I headed back up to the house and found a guest in my kitchen. The man stood a head and shoulders above me, with a slightly bulging belly that strained against the buttons of his well-tailored black suit. The rest of him was nearly all muscle. I recognized him immediately as my old childhood friend, Bruno. He was standing in the kitchen, looking through some of the cupboards, making himself at home. “Well, this is unexpected, to say the least.” I raised my hands to show no hostility towards him. I had not expected to see a member of the Russian Mafia in my home.

“Vlad, it is good to see you have not fled.” Bruno was imposing, as he always was. Today, though, he was even more so, easily outweighing me by a solid fifty kilos. “It would not do Almaz-Antev, or my fine employers, any good if you were to disappear before your debts were paid.”

“Ah, Bruno.” I backed myself up a little bit, and found myself against a wall. “I do not know of what debt you speak. I have paid off what I owed.” I wrinkled my forehead, trying to think of what I still owed, but nothing came to mind.

“You see, Vlad, Viktor is looking for the blood price you owe. We spent a lot of money getting medication for your Ina, and now we are owed a debt. The Motherland is more forgiving than we are.” Bruno sat heavily into a chair at the kitchen table. He shrugged his shoulders as though it wasn’t a big deal. “But you see, there is not much time left, and Viktor, he does not like to wait. He said something about you moving to some kind of different world, the same place he is going. Vermillion Glands, or something?” Bruno pulled a pair of brass knuckles from his pocket, slipping them onto his fists. My heart was pounding like it would leap out of my chest and scamper across the floor. I looked around for any kind of exit from this situation. I remembered the VGO pod in the basement. I remembered the smell of Ina’s hair. I remembered that I wasn’t going to die, not today.

“Bruno, let us talk, I will make coffee, we can share Vodka, yes?” It was a ploy to get him to relax, I was hopeful it would work out.

“Ah, so hospitable. You know Vlad,” Bruno laid a heavy arm on the table, the wood groaned under the weight. My heart skipped a beat as I heard the chair shifting, expecting him to get up, but he didn’t. “I don’t remember you ever making coffee. That was always Ina’s thing.” He plastered a hard smirk on his face, I knew he was being an ass.

“She was always better at it,” I said, hiding my anger at his comment. “But I can make it just fine. Might taste like mud, or engine oil, but it works.” I set about making said coffee, I also pulled a bottle of my finest Vodka from the shelf. I wasn’t going to need it where I was going, or if I was going to die tonight.

“How long have we known each other?” Bruno sighed as he slipped the brass knuckles off his hand and set them on the table. He was letting his guard down, good. Sometimes Bruno asked stupid questions, sometimes he just forgot. He had received a nasty blow to the head shortly after he started working for that Mobster, Viktor, as a bouncer at a Mafia-run club. It was 43 years ago that our parents had given birth in the same hospital, and until he joined Viktor’s crew, we were close friends. Sometimes I liked to think we still were. He was present for Ina’s funeral, he was there for me when we found out she was sick. He was actually the one who reached out to me when the chemo wasn’t covered any longer. He was still a good man inside somewhere, but he was better at following orders than he was at keeping his friends and jobs straight.

“You know well enough,” I said as I lit the gas burner on the stove and set the coffee percolator on the flame. I needed to make a plan, and I had one in the works. I just didn’t want to have to follow through with it. I used an unnecessarily large amount of room to get everything ready, making sure I could reach my goal. I needed to reach the knife block.

“It seems like yesterday we were going to University together. You were promising and intellectual. I was a mass of raw muscle.” He poked at the flab that had started to show over his gut. “Some things have changed, others have not.” He raised an eyebrow at the equipment I had strewn about the kitchen and dining room. Nearly all of it was my own design, some of it was from various jobs I had handled throughout the years. “You know, I was almost hired by Almaz-Antev as well. Well,” he laughed as he looked away. “I guess I technically still work for them. Hired muscle through their connections.” He tilted his head to the side and a loud pop issued from the bones and muscles in his neck. I nearly knocked the coffee kettle over from being startled. I also almost knocked the knife I had acquired from the cabinet onto the floor, which would have given away my intentions. I didn’t want to have to use it, but it was a likely conclusion that I would have to. I turned around and carefully slid the knife into the back of my pants, blousing my shirt a bit to cover the handle.

