3 ch.3

This time when I woke up, I was standing upright, looking at a red orb. An…orb that looked mighty familiar.

Then it hit me and I could remember my time in the void of darkness again.

That orb had caused me so much grief and pain when I was in the Abyss.

Looking at myself, I saw that I was in a weird body made out of white light.

'what is going on?'

I was in a complete blank space that seemed to go on forever as far as the eye could see, with the red orb hovering in the center.

'I should touch it' I though, taking a step forward, I took another before I could forcibly stop myself.

'what…no, where did that thought come from, the last time I touched that orb, it hurt like hell!"

What the fuck is happening. I took a better look around, trying to find an exit that I may have missed on my first overlook, to get the fuck away from the orb of doom.

'I should still…No!'

Nope! Nu-uh lesson learned, I'm not touching it!

But as the seconds ticked away without finding an exit, the urge to touch the orb became stronger and stronger until resisting the urge started to become painful.

'Son of a bitch!'

I had two choices, touch the orb and feel pain or keep resisting and feel pain.

A fucked if you do, fucked if you don't scenario.

You are fucked either way.

The real question is which is worse, a horrible but relatively quick pain that will be over when I lose consciousness or a continuous mild pain that will grow worse till I cave and give in?

It was obvious which I preferred.

Might as well choose to touch the damn orb and get this over with, maybe I will get lucky and get reborn as a teenager this time or at least with a good family.

If that is what the orb does.

I walked up to the orb, then around it, hoping that there was something hiding behind that was the cause of the urge, but no such luck.

Taking a deep breath, something that was more symbolic than needed with this weird body I was in, I reached out and touched the orb and…nothing?

Opening my eyes, that I had instinctively closed awaiting the pain, I looked around, waiting for something to happen.

The orb had not exploded in action and surrounded me like last time, looking at my hand I saw that it was slowly oozing into me from where I was touching it.

Getting smaller and smaller before there was nothing left of the previously watermelon-sized orb.

Huh, strange.

Oh well, I suppose I should just be glad it didn't hurt this time.

Now, how do I get out of here?

"Ba-dum, Ba-dum!"

My head started hurting and abruptly information started streaming into my mind.

Warlock.

I was a Warlock, someone that deals in souls.

Souls were the metaphysical selves of sapient beings, every sapient creature had one and it was the source of our creativity, emotion and desire, it's what is animating our bodies and makes us who we are.

And I as a Warlock could bargain for those souls and use them for my own purposes, for you see souls are power plants that generate soul energy. Forever.

And Warlocks could use that energy to use Magic or better said to warp reality, want to fly and soar through the skies? with soul energy you can, want to blow up a planet? With enough soul energy it's possible with a snap of your fingers.

I felt a sinister smile grow on my face when this information sank in.

Payback!

But first I need to get out of here and back into my half dead body. According to the information the orb had given me I was currently in my Mindscape where all my souls would collect and I was currently in my soul form, normally the soul was in the form of an ball but it could also transform in the form of the sapient being it belonged to when in use.

What was important was that leaving here was easy, all I had to do was imagine myself back in my body.

Closing my eyes, something that was again more symbolic than needed seeing as my soul form didn't actually have eyes, I imagined myself back in my body.

…And promptly wished that I hadn't, everything hurt!

There wasn't a piece of my body that didn't hurt.

Concentrating, I tried accessing my Mindscape, which came surprisingly easy, I looked at the white ball in the middle that represents my soul and touched it with my metaphysical fingers, all at once my body was filled with my soul energy, driving away all the pain and aches of my body.

"ah…that's better," I sighed in pleasure, sitting up.

Looking up I noted that it was already evening, I must have been out of it for a few hours.

I wasn't really healed, my body was just in euphoria from having soul energy flowing through it, that I couldn't feel the pain. So I had to be careful not to damage my body anymore than it already was without knowing.

I can already hear you thinking, well why don't you heal you body, I though Warlocks could use soul energy to warp reality.

And indeed they…we can but there is this itsy bitsy little rule where Warlocks can only use their own soul energy to conjure contracts and nothing more.

That means, I need someone else's soul and fast before this body gives up on me even with soul energy running through it.

The problem with making someone sign away their souls, is that they have to know what they are signing, they don't have to believe it or anything but they had to have read it, understand it and signed it out of their own free will.

Which meant no invisible ink, no language that they don't understand, and no mind control or any sort of body control.

On the other hand you could threaten, pressure and harm someone till they sign the contract, you could even drug someone as long as they are lucid enough that they can still read and understand what they are signing.

Drugs.

That gives me an idea.

A few months ago Alexander was working as a drug mule for the gang that used to rule this area The Black Tigers, transporting drugs from one place to another but while transporting a box of drugs, The Black Tigers got attacked and butchered by another gang called The Six Dragons who then took over this area, not knowing what to do with the box Alexander had hidden it in his secret spot where he slept.

Why was that important?

Well, The Six Dragons took over all the jobs from the previous gang like collecting protection money from the street rats, which used to be the job of an old man in his 50s by the name of Kurio.

Kurio was a bully, plain and simple. He liked acting tough and beating up those weaker than him, he had even beaten Alexander a time or two. All the while bowing and kissing up to the bigger fish but more importantly he was an addict, when The Six Dragons took over, he lost his job and thus had no money to buy drugs, last Alexander had seen of him he was going through severe withdrawal from years of drugs abuse.

The perfect guinea pig.

Standing up, I started walking as fast as I could without doing more damage to myself in the process, which turned out to be a slow shuffle, to where Alexander used to sleep, a cellar/bomb shelter of an abandoned house on the outer layer of the district.

It took me almost an hour to travel to somewhere that normally took 20 minutes.

Making sure that no one was looking at me, I sneaked to the back of the house and to the backyard, the reason that no one had found the cellar yet was because it was really old and covered in decades of grass, moss and vines.

Alexander found it on accident while hiding from some other street rats that wanted his food.

Looking around one last time, I opened the cellar door that was almost inseparable from the surrounding ground, and went in.

The cellar wasn't much to look at, one single room with empty shelves and a blanket in the corner, where I slept, with the box I'm here for lying next to it.

Looking at the raggedy blanket in the corner, that looked like the most comfy bed to me at this moment, I almost said fuck it and gave up for the day and go to sleep.

The only thing stopping me was that I'm afraid that if I go to sleep now, I won't wake up the next day or any day for that matter.

Shaking my head to dislodge those dreary thoughts, I opened the box and checked inside.

There where 10 little baggies of what looks like cocaine to my untrained eyes.

10 bags is more than I expected, after this I need to find some more addicts.

I took one of the baggies and put it in my pocket before leaving, giving the blanket one last longing look.