Massive cubes scraped a dull sky. A stranger walked across the desert. The desert was pale and cold to the touch, the shadow of the cubes like bottomless pits. Sometimes, when the blue sun hit the surface just right, light reflected and the stranger could see himself.

  His body was obscured underneath a heavy cloak. To judge by his face he was gaunt, diseased, and perhaps dying. His hair was in a style fashionable far away and long ago. His face could have been handsome, once, but now his eyes were sunken and his chin sported an unruly beard. Looking down at himself, he took in the portrait and smiled. He had no pretenses. He was a man who had walked for miles in pursuit of an impossible goal.

  His legs would give out soon.

  So much walking. While his memories stretched a century, he could not pinpoint the last time he had met people who had shown him true kindness. The outskirts of Gehenna were far worse than its center. He was now stumbling through the backwater of a backwater. For all he knew this could be the edge of the world, and everything from now on was cubes and glass forever.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  In his head he reminded himself of his name. It had been easier when he was not alone.

  He needed a new companion, he had never been alone for this long. Was it a year? It felt like a year. He did not know how long it would take for a corpse to rot but his hair had been falling out, his wounds were healing slower. This body was falling apart.

  In the far field, he saw a crack in the sky. It started like a lightning strike some fifty feet above, and then exhaled into a curtain of darkness at the ground. He could have laughed. He did, in fact. Something new, people finally, friendly maybe, someone he could help.

  But even in his mirth he readied his weapon.

  “Aim for peace at all costs, but be prepared for violence.” The second of Capacity Kill’s five truths. He followed her rules to the letter, just like she had taught him. At night he played through the memories of all the times she had broken them.

  He had one need that could be expressed in many ways. Transport, safe passage, to not die. He walked through the opening seeking these things, and he found them.