I belch. Loudly and happily. No one notices because everyone is minding their own damn business. Holy damn, this may be heaven after all.

But no. I am still inside the unnamed bar of Mr. Johnson. Finishing up, though.

Stumbling around, I manage to reach the counter and say my thanks to my sommelier of the night.

"Taaaanziss Mizer Jozon..!"

Yeah. I am drunk. Surprise!

Fortunately, here lies no rookie bohemian. I and Mr. Johnson have a long-standing business relationship, and even while drunk I know my protocol right.

So I simply pick up my credit card and give it to the barkeeper. He swiftly swipes it on his machine, enters my password and returns my card, together with a receipt.

Yeah, I also trust barkeepers with my passwords. Come on, if I can trust them enough to serve me my alcohol, I can also trust them to charge me fairly.

Besides, I am the best fucking client they will ever have on their lives, so trying to con me would be a really dumb move. There are only so many alcoholics in the city.

I turn around to go, but before that, Mr. Johnson grunts at me.

"Hey."

I turn back and see that he is filling up a drink for me.

It is a translucent liquor, looking almost like water. He fills the cup and pushes it to me.

"I've heard today is your birthday. This one is on the house. To keep you warm on your way home."

And then, without even meeting my eyes, he turns back and goes to his old chair.

I smile warmly and hold back a little tear from escaping my lids. Throughout the night I may have yelled once or twice that today was my birthday, but I really did not expect a gift.

I recognize the liquid, of course. It is Brazilian Cachaça, the first liquor I ever drank here. It tastes like burning sugar and numbs your lips and mouth while going down. Delicious.

I drink it all in one go, with a grunt of appreciation. Then I leave the bar. It is just past midnight and should already be home.

Once I am outside, my smoking breath tells me it must really be cold, though I really can't feel a thing. Alcohol never fails me.

The metropolitan side streets are all empty at this hour, as expected.

I find myself on a dark alley, lit only by the yellow lights from the lamp poles. It is littered with the garbage that comes as a natural symptom of any long-lasting contact with human activity. Together with the ominous large and abandoned buildings looming all around me, this place gives a REALLY bad vibe. Fuck.

I mean, I always knew that this place was a bad neighborhood, but under daylight, everything looks a little bit better and a little less spooky.

Even in the times when I left only a few hours earlier, there were still people around and a few shops still in the process of closing for the day. But now...

A rat, bigger than my head, crosses the street with a flash of movement and a splash of garbage.

Shit.

I really should have left earlier.

Anyways. Complaining won't solve anything. I have to get to the main avenue so that I can take a nocturnal bus to my home.

So, with my zero procrastination motto, I start walking.

In little time I reach a corner, turn it and then keep walking a little more.

Then I do it again. And again.

15 minutes later, or 30, or a whole hour later - do ya get it? I have no idea how long - I suddenly reach drunken enlightenment.

I am lost. And in the bad part of town. Crap.

By now, the dirty paved streets and rundown buildings have given way to narrow village-like alleyways and small residential shacks. Very poor looking. Standing on a very slated ground. A decline.

Oh. Ohhhhhh. I am inside a favela, ain't I? Holy gods.

A wrong turn and a small amount of overestimation on my drunken navigational skills, and ta-da!

Rookie mistake, I know. A proper drunk should triple-check his every action lest he does dumb shit. I should have known better, from experience.

But alas, I will not let this spoil the wondrous evening I've had.

Regardless of what people say, the slums are not THAT bad. I know from experience. On my wild years I did all kinds of stuff, and entering a favela is not that high on my list of stupid-things-to-do

As long as you are not a cop, does not look like a cop, isn't a hot girl, does not dress like a prick, don't carry or show a lot of money, don't speak like a fuckin moron, and don't, absolutely don't, mess with the wrong people, you are set. Also, don't react to robberies. If people ask for your things, just give them, for fuck's sake.

Actually, thinking about it, entering a favela is pretty high on my stupid-things-to-do list. I am a white guy who, indeed, looks like a prick.

