The cube

   Jessica walked carefully over the edge, barely having enough room for her feet to move around. The mountain that she was in dominated the jungle below and, in any other context, she would have been able to appreciate. But being just millimeters away from death, the least of her interests were the magnificent views. She grabbed herself to the dirt and the rock of the mountain and could finally pass the tricky section in a matter of minutes. She decided to rest a bit after that, and she only had a small space to do so as the mountain was not kind to any visitors.

 As she rested, she noticed a big bird-like creature raising from the jungle. It appeared to be fighting something off but the other creature, or whatever it was fighting, could not be seen. After a couple of minutes, the bird appeared to be toppled from the ground and disappeared from sight. Jessica knew right then that this planet was definitely not a good one for life in general but she had no choice in the matter of visiting it. After all, her mission was there.

 A couple of days earlier, a skinny man going by the name of Renzo Uto, contacted with her team in order to ask for an extraction. Normally, that meant rescuing someone from some horrible place, most often jails or some kind of internment camps. There were lots of both of those in the galaxy and they had a vast experience getting people out of both. But instead, Uto wanted them to rescue an object.

 They almost had to torture him in order to get a basic drawing of the object he wanted to retrieve. Well, torture is a bit extreme. But Jessica’s companion Jimmy, a very big and tall Glafarian (species with the appearance of a dog) was asked to make the client talk fast or to expel him immediately from the ship, by any means.

 Of course, Uto was so scared he did a drawing in less than thirty seconds but he clarified that the object could change form whenever someone attempted to grab it by force. The drawing he had made showed a very simple cube but he said it only looked like that when at rest. If someone when near it, the object would change into any type of thing that would lure the person into a false sense of security and then it would kill them.

 They really wanted to ask Uto why someone would want that type of object. But their motto was “We don’t ask questions” and they couldn’t just violate that. Bounty hunters had to keep a little bit of their dignity and, if that meant seeking for an object hey didn’t really know existed, they had to do it. But Yera, the ship’s pilot, reminded Uto that the team only worked for days. So depending on his pay, they would determine the number of days they would look for his weird cube.

 Uto, of course, had no tons of money. So he was able to pay them for only three days worth of work. The team then agreed on setting course for the jungle planet, which didn’t really have a name and now Jessica was on her second day looking for the damn object. According to Uto, she wasn’t that far away now. After the dangerous mountain pass, she had to go through a razor sharp field of rocks between that mountain and the next one and then descend a bit to find a cave. The cube was supposed to be there.

 The razor sharp field of rocks, a straight line that united two summits well above the jungle level, was easier than the pass but still a horrible experience, mainly because some sorts of animals paraded around the site and launched themselves at Jessica. She had to use her ray gun several times but the little creatures were very fast and attacked with some sort of liquid that smelled really bad. It didn’t hurt or anything, just smell really awful. She crossed the field just before nightfall.

 At the other end, she found a suitable place to sleep and decided to pull out her sleeping bad and protective shield from her special belt. The belt had been an old gift from her mother, a former bounty hunter herself. Now she lived at peace in a farming colony where she could just relax and not worry about someone blowing her head off. Her mom was a legend among the people Jessica knew and she was proud of her.

 The belt had been created by the most advanced civilization in the galaxy. They were able to construct things like that, were size and space and even time did not matter. She could fit an endless amount of things in there and only had to press a button and think really hard about whatever she wanted from her belt. So that night she was protected from the creatures by the shield and slept warmly in her sleeping bag.

 The next day she woke up screaming. Her face hurt, as well as her arms and some of her chest. The stinky liquid had transformed, somehow, into something that had apparently burned her skin and was now penetrating more and more into it. She felt a horrible burning sensation and tried to pour water over herself to feel better or look for something else in her belt, but it was useless. It hurt and she could barely move.

