Lies Of A Thousand Lives

Prologue

"We're not gonna make it."

"We're gonna make it."

"We're not gonna make it!!!"

"Too late."

"I hate you.”

And that comment was followed by a long terrified scream which sounded kind of like Aaaaaaaoooouuuaaaa! Well don't expect from me to sound just perfectly fine as I fall to my death.

No kidding.

The legend says that falling from a million floors, will kill you. Guess who is testing the legend. And I'm not kidding about the number.

"Quit screaming. We're fine."… -Said no one ever while falling to their death, but apparently my best friend here was oddly right. His huge claws were wrapped around my arms, as his beautiful black wings beat the air to keep us up.

"You're an as..."

"No swearing or I will wash your mouth with soap again."

I seriously hate him.

Imagine a huge bird talking by moving its beak like in those cartoons. Well thank God, Knox wasn't doing that or I would freak out. We have this special way of communication. You will never guess.

Through thoughts. Tough guess, huh?

How is that possible? I have no idea, but since an old crazy weirdo who claimed himself as a magician, the son of Thaddeus (I have no idea who Thaddeus is), explained us... like ten times (the dude didn't know how to explain at all and he was crazy. Nothing is worse than a crazy magician)... well, I'll give you the short version.

Have you ever heard of soul mates?

If yes, you have the half of the answer. If not, do your research, I'm not Google.

The thing is that the term soul mates is the only thing that can explain this thing, but I prefer to call it dude mates... Bro-mate... best buds? I don't know. It sounds bad either way. We are just spiritually linked. If one dies, the other is doomed. We know how the other feels...

And welcome to my life, where I'm spiritually linked with a jerk with a beak.

Nope. He's not just a big black... "Eagle?"

"What?"

"There is no such a thing like black eagles." I frowned at Knox .

"Of course there is... or at least was."

Anyway where was I? Oh yeah... like I was saying my spiritually linked bro wasn't just an eagle. He was the whole God damn zoo.

"Angus..." Knox 's voice sounded panicked but the dude panics when seeing a spider (ironically he can transform in any kind of animal that actually eats spiders for breakfast and yet he just jumps on me and let me deal with it. Which isn't a good idea since: a) I hate spiders and b) I'm terrified of them).

"What?" I snapped a little bit annoyed, for no particular reason.

"The huge dude can fly."

"WHAT???" I would be embarrassed of how high pitched my tone came out if I wasn't scared for my life as a giant who thinks the “Death look” is the latest fashion, is after me. And to make things just perfect an arrow, as big as a tree, barely missed my face, giving me the reason to totally freak out.

Okay, I should probably back up and explain how the hell did I end up jumping off a city with a million floors being followed by a Death-wanna-be freak shooting arrows at me...

Well it kind of started like this…

------------------------------

A lot of things have changed through years. Hitler died. Donald Trump became a president. World War III. Books being replaced with technology (the real tragedy in all these years). People live with magical creatures... to sum up... nothing really important.

But building a city with a million floors? People have gone to far.

Personally I would have called it the Block. Or the Brick? It looks like a brick to me. A very huge one.

The city is like a super oversized flat. It is probably as big as half of Manhattan once was and as high as it can get. Every floor is like a whole city itself. People having meetings with fairies to discuss about environmental issues... centaurs giving archery classes... elves running libraries filled with books about magic... and things like that. The usual, you know.

The perfect place for me to use my kleptomania. Look, I'm not proud of it. It's not like I have it out of control. It is kind of hard to explain, but I will give you the short version. I don't steal random things that just happen to be desired by my sick mind. It just happens that sometimes... there are a few objects, that seem to call my name. Don't laugh. I'm serious. There are object that whisper to me to get them. It's like a creature calling for help. My help. Why does it happen? I have no idea. Sometimes I resist the urge and just keep walking, but other times (like this time for example) the whispers turn to desperate screams and I just can't let the poor object suffer, can I?

So that brings me to stealing this extremely cool mirror with three silver dragon heads, one on the top and the two others on each side of the mirror. The dragon head on the top looked like it was watching you right through your soul, like it knew all your dark secrets (which I don't find that cool. It’s actually a little bit creepy) and the two other dragon heads looked like were side smirking at you. So it was a very creepy, cool and totally useless mirror.

I had to take it.

It was like I could hear the dragons screaming in my head. Calling me. Strangely not calling for help, but ordering me. In my defense, I tried to walk away. Knox tried to stop me, since it kind of gets boring to always run away from the angry owners of the stuff I steal from or the police, but even he couldn't do much, since both of us had the urge to take the God damn mirror.

It was actually kind of weird how easily I stole it. It was in a huge mansion, guarded by this super huge guy dressed like Death, trying to look all scary and cool. Apparently the dude had had a few drinks, judging by the way he barely could stand up, so I kind of just waved, wishing him a good afternoon, walked in, took the mirror which was as big as my head (I'm not good with measurements and it was kind of weird if you ask me, because the mirror was way too small for a giant to use), walked out, waving at the giant again. But of course there were three huge bulldogs which to my opinion would be better if we called them bulldozers since they were seriously huge.

And then it’s kind of obvious what happened afterwards. I ran for my life. Then I jumped off the city and now I'm being followed by a drunk replica of Death. It's not like that happens all the time to everyone, does it?

Another arrow was shot towards us. This one almost caught Knox in the right wing. Fortunately... he was lucky. Unfortunately? He dropped me because that arrow scared the life out of him. Once again I found myself falling while screaming in a high pitch voice. But like I said. I don't have the luxury to feel ashamed of that since I was about to freaking die.

