In Pieces

Chapter 1: I'd much rather be in hell

Aidan knew it was all his fault. If he hadn't mixed his molly with alcohol on that horrible night, he most likely wouldn't have ended up in this sad sad situation. But hey, coulda woulda shoulda. Now all left for him was to pay for his grave mistake.

When he first woke up in the body of General Adnan Minn in the middle of what seemed to be a medieval RPG, he thought he was hallucinating. He soon realized he thought wrong – everything around him was too elaborate to be a drug induced hallucination. Besides, Aidan hadn't felt so sober and clearminded in ages – aren't hallucinations supposed to be all trippy and confusing?

His second thought was that he had finally kicked the bucket and was now in literal hell. This seemed to be very likely judging by the awful smell, uncomfortable clothes, nasty food and awful demeanor of everybody around him. Having no other explanation for what had happened, Aidan decided to just go with this „hell" theory and see where it took him.

„General Minn, how is your injury?" a gloomy soldier, wearing dark red leather armor asked him. This lovely fellow was of course referring to his extremely painful bleeding head wound. Aidan had no idea how this General got it in the first place as the wound was already there on the day he woke up as Adnan. Might be that it was a pre-installed hell-setting. Either way, it was not pleasant.

„It is as expected," Aidan answered. He wanted to add „thanks for your concern" but it didn't seem that the soldier was particularly concerned.

„If you're feeling better, the prisoners are waiting for you, General."

 Who said he was feeling better?! 

Having nothing polite to say, Aidan preferred to stay quiet.

„I don't mean any disrespect but please question them as soon as possible. We're a bit short on time – you wouldn't want to anger the Regent." This hell-soldier seemed really uncomfortable for some reason. He wouldn't look directly at Aidan and his eyelid was twitching.

In case the Regent was Lucifer himself, Aidan decided to follow the soldier despite the splitting headache and general unwillingness to do anything. He was led into a dark cold dungeon which gave him a perspective on his own living conditions in this place. Aidan was definitely better off than those poor bastards chained to the walls. This was perhaps a different level of hell? For like really bad criminals?

The soldier left him in front of the shackled people who were all beaten up and bloody. The ones that were still conscious looked at Aidan with mixture of hate and fear. It was very unusual. Normally people would look at Aidan either with indifference or with certain sense of superiority. 

„We're not afraid of you, you dirty mutt!" a prisoner with long messy hair spat at him.

Well, you obviously are for some reason!

Aidan didn't know what to say to that. He wasn't sure whether he was supposed to take offence to „mutt" and at the same time he felt really bad for the guy.He stood there for a while like an idiot, realizing that he also had no idea why the soldier wanted him to meet the prisoners. So Aidan decided to leave the dungeon without saying or doing a thing. Maybe, he could ask around, if somebody had the keys to those shackles and free the poor men? Then again, if it was really hell, these kinds of actions wouldn't matter, would they?

„That was quick. As expected of General Minn," the soldier said quietly. „Did they give out the location?"

„The location?" Aidan asked stupidly. The soldier gave him a weird look.

„Yes, the location of the Emperor-in-Waiting?"

„Oh, em, that is the one question that they didn't answer," Aidan said, trying to sound natural.