 It was the last day for Uto and could have been the last day for her if she hadn’t decided that the liquid might actually be the best weapon she could ever have. To put it simple, the cube supposedly transformed into something false, in order to kill the person that wanted it. So it would transform into a cure for the liquid if Jessica showed up. But then, it would be obvious to her that the cube was there and she would just fire away.

 Thinking the plan was far simpler than doing it. Her body really hurt, as if she had been very badly burnt by the sun. Her legs though, had been left untouched by the creatures, so they still had their agility intact. She started trembling halfway down the mountain but she focused on the prize, which was something she could have never imagined. Although Uto had almost no money to pay them for their days of work, he did offer something else if they actually gave him the cube he wanted.

 There was an information network called the Omen. It was a very big and important piece of information as it had records on every single living creature in the galaxy intelligent enough to do stupid things. It was like a criminal record center for the entire galaxy and, of course, Jessica and her group were in there. What Uto had told them was that he could be able to remove every single one of their names from he list permanently. Not even erase the crimes but their names altogether.

 At first, they didn’t believe what he was saying. Jimmy threatened to eat his hand and Yera told him it was impossible. But then he simply asked of them to look for his name in the Omen. Everybody could access the network so it was easy for them to see that Renzo Uto did not appear in any part of the Omen. They even scanned his head to look for him, but it just wouldn’t work. He wasn’t there and that was more than enough proof that what he said was real.

 The cave was only a few meters away when Jessica collapsed. She was trembling too much in her upper body and felt really sick. Not even her healthy legs could get her away from danger or from the pain. She stayed down for a good while and, once again, she gazed at the jungle and saw the trees moving and what looked like tentacles rising above the treetops. She only thought about how insane that planet was before she fainted.

 She woke up hours later in a nice room. A beautiful nurse came to her bed and asked her if she was ok. Her face and body didn’t hurt anymore. She touched her skin and every single centimeter was normal. Then, the nurse smiled and told her she was going to be all right. Se turned around but Jessica had recognized her. And the only thing she could do was pull out her gun and shoot right in the center of her body.

 The illusion fell to the ground like a house of cards and so did the cube, a rather normal transparent cube that fell to the ground and Jessica put inside her belt. Her face still hurt horribly and she was sure she was in a worse state than before. She turned to the jungle one last time, watching the tentacles and the moving trees, as she pressed another button for her ride to come pick her up.

The cauldron

   Terrified with what he had seen in the cauldron, the knight ran down the stairs of the tower. He was running so fast he missed a step and his heavy armor made him fall hard on to the ground. He broke his neck and there ended the legend of the brave knight from the valley. What just happened was exactly the same thing he had seen in the thick and ever bubbling water of the cauldron, which only needed fire in order to reveal its secrets to the person in front of it. However, as the knight had realized, the cauldron did not receive orders or commands of any type so he showed whatever he wanted from the life of the person peeking in his waters, and as an element of black magic, the cauldron often showed people their deaths, which often happened before they could leave the tower.

 There was no castle to speak off. The dark witch who had created the cauldron had left it in that tower because there a person would have to go through several trials in order to finally get to the cauldron. There was a wasteland with living dead underneath it, a sea of quicksand, hungry wolves, rivers of fire and many other horrible creatures in the dark. It was no place for anyone who just wanted to take a look. The people that went there had decided, consciously, to ask the cauldron for its wisdom. They still believed the object was magical and good because the legend said so and no one had ever returned fro musing it. So many valiant folk went and died, their bodies adding up to the army of the dead of the wasteland or dying in some other horrible way.

 One day, a woman appeared in the far side of the wasteland. She was very beautiful and was completely alone. What was very strange was the fact that none of the creatures tried to eat her or even growl at her. Every single one of them kept a distance and she just walked slowly over the ashes, the crushed bones and the skulls of so many men and women who had come this far just to die and never had their questions answered. She got to the tower and, patiently, she walked up, looking through the small windows on the side of the tower. There was no one. She finally got to the cauldron and there she transformed into a very old lady, with a very mean face.