"Knox!!!" I didn't even recognize my voice, which should really make me consider my masculinity.

A few hippogriffs that happened to be passing by, gave me weird looks, titling their heads, probably wondering if I'm a girl or a boy. Yep. I have reached that point. The point where freaking hippogriffs wonder about my gender.

Another arrow tore the air apart, flying towards me, but almost shot one of the hippogriffs.

Even though dying, I somehow managed to think: That dude now is doomed.

Now let me give you an advice that later might save your life. You never, NEVER, mess up with a pack of hippogriffs. Messing with just one is simply, ridiculously stupid and dangerous. A whole pack? Man, say your last prayers.

"Knox!!!" I screamed again. "Dying here.”

"Sorry man." Knox finally decided that I was more useful alive, and grabbed me by my arms.

As we flew away, I watched the hippogriffs attacking the giant with all their might. They were like six of them and one drunk giant. The dude had no chance. I felt a little bad for leaving the hippogriffs dealing with my problem as I flew away, but then the giant asked for it. So...

Bye!!! ⁽⁽ଘ( ˊᵕˋ )ଓ⁾⁾

"The next time, you don't just let me fall, okay?" My voice was irritated, but I dare you to blame me.

"There will be a next time?" I wanted to laugh at how panicked Knox's voice sounded in my head.

"There is always a next time." With me and my kleptomania? Nothing is for sure.

***

We were close to the safe ground, but still too high for me to fall and probably break a leg or my head. But apparently in Knox's terms that was safe, so he just dropped me.

I get it. He got tired of holding me, even though I was the definition of scrawny, but you don't just let your spirituality linked bro fall when there is a chance I can break my freaking skull.

Fortunately I fell on a few bushes and that cushioned my fall, but with my luck those bushes of course had to have thorns. A lot of them.

"I hate you." I glared at Knox, who changed from the huge black eagle into a small black kitten and jumped on my shoulder.

"Oh shut up. It's all your fault." His voice was tired and I felt bad for him. After all he was right. My kleptomania got us in big troubles all the time. And most of the time Knox had to get us away from whoever was following us.

"Whatever." I took the backpack off my shoulders (weirdly it somehow had managed not to slip off while I was falling like... three times? In one day? Wow. This should be a record) and took the mirror out of it. It was perfectly fine, not even a crack anywhere. It still scared the crap out of me but at least it wasn't ordering me to do things like for example dance the Macarena. Grinning I put it in the backpack. "Go to sleep. I will wake you up when we reach home."

Knox didn't hesitate and went inside my backpack as well and started to purr immediately drifting to sleep.

Thankfully, we weren't too far from home, so at least I didn't have to walk too much, which was a blessing to me. Running from a giant and almost dying a couple of times, it is really tiring. So I was exhausted when we were finally in front of the cave.

Yeah, I live in a cave. Deal with it.

I had to work on a few tricks to make the entry of the cave invisible, because the last thing I want, is for all the angry creatures or humans that want to hurt or even kill me, to find where I live. So a projector did the job. It made the entry of the cave look like a boring mountain chilling like mountains usually do.

I walked inside and the lights went on, along with the heater. Even though it was summer, the cave was cold so the heater was necessary every time I was in here.

The cave isn't what you would exactly call a luxurious place to live in. But it is comfy, and once the heater is on... it is warm too. The perfect place (at least for me) to live in. In the middle of it is the fire place, a perfect circle of stones with burnt wood in there, still radiating warmth. You're probably wondering why I have a fireplace when I have a heater. Well fire is essential, so stop wondering. Above the fireplace, in the ceiling is a hole that got the smoke out of the cave, making the mountain look like a volcano every time I decided to have marshmallows.

In the right is my bed which is as comfy as a bed in a cave can get. The mattress is inside the wall of the cave, in a kind of rectangular shape that looked like it was yawning. Next to the bed is my closet with all the clothes I owned which means half of it is empty. Far in the corner is a short tunnel, which led to a small room, which I decided it is perfect as a bathroom. The bathroom isn't much either, just a small shower and when I do my personal stuff the plumping actually works, so to me is perfect.

In the left part of the cave are all the important stuff. The whole wall is turned into rafts to keep all the medical plants, and mechanical pieces, wires, broken robots (I broke them because I needed the pieces for my stuff. What? You thought the projector made itself?) and there are books. My little treasures. Since the technology became the new hit, books just gradually disappeared which was such a tragedy for me, I cried for two days, but eventually had to stop because Knox kept complaining I wasn't letting him sleep. I wasn't even born when the books stopped being published, so when I found out... it was a dark time of my life. But thankfully there were still books around, if you knew where to search for, so finding those books kind of became the reason why I get out of the cave. That and the fact that I have to get food or other unimportant stuff like that.

In the corner is a computer and a few screens, with live images of the outside of the cave and a few places like the centers of a few cities and the small room in the city of Bigfeet, where I hide the money my parents left me before disappearing when I was five. They probably died or decided I wasn't worth it and left. But at least they left me money enough to live for a few years without starving. I didn't really used the money, since I didn't want help from people who weren't there when I needed them the most. But yeah...

I put the backpack on my bed and opened it. Knox was still sleeping in there, after all the almost being killed by a Death-wanna-be dude fiasco, I didn't have it in me to wake him up, so I just took him out of the backpack and let him sleep on my bed.

Then I took the mirror out of the backpack, and gave it a look. It seriously scared me how it made me steal it. Because I swear to God, that the damned mirror made me steal it. That never had happened to me. Things whispering to me? Yeah. Of course. That isn't weird at all. But ordering me and making me steal it? Well... No. Never.

"Nice stuff you've got there kido."

The hell!