Silence.

Silence and the realisation that there would be no chance to make amends, to put his regrettable behaviour in high school behind him.

Silence and the knowledge that any apologies made would be made alone, delivered to the corpse of one of his oldest friends, someone who had made some of the darkest days of his teenage life bearable.

All was quiet in the darkened interior of his home save the crunch of broken glass under his boots. In the gloom of early evening, the sickly fluorescence of the streetlights intruded into his home through the front door, illuminating the gutted living room and the books, knickknacks, and shattered picture frames strewn about on the ugly shag carpet.

Damien stood at the threshold of his childhood home, unable to process the feelings of violation and anger that he should have felt, numbed instead by the news of Sam’s death.

He’d left the hospital with Mitch & Murray against the advice of the nurses, determined not to be alone with his grief in the sterile hospital. He’d thought coming home would make it easier to process, but somebody had other ideas.

At first glance, it didn’t look as if anything had been stolen. The heavy CRT TV still sat on the wooden TV unit, the microwave, blender, and air fryer remained on the kitchen counter, and his PlayStation remained beside the TV.

His mother’s collection of porcelain cows lay shattered in the entryway, among the torn books, broken frames, upended change jar, and vintage stuffed toys, victims of the destructive whirlwind that had torn through the house.

He thought about calling Mitch to report the break-in, but the young police officer would have his hands full with Sam’s suicide. It was rare Loch Lomond had more than two officers on duty at a time.

“Motherfuckers,” Damien muttered as he picked his way across the room, checking each open doorway he passed for signs of the intruders.

Probably a fucking junkie, he thought, but immediately dismissed the theory. A junkie would have taken anything not nailed down. There wasn’t a pawn shop in town, but there were always people willing to pay unders to buy stolen goods.

Who else would break into his house? it wasn’t as if his folks had lived in an especially fancy house, nor had he done anything since he’d returned to give any indication he had any of the money he’d earned as a footballer. The PlayStation had been the one luxury he’d allowed himself, not that the average ice junkie knew that. He’d been a big star, and that meant big money.

But nothing was stolen. This hadn’t been druggos looking for something to sell.

As he crossed the living room, careful to avoid stepping on anything unbroken, he got the distinct whiff of an unpleasant smell: shit.

Entering his bedroom - the room that had been his parents - he saw the source. Something, or someone, had taken a big, liquid shit in the centre of the bed. It pooled in the middle of the quilt, reeking to high hell.

“Motherfuckers…” he muttered under his breath, gagging at the stink of it. It smelled like the arseholes had been subsisting on a diet of canned dog food and Bundaberg rum.

He could think of only a handful of people in town who hated him enough to do something like this, and he didn’t need to make any leaps to figure out the most likely: Benji and Drew.

As far as petty revenge went, taking a dump on his bed was on brand for them. The trashing of the living room bothered him more than the shit - each broken porcelain figurine was a piece of his mother he’d not yet back.

He heard a noise coming from the kitchen. Equal parts fear and anger surged through him. He found himself hoping the bastards were still here.

Ducking into the next room - his childhood room - he quietly reached into the wardrobe, searching for what he wanted by feel. His hand soon closed around the hilt of one of several swords his parents had bought for him over the years. None was weighted for combat, nor were any of them sharp, but they’d still scare the shit out of a pair of hillbillies.

The noise from the kitchen came again. It was not the sound of wanton destruction, nor did it sound like two arseholes trying to be quiet.

It sounded like somebody eating a bowl of cereal.

Sword in hand, he approached. It was not Benji or Drew.

It was Matthias.

The strangely dressed man sat at the breakfast bar, helping himself to a bowl of Damien’s cornflakes. He glanced in Damien’s direction, noted the sword, and lifted another spoonful to his mouth, crunching thoughtfully.

When he’d finished chewing, he swallowed, dabbed at his lips with a tea towel, and asked:

“Where is it?”

