{[The right choice is never easy. That’s why heroes tend to die, while monsters continue to live.]}

Geared up, Ashner needed to test something.

He tapped the doorknob with the key, and it shifted to the magical door. He opened it and walked inside.

The room was exactly the same. Reaching into his cargo pocket, he tossed out a single bullet. Then closed the door.

“Let’s take a look.”

Opening it again, the bullet was still in its place.

So I can store items in this room, might as well put my stash of weapons and ammo in here. If the police knew about it, I’d be in jail again.

Ashner brought boxes of ammo and dozens of other ‘illegal’ weapons inside the room.

“If this space is the medium between both worlds, then only I should be able to access it.” Ashner tapped his chin. “I just realized something. What if this door takes me to another world?”

Ashner sighed. If that were the case, then all the work he put into the coming back here was in vain.

“Doesn’t matter. Nothing worth my time is behind me.” He readied his assault rifle, switching it from safe to fire.

Next, he brought down his night vision NODs.

He opened the door.

The temperature spiked, it wasn’t the middle of winter anymore, and it was humid.

Ashner turned his nods on.

The green light illuminated the dark room.

He closed the door and took a few steps into the new world.

So it’s the same place.

He glanced back. The door he stepped out of was a small home, but it was rotting away. Inside the home were chairs and a bed. But the same mahogany door was there.

Humm, so this world has some kind of intelligent species. They require sleep, and they have the skills to build. At least they’re more or less my height, judging by the bed’s size.

The soldier focused on the rest of his environment. Above him were stalactites, and below him stalagmites. Dripping water around him. He palmed one.

Limestone. So I’m inside a cave. This place might not have an exit.

A moving ball caught his attention. The creature’s light shined a bright green through his nods.

“There you are.”

The slime stopped, it’s ball inside its body turned towards Ashner.

“Hitting that small thing is a pain, but all I need is a hollow point.” The slime rolled towards Ashner.

He pulled the trigger, the slime splattered and disappeared, and two coins dropped. The roar of thunder ripped around the cave, and his bullet shell dropped to the ground.

XP:4

“Yes!” Ashner picked up the coins. They were the same as the two he had before. “If only it were this easy in my world.”

Ashner walked back to his brass shell. He picked it up and put it in his backpack. He readied himself, scanning for more slimes.

Nothing.

“So they don’t use their ears to find their prey. They don’t have eyes either.”

Ashner moved through the cave, keeping his weapon at the ready.

Occasionally killing a stray slime. Until he scoped a blue light, the cave had a small hole, large enough to crawl across.

XP:32

“What is that light?” Ashner emerged at the heart of the cave.

A blue pond that reflected the sunlight from above.

Around the water rolled hundreds of slimes. Ashner smiled, “I can use this.”

He stepped away from the pond into the dark part of the cave. And kept exploring until his nods became too bright for his eyes. “Sunlight.” Ashner took off his nods, bringing it up and keeping it on his rhino mount.

The soldier readied his weapon and stepped outside. The world was familiar.

Trees, plants, and dirt. The echoes of the forest were similar too, from crickets to birds the rustling of the leaves. He gawked up, clouds and the sun.

A growl caught his attention. He turned his weapon to his left, with the body of a bobcat and the spots of a dalmatian. A cat kept its angry eyes on Ashner. In its mouth, he carried something similar to a squirrel. They both had two tails.

“Easy girl. I’m not after your lunch.”

The cat skittered off deeper into the forest.

Ashner lowered his weapon. “Those weren’t like the slimes. The thing in its mouth didn’t turn into black smoke. Maybe this world has two types of sub-species. Creatures similar to ours and… Well, monsters are the best way to describe the slimes.”

“Lala-itina erada zamariai!” Ashner caught the odd words. The voice was masculine and close.

Ashner crept, going tree to tree, keeping his weapon snug tightly against his shoulder. Closing in on the voices, he crawled using thick vegetation as cover.

A road? And a carriage?

Two mounts similar to horses, except with horns, and two tails carried a wooden cart with a cage. Four men argued among themselves.

Something caught his eye. The cage didn’t carry animals.

It carried people.

“Ramira! Lucy era nira!” One of the men screamed at a woman in the cage.

“I should’ve known better. Another world is bound to have a different language. Humm, I wonder.”

His menu popped up. “Languages.” The menu scrolled on its own.

Language Proficiency – 5XP Required Per Dialect. (Writing 5XP Per Dialect)

“This is ridiculous. I can learn every language on Earth with this… Buy.”

XP:27

“A slave doesn’t talk back! You’re lucky we spared you!”