“We don’t have to fight, Bruno. Take whatever you want, I have money saved, you can take that too.” The coffee was done, I poured a pair of cups, and spiked them both with Vodka. Heavily. I was going to need all the courage I could muster for this next act.

“No, see, Viktor was clear. I bring you back broken, or I don’t come back at all. He is beyond wanting money now. You made him mad, he thinks you stiffed him on the bill.” Bruno took his cup with a small smile and took a large drink. “Ah, that is good. And the Vodka was a good touch. You were always heavy-handed.” He set the cup down and looked at me with remorse. “I am sorry, old friend, but this is where friendship ends, and work begins.” He stood and replaced his brass knuckles, smacking his fists together as he wound up to take a swing. I reached around behind my back to grab the knife. The blade felt clumsy in my hands. I hated bladed weapons. He stopped for a moment, then a sly smile rolled over his features. “You were not going to go down easy, always the hard way my friend.” He took a heavy swing from the side, and I scrambled out of the way. His fist slammed into the countertop where I was standing just a second before. Cups rattled and bounced, my freshly washed dishes shook in the drying rack. The blow was so strong that it knocked Ina’s favorite coffee mug off of the spindle it hung on. It shattered on the floor. The sound of it breaking hurt, like years of memories shattering against cold, uncaring stone. I knew I couldn’t get hit by the force of Bruno’s swing, I simply wouldn’t survive.

“Damnit, Bruno, you’re better than this.” I was already shaking from fear and anxiety, I didn’t need to fight for my life. This was a problem. “I don’t want to hurt you, we can still leave this place as friends. I will give you everything I have.”

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“You, hurt me? You’re a brain, Vlad, and I’m a muscle. There will be only one person with pain tonight.” He took another swing, and I backpedaled into the large grandfather clock against the wall. It rang as the chimes within bounced around. I dug my blade into the wood behind the clock and pushed with all I was worth. The massive clock creaked and groaned as it fell towards Bruno. He put his shoulder into it, and shrugged it off. The man was a beast, for all that age. The cacaphony of the metal inside the clock’s body was painful to hear as the wood splintered and smashed against the floorboards.

“I’m warning you, Bruno. Stop this and we can be friends again. I’ll forget it all.” I didn’t want to end up beaten and battered. I lunged forward and swiped at him with my knife. It left me terribly open, and he punished me for it. I received a quick jab to the ribs for my effort, knocking the air completely out of me. I doubled over on the floor in pain, the knife slipping out of my hands as I wrapped myself in my arms. I gasped for air as Bruno stepped forward, rolling his hands together, cracking his knuckles.

“Only one punch, Vlad?” Bruno sighed heavily as he loomed over my breathless body. Wracking coughs had started to pull air back into my lungs. “You used to be so much more resilient. This is what working with tools and technology all your life gets you.” He went to stomp on my head, but I rolled out of the way just in time. His foot hit the ground heavily enough to rattle the dishware and the coffee cup he left on the table. I scampered up to my hands and knees, grabbed the knife, and was almost clear of him until I felt the collar on my shirt stiffen.

“Hurk,” I spouted as I was pulled backwards. He had the grip of a rabid bear. I struggled against the clothing restraining me, but it was no use. Before I knew it, he had lifted me into the air with a bear hug. My lungs were beginning to burn as he crushed my torso between his massive arms. “Bruno…” I coughed and choked as I squirmed, my vision starting to darken. Right before my sight left me completely, I had a moment of clarity. The knife was still in my hand! I swung for all I was worth with it, trying desperately to get a cut, a knick, anything that would cause him to release me. After what felt like an eternity, the blade found purchase. It sunk deep into his right thigh, and I was rewarded with him dropping me. The bellow he let out was enough to nearly deafen me. Everything was going to hurt in the morning, for sure. I collapsed to the floor as my body was basically dead weight. I sucked in hard lungfuls of air, doing everything I could to make my body respond to simple commands. Look around, get up, move, get away from him. Nothing was working.

