Max is a twelve-year old mutt. He has ears that stand erect and mismatched colored eyes of blue and brown. His fur is long and fuzzy, its color mixed between brown, black, and white. Max likes to play fetch with tennis balls and chase after laser pointers. He barks at people who are swimming. Max hates thunder and fireworks, and hides underneath the desk when he hears any loud noises. Max loves chicken and turkey, and has been spoiled so much that he rarely eats regular dog food. Max is a survivor.



The fire started because of faulty wiring; the frayed electrical line in the attic, to be exact. The third story was packed full of cardboard boxes full of clothes, childhood toys and stuffed animals that were being saved to pass down to the next generation " that decision made a long time ago when such a choice still mattered. The flammable items meant that the fire spread quickly; too fast for emergency response to get to in time to save the house. Max was alone in the house, and as the fire began to spread, the dog could only find a corner in which to huddle while the smoke filled the house and the flames closed all around him.



Max was abandoned when he was only a few months old. His owner passed away, and they had no next of kin who could take him in. Max suffered an accident at the shelter, breaking his leg, but was spared from being euthanized by the shelter staff" something told them that Max was special and deserved his chance. Though he was passed over again and again, since people thought it would be too much work to constantly take Max back and forth to the vet and shelter as his leg healed. The staff even started to doubt he would ever be adopted and began talking about what options they had, until one day a heartbroken visitor met Max, and Max made the man smile for the first time in a long while.



Sirens wailed in the distance; they would be too late to save the house or to rescue Max. The fire had spread too much, too fast. The structure began to collapse into itself, and Max was in the only safe place left' but that too would soon be consumed by smoke and flame.

Max survived.

Screams of agony and terror, mutilated bodies, blood and viscera covering everything" this wasn't Hell, but anyone who thought so would be forgiven for thinking so. A massive wall of men who stood so close together that they could barely lift their arms were being slaughtered, unable to retreat or move forward; they were just like cattle in a slaughterhouse. Flanked by so-called barbarians on both sides, some on horses, the tide of the battle had turned and the Roman army was being annihilated.

A few of the Visigoth infantry had broken off from the pack, led by a tall, long-haired and thick-bearded man who powered through each tip of the spear that found his chest, or each cut of the sword that went past his shield. The man inspired the soldiers all around him, working them into frenzy as he marched toward the Emperor with steely determination in his shining blue-green eyes. By the warrior's side walked a young girl, no more than ten years-old, who the man protected from any that moved toward her, fiercely striking them down without hesitation.

The Emperor did not move even as the number of his bodyguards fell to the advancing Visigoths. A wicked, hungry smile soon crept on to what appeared to be a decaying face.

"Don't be scared, Brun," the tall, bearded man said reassuringly through clenched teeth. She could tell he was in pain, but he never stopped moving forward. "Just like we practiced."

Brunihild nodded meekly, but when her eyes went back to the Emperor she couldn't help but cower. He was different looking now, he appeared pale and sick, and when he moved it was as if he flickered and changed shapes while his body contorted to contain something growing out of him. The air around him felt toxic and she was filled with a sense of dread and uneasiness; like the Emperor's very existence was wrong and corrupting everything around him. She was scared, and a small hand clenched into her protector's tunic.

"Do you think you'll do any better this time, Aric?" the Emperor hissed, each word was like poison as the question hung in the air. "You failed before! Do you even remember?"

"Never had a very good memory," Aric muttered as he looked back toward Brun, hoping that some levity would ease her nerves. She gave a very nervous smile back and released his tunic before giving him a tentative nod. Aric sent her a wink with a reassuring grin before he turned back to the Emperor and broke out into a sprint. "Go! Now!"

The Emperor was alone now, his guard all dead while the rest of his army was caught on the battlefield. Aric's remaining company of three Visigoths bore down on the Emperor, striking at him with sword and spear. The Emperor fell. The Visigoths cheered. Then the Emperor's body contorted itself upwards into a standing position, inky black substance poured from his eyes, and a creature emerged, shedding the husk of the Emperor known as Valens as the blackness began to spread around him.