 It was the witch, the one that had created the cauldron. After many years of exile, she had decided to come here and wait. Out of nowhere, she materialized a kitchen, a bed and a loom. The room was also expanded in the inside but had been an imperceptible change from the outside. The old woman boiled up some water and made herself some tea and as she did, she just gazed at the cauldron. She couldn’t change it anymore, she couldn’t do anything for the souls that had been taken by it but she could offer the next man or woman the chance of seeing something more that his or her death. She wanted the cauldron, for the first time, to be able to grant wishes. She would do it only once and that’s would be it.

 The truth is she waited for several years, maybe even hundreds of years. As a witch, time didn’t affect her in the same way that it affected every other living thing. She would just cook and drink tea and work on beautiful pieces she made with her loom. That was until she felt someone entering the wasteland and she decided to take a look from the window. Using her magic, she was able to see it was a woman, a noble woman to be exact. Somehow, she had decided to cross the obstacle wearing a gown, with her heels on her hands. Her hair and makeup were all run down and her expression was desperate. It was clear she wanted something out of the cauldron and that she would be an interesting choice for the wish.

 She was almost caught by the dead, but she just took off her dress and threw her shows into a river of fire to be able to pass. She was very skilled as she kicked every creature in the right place, and jumped when she needed to. The witch thought that maybe that woman was too skilled, too bright to be here asking a cauldron for advice or a wish. Besides, the noble people did believe in fairy tales but would rarely go out to the world and try to see if their beliefs were actually truth. So the witch decided to wait and not to intervene in the good luck the woman was having crossing the obstacles. She would be with her in no time and it was important that she realized what kind of person the witch was. So she made everything disappear except the cauldron that was impervious to magic and just stood in the middle of the room, waiting.

 When the woman finally arrived, she fell to the floor tired, and did not even glanced at the witch. It seemed like hours passed with them just like that. The witch wanted to say something but the woman seemed to ignore her presence or at least not even care about her. It was when the noble woman stood up and walked to the cauldron, that the old woman stopped her with her cane and asked her what was she looking in this place. The woman finally looked at her and the witch screamed. That woman was no ordinary human, she was another witch, one much more powerful and twisted than she was.

 The noble witch announced herself to be Morgana, the eternal sorceress that had heard of the cauldron and had decided to destroy it. The older witch asked her why would she do that. She explained that the cauldron caused death, despair , fear and false hope, so why not let it be there to teach a lesson to all the humans that had always hurt the witches and their brothers and sisters. Morgana stood still not saying a word. She had, however, transformed from the almost noble woman to a beautiful tall woman with purple eyes and hairs as black as the night. She thought about what the older woman said and finally, she just smiled.

 With one word, one in an ancient language that no one ever spoke anymore, Morgana engulfed the old woman in deep red fire, burning her to death like many men had done to other witched before. But when she ended the fire, the witch was unharmed physically but mentally broken. She lay on the ground sobbing, not saying a single word. That was Morgana’s way of punishing a witch for letting her feeling rule over her. Even though as her words had been very convincing, her heart told the red fire the truth and that’s why she would never again be the same with or even woman that she had been before. She was now powerless and useless and would die soon but from natural causes. That was the price to pay.

 Morgana then peered into the cauldron and look at its surface for a long time. Nothing was revealed, the blackish water did not reveal any images or made any special sounds. It was as if the cauldron didn’t work on her but she knew better than that. It was because her magic protected her from the spell that had been put into it. So she tried to think of another way to use the cauldron to her advantage. Maybe in battle? Or put it in a less safe place? All those traps and trials on the way to the tower were really useless. If the point of the cauldron was to cause harm and even kill, why not put it in an open space and just let humans die for their stupidity? Maybe that was it… Morgana decided to take the cauldron back with her but then she realized something she had not expected: the cauldron wouldn’t move.

