BREAKING THE CYCLE OF REINCARNATION

'Really? Those are the words you intended to send me off with?' Alex thought while trying to open his eyes, 'Damn it! Why is it so dark? Did the old bastard keep me alive after all and just blinded for starters?'

But it didn't feel like it. In fact, Alex felt quite comfortable, but when he tried to move around, he felt as if he was locked up in some kind of a box, but for some reason it was round-ish, like a capsule.

'Did he bury me alive?' Was a logical thought, 'In that case I should try to get out. I have no idea for how long I've been unconscious – maybe they have already left.'

Alex tried to punch the top of the weird casket, but while he still felt comfortable, the movements seemed sluggish, foreign and weird. And then he passed out.

After waking up the situation hadn't changed. He was still blind and couldn't freely move, but the lack of pain served as a consolation. He struggled a bit and passed out again. This cycle continued for some time and with each waking period he grew more accustomed with the new situation.

Although to say 'accustomed' was a stretch. The lack of the eyesight and the weird buzzing vibrations he felt were still uncomfortable. The most reasonable thing Alex could think of was that Old Tony brought him to his 'medical facility' and was curing or letting recuperate to begin to torture as soon as he got better. He had seen some strange regeneration capsules in sci-fi movies and most likely was currently lying in such.

When Alex came to his senses for who knows which time, he finally decided to not take the situation 'lying down', although he was lying, and risk it all, although he had nothing more to risk with. He forced himself to stay conscious while hitting, scraping and even biting the walls of the strange prison. He felt like he continued like that for eternity and almost gave up, when suddenly one of his hands or legs, he wasn't sure himself which, managed to crack the casket open.

It was still dark, or maybe he was still blind, but at least after some more struggle he got out. Unfortunately the situation remained weird. He tried to stand up, but the ground was somehow unstable, even shaky. And it felt as if some things kept crawling over him.

At one point something even started biting and chewing one of his legs and purely on instinct he fought back – kicked, punched and even bit the attacker. But everything happened like in a slow motion horror movie, except the screen was dark.

When he finally managed to stop the attack, Alex felt hungry and without thinking much began to eat his earlier attacker. While at first he was stupefied with his own actions, he soon realized that what he experienced was only some kind of a weird dream. He wasn't in Tony's 'medical facility'! He was thrown out or buried somewhere and now was hallucinating before finally dying.

This thought brought strange sense of comfort to him. He enjoyed his feast and when the next creature in the dark touched him, he attacked it himself and devoured it as well. And then another one. And then another. After some time he even began to like this mini game. He kept killing and eating over and over, defeating and devouring tens, maybe hundreds of 'enemies' until after unknown period of time he passed out.

This time, when he woke up, Alex saw the weird battlefield he was on. It was littered with corpses of many defeated enemies, strange body parts lying around. There were transparent carcasses of some insects that looked like large translucent spiders. Or maybe those were remains of some advanced machinery? So he was still having the same hallucination. Or a different one?

But he could see! Maybe the sun had risen in this strange world?

He carefully tried to move away from the battlefield only to discover he was also wearing this strange spider-like exoskeleton. So this hallucination had advanced robotics?

Alex was never a big fan of technology. First of all, any advancement in technology made his job more difficult – with every year security systems got more and more developed and it became increasingly hard to complete his contracts. And second, he kind of enjoyed the ancient or medieval setting much more.

Many of the jobs involved a retrieval of particular ancient artifacts. Alex didn't just make plans on how to get in, get the object and get out. He also extensively researched the items, their history and maybe it was even his favorite part of the job. If given a choice he honestly would've preferred to fight a dragon or to fly around like one. Therefore it was really strange that this hallucination had futuristic elements.

Be as it may, he did his best to understand how the robot he commanded worked, but unfortunately the only thing that seemed to work were telepathic-like orders. While avoiding anything that seemed to move, he walked further and further to the side and after few minutes he finally reached the edge.

But after he glanced past it, he almost fell off the wall. Literally. Turns out up until now he was crawling along a vertical cliff wall and below was who-knows how deep abyss! Good thing his robot was advanced enough to hold on, but he had to get on top of the cliff as soon as possible just to be safe.

But when Alex looked up, the top was already there! The cliff wall ended not too far from him and turned … into a ceiling? Instead of a sky there was a ceiling? Wait! He was looking down the wall, the ceiling and the 'battleground' behind him at the same time … just what was this field of vision he had?!

