The police had arrived and were conversing with the young man who felt safer with the authorities present, albeit still agitated. Some of the neighbors had come out when the cops pulled up to the house and were watching from a distance. His dog kept barking at something in the distance, but he could see there was nothing, so he tried to calm him down while responding to the cops' questions.

"Sēdā animum tuum, cāre mī, nihil est, nē cruciā tē."

The old gray-haired officer before him cleared his throat.

"And you didn't see the person who threw the ax?"

"No, sir. I heard it hit the house but when I opened the window to take a look around, I saw no one nearby before I spotted it stuck there."

He looked back at the weapon, still in the same position as he found it about half an hour ago. It looked like a typical firefighter ax, with a very crooked handle, except its color was all black, as if made from obsidian. Most likely, the deranged psycho who owned it simply painted it that way. The forensics team was to come and examine it for fingerprints or any other traces that could be used to track down the culprit.

All of a sudden, the barking got louder and more panicked as the mastiff bore his fangs, a sight his owner had only seen once before. He did not fail to notice the way his neighbors looked at him with disgust upon the scene, no doubt believing this behavior was evidence that he abused his pet. The officer sighed.

"Sir, we're gonna need you to take the dog inside if we are to continue this line of inquiry without any further disturbances."

"I understand. Venī, cāre mī."

He grabbed the dog's jaw to close it gently and steer him inside but he did not budge. He went to pick him up, no easy feat given the animal's weight and how little muscle his owner had. The dog fought against him a bit, but then yelped and began yanking on his shirt as if trying to get him inside. The man held onto the shirt and pushed on the dog's snout for a bit to try and separate them, but the dog was stronger and ripped the end of it off.

When one of the younger cops, visibly fed up, stepped up to take care of things, the mastiff seemed to growl at the officers, looking rabid in a way his owner had never seen him. A second later, however, he calmed down completely and rushed inside as a gust of wind seemed to close the door behind him.

"Quid-"

Before he could even finish the thought, he heard the crackle of fire start. He barely had time to turn as all the cops suddenly went up in flames, their screams of agony assaulting his ears and knocking him to the ground. The neighbors likewise screamed at the sight, scrambling to call for any kind of help at the desperate scene unfolding. If it were not for the mere gruesome sight of what was happening before his eyes, the man might have noticed the oddity of the fire swallowing the officers being of a black coloration.

What happened next felt even more surreal. The ground began to open up where the police cars were stationed and the earth swallowed them as they fell down the newly-formed chasms.

The neighbors did not know who to call anymore and just ran away, leaving the man still paralyzed in fear before the tragedy he was powerless to do anything about.

Eventually, the flames dissipated as the victims seemed to do alongside it, not even leaving any ashes behind. And as they did, he saw the girl standing over him. Not a girl. The girl.

He was not sure what the fuck he had just beheld in the last thirty seconds, yet he still somehow had enough presence of mind to voice a single thought.

"You…"

She raised her brow.

"Me. More importantly, you. Get up, now."

"What?"

The girl looked up as it started to rain suddenly and groaned.

"Te jebene kurvinske Hijade. Svaki put se kurče. O, za ime starog Luce..."

Even though she spoke a Slavic language he could not understand, he still picked up on the rain nymphs she name-dropped.

"Hyades? Like the-"

"Yeah yeah, now get up and inside before Zeus decides to piss all over us to seal the deal."

"?! Zeu-"

She covered his mouth in a hurry and growled, her teeth appearing sharper than his.

"Don’t just utter that name! I said: Get. Up. NOW!"

She pulled him up by his shirt and lifted him off his feet with ease. He faintly heard the sound of the door opening behind him, before being launched inside at an incredible speed. He hit the hardwood floor of the main hall and was struck with the most excruciating pain all over his body from the impact, as he skidded along the surface, stopping in between the doorways to his room and bathroom. His glasses had flown somewhere off his face during it and probably lay broken nearby.

“Mihi dolet…”

As he stared at the ceiling with blurry eyes, a deafening ring on his ear and a burning ache all over him, he could still feel her steps approaching through the vibrations on the floor as they seemed to shake the entire place. He heard her commanding tone once more.

"Get up."

"Can't… move… anything…"

He could sense her rolling her eye. She sighed and a moment later, he was being wrenched off the floor to his feet. Suddenly, he felt no more pain, just a lingering numbness in his muscles and his acne itching. He did not know what to make of that. She hummed to herself as she stared at him.