 She tried doing it in many ways, with her arms, her magic and her mind but nothing worked. The cauldron seemed to be glued to the ground somehow and just wouldn’t move. The old woman, still lying on the ground, started laughing like crazy. Morgana lifted her with magic and demanded she told her what to do to move the cauldron or she would kill her, this time for real. The witch looked at Morgana in the eyes and just spit at her. This enraged the legendary sorceress, who threw the witch against the hard stone wall and tried again to move the cauldron. She grabbed by the sides and pulled but she would only see the black waters inside and nothing else.

 Then, Morgana’s mouth began to dry and her eyesight suddenly disappeared. She screamed and fell to the ground, begin for the witch to do something to help her. The witch slowly stood up and transformed into the beautiful woman that had arrived before. She told Morgana that her magic was far darker and ancient that hers and that she should never underestimate the power of someone who has not only caused suffering but who has also felt it her skin, flesh and bones. Morgana found her feet and begged the witch for forgiveness and asked her to be her apprentice. She said they could be unstoppable if they united their powers, something the older witch was momentarily interested by.

 But with one stroke of her cane, she made Morgana’s body break into a million pieces that fell in the ground before being absorbed by the cauldron. The witch then disappeared and left the cauldron alone once again. But now, if anyone gets close enough, Morgana’s screams can still be heard, deep in the black waters of the mysterious cauldron.

Conflicted savior

   The botanical garden was a large peaceful place where people did picnics and took pictures of various flowers and butterflies. Families and couple came because it seemed like a nice place for them to bond. So when David and Katherine entered the premises, it was obvious they hadn’t come to appreciate the flowers or bond over anything. His jacket had bloodstains all over and they looked fresh. She had several cuts on her face, one very deep and slowly bleeding out. They appeared to have come from a battle zone and the botanical garden did not seem like the first place to think about when hiding.

 As if they had picked up on how strange they looked to others in the gardens, Katherine grabbed one of David’s hands. But this didn’t help at all. It was more obvious now that ever that they didn’t have any kind of relationship. They were holding hands as if they were grabbing a freshly caught fish.

 They enter the largest greenhouse and there they were able to rest for a while. People seemed too be more focused on the beautiful colors and insects than on the couple that had come in. Katherine touched her face and noticed the blood whereas David took off his jacket and turned it around. It looked kind of funny but it was better than displaying blood all over the place.

 But still, that did not help that much. After all, David was dressed in his usual attire, which meant tight jeans, suspenders, black polo shirt and red boots. Yes, David was a skinhead but, as he explained to everyone that cared to ask, he was not the “bad” kind of skinhead. He just liked the ideals, the real ones, behind all of it. He was used to people staring at him everywhere he went but now wasn’t the time to be noticeable. With his jacket’s sleeve he cleaned some of the sweat from his almost bald head (his hair was very short).

 Katherine, on the other hand, was a bit older than him. Not enough to be his mother but old enough to be a grumpy older sister. But they weren’t related and had just being together at the wrong time and the wrong place. As a matter of fact, they did not know anything about each other, except a mad man was chasing them. Katherine grabbed her phone from her pocket and checked some things very fast. After all, it was her tool of work. She was a very important part of an advertisement company and she knew her boss was probably wondering where she was.

 After all, she had just left to pick up some photocopies that were needed in the 5 pm daily meeting. Although she thought her work was important, it really wasn’t. She was basically and errand girl, running around with coffee mugs and photocopies and various folders. Her main task, after all, was classifying every document the company had in order for their main archive to be in order. She just liked to think it was important because after turning thirty, every job matters as if it was the best of the best, even if it’s obviously not.

 The couple picked up the pace, went all along the inner path of the greenhouse and got out of it on the other end. Fortunately, they noticed there was a different exit than the entrance they had used earlier. In a very hush voice, David told Katherine the best thing was to go to a police station and tell them everything that had happened. They would provide security and the mad man may be even apprehended for following them. But they hadn’t seen him since they had entered the gardens, so maybe he had just gave up. At least that was Katherine’s opinion.