From a blind man he became an all-seeing … robot? No … he felt alive and felt his extremities, blood pulsing through him, he felt a slight breeze and sounds around him. Wait! Why does he 'feel' sounds? Wtf was going on?

While at first this strange hallucination gave him peace and even felt amusing, currently he became more and more uncomfortable. To not be in control of any situation was already too stressful for him, but to be who-knows-where who-knows-what was basically a nightmare.

'Calm down! Calm down!' Alex tried to hypnotize himself, 'Focus! Think!'

While he could not think of anything, he continued to focus on his senses and mostly on the recently 'recovered' eyesight. He looked back at the 'battleground', the wall, then again at the 'battleground'. Then he started to concentrate on the 'abyss' below him and then finally began to discern something. Something that gave him creeps.

Far down below, in the distance, he saw a silhouette of a long table and few chairs beside it. Two giants sat on those chairs and were currently conversing. Alex even felt the whole world tremble when one of them began to loudly laugh.

'Wait! That's not a giant! That's Stevie! It's just that his annoying laughter is multiplied several times over!' Alex thought and continued to observe. This hallucination was becoming weirder and weirder.

The two giants continued to converse when Alex noticed something crawling out from the edge of the 'battlefield' and moving towards him. It was really a weird feeling – to see the giants below and the crawling thing at the opposite side at the same time.

He felt that the crawling thing was smaller than him and didn't pose any danger, therefore was not worried, but it obviously didn't share the sentiment. It increased its speed and came directly towards Alex who instinctively attacked first as soon as the creature was in range. He punched, kicked and bit the creature, just like he did before and only after it died and he ate it, Alex realized what he was doing for the past days or maybe weeks.

He stared at the remains of the creature currently freely falling down and his 'hands' that just held it a moment ago. Long, thin 'hands' that looked very much like spider legs. And he had three more pairs like that – he could observe them all clearly at the same time. And the thing he just fought had similar hands … also eight.

Alex looked back at the 'battlefield'. He would've very much loved to continue to persuade this was some hallucination he was having, or at least a nightmare, but every pore in his body screamed this was real.

Old Tony's face resurfaced in front of him.

'Die, insect … insect?! What the hell did you do, old bastard?' Alex wanted to scream, but no sounds came out. And there was no way he could cry … for god's sake, he could not even blink!

'No, no, no … this can't be happening! There is no way this could be real! There is no magic in this world! And curses do not work! … how in the world … how in the world can you turn someone … into an insect? No, no. That is not possible. Even if it was theoretically possible, the old bastard didn't have the amount of energy one would require for that … except … he got me reincarnated in some way? After my death? The reincarnation concept is actually valid?' Alex felt the last bits of sanity leaving him.

Of course, he had heard and read about reincarnation principles that existed in most religions. Even getting to the 'Heaven' in Christianity is a form of reincarnation. But obviously up until now he thought of all it as a bunch of religious nonsense.

'Wait! If reincarnation really works … then …' Alex looked down the wall and inwardly grinned.

Against all his inner instincts, he forced himself to release the grip on his arms, or rather – legs, that held him at the wall … and fell. While the fall from height of a regular ceiling that is around three meters is almost never lethal for human, for current him it was an endless fall into abyss.

Nevertheless, during his fall Alex inwardly laughed as hard as he could.

'Hahaha! F*ck you, old man! See you in the next life!' Alex thought as he saw the floor coming closer and closer.

And then … he landed. It didn't even hurt. The great expectation of release came with the most bitter disappointment.

'I can't even die?' Alex was furious, 'No, wait! It is not possible to become indestructible! I'll just let Stevie step on me!'

Armed with the new idea he began to crawl towards the desk, but then suddenly he had an epiphany. Why the hell did he have to die? Well, he understood from Tony's point of view why he had to die after doing his 'precious' daughter, but now? He could die at any time! But first … he could try to kill the old bastard!

'God, please! Let me be poisonous!' He prayed, but knew it was extremely unlikely for a poisonous spider to appear in the middle of Europe.

'I'll just have to find a way!' Alex said to himself and confidently crawled back towards the wall.

He was not looking forward to eating more insects or being squished under someone's foot, but he didn't give much worth to this life either. Although, since he now had a mission, he had to live this life to the fullest!

If he was in his human body, or rather, back in the previous life, it would be practically impossible to kill the old man. Frank was too good of a bodyguard. But now, now Alex already had a plan. The best thing was – he knew the layout of Tony's estate from the top of his head. All he needed to do was to get to the old man.