"Hm…"

She looked him up and down, and he could see the ax in her hands, its handle no longer weirdly crooked. She had to be the one who threw it, he concluded, and realized this meant he was so fucked then. Perhaps she was deciding if she should burn him like she did those cops and do him in even worse. His acne kept itching, but he resisted the urge to scratch them or move at all under her gaze. When her eye zeroed in on his bare feet, she gagged and looked away. Her voice came out shaky, yet commanding all the same.

"Go put on some socks or something. Now."

He was more than a little stunned by the request. What was her deal?

"Excuse me?"

She still avoided looking his way, with her eye closed and a face of pure disgust.

"Go cover those right now!"

For some reason, he decided to comply with the bizarre demand. He went back to his room, fetching a clean pair of socks at random and putting those on, before returning to the hallway. On the way, he picked up his glasses from the floor, which were unsurprisingly intact. Damn, these were sturdy…

She slowly turned to look at his feet once again, sighing in relief at seeing them hidden under the cotton. Then she took a good look at the socks and covered her mouth to hide the laughter wanting to burst out. Her muffled voice came forth,

"Hello Kitty?"

He blushed, embarrassed. Why did he blindly pick this pair out of all of them?! Even as he was going to die, he was being mocked for his taste in cartoons.

"Shut up…"

She coughed enough until the urge to laugh appeared to subside and winked as she sneered,

"Don't worry, I won't tell a soul."

He groaned, remembering how he was the butt of her joke in his own dream.

She turned serious and the grip on her ax tightened, which made him flinch. She sighed, like he disappointed her somehow.

"You can't be the one."

"What?"

She was already distracted, pondering about something. She kept tapping her cheek with the blade of the ax every second as if it were made of rubber, which just added to the list of what-the-fucks about this whole scenario.

"Jesu li me prevarile tako da odem?... Jebene vještice, tako im Had pomogao ako je to istina…"

He could not understand what in Hell's name she was rambling on about, given the language barrier, but he had the feeling she had name-dropped another Greek mythological figure again, the god of the Underworld perhaps. Regardless, he took the time she was off somewhere to take a good look at her himself.

Raven-black hair covering the right eye, black-tinted nails and lips, along with the dark eyeliner, all dark clothing, the scarlet dragon tattoo on her right arm and more… “alluring” features. It was the girl from his recurring dreams. Save for her much taller height — towering at over 2 meters tall (over 6’5”) against his measly 1,65 (5’5”) — and monochrome skin. His mind was racing too much for him to think about the strangeness of that last detail too much. He had to be one hundred percent certain this was not all a freaky coincidence.

"Excuse me, miss. What's your name?"

"Mogu ga povesti u lov na g- Oh, sorry, did you say something?"

Her tone was dripping with sarcasm as she leaned her head forward a bit.

"Your name, miss."

Her brow quirked and she scoffed.

“Miss? Kvragu, you sound like my father. …”

She stopped for a moment, perhaps considering whether to answer, or even lie about it.

"Call me Maggie."

Maggie. That was it!

"Maggie…"

"That's me. Don't get too comfortable calling me that, though."

"Well, I’m Jessie. Jessie Edwin Lawrence."

He figured he should at least let her know who he was, so he would not die a total rando as she hacked him to pieces with that ax.

"Jessie. Neat. Still gonna call you Nerd, though. Now, follow me, Nerd."

She turned towards the door, but for some reason he found himself asking,

"Wait, aren't you gonna kill me?"

She cackled then, just like in his dream, except this time it carried none of the mirth. She looked over her shoulder with an incredulous look.

"Kill you? Pfft, I wish. Just this time I'll play by the rules of the game and see where it gets me instead. But, y'know, your death is not a possibility I've ruled out yet, so don't be thinking you're in the clear."

He still had no idea what any of that meant. But he found himself very bothered by her actions all of a sudden. Maybe it was the knowledge that his death would not be a one-and-done type affair after all.

"You killed those cops, though!"

She threw the ax over her shoulder and faced him fully, as if about to lecture him.

"Pfft, yeah, in a sense, but they're gonna be fine, don't worry. As you’ll come to learn, maybe, I’m not a very patient person, and they happened to be in the way, as they weren't who I was after. Now le-"

He understood, she was unhinged, a psychopath, she made no sense, neither her actions nor words. But he still found himself wanting to keep this argument going. Perhaps it was the tiniest hope that by stalling this situation, the landlord would hear the commotion and alert the authorities a second time. Hell knows the neighbors would not bother to call for help for him, especially after what they had all seen outside a while ago. Though, given how much of a deep sleeper she told him she was, he was not really counting on that.

"They're gonna be fine?! THEY BURNED TO NOTHING, NOT EVEN ASH!"