The first warrior landed another strike with his sword before it was swallowed up inside of the beast, and then it consumed him whole. Two or three hands or tendrils grabbed the second, holding him while yet more jet black darkness wrapped around his limbs, tearing his body apart. The creature then regurgitated the first warrior, who now appeared like a gaunt, hollow shell of his former self; it immediately began to attack the third and final man, and his screams were as if he had his very soul torn from him.

Aric knew he could not afford to focus on the horrors of what happened to his friends, instead rolling on the ground to pick up a spear and coming right back up into his full on sprint. "Brun, now!" he yelled as he leapt into the air, pulling his arm back to ready the thrust of the spear. Brun gestured, and her young face was a mixture of concentration and determination, defying the fear she felt. As Aric's spear lodged into the creature's chest, a tear in the very fabric of reality opened.

The creature stumbled back, but not far enough. Aric hesitated, his plan on the brink of failure. Brun began to panic, sensing Aric's distress and the creature howled as it engulfed the spear and bore its sharp teeth. Aric then felt a searing pain on his back as the hollow warrior's nails raked into his flesh, trying to tear him apart from the front while the spear the creature swallowed appeared in one of its many hands and was sent into Aric's gut. Aric heard Brun's screams of terror in the distance, and the roar of triumph from the creature in front of him.

Desperate, Aric lunged forward, throwing his entire body into the beast as he felt his skin being torn away from all sides. Any flesh that touched the beast became necrotic, and the muscles beneath went through entropy almost immediately. But the momentum was enough, as the creature touched the tear in everything and it began to spread across it like a spider-web. The beast soon became a kaleidoscope of the infinite, each section a view into an alternate reality. Like a jigsaw puzzle being disassembled, each piece of the beast separated from the other before being purged in flashes of light. The hollow warrior on Aric's back collapsed into its second and final dead as the last piece vanished, and Aric pushed himself up to a seated position, slumping as his body began to shut down from the wounds he suffered.

The blight to existence was ended and the heavy sickness in the air was lifted. The gravely wounded Aric remained slumped over where the corruption once existed. Brun ran quickly to him, and wrapped her arms around his neck to hug him tight. She became the only reason he was still sitting upright. "They said we did it, Aric," she spoke softly, trying to hold back tears. "Are you going to go now??

Aric closed his eyes.

Aric died.

Somewhere between this world and the next, Aric dreamed the dreams of lifetimes infinite. Of lives lived and lost, and a life eternal. Born in 1980, died in 2016; born in 356, died in 378; born in 1980, died in 2042" and on and on and on. He dreamed of the cancer infecting everything, and the ones with the burden to fight it. He dreamed of resting, and what heaven must be like " he dreamed of a wife and children he would never meet, of sisters living full and happy lives, and he dreamed of Max bounding through the yard and happily pouncing him each time he returned home.

Aric was given that choice each time, to embrace the end and take his reward, or to push on. To set his arms aside and let others take up the fight against the cancer of all realities, or to continue on. Aric always considered giving up and allowing himself the true happiness that seemed so well-deserved. But then Aric dreamed of worlds full of misery, of the few bright lights that struggled against the infection even in the face of certain death, he dreamed of those who tried to make the world a better place. How could he find peace in death after knowing that others would never have that same opportunity'

Aric chose to survive.

Aric's eyes re-opened, and he slid an arm around Brun to return her hug as best he could. "No, I'm not going." The young girl's hug tightened, almost suffocating Aric, which he brushed off with a pained laugh and pat to her back. His body was beginning to mend itself and his wounds were healing.

"Aric," Brun's voice had changed, resonating in an ethereal timbre. Her eyes had become otherworldly, almost as if they were windows into another dimension. Brun was not the one speaking.

"Max is twelve years old. His owner has just passed away; he was lost in a terrible tragedy. He died to rescue Max for the second time in his life. Max is lost in the bustle of people, and all he wants to do is stay with his best friend and only family, but he is taken away. A woman approaches Max and kneels down to pet and soothe him, and she speaks to him. Max wags his tail " she reminds him of his owner. The woman starts walking away but she pats her hip, and Max happily follows after.?

