My head was heavy. I struggled to open my eyes. I saw the chains. Shackles locked my feet to the ground. I felt other chains draw me up from above, pulling on my wrists so that I stood. I noticed that dirt and blood was still caked onto me, and the stench of my own sweat and blood still surrounded me in this cold, depressing room.

I was alone in that cell with only a table piled high with torture inducing gadgets as company and a solitary candle that flickered, as if it too were afraid of the shadows and ghosts in this room.

Sweat slowly trickled down my face as I continued to dwell on my predicament. Why was I here? Why wasn't I dead as was my right? Isn't that what Tara had promised me in those cold eyes of hers earlier? What purpose was there of keeping me? She'd already won the battle. Wasn't that enough?

The wooden door in front of me rattled suddenly as I heard a number of locks click open. With a groan, the door slowly opened to let a man in a brown trench coat enter.

"Good, you're awake. I was hoping you'd get better. I was afraid that Tara would kill you before I had a chance to talk to you," the man said.

"It's you," I felt myself hiss as I glared at the man who'd murdered Kristin.

"The name's Bradley," the man replied as he shut the door behind him.

"I don't care what your name is," I growled, more than annoyed by his casual nature. "You killed her."

He shrugged. "It's all part of the game."

I gawked. How could anyone consider this a game?

He took note of my surprise. "You look astonished, Ryan." He knows my name… "Why? Of course this is just a game, a game where death is the price for living but a game nonetheless. We kill you for not letting us live as we want. You kill us because you don't think we're living up to this idea of Balance you hold so dear. The idea where all is supposed to be good and that somehow along the way, everything got tainted by this evil and therefore, need to be cleansed of. However, I would like to point out that Balance doesn't work like that anymore. There's a new Balance where, as you see it, good cancels out evil and evil cancels out good. Too much of either doesn't cut it anymore in this world of ours."

I didn't need him to elaborate to see his logic and understand his reasoning… But I also remembered the visions of peace and harmony.

As if reading my thoughts, he continued on. "You know, there was competition then too. Everything wanted to live. Survival of the fittest. A few plants die to feed rabbits. Rabbits died to feed bears. Bears died to feed us. We all died to feed Mother Earth. It's a Cycle. A Balance."

"But why the torture? Why the need for pain?"

Again, Bradley shrugged. "Why do anything at all? We're all human and somewhere in our instincts, we know what it is to kill another life and feed from that life. It's called survival and that's something that is hidden in a lot of people and comes out in what you'd call the worst of us, but it's all there. No human is free from their true self, as barbarian and cannibalistic as it may seem. But at the same time, humans also have the inborn desire to make life as least complicated as possible. We're not offering a new solution to the world's problems. We're just giving them what they already crave, a world with its own kind of Balance. This makes people think life is bearable, despite its ups and downs." He looked at me thoughtfully a moment before asking me if I'd like to have a seat. "I apologize for the condition you were kept but if Tara or someone like her had happened to come in before me, it was all best for your sake." With a nod, the chains, blood, and darkness were gone and I was sitting with him in what looked to be a study, relaxing in a comfortable leather recliner across a small table from him. Looking down at myself, I saw that I'd been healed as well for no scar marred my skin and I felt no aches or pains elsewhere. The word powerful flitted across my mind briefly and he quietly answered, "Yes, but not more or less powerful than you. We're equals."

I was surprised and a little intrigued. "You read my thoughts and I didn't even know you were there. How can you say we're equals when I can't do that or heal in a matter of seconds?"

"You can do it too Quinn," he answered, replying in the ancient tongue that I'd learned at the beginning of my training. "All anything ever takes is practice." He let me digest this piece of information a bit before continuing. "I have another story, and hopefully, this one will answer any questions you have. Your Kristin was already a powerful person before I was called to try and even things out again. She'd already killed many of my kind in her line of duty and I was determined to be the one to stop her. I earned my reputation of being a notorious killer and look at me. I'm close to forty years old. You think you're old for being called so late? I was too. But it didn't matter. The Balance had been tipped and it was my duty to fix it by killing. At first, I was just power hungry and Kristin would have been a prime kill for me. I was a soldier and trained to kill, having been in a recent war so I had no qualms when I killed at first.

