When Zack opened his eyes, he found himself standing on a shabby, wooden bridge going over the recently cleared water, it was far from sanitary, but aside from fishing the corpses out and flushing all the stale water out thanks to some magic users, it was now slightly preferable to having acid running through your city.

Zack looked around; the bridge was barely illuminated by the dim glow of the moon above, the rays of light barely making it down to the surface through the dense layer of clouds which sheltered the city from pleasant weather.

After a few, silent seconds, Zack released the air he kept trapped in his lungs.

“Looks like I can still escape…” He thought.

Despite the conversation with Mr Death, Zack didn’t feel any better about his paradoxical situation; his inability to slay Jasper.

Despite his wishes to wallow at some inn, Zack knew that coping mechanism couldn’t last long on account of his inevitable capture.

“What do I do?!”

“If I can’t kill him… the least I can do is try and flee…”

The previously considered idea, which Zack disregarded as flawed slowly turned out to be the only solution he could commit himself to.

Zack’s world shattered, his muscles tightened, his pupils dilated, his breathing stopped, his body turned cold and his soul all but escaped his body as the leathery grasp of a gloved hand became glued to his shoulder.

He didn’t turn around for fear of losing any time, instead, he bolted forward.

“SHIT!”

“IF THEY LOCK ME UP, JASPER WILL BE FREE TO-…”

Zack’s pace slowed down.

“If they lock me up… Jasper will have to either give up on his revenge or come perform it in the prison!” he realized.

Uncertainty still lingered in his mind, would Jasper kill off the prisoners?

Considering the precautions of the jGuardians, the prison seemed pretty serious.

He sped up again.

“But what about the others!?”

“What if they send Bonifacius or some other L.F.T.O member to question me? Zack would strike straight away!”

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“He always finds some way of tracking me down…”

That’s when Zack, still lost in his thoughts, bumped into another stranger.

In full damage-control mode, Zack looked down, hiding his face with faked bashfulness.

“S-Sorry about that!” he exclaimed frantically before starting to walk again.

“Zack?” questioned the vaguely familiar voice.

Fearfully, Zack looked up and saw the visibly drunk face of Malagmus.

“What the hell are you guys doing out this later?” he asked, his eyes hazy and he sipped on a famously weak beer through a twisty straw.

Judging from his tone, Malagmus must have somehow not been informed about Zack being the killer.

The two stood silently as Malagmus continued to drink the beer from his bottle until all that came out of it was the sound of his desperation for more liquid.

“Uhm… Hi…” Zack said, if he wanted to make it out, he needed to avoid looking suspicious, but he also needed to avoid talking too long for fear of whoever put their hand on his shoulder catching up.

“I’m kind of in a rush…” he replied apologetically.

“Aw, don’t be like that!” Malagmus exclaimed, his face was red from the alcohol.

He folded his arms.

“There are plenty of establishments we could visit at this hour…” he exclaimed dismissively.

“Before the curfew comes into play…”

Zack breathed a sigh.

“Come on, you know you’re too broke for that kind of thing!”

Even the likes of Zack heard Bromy and the others poke fun at Malagmus, no small part of the insults revolved about him being permanently broke.

Malagmus smiled.

“Actually, I’ve started making some money recently!” he explained through slurred speech.

“That would explain his booze-fund…” Zack thought.

“Anyway! I really have to go!” Zack explained.

“Nah, you guys really need to hear this - so, I’m a pretty high-level alchemist, right?” he asked.

Zack breathed a long, very evident sigh to no effect.

“So, this one guy asked me if I’m interested in making fake potions for this one scam…” he continued.

Zack sighed again, trying to shuffle away only have Malagmus place his hand on his shoulder and continue speaking.

“And like, I was like… I can just make you guys real potions - and they just made fun of me…”

“P-please let me go…” Zack pleaded to no avail.

Malagmus laughed.

“So instead of dyed water, I made the potion essentially poison,” he explained.

“...”

“You what…?” Zack asked.

“It’s cool, they’re just laxatives!” Malagmus clarified.

“THAT’S NOT BETTER!” Zack cried.

With that, Zack finally turned and left Malagmus behind.

“I REALLY IN A RUSH!” he called back before disappearing into the night.

Malagmus raised his eyebrows, watching the two leave.

“Weirdos...” he muttered before feeling a street-rat bite his angle causing his entire leg to blow up into meaty chunks, splattering blood onto everything, including the rat which was flung back by the pressure.

At no point, did Malagmus’ health drop below zero as his leg grew back without him so much as noticing the damage.

He might have kicked the rat away, but that would most likely also blow his leg away.

Earlier, his head exploded from a bed-bug in his pillow biting him.

The other day, Malagmus found a hair in his soup and found himself split in half from the jaw down after pulling it out.

He was also weak to poisons.

Speaking of which…

Malagmus bent down and proceeded to throw up all the three-percent beer he drank onto the floor, all one bottle of it.

He wiped his mouth with his sleeve and breathed a sigh.

“Now when… maybe I should buy wine next time…?” he wondered.

Meanwhile, Zack sprinted through the streets, eventually hiding in one of the alleys where he planned to stay for the night, the place was a dense maze of homes, the furthest away from where he died only minutes before.

Finding himself surrounded by nothing but the cold night air, Zack lowered his head.

He sat with his arms around his legs, his side hidden by an empty box.

“I hope it doesn’t start raining…”

He thought, looking up to see nothing but darkness.

That’s when he felt it, out of nowhere, two blankets appeared above, instinctively, he jumped to his feet, looking around, trying to decide which way he would flee.

Nothing happened.

Not words, no people.

“Hello?” Zack asked.

Nothing.

When he looked down, he noticed one of the blankets was gone, as if it became invisible.

It was as if the city itself decided to give him a yellow and black, striped blanket that resembled a bee.

“DID I PICK A HAUNTED ALLEY!?” Zack wondered.

Anxiously, Zack quietly returned to his corner and covered himself in the honey-scented blanket.

“Uhm… thanks… alley-ghost person…” he said.

After several minutes, Zack eventually passed out,

There was no rain that night.