[Dimension 1-Æ-01 - Planet: Escala - Continent: Tylion - Country: Iristia - City: Kiphis]

[Maximus’s Perspective 7:00am]

At the corner of the port city of Kiphis lies a small two story house. This small house was home to a person and their pet belkip, a fluffy winged creature that was the size of a basketball and bore similarities to a parrot. It behaved like a domesticated flying dog always eager for headpats and belly rubs. Today this small house was particularly messy with noticeable beer bottles scattered across the ground and visible stains of alcohol in every corner of the room. Dishes piled up in the sink and a pile of used clothes stacked inside the corner of the master bedroom. Within the master bedroom was a bed, a bed with sheets decorated with alcohol stains all over and the smell of an intoxicated person permeated the room. Within the stillness of the morning and the rising sun the belkip named Ace greeted the sun with it’s joyful cries. The tweeting of Ace, the perpetual smell of beer, the messiness of the place, this reminded Maximus of nostalgia as this was the home of the young Maximus.

My head was still spinning from what just happened, the entire process happened so quickly. I could barely know what happened before I was thrown to a world was filled with a stillness of an everlasting darkness. It felt like an eternity of waiting before my hands felt something soft and with a hope of desperation to escape from this dark prison I clenched onto that soft touch pulling it closer to me and then I found myself in my old place. The old place where I used to throw drinking parties with strangers, when Ace was still alive, when I was still a messy bitch.

“C’mere Ace” I yawned with an outstretched arm. The obedient belkip gently flew and landed onto my hand where I began to pet it’s fluffy head. I miss Ace, I really do. When everything felt wrong she was the only reason I woke up everyday, to feed this cute little bird, play with it a little, because I knew if I was gone no one would take care of her. Looking back it sounded like a stupid reason to wake up but for this young version of me, I just needed a single reason to not sleep forever. Damn I miss you Ace.

After setting my bird off to continue it’s morning chorus I took the alcohol stained sheets off my bed to find myself in my pajamas, drenched with alcohol and smelling like beer. The blurred memories of last night filled my head, it was all a blur but I can vaguely make out that I invited some people to a drinking party last night. With all the alcohol I drank last night it was impossible for my body to not suffer from a hangover. Slowly making my way to the shower with a severe headache I looked into the mirror and then I saw me, the depressed 31 year old me who didn’t want to die, but also didn’t want to live. The me who didn’t care, the me who didn’t trust anyone anymore. This all happened because of the Taurus scandal.

For those of you who don’t know of the infamous Taurus scandal, I want you to imagine you’re creating the most delicious cake ever. You start with the butter, milk, eggs, flour, water and sugar then you invite your friends over who have extra ingredients to help fill the cake with chocolate, tiramisu and all sorts of wonderful things. This cake is the most delicious cake ever but it takes 15 years of constant baking before it becomes a beautiful cake but you’re willing to sacrifice anything to see this cake through. You coordinate the topping for the cake, you make sure it’s the perfect mixture, you spend your own time and money to research on this perfect cake. You sacrifice your social life, sleep, food even your girlfriend to make sure that this cake is perfect. 100 hour work weeks become normal to see that this cake succeeds, sleeping in the kitchen became your lifestyle. Your friends never sacrifice as much as you do but you want to make sure that this cake will succeed and after 15 years you’ve finally made sure that cake. All that blood sweat and tears finally paid off and you’re just about to eat that cake when your friends pull you aside and say,

“It was in the best interest of the company that we have decided to kick you out.”

They give you a little slice, then kick you out of the kitchen then eat the cake that you’ve worked so damn hard for all to themselves.

Do you have that sickening betrayal in your head? How they stole that 15 years of your life for themselves? The cake that couldn’t have been baked without you? Good. Now imagine that instead of a cake that was a $1.5 billion dollars company you spent 15 years of your life on and you only got 5% of that cake because they kicked you out right before they sold it. Well that’s the infamous Taurus scandal, and that person they kicked out? That was me. Maximus. The man who started the blockchain company Taurus, got backstabbed and later became the CEO of a shipping company between the human planet of Escala and the elven planet of Lyria but right now isn’t the perfect time to talk about blockchain and trade logistics. Right now, I had to process where I am, my situation and what I’m going to do.

Looking into the mirror I saw a man who was betrayed, the disheveled hair and tired face silently cried out for help. The torn rags he wore told the story of a dethroned king, a fallen prince, and a lonely man above all else.