“Where is what? The model? You gave it back, you psycho.”

“The model is a dead end,” Matthias replied matter-of-factly. “It won’t get me what I want. You’re welcome to keep it.”

“Real fucking generous of you, mate. What do you want?”

“The ledger,” Matthias explained and then, noticing the look of confusion on Damien’s fake, spoke again. “Sam’s ledger.”

Damien was too confused to be angry. He let the sword rest against the doorframe, close at hand in case it was needed.

“You’ve lost me,” he said. “I have no idea where Sam kept his books. You know I haven’t spoken to him in years. Why would I have his accounts?”

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Matthias dismissed Damien with a wave of his hand. “I do not seek something so paltry as coin. I want the ledger in which he described his world.”

Damien couldn’t help himself. He burst out laughing, wincing through the pain it stirred up around his scar. “You put on this whole song and dance to get your hands on a notebook full of nerd shit? You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Matthias’ face betrayed no hint of amusement. He was deadly serious.

“I had hoped it wouldn’t come to violence, Damien, but if you continue to mistake my manners for weakness, I’ll be forced to take more drastic measures.”

“Manners? You shit on my fucking bed!”

Matthias looked abashed at this. “That was… regrettable, and not my doing. Those high school bullies of yours are vindictive little bastards, are they not? I do apologise for not being able to keep them on a tighter leash, but good help is proving ponderously difficult to find here. I am beginning to understand why you and Sam hated this place so much.”

“Hate,” Damien corrected him. “It’s not a past tense thing for me.”

Matthias nodded. He had his back to Damien at the moment, facing the sink as he washed the bowl and spoon he had used.

Hit him, a more brutish part of him urged. Hit the prick while his back is turned.

But how did you hit a guy while he was doing dishes? It was the most polite break-in Damien had ever experienced, shit notwithstanding.

“For you, maybe,” Matthias agreed, “but Sam did seem to be truly fond of this place. He’d taken a thing he hated and injected a thing he loved into it, and it seemed he had found his footing here. It’s unfortunate that he had to stick his nose where it wasn’t wanted.”

Damien’s heart sank to hear Matthias talk about Sam like that. It wasn’t just the past tense - that made sense given Sam’s recent passing - but the implication of a threat in that final sentence. This was not a man simply talking about somebody who had died, this was a man hinting at being responsible for it. Damien’s fingers closed over the hilt of the sword.

“What did you do?” he asked, sounding more calm than he felt.

“Me?” Matthias act, feigning shock. “I did nothing to our dear friend. Oh, I asked and I begged and I threatened, but I assure you, I did not so much as lay a finger on him. Did I burn down his disgusting little shop? Absolutely. That was only after he had thrice rejected my reasonable offer of a fair exchange. It was a petty, wasteful thing to do, I admit, but we must all sometimes allow our baser urges a little free rein. It’s unhealthy to keep them bottled up.”

With a roar, Damien took up the sword and charged the smug arsehole, uncaring of the fact he was in the process of drying the bowl he’d just washed. Let it break.

Matthias ducked smoothly out of the way of Damien’s clumsy overhand blow. The sword cleaved into the dish rack, sending cutlery and broken dishes tumbling down onto the tile floor.

In the same motion that carried him clear of Damien’s swing, Matthias planted a pair of rapid-fire punches in the bigger man’s side, knocking the wind out of him. By the time Damien had righted himself and turned around, Matthias was leaning up against the pantry door, cool as you like.

“Temper temper,” he tutted. “You’re interrupting a perfectly good villain monologue.”

Damien lunged at him again, but without the skill of Fred the Fighter or the cards, he was just a muscular guy without the faintest idea of how to swing a sword. He buried the blade in the pantry door. Matthias rewarded his zeal with a sharp kick to the groin that sent him crashing to the floor.