 They walked slowly, following a brick path through a forest of palm trees that lead to the other exit. Katherine stated that it was probably best of they each left for home and just let it go. David looked at her as if she had lost her marbles and didn’t even reply anything. If they separated, he was going straight to police station. Maybe they wouldn’t believe him, it had happened before. But after the mess that man had caused, it was going to be very difficult for the police not to believe him.

 As they got closer to the entrance, they realized two things: the man was on the other side. He had apparently not seen them yet but he looked oddly calm and controlled, very different from his display at the stationery store. The proof was that both David and Katherine started to tremble as soon as they had seen him and hid behind some bushes. The woman then agreed that they had to get to the police so she took out her phone but wasn’t able to dial because someone kicked her hand. It was the mad man.

 He looked enraged but controlled. It was very scary to see such a normal looking guy with so much evil in his eyes. He was holding a gun with a silencer and told them that he would shoot if thy screamed. He then advised them to stand up and walk in front of him, slowly. He would put the gun away but advised them not to run away or he would pull it our fast and shoot them both in the head before anyone could catch him.

 Katherine and David stood up and complied. The group came out of the botanical garden as if nothing was happened but anyone that would noticed the twitching in David’s eyes or how sweaty Katherine’s hands were, would instantly now that something strange was happened. As the man had told them, they walked in front of him slowly, just as if he was a friend and they were there with him. But they didn’t even talk so the image was even stranger than one would think. They crossed the street and the man told them to board a red car that was parked on the sidewalk. They looked at each other before doing what the said.

 Inside, the car was incredibly hot and the leather seats were not helpful. The man boarded too and put the gun on the dashboard. Soon, started the engine and he drove, without telling a word to them. He looked straight to the road, not moving his wide-open eyes for nothing. It had to be said: he was a very good driver, even letting old women cross at the corners and cleverly avoiding buses and trucks. He didn’t look like the man they feared.

 A couple of hours earlier in the stationery, that man had been waiting for some photocopies too, or at least that’s what it looked like. Katherine had come in because of work and David had to pick up several pages of a book that he wanted to read carefully. He had just begun the career of social studies at the university and wanted to nail every class to be the best social worker he could. Each one of them was there, minding their own business. It was when two petty thieves entered that it all went insane.

 Those two attempted to steal the money but, in the process, hurt people all over the store. They pushed Katherine towards a glass structure, which broke and cut her face and shoot a little boy and his mother, whom David tried to help when the men weren’t watching. It was when one of them tried to drag one of the girls that worked there to a storage room, that the mad man acquired his nickname.

 Without even hesitating, he pulled out his gun and shot one of the guys in the head. His body collapsed right there, for everyone to see. He then ran to the storage room and grabbed the other man by the hair. He had his penis out but hadn’t raped the girl, who was lying on the floor, crying. The mad man put his gun on the thief’s mouth and pulled the trigger. Everyone screamed. Then, people thought an even crazier man had rescued them and that they could go. But, what was his business there with a silenced gun?

 The man was aware people were scared of him and decided to take Katherine by the arm. She had been helped by another woman with her wounds but the man stopped that. He took her as a hostage because, in his mind, people had turned against their savior. David tried to talk to him and even got him to say a few words. For a moment there, it seemed he understood what had happened and that if he released Katherine nothing would happen to him. Everyone would say to the police how much of a nice man he had been by saving that girl from being raped and all of them from being hostages.

The man released loosened his hands and Katherine took that moment to step on his foot and run outside. David, stupidly, followed her. And now they were hostages again, in his car, going who knows where. The man didn’t say a word until they had left the city. He took the car through an open field and then parked right in the middle of it.

 He came out of the car, taking his gun with him. As he walked on the moist grass, he looked up. Some stars could already be seen. Then, he pointed the gun to his head and shot himself. The couple in the car where just to scared to scream.