PROLOGUE: DEATH.

I glared at him from across the room.

Finally.

“Oh yes, and who are you then?”

He hadn’t changed one bit. Not one single bit in the twenty years since I’d started hunting him. With his carefully tousled, shockingly white hair, handsome face, and slim figure clad in the most expensive of dark grey suits. He stood there with a slightly confused, and yet totally unconcerned expression on his face.

“You don’t remember me?” I asked, stepping closer.

“Oh my goodness me, I have met a lot of people in my time, I can’t remember even a small percentage of them.” He scratched his chin and frowned slightly. “Although, there is something vaguely familiar…”

I kept a steady pace, closing the gap between us. “I’ve changed a lot. Lost a fair bit of weight for example.” I rubbed my shaved head. “Lost hair too.”

“No, still don’t have it.”

“I’ve also gained things,” I went on. He was only a few metres away now. “More hatred of course, more grief, naturally, for some of the horrible things I’ve had to do to keep on your trail. More skills too, with weapons, fighting, killing.”

“So cool.”

I could tell I was beginning to bore him, but it didn’t matter, I was just about in range.

“I bought this along too. It cost a pretty penny, but it will be worth it, when I slide it into your body.”

One of his eyebrows raised as I pulled the wicked looking dagger out from the sheath under my jacket.

“Pretty.”

“So, you still don’t remember me?”

He shook his head, sadly.

“Maybe if I set the scene?” I took a deep breath, trying to force down the emotions that always came with this memory. “You’re in a house. You’ve brutally raped and murdered my young daughter, you’re just finishing off my wife, and I come in.”

He paused for a second, but then his eyes lit up, and he snapped his fingers. “Yes! I remember! Oh, that was a good one! I mean, you out, cheating on your wife, leaving me to entertain them myself. And they were both good ones, especially your daughter. I do love the screams, mostly from the mother I make them watch. Still, all are to be savoured.”

I snarled, hand tightening about my knife’s hilt.

“You walked in!” He was enjoying himself now, remembering. “You simply stood and watched as I cut your wife’s throat! Then I came inside her too, they do twitch so when that happens, makes it a lot more fun.”

My breath was laboured, my heart hammering in my chest.

“And I left you, didn’t I? I thought that would be a suitable punishment for your philandering ways, more so than just killing you there and then. That would have been too easy.” He nodded, smiled, and crossed his arms, sighing happily. “So, how have you been?”

“I told you. I’ve been hunting you. And now I’m going to kill you. Your death will be too easy, too fast, too painless, but that can’t be helped.” I raised my knife.

“Such drama. Oh very well, although I’ll be annoyed to ruin this suit, in reward for your many years of determination, I’ll let you have a free stab.” He held his arms out wide. “How does that sound?”

“It sounds like justice,” I growled. Without hesitation, I’d been itching for this moment for two decades after all, I stepped forward and plunged my dagger into the centre of his torso with all of my strength.

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The sound of it penetrating his body was like music to my ears, the blade sliding in, right up to the hilt.

There was silence. I looked up, into his eyes that, whilst from afar looked bright and sparkling, were, in fact, dull and lifeless.

“Did you enjoy that?” he asked.

“I…”

“You’re just noticing I’m not dead, yes?” He shook his head. “All those years and you never realised my true being. How sad. Didn’t you wonder why I look the same now as back then? How I’ve not aged? How I’ve kept my youthful good looks?” A grin of perfect, white, teeth.

He leaned in close, nearly kissing me. “I’m a demon. There, there’s your answer. And now, it’s my turn. I have a knife too, so I think that’s fair, don’t you?”

I felt a sensation then, in my chest, both cold and burning at the same time, as his steel slid into me. Immediately, my body wavered, the effects not yet taking hold, but it knew, my body knew, it had just been killed.

“You can die now, I think,” he said.

I smiled.

“What?” He gave me a puzzled look.