"Čmarasti Belzebub, stop screeching like a damn harpy in heat! They're not dead, you git, they're back at the station along with the cars and with no recollection of ever coming here in the first place. Everyone who witnessed it, sans you, has also forgotten seeing or hearing anything. Hvala Plutonu da sam bila nevidljiva dok sam to radila."

Her constant name-dropping of mythological characters was irking him too, somehow. He was actually wishing she would finish him off instead of spouting all of this cryptic shit.

“BACK AT THE STATION?! I FUCKING SAW THEM DIE, WHAT THE F-”

She grabbed his face by the cheeks and growled. Her tone was quiet but menacing.

“Shut it.”

She dragged him outside, before letting go.

"Now you better follow me or I'll drag you by the hairs next."

She turned and started walking down the street, while he lagged a bit behind, still stunned. Her words just then made him shiver, but not out of fear, at least not entirely… He did not know how to feel about that. They went down the roads leading to the outskirts of town, to the forest, the very place his dog was entranced by earlier.

His dog. With all the shit that had transpired after he had run off, he had escaped the man’s mind. He was probably still hiding somewhere back in the house, most likely his room. Maybe he went to wake up the landlord and was trying to let her know about the predicament his owner faced at the moment.

It surprised the man to see the dog just panic and flee like that after displaying tremendous aggression to the perceived threat, instead of staying and fighting. It was definitely not in line with the events that had transpired just last year, when they first met.

It could simply be that his dog realized that this attacker was one he might not have been able to deter, at least not without the risk of death. And though part of him would have liked for his own companion to have protected him to the end, the other part would much rather have him not get involved and survive. He was not worth dying for, anyway, and the landlord would take care of the dog once news of his death or disappearance reached them. Unless the psycho girl decided to come back for them… He hoped with all he had that idea would not cross her mind.

As he trailed behind her, his brain started going a mile a minute. He thought he had figured it out. She was taking him to the woods for some kind of sacrificial killing, maybe a satanic ritual. Why else would she be doing all this extra shit before finishing him off? Thinking about the date, it made sense for someone who might believe in these occult affairs to be conducting this type of practice.

This had to have all been premeditated then. That must have been how he had seen her before without realizing it. She must have stalked him and watched his house for who knows how long, waiting somewhere in the bushes. He could have seen her at a glance many times and not have consciously been aware of it. When the time was right, she then crafted a situation she knew would make him panic and alert the authorities, who would come and then fall into her traps. Maybe to serve as more victims for the ritual. She was evidently unhinged, but that did not mean she could not be cunning.

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How he knew her name though, or at least the one she provided him, was either a giant coincidence or he had to have heard it before. Perhaps she said it once as he was outside and near her hiding spot. Or someone else said it, an accomplice. It was not yet established that she was doing all this alone, anyhow.

Something at the back of his mind still thought all this rationalizing was ridiculous. There was no way he had ever laid eyes on her even once, period. But he was sick of things not adding up, so he just told that side of him to fuck off.

They were coming up to the hill leading to the woods. Walking behind her, he took the opportunity to “admire” her backside and the swaying of her hips with every step. He was glad they were somewhere no one could see the state of his baggy pants. Looking at the rest of her, he had no doubt in his mind about it, her skin truly was monochrome. It had to be bodypaint, it had to.

She kept swinging the ax, which he noticed seemed to have dark flames burning on its head. She would twist her wrist, whenever a small animal would jump out at them from the grass, and they would seem to "vanish". Man, those mere three hours of sleep he got were fucking him up.

She sang to herself what sounded to him like a folk song. He did not understand any of the lyrics but despite all the bizarre circumstances, he had to admit she had a lovely voice, nothing like the gravelly tone of her regular speech. As she sang, the tattoo on her arm seemed to glow a darker red. The dragon…

“ U davna doba močnih slavena

U vrijeme mača i ere na rubu kraha

Iz dubine svijeta, iz srca plemena

Pojavio se zmaj crvenog daha

Ognjenih očiju iz ždrijela pakla

Spalio je dušmane do pepela i praha… ”

She started going up the hill and he stopped every once in a while, pondering about the girl in his dream in contrast to the girl ahead of him. They were the same person, appearance-wise, but that was about it.

The girl in his dream was sassy, bantering and mirthful. Sometimes with him, sometimes at him. They talked almost like they were more than just… Damn, he was really starved for affection again already, huh? The girl before him was derisive, cold, uncaring. Even if you removed the whole psycho aspect of the picture, there was no way in Hell or any other accursed place he would ever have had a chance of getting along with a girl like her. He could only wonder if he could have gotten a girl such as her to like him if he had not been such a fucking loser that peaked in middle school.

He shook that entire train of thought away. He was about to meet his end, anyway, and he was not about to do so dwelling in what-could-have-beens when none of it would matter anymore.

