Ronny McKitty was, in my eyes, quite pathetic—even for a human. As far as accomplishments go, he did do quite well leading up to high school, but everything the soon to be thirty-year-old did afterwards was laughable. Among other things, he’d already managed to fail out of college and total his mother’s car (more than once).

But none of those things were where his fault truly lied. Ronny wasn’t a failure because he was clumsy, or lazy, or addicted. He was a failure because he made no effort to learn from his mistakes and become a better man. Complacency was his sin and he reveled in it.

Normally, I’d have no reason to care about some random worthless human, but Ronny and his family were different. For the past two centuries, I’d been cultivating the McKitty bloodline, trying to impart strong minds and skills in each of them so that they would be more valuable in the afterlife, where I owned them as slaves.

And up to Ronny, I’d been successful in my attempts. His mother had been a world-famous novelist; and, his father had been the kind of businessman that could buy NFL teams for the fun of it. All of his ancestors were equally impressive.

With Ronny though, things just never clicked. He’d never had a job, nor did he intend to get one. His parents had died in a plane crash a few years before (which I may or may not be responsible for), and his inheritance was more than enough to live the rest of his life in luxury.

Ronny lived alone in a little bungalow, tucked away by gravel roads and trees. He hadn’t left his house in months, not even for groceries. It was frustrating, but because of the wealth I’d given him, he could just have all of his necessities delivered.

Day-in and day-out, he passed his time with video games and television. Ronny had made a routine of waking up, eating breakfast, playing games for ten hours, eating dinner, and going to bed. There was very little variation in that cycle, which made him more than a little boring to watch.

Stolen novel; please report.

Not that I had much of a say in his activities though. Because he lived on Earth, a planet gods were banned from visiting, the scale to which I was allowed to influence events was incredibly minor. I could influence people into doing things by selectively manipulating how lucky they were but beyond that, I couldn’t do much else. Even with my limited presence on his plane of reality, I chose not to let things stand as they were.

That’s why I made a phone call to my favorite interdimensional hitman—who for some reason, was unaffected by the travel ban—and ordered Ronny’s death.

♦

Ronny slipped on the same old torn-up moccasins he always wore. He’d had them for longer than he’d like to admit, but that didn’t stop him from wearing them. In his mind, there was no reason to replace them because there was nobody around to judge him for it.

He went downstairs and made some coffee. That, along with some microwaved pancakes and sausage make for a good-enough breakfast. Next, he went to the couch and began his routine. Like any other day, he’d get in about six hours on his Playstation, go to the bathroom, and then continue until bedtime.

Ronny was three hours deep into a game when he heard a knock on the door. That never happened. He tried to ignore it, but the knock came again, and again, and again. After ten minutes, the knocks hadn’t stopped. Instead, they continued with surgical precision Every thirty seconds, there was another knock. Whoever was at the door really wanted to see him, it seemed.

Begrudgingly, Ronny got up and hobbled over to the door. As he walked, he tried to guess who it would be, but nobody came to mind. It couldn’t be a family member, he had none left. It couldn’t be a friend either, since he’d lost touch with his high school friends years ago. He deduced that it was either a particularly stubborn evangelist, or maybe a salesman. He resolved to tell them off quickly and return to his routine.

Ronny opened the door and heard a bang. He collapsed onto the floor, blood gushing from his head and died.