Okay, I knew the fall wouldn't kill me and all. But I hadn't expected it to be such a long fall. A medieval world? I should check the list of things I had assumed, because this building was ten stories, easily. It was practically a skyscraper and that wasn't normal.

I kept screaming. I couldn't help it.

But the fear was mostly irrational. I firmly believed that I had made it. I had saved myself, thanks to my ability to think fast and my will to keep going. Especially the latter.

I was wrong, of course. Nothing was that easy.

I didn't have to fear the fall. My ass was rescued. Not by Plague, appearing at the last moment, running up the front of the building like some kind of giant spider, making use of its tentacles. It would have been cool but no, none of that, it was the chains that had caught me, of course.

How could they not.

They caught me again, this time in mid-air. My body, tangible again, was swung painfully against the front of the building. Next, the chains began to pull me backwards and upwards.

I was well and truly screwed. I wouldn't get a second chance, and I had completely wasted the first.

Fuck. Fuck.

The chains pulled me back to exactly where I started. And then they let go, but that was just an illusion. It was like they were on my wrists anyway. There was no way to escape them. Not on my own.

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I might be a stranger in this world, but it wasn't hard to understand that the chains were specially designed to trap creatures like me.

Since I was an outsider, even if there was an obvious method to give them the slip, I could not know it.

-You're not a normal kid, huh? -The masked one said. For being just that, he was quite expressive. My attempt to escape had amused him more than anything else.

It hadn't at least shaken his confidence a little in his control over the situation. And why should it?

I had accomplished nothing. Exactly nothing.

“What the fuck do you want from me?”

To my surprise, he didn't just ignore me like he had been doing thus far.

“I told you. I told you to stay there, quiet and still. You're nothing but bait. “

He had already told me, he said.

But it wasn't true. The last thing was new information.

“For whom?” I felt compelled to ask that question, though I didn't really expect to get an answer. I was wrong again.

“For Death.”

I felt a shudder. I had no desire to see that guy again, anyway it was highly unlikely that he would bother to explain himself to me now. Nor to see another one, if it turned out that I was wrong and the one who didn't inform me of everything was just another lackey, an ordinary reaper.

“Oh. It sounds like you're completely crazy.”

I was screwed, so I had no reason to bite my tongue anymore. I expected to be punished for it, but it wasn't like I couldn't take a beating.

In fact, having one approach me because of my taunting might give me the opportunity I needed.

It couldn't be called a plan; it was at best step one. But it was what I had.

“Something like that, something like that. No one wants to face death. That's precisely why, kid. Precisely. “

He didn't take the bait.

He didn't send anyone to teach me a lesson.

Instead, that bastard laughed as he blurted out contradictory words. A complete mockery. If his words hid truth, I couldn't see it right now, amidst fear, confusion and rage.

Rage, above all else.

This had to happen to me, precisely. I had to be caught up in this. Reduced to bait. By... Why? Coincidence? Why?

I felt like throwing up.

Where could Plague be? I could use a last-minute rescue right about now.