I've waited so long for this moment, Aric thought to himself as he accelerated down the highway. I have to save them.

Countless lives and countless deaths; some brought him closer to this day while others took him further away. When he was close he tried to do anything he could to warn them' to tell them not to go. Aric tried phone calls and letters and e-mails and anything else he could manage to get a hold of them, but nothing had ever worked. He was always years early or months late. And when he was early, he could never get there in person for one reason or another.

Except this time.

This time Aric arrived mere hours from the time of the accident. Hours early, and what must have been hundreds of miles away. He woke, not knowing when or where he was, or what happened to him before. As was his routine, the first thing Aric did was to find out the date, time, and his location.

September 30, 2003. 9:47am.

I can make it. Aric only had that one thought in his mind. He couldn't find a phone" he couldn't remember any number to call. There was no time to stop and look, and Aric really only had one choice. He had to get to them, stop them before the accident. No matter what it took, he had to be there.

In his past life, in one of the few memories that Aric never forgot, today was the worst day he ever experienced. It was the day that his sisters died in a car accident. I should have been with them. Maybe I could have seen it coming" stopped it' saved them. Or maybe I should have died with them. In all his years, Aric never understood why he was the one that lived. Not only that, but he one that couldn't die. He was not as smart, or talented, or had the future in front of them that his sisters did. They were bright, cheerful, kind? they didn't deserve their fate. That is one reason Aric lived: so that he might have the chance to come to this very point in time and change their fates. Save their lives, no matter what.

I have to be there.

Aric stood in the vast wasteland of his home city. The inky wisps that reached into the air like dark tentacles produced air for him to breathe, but it was thick and oppressive and made him ill. The unease and sense of dread has never gone away, and Aric's sleep was restless and full of nightmares. It's been pure hell to live on a dead planet for years and years, but it was the Hell he felt he deserved. Over the course of two-hundred years or so, Aric had stopped his suicides and accepted his fate. He watched as the stars in the sky flickered for the last time; the sky which had once been filled with constellations was now almost completely black as the blight spread across the universe. Aric watched the sun be eaten inside out by a swirling pool of blackness.

Aric watched the universe die.

***

The car is sinking too fast. I've got the bumper" too dark, can't see anything. Have to get them out. Can't hold my breath much longer. Have to try. Have to get to the door. Lungs are filling with water can't breath have to hold on. No no no no no

...

...

***

The cold would kill him soon. Aric knew this, just as he knew he would be the last speck of life in this reality for an eternity. He would be doomed to die, be reborn, and die again and again in this empty universe. His apathy lead to the death of countless billions, and he felt it was justified to experience each of their deaths himself. But it was the death of his sisters that always weigh upon him the most.

***

?" witnesses say that the car with the three women was chased down by another car travelling at a high speed. They say it drove erratically, honking its horn and weaving through traffic. The driver of the first car became distracted and lost control, and the second car, which was later reported as stolen, hit the back of the first, which resulted in the first rolling over and falling off the bridge into the river below. It is then reported that the driver of the second car, an unknown male, exited his vehicle and jumped off the bridge a moment later. The three women were identified by baggage which was thrown on to the highway, while the male could not be identified. There were no survivors.?

A knock at the door took Aric's attention from the mirror. He used a towel to clear his face before shouting "It's open!"

Another knock.

Aric sighed and walked out of the bathroom, and as he approached the door he saw an envelope which was shoved underneath the opening. He picked it up and opened the door, but whoever had left it there was already gone. Aric stepped into the hall for a moment to look for the person, but saw no one. He stepped back inside the room and tore open the envelope to see a photograph stuffed inside.

Not a moment later Aric ran out of his room and down the stairs, frantically looking around. "Franklin!" Aric shouted as he spotted the man. "Did you see anyone come to my room?"

Franklin sighed and shook his head, but before he could voice a response, Aric was already out the front doors. He scanned the area, but it was all in vain. Whoever had left him the photograph was gone. After searching for what he thought was hours, Aric returned to his room. He sat on his bed, and stared at the photograph for hours into the night.

