Azam knew something was wrong as soon as he opened his eyes. He had fallen asleep in his bed, but this wasn’t the bedroom he had fallen asleep in. It didn’t feel like it. It wasn’t cold and dingy. And the area felt vast. Not cramped, like the bedroom that barely fit him and his two suitcases. The pathetic space he’d been reduced to. The shitty bedroom in a shitty hovel that he’d been forced to rent when that bitch had forced him out of the house with her lies to the police. He couldn’t let that go. He wouldn’t let her lies stand. Wouldn’t let her get away with it.

  Darkness surrounded him. He turned his head, darted his eyes about but all around him was nothing other than infinite darkness. He wasn’t lying down. He was upright, though he couldn’t feel his arms or legs. Like he was disembodied. Suddenly, like a cinema projector was out of control, hundreds of images flew past his eyes. Memories. Visions. Flashes of vivid colour against the black backdrop. But the images seemed wrong. The memories tainted. The visions obscure. As if something was in his mind, and trying to erase his reality.

  He caught a whiff of cigarettes. The faint stench of coffee. The hazy traces of perfume. Something was moving. In the darkness. No. Outside of it. He wasn’t awake. Not yet. That had been his mind. Someone was trying to mess with him. And they were coming closer.

  He stood up instantly, reaching out with his hand, his eyes snapping open. His hands felt flesh, a moment before he was able to see what he had caught. A woman. A blonde bimbo. Tall. Slim. Tits staring out at him, asking for a seeing to. He held her by her throat. How long had it been since he’d lain with a woman? Not that bitch. That bitch had been resisting him for a while, and he had allowed her to. He hadn’t been bothered. He’d fulfilled his needs elsewhere. In other ways. Maybe that’s why he had been blind to her plotting. Blind to what she was really after. It had consumed his days, thinking about her. Thinking about the divorce. After everything he had done for her, the bitch just wanted the house. That wasn’t going to happen. He would make sure of it. He just needed to get close to her, but he wasn’t able to yet. But this one in his hand. He sniffed. She smelt fresh. Ripe.

  He looked around the room he was in. A purple sofa that he was sat on. A wooden desk to his left. Eclectic wallpaper, with patterns in shades of orange and red plastered the walls, and a lone plant stood in the corner. He turned back to the woman. Eyed her up and down. Took in the curves of her tits, her hips, her arse. She was exactly the type that would enjoy it. That would want him to take her on the sofa. Like his wife. That’s how they all liked it. Quick. Dirty. Forceful. That’s the only language these bitches understood. He glanced down. Noticed he was naked. Beyond the pouch of his dark brown belly, he saw he was ready, and she was gagging for it.

  “I suggest you take your hand off me,” the bimbo said. He supposed it was meant to sound threatening. It just made him laugh. He threw her to the sofa. At least he tried to. She didn’t budge. She stood several inches taller than his five and a half feet, but other than the tits and arse, there were very little curves to her. No defined muscle hinting at strength or athleticism. She shouldn’t have been able to stop him. He tried to throw her again. She still didn’t budge. Defiant. Like that bitch. Well, he’d taught that bitch a lesson or two when she’d defied him, and he’d need to teach this one too.

  He raised his left hand, went to slap her with the palm, but it stopped an inch from her face. Something he couldn’t see was preventing his hand from moving further. On the hand he had around her throat, the fingers peeled back involuntarily, and both his arms began to be pushed away by an invisible force. He narrowed her eyes at her.

  “What is this? Who are you?” he demanded to know. His arms were slowly pushed back until he looked like he was being sacrificed on the cross. But the pushing didn’t stop there. His arms were shoved backwards, towards an unnatural position. He felt his shoulders begin to strain. He grimaced at her, but that’s all she would be getting from him.

  “He looks at you with intent, Nemaira,” someone said, but not someone he could see. “I do believe he means to kill you.”

  The room around him shifted. It spun. The purple sofa. The desk. The wallpaper and the plant. It spun, faster and faster, until it seemed the very substance of this reality had been dispersed into streaks of colour. The lone plant melted away in shades of green and brown, lost amongst the swirls of orange and red. Only he and the woman stood, like they were in the centre of a hurricane that would take everything else with it.

  And as suddenly as it began, it stopped.