Ashner eavesdropped. His suspicions were correct.

The men were human.

Maybe this was a different dimension, or perhaps another planet.

Judging by the carriage, this world isn’t very advanced. They’re also carrying swords, not guns. And the road isn’t paved.

Ashner accidentally stepped on a branch. The noise spooked a bird above him.

“Who’s there!” The men glanced towards Ashner. Their hands were reaching for their weapons.

Ashner stepped out of the woods and walked towards the road. The men took a second to process his clothes and armor.

“You’re a little aggressive, don’t you think?” Ashner needed to test if they understood his language since he himself was still thinking and speaking in English.

“Show us your ears!” The men demanded. Ashner turned his head, showing him the ears he had were the same as the men.

They relaxed.

“Just making sure you’re not a demi.” The men walked towards Ashner. They were not aggressive. Even so, Ashner kept his finger on his trigger. “Are you heading to the city?”

City?

Ashner nodded.

“Keep going down this trail. You’ll get there soon.” The men were nonchalant around Ashner, treating him like a friend. Ashner regarded the people in the cage. They all had different ears, some had tails, and others had fur around their forearms and legs.

They all had the same defeated gazes on their faces.

So this is the kind of world I’m in. Even here, humans are shit.

The demi’s glanced at him, curious about his armor and weapons.

“You want to buy one?” The man asked.

“Buy?”

“You’re not from around here, are you?” Ashner said nothing. “That armor gave it away. I’m guessing you’re from the islands in the east, odd magic, and armor from them.”

This world has magic?

“We’re taking them to the city. Tomorrow they’ll be up for sale.” The man smiled, “Unless you want to buy one right here and now, we’ll give you a discount, as long as you don’t tell the guild.”

“How much do they cost?”

“The cheaper ones go for three thousand gold coins or three platinum. If you want a pretty girl, they go for five thousand platinum or five mythril. More if they’re a virgin.”

“How do you ensure that they won’t run away from their masters?”

The man’s eyebrow raised. “With a magic seal, you’re really not from around here.”

Ashner shook his head.

If only you knew.

“If you buy one, you can do anything you want with them. They’re your property.” The man clasped his hands together. “Interested?”

“I’m going to have to pass.”

The man’s gaze quickly became foul. But he didn’t say a word.

Ashner walked ahead of them. The carriage was slow, thanks to the terrible road.

They have a primitive mindset, but magic does intrigue me. Is it possible for me to learn it?” He glanced back at the cage. At the end of the day, they were at the mercy of other people. “I could save them, but attacking the first people I see is a ludicrous idea. If magic is real, then how will I fare if I fight against that? Will bullets do the job? I can’t forget, this isn’t my world… It’s just like before…

*******

His mind relived a day Ashner tried to forget. He was in a foreign land covered in sand and stones. A place where the sun was unforgiving. Ashner wore his uniform and carried a light machine gun. The 249 SAW, a weapon he despised having to clean every single night. Before him and his platoon lay a town filled with people they protected.

In a world where the enemy has inferior technology and means to erase you, they throw away ideals like honor and show their real colors. They can’t kill you, but they can scar you. Cuts so deep they rip away your soul from your body.

This was just supposed to be a town they passed by. But one of the locals had made a huge commotion about the platoon being there. He had our lieutenant, the town leader, and their interpreter arguing.

“I wonder what we did this time?” Ashner turned to Gio, who held his assault rifle with an attached grenade launcher. He pivoted his head around the town. “We’re sitting ducks out here. They need to hurry it up so we can finish our patrol.”

Gio was the shortest of the group. But he was easily the strongest. He once lifted a fifty caliber machine gun off a burning Humvee and fired it at the enemy. Somehow he kept it steady and saved the platoon.

“We can’t really blame them. This is their home.” Wong held an M4 Carbine and carried an oversized medic bag. “Maybe we offended them somehow.”

Gio scratched his chin. His five o’clock shadow always emerged before midday. He kept his head bald and had dark eyes, and wore black glasses. “With these people, us just being alive pisses them off.”

He wasn’t wrong, some of these people loved us, and others hated us. We were just here doing a job, and if we survived, we’d go back home to our families. The rest of the world hated us regardless.

The lieutenant returned to his platoon with a distressed frown on his face. One of the high-ranking sergeants talked to him, and after a few minutes, he turned to his soldiers.

Finally, let’s hurry this up.

Ashner became uneasy with how many locals were surrounding us. Some of them were armed.

“They’re going to kill a woman.” The sergeant spoke with a dead tone. Like he was in a dream.