Sickness. Aric felt it all around him as he returned from his visit to the Red Dragon Inn to his apartment. He couldn't remember the last time he had a place to call his own that he acquired by pay, nor could he remember when he lived alone. Normally he lived in communities with shared housing, or whoever he had to take under his wing and protect stayed close to him; even as a Baron, he had the people who lived at Old Temple before him, and are still there after his departure. Aric chalked up his uneasiness to being alone for the first time in a long, long time" with only the company of his pets.

But the sickness didn't go away, and intensified. Aric began to feel that unease in the pit of his stomach, and his wishful thinking that all the uneasiness was due to living in unfamiliar isolation began to dissipate. He smelled the decay in the air, and the hairs on his arms and neck stand at attention as the creeping sense of wrongness slithered over his skin. He was unarmed and unprepared, which caused him to pick up the pace to get to his apartment. The problem was that the closer he got, the heavier the air became, and the sense of dread increased.

He was a few yards from the doorway of his apartment when he caught movement from the corner of his eye. The night was darker than it should have been, and the light rain that fell stung as it hit his cheek. With a deep breath, Aric broke into a run for his apartment, but was tackled as he had his fingertips on the doorknob. His shoulder was driven into the soil, and it was only due to the fact that the rain had softened the ground that saved him from breaking or dislocating his collarbone. The figure hissed and spat as it weighed itself down on Aric, its fingers clawing at his face and tearing his flesh. Aric fought through the searing pain of his skin being torn open and used his strength to toss the creature against the wall, giving him time to scramble to his feet.

He could barely see in the darkness, but was able to discern that the figure was a man " likely one that had been overtaken by corruption. Aric would deal with the fact that it had reached RhyDin later, and only if he was able to survive the encounter. As the figure's palm touched the outside of the apartment building, he saw the lumber instantly decay and wither, with it slowly beginning to spread. His torn skin would have done the same, but his body resisted, and the areas around his wounds turned purple to pink over and over as it fought to reject the corruption. The figure spread its limbs apart, and with an unnatural speed, once again leapt toward Aric.

Aric managed to deflect the leap, even as he felt more slick tendrils rip and tear at his body. He ignored the bile that built in the back of his throat and took the moment of reprieve to search his surroundings. A torch in the street flickered, the flame still fighting against the rain and ill air that was having the oxygen sucked from it, and Aric broke into a run for it. The creature behind him screeched, and it was only due to his experience in fighting things like this that kept him from reacting in panic. He focused on the torch and reached out, just managing to grab it as his legs were taken out from under him. He turned to his back and stuck the flame into the body of the figure, and the black, oozing corruption was immediately ignited. A kick sent the fire-engulfed creature away from him, and Aric winced as its dying screeches caused him to turn over and nearly vomit.

Coughing and dry-heaving, Aric fought his way to his feet. He still felt sick as his body worked to purge itself of the corruption, but his work was not done. The air was beginning to lighten, but the decay was still spreading over the apartment building. He worked fast in unlocking and entering his apartment, still carrying the torch. He gathered the only possessions that mattered, which were few, and put the leashes on Helios and Sol. Before exiting, Aric set the torch to a few places in the apartment, and then tossed it on his bed. The fire began to spread, quick and effective, and engulfed the spreading decay. Aric knew that the potential for it to spread was too great, and better to let the fire do its work than have the corruption take root ? there would be no counter for that. He found the fire alarm and pulled it, then pounded on the windows of his neighbors to be sure that they would make it to safety. He waited until everyone had made it out safely and the fire brigade arrived before leaving.

Aric started to walk, but wasn't sure exactly where he was going. His body was still fighting the infection, and each step took an enormous amount of effort. He managed to drag himself to a secluded area where the air was healthy. He managed to lower himself to the ground without collapsing. Before he drifted into unconsciousness, he felt Helios and Sol curl up on either side of him; their steady breathing and warmth easing the pain in his body.