So giving up hubris, I stumble to a nearby wall and squat. I take off my phone from the pocket and try to use it to trace a route to my bus stop.

I can't see anyone on this alley, but still, people may pop up from the corners of this maze-like place at any time. Let's hope I am not robbed.

The phone lights up and in no time my map is opened and...

BIZZZZ!

My phone lights up with sun-like intensity, blasting my retinas and electrocuting my hands holding it.

FUUUUUCKKKKKKKK!!!

IT HURTS!

By now I've thrown my cellphone the farthest I could and am curled up on my corner, holding my throbbing hands.

What the fuck just happened? That cellphone was no Samsung, to blow off like that!

The pain is great, and when I look up I see stars where before there was none.

Actually, just one. A bigass star. Flaring with strange colors that I have no name for. Growing larger and larger.

Ah. I got it. It is not a star.

Just as I come to the realization, the meteorite reaches me and bursts everything into pieces, all around me.

But instead of the expected painful, burning death and brimstone, what I get is sudden stillness.

The debris raised by the meteorite impact stop and hover mid-air. And what came from what I expected to be a meteorite happens to be a couple of weirdly dressed guys.

One of them is dressed in red robes, a mix between those traditional brown catholic priest robes and the Chinese noble vests of old. Those you see on kung fu movies. He is an old man and his long grey beard makes him look like a wise scholar.

The other's clothes... I have no words to describe. To me, it looks like an amalgamation of colors, textures, and silks, all thrown together in a fashion that still allows for movement. In a way it is beautiful. On the other, it is actually a little bit intimidating and creepy. Kind of alien, just like the unnaturally beautiful face of the tall man wearing them.

What the fuck was in that cachaça you gave me Mr. Johnson?!

But before I can spew any of my foul vocabularies, I suddenly stop.

Not because I want to, but because something is making me. I don't know how to describe, but it is a really weird and uncomfortable sensation. Saliva builds up on my open mouth and I think I am drooling a bit.

The men slowly approach me, seemingly unconcerned with the floating stones around them or the increasingly obvious stream of saliva leaking from my mouth to the ground.

Come on guys, this is disgusting. Notice me! And help me!

But then I get the idea that maybe they are responsible for both of these supernatural things.

Oh. Okay, but that really should not be possible, right? Right. Right?

What the fuck is happening?

They are talking between themselves in a foreign language as if I am not there. The red-robed one seems to be deferential to the other, looking almost as afraid as I am of him. Every ten of his words were matched by only a couple or so coming from the rainbow-dressed one.

He looks as if searching for something, and when his eyes meet mine, I know he has found it.

His eyes creep me. I can tell that he sees nothing more than a mound of flesh when he looks at me. There is absolutely no empathy in that look, no mercy or other soft things. It is a look harder than steel and sharper than a diamond.

Eventually, the rainbow man approaches me, slowly.

He looks down at my curled form with those emerald eyes of his, and while he does so, I fear.

I fear more than I ever have in my life.

And you should know, I have felt fear before. Not just physical fear.

I mean, I have been at gunpoint more than once, on robberies and other cases of urban violence. But those are far from the worst fears I've felt.

The worst fears are those that are so deep you can't even properly describe where it comes from. It assaults you when you are least expecting and leave you a cold shivering mess.

Way worse than fearing death... is fearing life. Fearing that no matter what you do with it, nothing will ever really change. That the universe is just as meaningless as you are. That death may, after all, be just what you are looking for, all this time.

I have felt this before. I have felt it all the time, for the biggest part of my life. From my teenage years up until now, I have learned to grow numb to it and to fight it back, but now, on those green eyes...

I see worst things. I feel a man that has felt all I have, and more. Oh, so much more.

And the numbness. His has grown to become an all-encompassing avalanche. Death in life.

So I fear. I fear all that I have yet to feel. I fear to one day, become like that.

And he knows it.