  He seemed to be in another room, but this one had nothing but white all around, broken only by a single disc hanging in the air a few feet ahead of him. He was no longer just standing up. He was hovering in the air. The bimbo morphed. No longer blonde. No longer slightly built. She increased in size and stature before his very eyes, the revealing top dissolving into a silver metal breastplate that shone so bright, he had to squint lest he be blinded.

  She continued expanding upwards, transforming into a figure almost four times his height. She towered over him in every sense of the word. Polished silver and gold armour clung to her body, curved around her muscles and her shape. Intricate engravings and patterns, like ancient hieroglyphics, adorned the metal plates. She had no weapons that he could see, but his arms were still ever so slightly bending backwards. He had no doubt she could snap them at any moment.

  It was typical of her kind. Man, or woman. Those who had power and sought to control him. Do their bidding. As if he wasn’t wise to their game. Wise to their manipulations and machinations. Sure, she seemed intimidating now, towering above him in that suit of metal, but he just needed time. Whatever was needed, however it was needed, he’d be back to teach this bitch a lesson. For now though, he’d play by her rules. He had no doubt he would figure out how to outsmart her. Sooner or later.

  “I asked you–” He didn’t get to finish the sentence. Pain shot through the left side of his face as it whipped violently to the right, the muscles in his neck wrenching from the force whilst spurts of blood spewed from his mouth and stained the white floor.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  “Silence, wretch,” the woman spoke, her voice echoing through his head. “Be grateful I don’t take your head for your insolence.”

  A manic laugh broke from the shadows. “My, my,” the voice from earlier said. A male voice. Clear, and almost musical. “Come now Nemaira. That’s no way to treat a guest.”

  “Clearly, you’re not the one in charge,” Azam said to Nemaira, his voice dripping with condescension, a smirk on his bloodied lips. “Why don’t you run along now, while the men talk?”

  There was that laugh again. Manic. The laughter of someone who had long ago abandoned reason, finding pleasure in things others would flinch at. A figure appeared at Nemaira’s side, several feet taller than even her. Azam had to wrench his neck muscles even more as he craned up to look.

  The man’s face was strong, angular, a perfect jaw beneath granite cheeks. He had no hair whatsoever. None on his head, no brows, no lashes. Not even a beard though it may have suited him. His skin was flawless porcelain, like the best china someone kept for only the most special of guests. He wore no armour. Just robes of midnight blue, with intricate gold embroidery along its edges, that hung past his feet and touched the floor. At the neck, the high collar stretched and flared upwards and outwards towards his ears. Most remarkable were his eyes. Pools of molten gold that seemed to pulse and shimmer as he spoke.

  “I think there’s no need for trickery with this one,” the man said in that musical voice, as if the heavens themselves spoke through him. “No need for false narratives. He’s not the type of man to feel guilt or remorse.”

  Azam was confused as the man spoke about him as if he wasn’t there. Guilt? Remorse? The words sounded strange to his ears. He knew what they meant, of course, but why would this man think he wasn’t the type to feel these things. It’s not that he didn’t. He just never had a reason to. Guilt and remorse suggested doing something wrong. And he never did anything wrong. Everything was justified. It was right. Even his wife knew that. He supposed outsiders would see it as wrong though, always meddling in other’s affairs.

  When the bitch’s friend heard he’d punched her, they’d called the police. Nobody had wanted to hear his side. He’d barely left a mark on her, and did they ask him why he had to do that? Of course not. They just took her word for what happened. That’s how life worked. People wronged him. And then they blamed him. They should feel guilty and remorseful for the wrongs done to him, but they always found a way to twist the narrative.

  “You’d need to have done something wrong to feel guilty,” he stated simply. Baldy laughed again.

  “You see, Nemaira? I think we might have found our perfect specimen.”

  “What specimen? What are you talking about?” he demanded to know. “I don’t know who the fuck you are but whatever this dream is, I’d like to wake up now. I have things to do.”

  “Ah yes,” baldy said. “Let me see now.” His molten gold eyes rolled upwards, as if he was thinking, accessing some long lost fragment of his memory. “Azam Drummond. Forty-seven. Citizen of the United Kingdom. Husband to a battered wife. Father to mistreated children. And you seek vengeance. In this life, or the next.”

