Ptolmieus shivered in his hospital bed inside his prison cell, both aware and unaware of how completely fucked he was. Of course, he did expect that, one day, he’d end up in jail, he was a blatant criminal. He worked for the Protectores Aurei Syndicate, a Cassid criminal empire specializing in leveraging debts from victims, both legally and illegally, and Ptolmieus definitely did more on the illegal side of things. He’d just flat out kill people, then force their grieving families to sign any life insurance or heritance money towards whoever they owed money to.
Normally though, Ptolmieus worked in the Cassid territories of Iolonarium, where he could move unhampered. But this particular target, a Vrekan with medical and gambling debts, had moved to Vriskera, to the Thanatian city of Palaestra. The plan was to just kill the Vrekan and his wife and sell the kids to a shadowy underground experimental lab or something. Not a problem normally, Ptolmieus had contacts there if things went wrong. Which, they did. And those contacts were of no help.
A small Threan-type Retha had tried to intervene while Ptolmieus was about to kill the Vrekan’s wife. Ptolmieus had dealt with the telekinesis-using mini-monsters before, and he’d just decided to shoot this one with his special anti-telekinetic rounds. Sure, he’d nailed the Retha right through the stomach, essentially killing it, but in its dying breath, it had crushed all of Ptolmieus’s limbs and wrapped sharp metal around his mouth, completely slicing through his lips.
What Ptolmieus didn’t realise was that he had killed a local hero. At least, he didn’t realise at first. As news spread, the Government of the Retha had immediately demanded that Ptolmieus be handed over to them to be put on trial and executed, but the MAAZA had stepped in, citing interspecies laws, and it was decided that Ptolmieus was to be put under a joint Cassid/Vrekan/Retha trial. In a month, when he was capable of using his arms again.
In the mean time, he’d been locked up in an ultra high security cell. One that had nearly not been enough. Something had gotten close enough to make a large hole in the cell door, and Ptolmieus had been forced to move to a new cell. A hole made with a Hertan-type Rethan arm blade, but also somehow capable of punching through steel.
Still, Ptolmieus didn’t know how fucked he was until he caught a whiff of sulphur. The clock on the wall said it was exactly midnight, but he had lost track of the date.
All of a sudden, the light in Ptolmieus’s cell switched on, but no one was present. He was alone, wasn’t he? The guards were outside but they didn’t seem to have noticed anything. The security cameras also didn’t seem to have noticed anything either.
Something clawed its way out of the shadow at the end of Ptolmieus’s bed. Something familiar. A Threan-type Retha. The one Ptolmieus had killed. The gunshot wounds on its stomach were still there, but the liquid weeping out wasn’t blood. Immediately, Ptolmieus tried to scream, to shout and call for help, but no sound came from his mouth.
The Retha circled the bed, clutching a weird, curved dagger, before climbing into the bed, crouching next to Ptolmieus. This being was very small, much smaller than Ptolmieus, but it also seemed off. Its eyes were glowing, and there were also soft, glowing rings running across its arms and legs.
“Did you know that there isn’t really an afterlife?” the Retha finally asked.
Ptolmieus shook his head.
“Yeah, I assumed as much. You just gunned down that poor Vrekan. I didn’t even catch his name. Kinda died before I had the chance to. But yeah, there’s no real afterlife. Everyone’s souls just kinda travel down this stupid river, get cleansed and reset, then get shoved into new baby bodies at the other end. But not everyone is that lucky…”
The Retha brought that horrible blade up to Ptolmieus’s arm and gently pressed it against his skin.
“You see, the Cycle is pretty self-contained, but things try to break it. Nasty people trying to take people out of the Cycle. So the Cycle has Her protectors. The Veth. That’s what I am now, my job is to kill anyone who messes with Her.”
The blade started slicing into Ptolmieus’s flesh. The Retha was cutting off pieces of skin and placing it all on a neat pile. While Ptolmieus did try to scream, he couldn’t produce any sound. What bothered him more though was that the pain was burning, the blade was searing his flesh and cauterizing the wounds as the Retha worked.
“Beings like me, you know, heroes, things you don’t understand, some of us are destined to become Veth. The Cycle told me I could have 25 more years. I’d be able to settle down, find a partner, maybe have some kids, and live to see 50. She lied to me. She gave me 25 days. Then She had you kill me. Now I have to serve Her for all eternity.”
Before long, all of the flesh on Ptolmieus’s left arm was gone. He expected the Retha to move onto his other arm, but no, it kept on cutting, working its way across his shoulder and chest. The burning sensation increased, as if acid was being poured over his body.
“It’s not good, serving the Cycle. A lot of pain and torture. Being forced to do things I don’t want to. I considered myself a good person. The brief moments I have when I’m either not being tortured or not working, I wonder what I did to deserve my fate. After all I sacrificed so others could live better lives, THIS is my reward? Being turned into a slave?”
Ptolmieus couldn’t focus on what the Retha was saying. Tired of working on his arms, the Retha then started scraping flesh off Ptolmieus’s tail, cutting down right to the bone. The Retha contiued to do this, as far as they could be bothered, before they turned their attention to Ptolmieus’s legs. They non-chalantly chopped off three out of five of Ptolmieus’s toes, then started cutting lines up and down his legs, before moving to his stomach, chest and neck. The wounds leaked a weird, green liquid, which tingled and itched, before causing pain that ebbed and flowed, before spiking horribly. Ptolmieus was screaming, he was writhing in agony, trying to escape, but he was utterly helpless, and no one was coming to save him.
“Thing is, it’s not even really your fault. I mean, it’s totally your fault that you killed me, and I hate you for that. But the whole me being trapped serving Her for all eternity? You weren’t to know. And I can’t ever get revenge on the Cycle for the pain she’s caused and will continue to do to me. But I can get this one tiny bit of solace…”
The Retha trailed off, then put the knife away. They looked directly at Ptolmieus. They were crying, but their tears were black. Ptolmieus stopped silently screaming. The pain was beginning to subside.
“Hmph. I thought I’d enjoy this. Thought it’d make me feel better. It’s not. I wanted revenge for what you did but this doesn’t make me feel better. I can’t believe that I’m saying this, but I’m sorry, I should have just let the justice system deal with you. I just went and proved that I’m the monster the Cycle thinks I am.”
“Maybe we’re both monsters?” Ptolmieus asked. “Me more than you though. You look like you didn’t have much choice.”
“Heh. I never had a choice. Never will.”
With a tired, broken sigh, the Retha walked towards the shadow at the end of the bed, then disappeared, feeling utterly miserable and unfulfilled.