"Here we are, Nerd."

They were standing on a clearing a bit deep into the woodland. The early sunshine rays were beginning to show up through the trees, faintly illuminating the grass between the shadows and reflecting off the morning dew. It was a gorgeous view to be one's last.

He looked around and it hit him. This was the place they were at in the second dream he had with her! Though it was night then and there was a third person with them present, a man whom he could not see well due to the darkness. Was he the accomplice and was he about to show up?

He thought about where she was gonna have him lie down or be tied to. He hoped she was not sadistic enough to make this slow and painful, but given the track record of hers he had borne witness to so far and her overall vibe, he was not feeling great about his chances.

"Oh, uhm, can I say something first?"

She looked a bit annoyed at just having to hear him speak, but granted him the podium, nonetheless. He did not know what compelled him to wish to request this of her, or even believe someone of her frame of mind would comply with what he was about to ask, but he spoke regardless.

"Ok, so, I just wanna ask you, if you're willing to do this for someone you're about to brutally murder, to call my friends afterwards and give them the news of my passing. They’re all from here, except for Jon. He's from Canada, so don’t mind his accent when you speak to him. May I?"

He grabbed the pen he always carried around in his pocket and she let him write the phone numbers down on her palm. She looked at them uninterested.

"And, uh, my dog. His name is Valentinus, stress on the LEN syllable. He's my only company and I'm his, and so, I don't want him to end up lonely waiting for me like that Japanese dog, Hachiko. I want him to know he can move on and maybe go to another place that will take care of him and love him just like I do. He only seems to understand Latin, though, so, uh, here, I will write this down so you can say it to him and he will understand. Mātūrē… dēcessit. There."

He went over the pronunciation with her for a bit, making sure she would get the stressed syllables and phonemic vowel length right. This time, as she looked at the message, her expression seemed to him empathetic. But for sure it was just her scrutinizing his terrible calligraphy.

"Okaaaay… Nerd. Anyway-"

He puffed his chest in one last show of bravery.

"Bring it on. I'm ready."

She stopped with her mouth hung open, as if baffled by his behavior. She probably expected him to squirm to make it all more fun for her.

"Uh… anyway. Time for some spirit-killing. I'm about to test you."

The clearing was dead silent for a moment. He blinked at her several times.

"... Excuse me, what?"

She rolled her eye and growled in a way that sounded inhuman.

"Are you really this fucking dense? Spirit-killing. Today is Halloween, it's primetime spirit-wandering everywhere. And this forest is a hotspot for lost souls. So, don't interr-"

"OH HELL NO!"

"LUCIFERA MI SVEMOĆNOG! SHU-"

" YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP!"

She looked taken aback, narrowing her eye at him, but went quiet still.

"Lady, I don't fucking understand what your damn MO is, but it's way past pissed me the hell off now! Wanna drag me somewhere to hack me to pieces and dump my body in a hole for the maggots to have at it and bathe in my blood to remain youthful?! FINE! Not like many would miss me, anyway! My family would be jumping for joy at the news! But no, NO! You keep stalling this out while playing this fucking game of name-dropping every mythological figure under the sun! You’ve mentioned Greek and Roman gods more times by now than a nerd like me! Now you go off about spirits, Halloween, and it's just, ARGH!!! Lucifer Me Svyemotchnawg, or however the fuck you just said it! I don't know what satanic cult you're a part of, but LAY OFF THE FUCKING DRUGS AND JUST KILL ME ALRE-"

An echoed moan ceased his ranting.

"... What was that?..."

She gave him a smug grin.

"Well, arsehole, as I was saying, before you went on your hissy fit. This place is a hotspot for lost souls. So, I found this guy on the way over. He's about to die from starvation, so I cursed him to become a revenant. Good luck. I’ll be watching and cheering you on."

He did not focus on her words as he was trying to discern where the moans were coming from.

"Wa…"

The raspy lament faded out. He turned around and finally spotted the source of it.

A blonde man, skin snow-paled, eyes almost devoid of life and body as thin as a stick, noticeable through the few layers of clothing he had on. The unkempt overgrown beard didn't help hide the cracked lips or the black teeth and tongue. Jessie recognized him as someone from his college, a forestry student if he recalled correctly, who went hiking a few weeks ago and had gone missing, as everyone on campus was talking about. Richard was his name.

He seemed to have shed whatever bags of supplies and extra clothing he had had on him, while his remaining garments were torn in places. It was clear he had run into a wild animal somewhere along the way. He was barefoot, and his feet were, like the rest of him, bloodied and lacerated, already looking gangrenous. His eyes appeared to recognize Jessie.

