“There’s no way I should have lived beyond that day.

I messed around and pissed off the wrong people. An entire organization came after me. I thought I was safe, hidden; I was an amateur. As I looked around me, I saw ten different ways to die. Each figure had this aura about them that sunk into me the worst feeling imaginable; not dread, not terror. Futility. The immediate realization that my journey was finished before it even began. My eyes closed, hoping I could urge death’s embrace before they brought me to it.

And then, he arrived. His appearance was a whisper; the wind inhaling; the siren call of metal against metal. I opened my eyes; an almost useless act. I saw nothing but a flurry of motion and sparks; my mind couldn’t comprehend it. Was it the wind going through the trees…or was it him? The seconds passed like an eternity, but I’d taken only a few breaths before it was over. He stood in the center of the bodies, exhaled, and began walking toward me. Every movement was careful, as if fearful of disturbing Nature herself. Pulling me to my feet, he asked if I was okay, his voice like a thunderclap’s whisper. I mumbled something close to an affirmation. 

I shouldn’t have been alive, yet I had just met the man who would give me the power to live 10 lifetimes.”