“As I was saying,” Matthias continued as if Damien hadn’t been trying to kill him. “I regret the way things had to go. Burning Sam’s shop was childish of me, but it still wasn’t enough to convince him I was serious. That meant escalation, but a good leader does not bloody their own hands. Thankfully, you’re not the only person around here with enemies. It was painfully easy to convince those two that Sam was secretly a paedophile and easier still to get them all rummed up and convince them that the police would never do anything about it. After all, wasn’t he friends with one of them? By the time I’d plied them with enough alcohol and lies, I didn’t even have to suggest they make it look like a suicide.”

Damien struggled to fight his way back to his feet, but his body was too battered, too weak. It was all he could do to flail out with a hand which Matthias merely kicked away.

“I imagine they’ll do the same here once we’re done with our little conversation. One too many true crime documentaries for those two, it would seem. They’ve concocted the most elaborate scenario in which, I believe, they intend to imply you and Sam were lovers and predators. It won’t hold up for a second in court, of course, but I’ll be long gone by the time those two morons talk themselves into life in prison.”

“Why?” Damien wheezed.

“Tut tut, I’m not quite there yet. First, you’re supposed to ask, ‘How did you convince them to help you? You beat them up.’ to which I’d reply, “Well, fools like that only respect strength, and I did promise them a measure of revenge against you. The sheer level of hate they feel for you is impressive, especially because, as far as I can tell, your greatest crime seems to have been leaving them behind. I’m not a psychologist to unravel the sheer mess that is their drug and drink-addled minds, but it’s impressive how deeply you managed to get under their skin without even trying. You’d have made an excellent nemesis, I’m sure.”

Damien had managed to get himself up to his knees now, but Matthias planted a boot on his chest and sent him tumbling back. The kick struck him right where the arrow had, and it sent jolts of agony lancing through his body. He screamed. He might even have pissed himself.

“Now comes the ‘why,’ dear friend. You’ve no doubt figured out that Sam somehow found a way to bring his world to life - after all, despite your lies to the contrary, you’ve been visiting it regularly - but you don’t know what such a thing means. It wasn’t just a world full of hapless innkeepers and fearsome monsters he created. He created nations, drew borders on maps, dispersed resources, and crafted histories for each and every one of them.”

“And he populated that world with heroes and villains - the former to act as your allies in battle, and the latter to act as your foils. He created me, Damien, and he poured every ounce of creativity, intellect, pathos, and madness he had into me. I was to be the greatest threat your group ever faced - the smartest, cruellest, most charming foe you’d ever lay low. Your little growth spurt meant I never saw the light of day, but that seed had already been planted. I lived in a world devoid of true heroes, I learned, and I grew. I came to understand the cosmic joke that was my existence and, when Sam foolishly came to our world for the first time, I began to formulate a plot. I began to plan my escape from his world and set my sights on something far more delectable. I -”

There was a sudden shattering of glass and a whoosh of flame meeting an accelerant as a bottle flew through the kitchen window and shattered on the pantry door. Liquid fire spilt down onto the floor, forming a flaming wall that separated Damien from Matthias, hero from villain.

“Curse you feckless, gormless fools!” roared Matthias, his monologue cut off by overzealous minions. “I told you to wait for my signal!”

“Fuckin’ get the rock spider!” Benji shouted. “He’s a pervert!”

The drunken shouting was obviously part of the pair’s master plan. No doubt they’d place some singed pornography around the ashes of the house when they were done, although the very fact they had access to such material said more about him than it did their intended victim.

Matthias seethed.

“This won’t do,” he snarled. “You don’t die without knowing my full plan, and you don’t die like this. This… amateurish bullshit! I’ll kill them myself. Give me the sword.”

He held his hand out, but Damien gave him the sword in a powerful downward swing that didn’t so much cut as batter Matthias’ hand from his wrist. As the madman wailed in pain and outrage, Damien thought of the tavern.

Without so much as a flash of light, Damien disappeared.

And this time, he did not travel alone.