"Y…"

He reached out his hand, but whatever he was about to say died out in a throaty rattle as he collapsed, his expression stuck in a mask of desperation. A moment later, he began foaming at the mouth, a sight Jessie recognized as an indication that his body had already shut down.

The clearing was dead silent once more, the air only occasionally punctuated by Jessie’s ragged breathing as his body trembled.

That had been the second time he had witnessed death that morning, yet this one felt worse, somehow. Maybe because it was someone he knew to some extent prior whom he saw in their last moments, trying to beg for him to save him, and he felt he could have, somehow, as opposed to the suddenness of the cops' grueling demise. Though, of course, he could not have helped the man either way given the circumstances.

He looked back at her as she simply stood there at a distance, a bored look on her face. He did not know what she was waiting for, but it was clear she expected something to happen, as if she had done something like this before. And judging by her… everything , he was sure she had.

She kept staring at her right wrist, despite not having a watch, though it might have simply been a twisted sarcastic gesture on her part.

"Svaki tren sada…"

He saw her smirk as her wrist seemed to shine. The sound coming from behind hit him and his blood turned cold. He turned around, frightened at the mere thought of if what he heard was real. When he stared at the body again, it twitched. And soon, against all odds, it began to move, getting to its feet.

He took a step back, unable to make sense of anything after the mindfuck of a sight before him. He knew the human body still held some energy in its cells after death, rigor mortis and all that jazz. But this… And he knew this man was dead, 100%. Just looking at those soulless eyes, the pallor mortis-stricken face, was enough to confirm that this was not a man miraculously coming back from the brink of death. This was a man coming back from death itself.

Actually, no, not even that, in fact.

This man was still dead.

He was face-to-face with a walking corpse. He could hear the glee in her voice as she spoke.

"Eto ga."

What really left him no doubt about the deadness of this man was something he could not begin to rationalize, but felt all the same. As the corpse arose, he sensed a wave hit him which, as crazy as he knew it sounded, seemed to resonate within his soul and impart him with an innate understanding of what he was witnessing. It was akin to the concept of faith his mother had tried drilling onto him from the age of 5, except in this case he did not simply believe, he knew.

The corpse staggered for a bit as its body seemed to sway under its own weight. It raised its head and stared at him. Its steps were shaky and unstable, as it kept wobbling forward, yet its eyes were dead-set on him. His acne seemed to be burning on his face all of a sudden.

"I recommend you act quickly. It's realizing what its body is capable of still, but it knows that it ain't gonna support itself much longer. It'll want to become a wraith to survive."

He had little time to try to make sense of all the mumbo jumbo she had just spewed, because right after she was done talking, the corpse sped towards him. His body froze and the frigid hands gripped him by the shoulders. The painful hold kicked him into fight mode. He gripped the cold wrists back, which still held surprising strength, and tried pushing the foul-smelling sack of meat away.

"Get off!"

He heard her cheer. Whether for him or the corpse, he did not know.

"C'mon, use your powers, recite some shite in Latin, I don't know. Impress me."

Powers?! What powers?! She sounded like everyone else who joked about him being able to speak with ghosts and demons because of his degree in Latin. But unlike them, he had a feeling she was not joking.

He screamed in agony when he felt the corpse break his collarbones with how hard its grip on him was. The sudden adrenaline and endorphin rush gave him the power to push the icy limbs off him and keep them at arm's length. That earned him a sarcastic-sounding "woohoo" from her.

"Get him, Nerd!"

He was gonna tell her to shut the fuck up, but then the rotting bastard leaned its head forward and breathed on his face, which felt on fire. The urge to empty everything in his stomach at the horrid stench was enough to shut him up. Without much thinking, he headbutted its chin, as it teetered back a few steps, earning him a "hell yeah!" from the one-girl audience.

He looked around, frantic for anything that could serve as a weapon against his foe, but it was too late. The corpse had recovered from the surprise attack and had a vice grip around his arms. He felt the bones there would soon break too.

"Quit stalling, Nerd. Say something."

"Say what exactly?!"

"Anything in Latin would be a good start!"

He kicked at its leg to get it to let go, but it seemed to have learned to read his moves and pulled it away from his range. So, as stupid as it sounded, he decided to give her suggestion a go. He commanded it to go away,

"ABĪ!"

The corpse let him go and walked backwards away from him for a bit. He stood there bewildered that it seemed to work. After a few seconds, however, it ran towards him and gripped him back with the same intensity. He growled in frustration.

"It didn't work! What a shocker!"

"Well, don't stop, you git! Do it again!"

