important thing right now was escaping his home.

He figured the beast was a simple Stet-Ofa, one of the beasts that had plagued his race for centuries. Literally translating into Creature of Evil, the Stet-Ofa had killed his ancestors with their vile breath, sharp teeth, and deadly claws. The massive genocide had led what had been left of his race to create miles upon miles of tunnels underground, allowing his cat-like race to live in relative safety. There were thousands of little underground villages, of which the surface dwellers knew nothing about. He personally preferred his homes above ground, but he would always have a special affinity for the villages he had grown up in; however, it would sometimes get lonely. After all, there were very few who knew of his people, and those who did found that it was rather difficult to be near these peoples, with their yellow-green eyes, fanged dentition, and their soft, quiet, almost sneaky way of speaking.

Although he was pressed nearly flat for time, it was with a gentle fondness that he gazed around the hut that he had been living in the past eight years. Sure, nothing eventful had really happened, but it was his home, and had provided him with the necessities of life. So, with a faint and unhappy sigh, he hurried into the second room.

In this room, there was simply a dried, brown mat, woven with once green reeds from by the river. Pushing this aside, he uncovered a small hatch, mostly covered with a seasoning of loose dirt. Quickly dusting it off, he opened the hatch revealing a set of step that went down into one of the many underground tunnels. He began to take slow, reluctant steps down, looking back at his home. The beast's roars had returned, and it sounded as though it was prepared to strike his home. It roared it's blood curdling shriek, and, instead of destroying the house completely, simply ripped off the roof.

Odd… That's strange behavior for a Stet-Ofa… Now that I think of it… This whole time, it's been uncharacteristically silent… Why is that? As he looked up, he quickly realized the reason for the relative calm. Gazing in horror, he froze.

This was no Stet-Ofa… It was worse. Oh my Gods… A Stet-Kantusan, a Creature of Devastation and Destruction… It glanced down at him, and seemed to smirk at him, though that was impossible… With this glance, memories were brought back to him…

"Run, my son! Run!"

"But father…"

"Do it! NOW!" Immediately, his father was grabbed in the jaws of the Stet-Kantusan, it's poisoned fangs slowly injecting a painful acid into his body, burning him from the inside out. "Hurry…" he said weakly, and time seemed to slow… "There is no longer time… Please, Thotiil… Please… Take my sword… It will protect you in times of need."

Dropping the sword that he had somehow managed to hold through it all, so Haantus died. There was nothing left to say. Suddenly, as though the world had returned to normal speed, the Kantusan threw Thoriil's father into the air, and snapped him up. Crying and stumbling, using the daemon's distraction to his advantage, Thoriil ran, grabbed the sword, and, dodging most of the flaming obstacles, followed the rest of his village into the tunnel nearby.

That occurred twelve years ago. He had been eight. Reminiscing, he didn't notice when the Kantusan slashed his house, sending it up in flames, until the poison smoke reached his nose. And here I go, once more, into the tunnels…