"But then of course, the inevitable happened and I finally saw Kristin at work on the battlefield. I must admit to you, even covered in dust and blood, she was a beautiful woman. You were a very lucky man and I mean it. Intelligent too, I remember. She actually teleported me while I was sleeping into this very room and waited patiently for me to wake up so we could talk. Needless to say, I was frightened out of my wits when I woke up with my mortal enemy sitting there, just looking at me. She calmed me down quick enough though and we got to talking. At first, I was incredulous when she spoke of the game. Yes, she knew of it too, and so had many of the Quinn's before her. She thought that I should know, risking that I'd tell everyone but already knowing that I can't tell anyone besides the next Quinn. Would you have believed that this new Balance was real? It makes sense, but look at whose word it is. It's one person's against countless others and a long standing tradition. And we're the only two in the whole world who know the truth of it. Oh sure, many speculate that this is what the world has come to now since neither side has gained or lost anything since the beginning of our kind but we're the only ones who know definitely that this is Tanek's plan."

"You know of Tanek?" I found myself blurting out. I couldn't help it.

Bradley gave a kind smile. "Yes, I do. The Great One speaks with me just as he speaks with you. We're of the same blood, we both use the ancient language that was spoken in the beginning… Yes, he speaks with us and all who will listen if they can just be quiet enough. More often than not, the only ones who hear besides us are the animals. And since when do people communicate effectively with animals outside their pets?" The two of us smiled and a mental image of a kitten flashed across my mind and I thought of Holly. I decided to wait on that question though, seeing that he wasn't finished with his story.

"Kristin and I met a few times more in the following couple of years. The two of us always talked and it was just good to put aside the false act of hating each other so much in the public's eye. We had more in common than we thought, and often, more than we cared to admit because we knew that when the time came, it would be difficult to kill the other. The couple of months before she actually died though, I noticed that Kristin was losing interest. She was restless and disoriented and I could imagine that she longed for an end to it all. When we met for the second to last time, she confirmed my beliefs and said that she felt that it was her time to go. Her only regret was that she couldn't tell you or her best friends how she felt and how much she loved you all."

"I think we knew," I said, slowly. "She wasn't one to talk about love much but we knew anyway."

"That's good. She was worried about it but knew that this would be the best in the end. The only problem was how to end it all and that's when we decided to do what we did, what you saw."

"You knew I was there?"

Bradley nodded. "I needed to make sure that the right person was called at the right time. We all know about failures in the past, but there are no such things as failures. In all eyes but our's, they were failures. Everything however, has a purpose in life and in those times when people thought that you were being led by the wrong people, you had what you needed. There are reasons for why everything happens and nothing is by chance. We knew you were the one to follow in her footsteps. There could be no other. So you see, we had the characters and the ending of the story, but we needed the plot. We needed to put on a show for you to hook you in. We know it was a grisly experience for you to go through and for myself, I will say I'm sorry for having to put you through that, as I know Kristin already apologized to you in her own way."

I nodded again and suddenly slumped back in my seat, all of this new knowledge suddenly weighing me down. Bradley looked at me and smiled sympathetically. "I'm afraid that's not quite everything yet. There is just one more detail that needs to fall through soon. I realize that we've just met and all, but I fear that you must help me in one manner."

"And what would that be?"

"I'm tired of the game."

He left everything to that one, simple sentence and the world in front of my spun in my eyes for a dizzy moment. "No," I vaguely heard myself mumbling. I didn't want to do it. Things had been so much easier when I could just hate him blindly when I didn't know him for who he was. But now? He'd earned my respect when he brought me here and had earned my trust by the honest way he talked about everything that he knew. I enjoyed this man's company and I wanted to be friends. But, as friends are often willing to do for those that they care about, there was only one thing to do in the end. "Any ideas how you'd like your show to end?"

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