Having no idea why he was even indulging her in this scenario, he shouted it nonstop. The same thing would happen each and every time. The skin on his face felt like it was going to melt off any second now. He shouted it from the top of his lungs, hoping that would make a difference.

"ABĪ!!! ABĪ!!! ABĪ!!! A-"

He was silenced by the corpse screaming at him. The dead eyes rolled back in their sockets before they disappeared entirely, as its jaw distended beyond what was humanly possible, and the putrid breath once more assaulted his nostrils, making him almost faint. The skin on it began to change color, turning yellowish-green before becoming transparent, as he saw the trees behind its head, while the hair and inside of the mouth devolved into a grayish-blue.

It began to glow, and as it did, brighter and brighter, he could feel himself weaken, like the corpse was sapping his life away . He couldn’t fight back now. His life was slipping out of his grasp, along with the energy to struggle for it.

He was about to die .

He faintly heard her facepalm.

"Sjebao je."

Though he had accepted his end before, when he had thought she had brought him here for some evil ritual, suddenly faced with the slow and very real prospect of that sweet embrace, he found himself dreading it. He didn’t want to give in anymore, he wanted to fight. He should’ve fought on the many opportunities he had had. But at this point … It was game over .

" FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU- "

Thus, his life came to a close.

____________________________________________________________________

She stepped up to the wraith, as it let go of the Nerd’s lifeless body and turned its attention on her. Before it could even think to take a single step forward to feed on her next, she had it shackled to the ground with the Chains of Prometheus. It kept writhing against the bindings and snarling, its empty sockets staring daggers at her.

She turned her gaze to the scrawny dead form by her feet. His face was twisted in horrific pain. It looked pathetic on him. She sighed. She did not want to believe he was the one she was after, but that was whom her ax had led her to. It had never failed her before, it would not then. As a matter of fact, it could not, period. So, it had to be him. This scrawny dwarf-looking git.

Well, he had failed her test, so by her own rules, she should have let him go and have figured out how she was going to accomplish the task she was given all by herself. But when had she ever followed rules, even ones she had set up herself? Given the unusual circumstances, she was willing to be extremely merciful and grant him a chance to try and redeem himself.

She could tell he was not human by the way he had recovered quickly from being thrown inside the house by her, even if at just a fraction of her strength. But what he was exactly, she could not pinpoint. The fact she had to come to the Human World to find him in the first place indicated to her that, whoever he was, he had to have grown up disconnected from his supernatural origins, possibly skeptical of them even. Whatever the reason may have been for him to be living on this side of this realm, his inability to conjure up his abilities in any way might have been the byproduct of his lack of contact with his roots and incredulity at them.

Perhaps all he needed was to be exposed to these elements and see their reality for his powers to properly activate. That was why she would, against all her usual parameters, bring him back and put him through the wringer once more. If he failed a second time, she would ditch his arse and do this shite solo.

She raised her hand towards him, but took a moment to gaze at his hair, the very first thing that had popped out about his looks to her.

“Crvena kosa… vraća me u prošlost…”

A sudden movement caught her eye and she lowered her hand, bewildered at the sight unfolding. The wraith began to return to its previous revenant stage, resembling a corpse. This could only mean… It screamed out as it strained against the chains and a few seconds passed, a silver-colored soul flew out of its mouth, flying straight to the body before her.

________________________________________________________________________

…

It came exactly like he always imagined it would, on the many occasions he contemplated his own mortality. Not like closing his eyes and going to sleep. Not like his vision blurring and fading as in the end of a movie. No, death came like someone turning a device off, all of his functions seizing at once, as he was plunged into the inertia of darkness.

…

Wait . He was not dead. I mean, he was. But then, he should not be conscious… right ? Was he… in an afterlife of some kind?...

He opened his eyes, without feeling it, but knowing he did. Wherever he was, he was sure it was not any kind of heaven. It could be Hell, but everything around was so quiet. Was he in Limbo? He only saw darkness surrounding him. His head turned in every direction, again, without a tangible feeling. He looked down at himself and could barely make out the outline of his own “body”. Or would this be his soul?

When he peered back straight ahead, hidden beyond the darkness, something peered back at him. Eyes that looked like two bluish flames. The eyes of a predator who spotted its prey. Although there was fear that accompanied the sight, there was also a weird sense of confidence to face it, taunt it back, like its sharp-toothed grin was doing to him.

Before he could fuck around and find out if there were an afterlife to the afterlife, he felt someone pull at his arm. They dragged him away from that darkness and the thing hiding in it.

…

Like a device being turned back on, he opened his eyes, his physical eyes this time, and stared at the bright blue sky above. He was lying on the grass, and every sensation hit him at once. The touch, the smell, the sounds of nature all around. He was alive. And it felt so good to be. But…

"Get up."