“Did you look at my dagger?” I managed to gasp, as the blood flowed from my injury, down my hand, clutching the knife, onto the hilt still protruding from his flesh.

“What?” He looked down, and then, and only then, did his eyes widen. Only then did he register something other than a smug emotion.

“Of course I know what you are, after twenty years hunting you, following you through…” I coughed, my body was starting to go. “Through the gutters, the depravity of your world. I said… this dagger cost me… a pretty penny.”

“Blood sacrifice,” he gasped.

“That… that’s right,” I managed to get out. “The sacrifice of one’s life, the spell… on the runes on the blade… ensures that the demon is killed, fully, finally… unconditionally, killed. Expensive… but I think… I think… it’s a bargain.”

He stepped back, or staggered back, and I dropped to my knees, vision fading.

“This can’t be it!” he wailed, trying to pull the dagger out of his body. It wouldn’t budge. I was rather glad it wasn’t a fake. Big gamble that had been.

“Die… monster,” I sighed.

I, Marc, have many regrets, but this, giving my life to end this demon was not one of them.

I fell forward, onto the hard stone floor, and, to the desperate wails of the monster in my ears, I finally died.

MIDEX.

There was applause. Well, clapping. One person clapping.

“That was really cool.”

“What?”

I was alive?

No, I was… I was… I don’t know what I was.

I tried to open my eyes, but, even though I could see (could I?) I didn’t have eyes. (Or did I?) Sitting up was easy, because I didn’t have a body either. (Perhaps?) It was hard to tell.

“Welcome!”

The voice from before. I looked(?) around, and saw, sitting in a sea of white nothing, a tall, thin man. Maybe it was a man. The face was somehow out of focus. I was fairly sure he was wearing a white suit though.

“Where am I? What’s happening? Yes, yes, I know. That’s what everyone asks when they come here.” The person stood up and walked over to me. I found out that he was a lot taller than he first appeared, perspective seemed strange here, and he had to bend down, like an adult to a small child, to speak to me further. Shockingly, I could see his eyes. They were golden.

“You’re in Midex. Well done, first Being through here in quite a lot of years. Well, if time existed here it would be a lot of years.”

“Mid…?”

“Yes Midex. It’s the middle of… everywhere, everything, everytime, every dimension, just… Everything. That’s with a capital E. Everything there has every been, and ever will be, whenever, wherever and so on and so forth. Don’t worry about it, it’s just about too much for even my mind to grasp, let alone yours. You can call me Midex too, if that makes it easier, which it probably doesn’t.”

“What…?”

“What happened?” Midex stood up. “You died, but hey, what a way to go, right? Killing a demon of that magnitude. Nearly killing him anyway. So close.”

“Nearly?” I should have felt anger, but somehow, I felt nothing at all.

“He slipped away, out of the body he had, just before it failed, and ran back to where he came from, originally. Oh, don’t get me wrong, you severely injured him. He’s in a very weakened state. It will take years, decades even, for him to recover to a decent level of power.”

I should have cried then. It was all for nothing? And yet, I still felt no emotions.

“But don’t worry, we were so impressed, we’re going to send you after him.”

“What?”

“Of course, if you don’t want that, you’ll be going to a Bad place. After all, you did a lot of horrible things in your life, and that includes cheating on you wife with all those women. I mean, most of them were old enough to be called women.” He tapped a finger on his cheek. “Then there was all the violence and killing after.” Midex shook his head and made a tutting sound. “You ended up being quite the bad man.”

He looked at me and smiled brightly. At least that’s the impression I somehow got, as his face was still blurry.

“So, what’s it to be? A brand new life, in a brand new place, or, well, the other.”

He knelt down and those golden eyes bored into me again. “If you ask me, it’s not really a hard decision. You could maybe make up for all those regrets. It’s a second chance! Clean slate, and so on.”

To be honest, I wasn’t sure I deserved such a thing, but then, if that bastard was still out there…

“I’ll take the second chance,” I said.