A Multitude Of Lies

Chapter 6 - Ribbons

Mike was thrown from his chariot as the mob descending from the temple reached him. Like the tide rising on a low-lying island, he was engulfed by the angry mob. Looking up, he saw a familiar face, one he knew too well. Belinda's face, but it wasn't her. In order to save her in the present, he had to travel to the past to ensure that the tyrant that subjugated her ancestors failed to do so. And his life was forfeit, for the tyrant in the books was him, and he was the tyrant.

The makeshift spear made contact, thrusting through the seams of his leather corselet and into his sides. Time stopped. The mob, adamant on his destruction froze, and a moment of serendipity befell the new battleground. As darkness encroached his vision, he saw a white light leading to the heavens, and his life in a playback loop. It must be so. His death was needed to prevent the genocide from ever happening.

It is done. My work is complete.

My work is complete. I stared at the last four words that I have written for the better part of an hour. All of a sudden, things fell into place like clockwork. I knew what I needed to do and where I needed to go.

I hastily printed the manuscript while I ran to the bathroom to throw up. The adrenaline rush had taken its toll on my body over the past eighteen hours. Surviving on a concoction of energy drinks and caffeine, I had forgone all food in my writing frenzy. The exhilaration of completing my first novel had turned me into a zombie of sorts.

A shower and a shave later, I was out of the house with the manuscript in hand. It didn't matter that it was three in the morning, I had to get to Rudolph's.

"I did it. I completed my project and I need your help now. It's urgent!" I half yelled into the phone as I drove down the expressway to where Rudolph lives.

I was at his front door within minutes. When he opened the door, I pushed past him and waved my manuscript in his face. With a sigh, he grabbed the stack of paper - the culmination of all my apprehensions and regrets, and hours of hair shredding frustrations, and took a gander.

I sat impatiently on his couch, waiting for a reaction from him.