She sounded pissed, and when he got to his feet and faced her, her murderous stare confirmed it. If looks could kill, he would be past the darkness facing the Ninth Circle of Hell by that point. Behind him, the still-moving corpse, back to its previous rotten look, kept thrashing against some sort of chains coming out of the ground, staring at him with the same murderous look.

"Leave."

He blinked at her.

"Sorry?"

She stepped forward and he recoiled at once. She brandished her ax right to his neck.

"Leave before I change my mind."

He gulped and obliged, wanting to argue, but knowing what was wiser of him at the moment. With each step away, he grew painfully aware of the look of repugnance aimed at his retreating form. Her last words to him before he left,

"What a waste of fucking time."

He could only guess what that meant to her, but it still cut deep for a whole different reason. The reminder of when he had heard those same words verbatim just two years ago… No, he promised himself he would never dwell on it again .

As he walked down the hill and back home, he noticed his injuries were healed. He was not only brought back, but in peak condition to boot. As soon as he walked in and closed the door behind him, that realization struck him full-force, away from all the insanity of the last hour.

He had died . Killed by a walking corpse . He had been somewhere with something staring at him. Then he was back .

Throughout all of it, he kept trying to rationalize things. That everything he was seeing and hearing had to have some logic to it. That was how he operated, always had, as a skeptic through-and-through.

There were no ghosts, gods, demons, spirits, Heaven or Hell or a Purgatory.

Gods and demons were these mythological beings he read about in his studies, along with demigods and all manner of mythical creatures and characters. Heaven or Hell, an afterlife, were religious ideas made up by men who could not face their feeble mortality and inconsequential, at large, existence on this earth. Ghosts and spirits were conjured up by those focusing on what they could not see, rather than on what they could. These things were only believed to be true by those crazy enough to buy into a reality that never was.

That was what he told himself the whole time up until then.

So, when she kept rambling about all of this supernatural nonsense, he was convinced that she had more than a few screws loose. She was a psychopathic stalking arsonist junkie part of some weird Greco-Satanic cult. That was who she was and nothing more than that.

Then that hiker died in front of him, and his corpse stood up. And everything changed.

That was when he could not escape from the truth any longer. The supernatural was real . At least, part of it. And he had seen that part firsthand. And lived it. Well, died it, he supposed . Wherever he had been and whatever had been there with him was very much real.

He could try to convince himself that many people had stories of how they died for a brief period and saw outlandish things on the other side, and this was another one of those ludicrous delusions that meant nothing beyond being just that, delusions. But it would be futile to do so. He knew it all to be real. As with so many things that had happened to him so far, he just did. It was like this voice that arose and, like that wave feeling from earlier, resonated in his soul with such knowledge.

He started to consider all the implications of these revelations. When she kept mentioning all of these figures from ancient myths, did that mean they were also real? Were the demons she referenced also out there? She talked about that forest being a hotspot for lost souls, so, were there spirits haunting it? Did it stop at walking cadavers and an afterlife, or? He recalled something she said back at the clearing.

“He's about to die from starvation, so I cursed him to become a revenant…”

Did she have such a power and was she even human? She had to have been the one to bring him back, so what else was she capable of? Was the fire she used on the cops also part of her powers? She mentioned him having powers as well. Was that why she came after him? Was he capable of some crazy magic stuff too? He doubted it. Though she did say she wanted to test him with some “spirit-killing”...

This whole ordeal recontextualized his dreams with her. He knew he had never seen her in his life before. That was not him being delusional, after all.

So, he had dreamt of her, multiple times, without ever having laid eyes on her prior. What did it mean? Was it something akin to destiny? Was it foresight? Did he telepathically call out to her? Was that all part of his powers too?

As well as all the other things that featured in his dreams. The beast coming after them, was it out there looking for them, and why? The dragon . She had a tattoo of it, so, was it hers then? The sword he had wielded, and the wolf . The wolf he had called Valentinus …

Valentinus! Where was he? Was he still here?

"Valentine!"

Not a sound.

Had he gone looking for him? No, that could not be, or he would have found him already, for his tracking was impeccable. Had he run away believing he had died? He would not be wrong… If that were the case, he could already be miles away by this point. He only hoped Valentinus would be adopted by someone who would take care of him properly and give him the love he deserved.

He still checked every room regardless, however, the inner voice confirmed Valentinus was indeed gone. Not just from the house, though, but from this world entirely… He did not know what that could mean, and he did not wish to dwell on the grim implications… If it were true, there was nothing he could do for the dog, anyway.

His next point of consideration was, " What now? "

Supernatural things were real after all. What should he do with that awareness?