“You put a knife in my leg, you dirty shit!” Bruno continued to howl as he sunk to the floor. I was hoping the blade would simply get him to release me so I could get away, but it seemed as though I had hit a nerve. As I watched the blood spurt from his leg, I realized I had hit something much more important. I had driven the knife into his femoral artery. He was going to bleed out without medical attention. My brain went through a million potential outcomes, but only one mattered. I stretched out and reached for the towels that hung from the handle on the stove. I grabbed both of them, and managed to crawl over to where Bruno was gasping. His skin tone was already changing to ashen grey mixed with blue. He was losing blood fast. I wrapped the towels around his upper thigh, above the wound, and tied them tight. Then I ripped a large piece of my shirt off, removed the knife from his leg, and stuffed the clothing into the wound. It was immediately soaked in blood, a bad sign. I hadn’t meant for the blade to bite so deep, I hadn’t meant for him to be bleeding out! My tourniquet wasn’t working as well as I had hoped, probably because my dexterity and strength were still reduced from nearly being crushed to death. His eyes started to glaze over as he stared at me. “Vlad, Vlad, please…” His words were gentle and full of fear, and for just a moment I saw that child I had grown up with. My heart shattered.

“Bruno, I am so sorry.” I hadn’t meant for him to die, I had intended to talk him down, to find a common ground. Maybe even to part as friends. “I didn’t mean for this to happen,” I said to him, holding his hand which I had gripped without thinking. His hand was so much larger than mine, but his grasp was gentle.

“I...I know I didn’t do right. By either of you.” His words were slipping now. They were coming slower, his gasps were shallow. “I am sorry, friend.” The last words from the one person I had known my entire life were an apology, as he died. I sat there with him for some time before I was able to come to grips with what had happened. I had killed a man, I had killed my best friend.

Timeline - 3 days before Astraea, 00:21

I buried Bruno in the backyard under the dark of the night. I had cleaned up the floor of the dining room as best as I could, but I was still covered in blood. I hadn’t thought to take the time to clean myself up. I didn’t care, I was exhausted and needed rest. I looked at my watch, which was spattered with dried, flaking blood. I was almost out of time, I needed 72 hours inside VGO to be able to fully transition, and that time was almost up. I kneeled at the shared grave site of my most beloved wife, and my best friend. The shovel fell from my grasp and I sobbed deeply. I could no longer hold it back, and I didn’t even try to stop it. There was literally nothing left for me here. I had killed the only person I still cared about, I should have let Bruno take me back to Viktor. I was broken, I was shattered like a glass that was carelessly tossed away. Everything I had in this life was gone. The emotional trauma was almost too much, I would have rather been tortured by the Mafia. At least that pain would subside, either in my death, or when it was over. This pain, though? I expected it to last forever.

Timeline - 3 days before Astraea, 05:19

I don’t remember how long I laid there, but I remember waking to the rising sun on my skin, the cold of Russia’s morning greeting me with its teeth. I remember panicking, because now I had almost no time left. It would be a near thing, for sure. I brushed myself off, and rushed inside. My pain from the fight last night was screaming at me, everything was agony. My body was nearly in spasms from the effort.

The dew from the morning had made the blood on my hands and clothes fresh again. I left smears on the walls as I stumbled from room to room, heading to the basement. I placed my bloodied palm onto the biometric reader that unlocked the steel blast door I had installed. It beeped and slid open. I trudged in and fell to my knees before I reached the capsule. I dragged myself up the face of it, leaving a trail of blood on the pristine chrome. I punched in a series of numbers on the locking mechanism. There was a whoosh of air as the capsule unsealed. I heard the blast door behind me slam shut, and the three-step locking mechanism kick in. Everything was moving at a feverish pace as I pushed the door to the pod up, so I could get into it. I grabbed the assist handrail and pulled with everything I had. My muscles complained, my lungs burned and ached, and my head felt like it was on fire. I finally worked my way into the pod and watched the pod door close slowly, pressurizing.

“Goodbye, Ina. I will see you in the next life.” It was all I could say before the pod sealed, and the processes within the capsule initiated.

The pitch black surrounded me like a blanket, consuming the last glimpse I had of the light of my workshop, until a “loading…” notice came on-screen. I was being logged into Viridian Gate Online.

An intense realization swept over me, I was starting a new life. It had nearly cost me everything. No, it had cost me everything. But I was still alive, and that was something worth fighting for.

My last memory of Earth was pain in my chest, not from the fight the night before, but from never seeing my home, my wife, my friend, my house, ever again.