“We transitioned to new uniforms, and one of the locals here stared at us too long. So her husband decided she needs to be punished, and the town elder agreed. So she’ll be stoned to death, and we need to watch.”

The platoon stayed silent for all of a minute before they snapped back to reality.

“We don’t need to do that!” Gio stepped forward, enraged. “She didn’t do anything wrong, and neither did we!”

The sergeant obviously agreed, but he was forcing himself to go against his own instincts. “Her husband claims that she lusts for us, and for that, she has to die. Since we’re partly responsible, we’re also being punished and need to watch it.”

Wong tilted his head down, and he bit his lip.

It must be hard for a medic to watch someone get hurt without any means to help them.

A few minutes ago, Ashner presumed these people were no more than a nuisance, and now they were going to end a life.

The woman was placed with her back against a house, and the whole town gathered. She was shaking and didn’t look a day older than eighteen. In this country, women were little more than property. Ashner had observed girls who had just barely learned how to walk get married off to men who were on their deathbed.

Culture shock was a light way to put it. It was an odd reality to how different this place was to our own world.

Everything was escalating. The platoon argued, trying to save the woman’s life, even though it bore no fruit.

What is the lieutenant thinking?

The commanding officer stepped forward.

The LT was tall, blonde, and came from a rich household, unlike all his soldiers underneath him. He put his hand on the sergeant that was losing his composure.

“The whole town will turn on us if we don’t do this.”

The platoon was aware they were surrounded by locals with AK-47’s. Some were hiding in their homes. In one house, Ashner determined someone with an RPG was spying on them. In another home, he studied an RPK from the rooftop.

They were supposed to be our allies, but everyone was getting a better picture of the situation now. If they started firing now, civilians would be caught in the crossfire, and it’ll be do or die. But the media, like always, would blame us. And we would go to jail. We love our country, but people in it don’t understand how dangerous and evil the world outside of their borders truly is. So they’ll paint their own troops as the aggressors.

“At first, they suggested we kill her.” That idea sickened Ashner. Sure he would kill anyone trying to kill him or his brothers, but not someone innocent. They’re soldiers, not monsters. “I was able to persuade them away from that idea. But she still has to die, so the town will do the deed. And every one of us will watch.”

The platoon stood in eerie silence as the locals surrounded the young girl. Ashner glanced at her husband, who gave him a quick smirk. He had chosen this for his own wife. Her life was worth nothing to him. The only thing he wanted was to make us hurt, make us feel guilty and suffer. They learned our morals and used them as a weapon against us. Ashner gritted his teeth, the man didn’t have a gun, but Ashner wanted to fill his body with holes.

You’re our enemy. I’ll never forget your face. And if I ever get the chance, I’ll rob you of your life.

The town’s leader spoke to his people in their language. Ashner didn’t understand what he said, but the locals were getting fired up and enraged with the woman. They spat at her. She lifted her hands to her face and wept bitterly.

Stones were lifted from the ground, and the young wife started panicking. She was begging for her life. Even though Ashner didn’t understand her, begging for your life looks the same everywhere. Then their eyes met. She was desperate and helpless. The woman spoke to Ashner, pleading with her hands clasped together as if she was praying.

Ashner wished he had peered away. Something in him forced him to keep his gaze on her.

It broke his heart.

This is how a cruel and heartless enemy fights. They are willing to sacrifice what they have to put emotional scars on their enemies.

The first stone was tossed.

Then another, and another.

This wasn’t a fast process. She stood against the wall, on the roof of that house.

Women and children dropped rocks on her. Hitting her shoulders and head.

The click of a weapon going from safety to fire caught his attention. Wong was usually the calmest, but today he was ready to slaughter everyone.

“Don’t do it,” spoke the lieutenant, “our enemy is around us. If we try to save her, they will engage, and we will have to kill them. We’ll have over five thousand new enemies, and the media will butcher us. Then we’ll all end up in jail for the rest of our lives, and that woman will still die. Don’t be selfish, Private Wong.”

Wong didn’t react much. He just put his weapon back on Safe.

To Ashner’s right, Gio shook in rage. He would kill everyone here to save her, but he wasn’t reckless. He understood the life of one woman wasn’t worth the lives of his brothers and sisters.

As for Ashner, he only had one thought.

I’m sorry.

The woman fell to the ground shaking, and the stones didn’t stop. Instead, he witnessed the darkest part of humanity. Her neighbors were laughing and cussing at her. These were the people she grew up with. But like all of mankind, if given a chance to do evil, they will.

The young girl was barely alive. She reached her hand out towards Ashner, pleading for a stranger to save her.

Which he didn’t.

The light of life left her eyes.