Return

Written by Anakin McFly

Somewhere in China, the steady click of boots on stone echoes across an empty courtyard. No – not empty. There is a body there, its coat dark against the floor and flapping lightly in the wind.

The stranger stops before the body, looking down at it.

He smiles.

He gives it a kick with the Boot of Life, and Donaka Mark jerks alive in shock to see a mysterious old man looking down at him.

“Oh, hello,” the old man says mildly. “It’s a nice day, don’t you think?”

Donaka takes a slow breath. Alive. He’s alive. He runs a mental checkup of his body and then looks the old man straight in the face. “Who are you?” he asks.

The old man practically beams at him. “How rude of me. You may call me Dem.” He pats Donaka on the back and delights in the sudden tensing of muscles he feels beneath his hand. “I’m just a mysterious old man,” he says cheerily, starting to stroll off. “Nothing to see here. Just an old man.”

“HEY!”

Dem doesn’t break his pace even as Donaka strides up to him and grabs him by the shoulders.

“I was dead,” Donaka says, his gaze boring into the gently twinkling eyes of the old man before him. “Wasn’t I?”

Dem shrugs. “Perhaps.”

“What did you do to me?”

“You humans have so many questions,” Dem says. He pulls out a Kinder Surprise from his pocket and carefully unwraps it. “So many questions,” he murmurs again, and takes a bite. His eyes close at the chocolatey delight.

Donaka grabs the rest of the Kinder Surprise and dashes it against the stone. Dem’s eyes snap open in horror.

Donaka grins at him – a crazed, joyless grin, madness dancing in his eyes.

The humour fades from Dem’s face. He looks at the smashed chocolate on the ground, the brightly coloured toy capsule peeking out from the wreck. “You didn’t,” he says softly.

“Who. Are. You.”

Dem can’t take his eyes from his ruined chocolate. It had taken him ages to find it. It wasn’t available in three quarters of the multiverse. In most of the rest it had been banned for being a choking hazard. He had, at long last, stolen this one from some contraband shipment on an obscure planet where everyone was named Pineapple and communicated through air guitar, and after all that trouble, in the end he’d only managed to take one bite. He could turn back time, of course, but it would not undo the insult. A rare anger started bubbling up within him.

“I had been looking forward to that chocolate,” he says.

“Well,” Donaka says, just as softly and dangerously, “that’s just too bad, isn’t it?”

Dem shakes his head sadly. That first bite had been so good, too.

With a heavy heart, he starts walking off again.

“COME BACK HERE,” Donaka roars.

Dem pauses, and looks back. “I could have got you far more than the single life you were owed,” he says. “I have seen worlds, Donaka. Worlds upon worlds of wars and battles and senseless massacres. They could have all been yours. To observe... to judge... to instigate.” His face hardens. “But then you had to ruin my Kinder Surprise.”

Donaka’s face blazes with dark fury, aware somehow that he had just lost a massive opportunity of a lifetime. “IT WAS. JUST. A CHOCOLATE EGG!”

Dem laughs bitterly. “Yes,” he mutters, half to himself, “and it was just a dog. Goodbye, Donaka.”

Donaka screams and rushes at Dem in a fit of rage. But his punch meets only air, and then he’s left glaring furiously at nothing as Dem vanishes from his world into another.

Donaka paces in a tight circle of rage, and then stalks back to the destroyed Kinder Surprise smeared across the stone. He stares at it, breathing hard, and then he closes his eyes and centres himself until he’s steady once again. When he opens his eyes again, his body is calm.

He crouches down and picks up the toy capsule hidden in the chocolate. He twists it open.

A small device tumbles onto his palm.

It’s an Interdimensional Travel Device Thingy. There’s a tiny instruction booklet nestled in the capsule.

He clicks the device on. Possibilities scroll across the screen.

Donaka smiles.

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