Ax grabbed his dagger and tried to shimmy the doorknob open, but to no avail. Nothing.
"Why won't you open?" he asked himself.
He took a step back and thought about his situation. He could go back home and figure something out or forget about all of this; he could even ignore the fact that he ever walked through any door in the first place.
But Ax was curious; he wanted to know why he was even able to go through these doors, why he could just come back to life, and how literally everyone he met in the other world knew that he was 'new.'. He was okay with the idea of going back and staying home, practicing for his band, but he also wanted to know more about that girl with the braids and metal arm.
He made a choice.
Ax opened the big door and pushed it; it was heavier than the other doors. Ax let his curiosity win and get the better of him. As he walked in, he entered a room as big as an airplane hangar, except he couldn't see the ceiling.
"What the hell? This place is massive," he said to himself, echoing.
He noticed another door at the back end of the room, and he walked towards it. It was a normal-sized door this time, as he was halfway across the room already. The door behind him slammed shut, closing with a loud thud.
Ax looked behind him, startled by the loud noise.
Crash
A massive crash could be heard behind him, opposite to the direction he was looking at.
As he slowly turned his head, peering in the direction in front of him.
He saw a massive cloud of dust, and as the dust settled down, a massive eighty-six-foot-tall skeleton had fallen from the pitch-black sky.
It had massive, glowing red eyes, a cracked skull, and missing teeth with its jaw strung wide open.
It was staring at him hunched over on its all fours, looking right at him.
Ax froze up; he didn't know that monsters this gargantuan in size could even exist; even behind these doors, it didn't make sense.
It reached out for him, trying to grab Ax.
As its bony grasp slowly started wrapping around his body, he pulled his gun and shot it.
This caused the skeleton to lose its thumb. It shattered into pieces. It immediately slammed its fist into the ground, crushing Ax into a pulp.
Ax woke up. The first thing he did was shoot that fist once again, but he missed his shot.
The skeleton slowly started getting up; Ax could only watch in awe as he realized how big eight six-foot actually is. The skeleton then hunched over to the ground, peeled off Ax's mangled body from the ground with its other hand, and held it over its mouth and dropped it in, as if Ax's body was just a random snack, and swallowed it.
Its ribcage and bones were an off-white color; however, the inside of its ribcage was pitch black. Ax could not see what was inside it. For the better if he didn't.
The skeleton then turned its head and looked back down at Ax, as if it was asking for seconds; its red, glowing eye stared at Ax, giving him the chills, as if two red headlights illuminated his surroundings. It tried reaching for Ax again, but he knew better this time. He aimed at the ankles of the skeleton and shot one of them, shattering it into pieces.
The skeleton fell over to its side. "Timber!" Ax yelled as it crashed to its side.
Ax ran up to the skull and aimed his gun at its forehead and emptied his revolver.
*SHATTER*
*SHATTER*
*SHATTER*
SHATTER
With the last shot, the forehead caved in and shattered, causing its red glowing eyes to dim and go dark.
Dweller slain
"What a monster! Thank the lord this thing was alone; if there were more, I don't think I'd be able to leave this room in like... ever," he talks to himself as he was inspecting the skeleton, walking around it, not finding any coins anywhere.
"Why isn't there any...? Usually if I complete the room, they kind of just drop on the ground somewhere... unless..." Ax realized something sinister.
He looked up and saw two sets of glowing dots in the sky... getting bigger... and bigger... until-
Crash
As the dust settled, Ax saw two red dots stare at him from above within the cloud of dust. As it cleared, two humongous skeletons stood in front of him.
"I had to say something... didn't I?" Ax asked himself.
"You know what... on second thought... you can just keep your... coins; I'm good," Ax said as he started to walk towards the other door.
The skeletons following him. Ax, seeing this, did what he knew best.
He put his gun back into position. Sword back in his sheath, and... he ran.
"AHHH!" Ax screamed for his life as he ran as fast as he could, the skeletons trying to catch up, but they were so massive they could only walk.
Ax reached for the black door and stopped in his tracks.
"Come on, come on, the blue door doesn't open anymore, so surely..." Ax turned the knob and—"Bingo,""he said to himself as the door actually opened.
He pushed it open as hard as he could and ran inside, shutting it behind him as he heard loud thuds and banging on the door.
"Ah, finally... I escaped," Ax said as he tried catching his breath.
He looked around the new room, and what he saw was... a red door at the end and, in the middle of the room, an eight-foot-tall, large, bald man hunched over with his back turned. The room itself was like a forest, filled with various trees and grass, but the man was in the middle.
As he slowly walked over to him, he noticed that his skin was blue... and he was only wearing a tiger skin cloth around his waist that led to his knees, and a long, spiky metal club was on the ground next to him.
Ax slowly pulled out his sword, which he held with his right hand. As he pulled his gun out, he walked closer and closer to the monster. He could hear it crunching on something... it wasn't just hunched over... it was eating something, something it killed with its massive club.
Crack
Ax stepped on a dry branch, which caused the monster to snap its neck behind and look back at Ax.
It had massive fangs, barbaric features, two horns protruding from its forehead, and two milky white eyes, and red blood dripping from its chin and red viscera stuck to its cheeks.
It faced Ax and roared. The deafening sound caused him to walk backwards, and he slipped on some vines and fell on the ground.
The monster reached for the ground next to it and patted the grass around till it touched the club and picked it up. Walked up to where Ax slipped on the ground and raised its club as high as it could and slammed it into the ground.
But right before he got hit, Ax rolled over to the left, causing the ogre-looking monster to miss its mark.
"What the hell?" Ax asked himself.
"Is that an 'Oni'?" Ax continued.
An Oni is a Japanese demon or yokai, which is known to be evil and kills its victims; sometimes they were recorded as cannibalizing their victims, whom they killed with their said weapons; sometimes they were featured in the anime Ax watched, but they were demons or mostly written in Japanese folklore.
"They're real?" Ax asked himself once more.
The Oni then looked right at him and raised its left hand into the air.
Sparks started to form around its palm, and as it grasped its hand shut, the crackling in the air stopped, and a bolt of pure lightning formed in its hand.
It had grabbed a bolt of lightning out of thin air.
Ax somehow got up and jumped out of the way, right before the Oni threw the bolt of lightning right at his previous location, burning the ground right before it.
Ax was silent. He stared at the Oni's milky white eyes, and... they looked empty.
Ax's eye widened in realization. The reason why the Oni only engaged him when it heard something was because... it was blind.
Ax now had to deal with a hulking monster that could throw lightning and had a taste for blood.
But he had an advantage over the Oni... It was blind.