“BLEHHH” I threw up in the toilet whatever concoction of drinks I drank last night. The headache didn’t help what I was going through. My numbed brain and body hardly felt anything as I continued to vomit. After a painful hangover session I headed to the kitchen to get myself hydrated and in there I saw the maids I usually hire from a cleaning company begin to clean up my place. My mind’s always been drunk but as it’s more or less sober I started to realize the disdain that was secretly hidden on one of their faces. The blue haired maid probably hates how I can have drinking parties everyday but they have to work to clean my mess up everyday to send their kids to school. I didn’t mind their disdain, who says the world has to be fair?

What I minded though was the red haird maid that was awfully loyal to me, Martha. When I lived I didn’t pay her for what she’s worth. When Martha’s son needed to go to college she asked for a loan and considering her loyalty I gave her one leading to her running away without paying it back. This reminded me of what my friends did to me and I took this as a serious offense of theft and hired a private detective to find her and force her to pay back the money making her beyond broke.

Treating her like that was one of my greatest regrets, she served me well. She was loyal, she was kind, even to a drunkard like me. She saw that stealing money from me was the only way for her son to get a better life than her and now looking back I understand that. I should’ve handled it better, I could’ve sponsored him on the basis that he gets good grades and hired him once he finished. He wasn’t even going to an expensive college either. Looking back it made so much sense why she decided to steal from me despite knowing the risks. I don’t tolerate theft, but damn I could’ve handled it so much better.

As I saw the red haired maid cleaning up the mess I’ve made, a gust of wind started to carry the plastic cups, tissues and trash into her trash bag before wrapping it up and beginning the same process again. The blue-haired maid opened her cleaning pouch and took out a green liquid before pouring it onto the floor. She closed her eyes and the liquid started to move cleaning the stains on the floor, chair, walls and couch. I’ve seen this routine happen hundreds of times at this point basically being part of the morning routine and they usually finish within half an hour before moving to the next house. Everytime the red haired Martha would finish first she would try to strike up a conversation with me, drunk or not.

“How was your day sir!” the red haired maid shouted out. Looking at her again I noticed that she was in her late 40’s, had short red hair and had subtle wrinkles on her face. When she smiled it pronounced the wrinkles on her face but her eyes were filled with hope. The company that they were working for had a standard uniform of a black skirt and a grey shirt accompanying it. She had a bit of fat on her skin but she had a very hopeful smile. Now that I remember it, seeing this hopeful smile everyday made me jealous and angry as I felt like I was hopeless and life lost its meaning. Other people who had less money than me could enjoy life so much more, perhaps that was why I was so harsh on her, but I won’t do the same thing I would’ve done.

“It’s another day of drinking” I responded with the best smile that I could, “I don’t believe I’ve asked for your name”

“Well it’s Martha my dear!” she said while shaking my hand with a cheery smile. “Call me if you have anything personal to clean! I’ll always be available sir Maximus.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. Leave your phone number on the desk there. There’s a pen and paper somewhere around here” I was still drunk so my thoughts weren’t in focus. I’ll deal with that later. Right now I took my car keys, paused, then put it back down. I was still drunk, I couldn't drive.

I took my left wrist out of my pocket and on it was an orange wristband with a white line in the middle. Turning my wrist upwards and holding it right in front of my face I unlock my device. As I did a light screen showed up right above the wristband displaying the multiple options to choose from. I dragged the light screen to my forearm, locking the screen to my forearm. Using this old tech made me realize that I really was 400 years back in the past. I clicked on the car app which would call a taxi to my front door and within 30 minutes a taxi arrived. I told him to go to the nearest Tryphant Church and as we arrived I saw a building that has the architectural design of a traditional church with arches and murals of magnificent trees and majestic beasts carved on the walls.

I forgot how different the churches were between the Basilisk planet of Zaretta and the Human planet of Escala. If I remember correctly this was specifically the religious branch of the Tryphant Church handling matters concerning religion such as prayer and charity. Rows upon rows of benches lined the church and at the end of the hall lies a mural of a magnificent tree. There were a number of people praying to it and I was also one of them. I closed my eyes praying for more details of my mission. I waited for a response. A minute passed and nothing happened. Another minute passed and still nothing happened. In impatience I decided that I should try another day. As I opened my eyes I realized that there was a white parcel sitting beside me. On it was a picture of an owl resting upon a majestic tree and on the bottom it wrote

“To Maximus”