"Skjartin kur doustin."

He says a phrase and it feels like an executioner's sentence.

With a lift of his finger, my body tenses and then floats up. I am raised midair, like a puppet.

I am now eye to eye with him. It just makes everything worse.

Fuck, fuck, fuck!

He cups my paralyzed face, almost tenderly. And then, slowly, his hand slips down.

Down.

And down.

And when it reaches my chest, then it comes.

Lacerating pain. Sharp, wet and completely unbearable. And still, I can't scream.

The man's hand has stopped lowering and started to dig. As if my flesh was mud, his hand sunk on the left side of my chest. It then stops, rotates a little, and comes out.

With a heart.

My heart.

Oh.

The man slight smile is the last thing I see, as everything starts to blackout and my body ceases to function.

And then I am dead.

Archmage Boros stared with wide eyes as the Warlock Xerxes Vash tore the young man's heart out of his chest.

That moment felt so... Powerful?

More than a violent and brutal murder, the scene had looked almost artistic.

There was a kind of softness in the Warlock's movements, a ritualistic sense of weight.

Seeing it, Boros was about to make yet another question, hoping that it became one of the few that the other man had felt worthy of a response.

Before it, though, Xerxes clarified.

"This individual is a suitable subject for the project I have promised to your King."

He said that while looking intently to the bloody heart held by both his hands. Blood escaped between his fingers, trickling down his hands, into his magical robes and then down to the ground.

"...High levels of mana sensitivity... Extreme degrees of Mana Starvation... And a surprisingly resilient constitution. Yes, this soul will be very suitable indeed..."

And as he said that, a green flame erupted from his hands and consumed the heart. With a flash, it appeared and then went out.

But when Xerxes finally opened his hands, what again appeared between them made the old Archmage let out a startled gasp.

"A Soulstone?!"

The bloody heart had become a translucent crystal with a sick greenish tint. Small, moving specks of light seemed to wander inside it.

"That is correct Lord Boros."

The answer was cold and monotone, as if of no consequence. The man didn't even take his eyes from the crystal.

"Fear not, although I've had quite a few enlightenments in the Path of Necromancy, I can assure I derive no pleasure from the less palatable workings of this art. It is a mere tool. One of the many I have at my disposal, and that will be of use in the project I am assembling for your King."

The levity with which the man spoke about Necromancy just made everything more shocking. Xerxes Vash was known as a legendary Warlock, one of the most mysterious and powerful Paths known to man. Knowing he was also a Necromancer, which was also an elusive and extremely shunned Path, was mind-blowing.

Though, if you consider the legends about him dating hundreds of years ago... It makes you wonder. He has certainly had the time... thought Boros.

And that was just one of the many mind-opening moments that Boros had been having this night.

From that scene in the King's Throne Room, when he had been dismissed from the place together with all the nobles, everything was a mess.

It all started in the middle of the night, with him being summoned by the King and receiving the order to accompany Xerxes on a mysterious project. He was told to supervise - more like spy - and render any aid needed - laughable as much as flattering, to think his King thought he could help a legendary figure like Xerxes Vash with anything.

After that came the meeting with the surprisingly friendly Warlock and then being dragged into a flurry of magical motion even he didn't understand: being teleported into a black room, feeling a mana maelstrom that would dwarf even the combined efforts of every spell he knew put together, a gaping, terrifying hole, and then...

Boros shivered just thinking about the things he had witnessed to get to this strange place without an ounce of mana.

How did people even live out here?

That was just one of the many questions floating inside his mind. He would be forever scarred and marveled by the terrifying wonders he had seen while being dragged by the Warlock.

It was only when Xerxes snapped his fingers and the young man's corpse burst into flames that Boros woke from his reminiscence.

"This will be enough from this place for now. We still have to gather a few materials from other planes, so it is better for us to get going."

Xerxes cold voice made Boros scream inwardly.

Other planes?

Unbeknownst to the Archmage, this was going to be a very long night for him.