  “I don’t have a battered wife,” Azam replied. “But you’re not answering my questions. Where is this place?”

  “This is the world between worlds,” baldy said. “I am Dagathir, and this is Nemaira.”

  “Is that supposed to mean something to me?” Azam replied. He was still suspended in the air, though his arms had stopped being pushed backwards. It was uncomfortable, but he wasn’t about to let them know that.

  “At this point, I normally show you a picture of yourself in that disc in front of you. Then I sell you on seeking redemption for a cruel act you did. Or in most cases, didn’t do. But redemption isn’t going to work with you. No. I know what you’ll need to do this job.”

  “What job?”

  “How would you like to go to a new world? Become powerful. Rich. A man of status?”

  “A new world?” Azam was already powerful, rich and a man of status. He owned a four-bedroom home, had savings in the six figures, a property abroad. The wife and children were a problem. They did little for him, always scrounging from his pockets, but he would take care of that problem soon. He had little need of this man’s strange offer. And no doubt the offer came with strings attached. Some small print that Dagathir hoped to trap Azam with.

  The disc ahead of him blurred, coalesced, shimmered and then an Earth-like planet appeared, a large strip of black separating the two halves of the planet from north to south.

  “This is Cytheria. A game-world–”

  “What’s a game-wo–” Pain shot through the right side of his face as it whipped violently to the left. More spurts of blood spewed from his mouth and stained the white floor like a mirror image to the other side.

  “I have warned you about your insolence,” the bitch said. Once he found himself out of this place, he’d show her. He’d make her pay.

  “All you need to know is it’s a world where a man like you can have fun, and grow powerful. And when you’ve become powerful enough, you can get back at that wife of yours, like you want to.”

  “I could do that now.”

  “No, you couldn’t. Do you really think she’ll lift the non-molestation order and let you back to the house? Knowing what you’ll do to her.”

  “I won’t do anything to her. I’ll ask her forgiveness for everything she thinks I’ve done, and she’ll treat me right. And we’ll be happy.”

  Dagathir smiled, like someone had carved into the porcelain. “I know you think that’s how it’s going to happen, but I’ve seen cases like yours before. They always end in death. One or the other’s. And the one that survives spends the rest of their life behind bars.

  “What I’m offering you is a chance to start a new life. Have as many women as you want. Kill whoever you want. Become rich. Become powerful. And then, if you succeed, I’ll give you the chance to stay on Cytheria, or return to Earth. Or you can stay on Cytheria, with a detour to Earth to disappear the wife and children. If that’s what you desire. If you succeed, you’ll have the power to make her vanish without a trace.”

  Azam pondered in silence. Now, Dagathir was talking his language. Wouldn’t that be the sweetest revenge? Become so utterly powerful that he could make her disappear, or better still. Make her wish she could have him back. Make her regret her choices. Her lies. The idea was compelling to say the least.

  “What would I have to do?”

  Dagathir made pistol motions several times, like a cowboy in a shootout, before he stopped and pointed a single finger towards him with a wink. “Now, we’re getting somewhere. You see this black mark here?”

  Azam nodded.

  “That area is the Riftlands. There are various powerful beings there known as Riftlords. Demons. Dragons. Others of immense power. All you have to do is clear the Riftlands of these beings. And luckily for you, an opportunity has opened up to give you a headstart.”

  “What’s in it for you?” Azam asked.

  Dagathir smiled. “Think of me as a protector of the universe. Unfortunately, I cannot intervene directly. So, I find people who can. People who have the ability to become the most powerful. People who have the will to rule. I think that describes you pretty well? Wouldn’t you like to become the ruler of an entire world?”

  It was Azam’s turn to smile. Suspended in mid-air, arms still spread and pushed back at an unnatural angle, he couldn’t help but smile that this Dagathir recognised his worth. His power. His justice. The offer was tantalising. Become the most powerful. Get everything he wanted. His eyes flickered to Nemaira, standing beside Dagathir in her silver and gold armour. It wasn’t just his wife who would need to pay for her mistakes.

  “I’ll go.”

  Dagathir laughed that manic laugh and smirked at him. “I knew you would.”

  Next chapter will be on Tuesday 1st April - unfortunately, IRL calls, and I’m working on my backlog!