He could capitalize on it. The amount of people who would be lining up to pay for him to recount all that he saw would easily be in the millions. They would write stories about it, TV shows, movies, shit, he could write a memoir himself. He would give out interviews on national television. There was a market for it, and he would be one more addition to those telling their accounts, some of which, since aware of what was truly out there, he thought could be real but a lot of it was likely bullshit still.

At the end of the day, however, he had no real idea of what he could be messing with here. This could come back to bite him in the ass in the worst way possible, like it probably did to a lot of those who he heard in passing had disappeared or died under "mysterious circumstances" after experiencing such events. He could only guess what came after them for revealing their existence to the everyday world. He was not about to risk the new chance at life he had been given, especially if she were the one coming for him. He shuddered at the thought.

He was going to forget this whole thing had ever happened and move on with his life, version 2.0. He had no reason to be involved with any of that, as he was definitely not the one she was looking for in whatever mission she seemed to be on. This was all a big misunderstanding that led to a few predicaments, and he would walk away and go back to being boring old Jessie, no powers, no nothing. The inner voice tried to tell him something about his involvement with her, but he did not want to hear anything regarding any of that anymore, so he shut it down.

With that new resolve, he set out to go about his original plan for this morning, studying for the upcoming exams. He was about to step into the living room to get his textbooks and notes when he heard the front door creak open and a chill ran down his spine. He knew what was behind him, and he turned slowly, finding himself face-to-face with a walking corpse. Again .

"O MEHERCULE!!!"

The corpse reached for him, but he reacted in time and kept those decaying hands from gripping him. Before the standing carcass could even think about blowing that nauseating reek on his face again, he kicked one of its gangrenous legs, making it stumble away.

So, it seemed she wanted him dead for knowing too much, after all. He grinned defiantly. He was not having it. Whether this was her testing him again or taking him out for good, he was not about to go down a second time. She wanted power? Alright then, he was gonna deliver.

This new-found earnestness awakened an energy deep within. The voice coming from the depths of his soul commanded him to shout the next word as loud as he could. So he did.

"PERĪ!!!"

The moment he uttered it, the entire house was obliterated in a huge explosion.

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Here's the glossary of all the terms and phrases used in this chapter:

Sēdā animum tuum, cāre mī, nihil est, nē cruciā tē. - Latin: Ease your mind, my dear, there is nothing, do not worry.

Venī, cāre mī. - Latin: Come, my dear.

Quid - Latin for "what"

Te jebene kurvinske Hijade. Svaki put se kurče. - Croatian: Those fucking Hyades. Always fucking showing off.

O, za ime starog Luce. - Croatian: For ol' Lucy's sake. An expletive used by Maggie to express frustration or discontent.

Mihi dolet. - Latin: It hurts.

Jesu li me prevarile tako da odem? Jebene vještice, tako im Had pomogao ako je to istina. - Croatian: Did they do this to get me away? Those old hags, Hades help them if that turns out to be the case.

Mogu ga povesti u lov na g... - Croatian: I can take him to hunt g...

Kvragu - Croatian for "Damn". Literally "To the Devil"

Čmarasti Belzebub - Croatian: Bumfaced Beelzebub. An expletive used by Maggie to express annoyance and outright anger.

Hvala Plutonu da sam bila nevidljiva dok sam to radila. - Croatian: Thank Pluto I was invisible while doing that.

Mātūrē dēcessit. - Latin: He died prematurely.

Lucifera mi svemoćnog. - Croatian: Lucifer almighty. An expletive by Maggie to express anger and exasperation.

Svaki tren sada. - Croatian: Any minute now.

Eto ga. - Croatian: There it is.

Abī. - Latin for "Go away".

Sjebao je. - Croatian: He fucked up.

Crvena kosa. Vraća me u prošlost. - Croatian: Red hair. It brings back memories.

Mehercule - Latin: By Hercules. An expletive used in classical times to express a whole range of emotions, ranging from elation to ire. Somewhat equivalent to the English "Fuck!" or "Damn!"

Perī - Latin for "Die!"

And here's my Latin translation of Maggie's song as well as an English translation of the lyrics ^~^

Temporibus bellipotentium antīquīs Sclāvōrum

Aetāte lābem juxtā gladiōrum

Ē mundī īnfernīs ē corde tribūs

Spīritū serpēns rubrō ortus

Īnfernārum igneīs terrārum oculīs

Hostibus in favīllā solūtīs

In ancient times of mighty Slavs

In times of swords on the brink of ruin

From the depths of the world and the heart of the tribe

Rose a dragon of red breath

From the lower realms his fiery eyes

His enemies burnt to ash and dust