He didn't know how much he had spent in the torture chamber. It wasn't what he was expecting, but it still was nerve-wracking. Real nerve-wracking. He didn't even notice when they took the blindfold off.

The first thing he saw was blinding lights.

"Hello? Can you hear us?" The masculine voice mumbled. It was like 10! times gentler than before.

He mumbled a yeah.

"Great! So sorry for the inconvenience - you'll get new clothes and your wounds will all be healed by the expert healer."

"Hadn't you wished to torture me?"

"Sadly, no. We had so much pain when forced to do so, it was almost as big as yours," the masculine man went on, while some feminine hands placed ice on his aching bones.

"How come?"

"Well, you see, the tortured must only have to endure the torture, while the torturer has the power to factually inflict it or stop and let the tortured free. A big hit of conscience, that is. But if we had set you free, we would have all been dead."

"How come?"

"Hey, why when we say different things you always say 'how come'? That's crazy," the man said, dipping the barkeep's eyes into something like water. "Anyway, we'd all have been dead because of you if you had said 'I meant that' in response to our question of 'did you mean it, no'. The reason we picked you out of there is because the blood moon had happened and we took pity on you so that you wouldn't have been dead then."

"The blood moon? S-so that's what it's called?" The barkeep asked, stuttering because of a disinfectant having been used on his body.

"Happens every 20 years, or so," the man said. "By the way, aren't you 19 or something?"

"19. In a month I'll be 20 though soon."

"So you've been trapped as an underage barkeep for nearly half your life?"

"Yeah, that's how the world works, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, I guess so," the man thoughtfully replied after a pause. "Well the blood monster comes only once a blood moon and steals all of the happy relationships we have in this world."

"Who's the blood monster?"

"Oh, well, we don't know. Only that it comes once a blood moon. And that it calls itself by the pronoun 'they'. We want to stop it."

"Can I join? After all, I've got nothing to lose?"

"Yeah, sure. My name's Michael, by the way."

And the blindfold went off.