THE SOUL COLLECTORS

CHAPTER 1 - FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS

It was a mistake to think he could have escaped Lucifer's judgment. He was being hunted. There was no denying it.

A sharp exhale escaped John as he weaved in and out of the sparse crowds of Others standing on the side of the crumbling street.

The Others.

Those around him weren't human.

This strange place he found himself in. Where was he? It looked like New York but it wasn't. It was some sort of dystopian shadow of the city he once knew.

Before...

Pushing forward, John turned down an alley to get away from the talking voices. He needed to think and form some sort of plan but everything wasn't as he knew.

Running a shaky hand over his brow to wipe the sweat away, he would have let out a shout of frustration if he had known it would make a difference. But he remained silent. He needed to be as quiet as possible.

Clenching his teeth together, John knew that if he made any noise at all, the one hunting him would find him.

Since the morning of the day before, the sound of chains followed him.

Brushing it off in the beginning as his paranoid imagination and having pushed it to the back of his mind, John tried to ignore the sound but it was soon accompanied by a presence.

A man. Emerging in the wake of the sound.

First, from out of the corner of his eye John had seen him. Vanishing when he turned his head to look. Yet this little game didn't last long as soon in full view, John caught sight of the one that followed.

A tower of a man, dressed in a black suit. His eyes were black with boring pupils of white and his grip were two long lengths of chains.

John's fear was apparent as his fatigue. His strained mental focus was written across his face. A predator's tactic. Tire the prey until they couldn't run anymore.

Away from the busy streets of that crumbling cityscape and into the labyrinth of the alleys.
The echoes of John's frantic footfalls hit against the brick walls of the back alley corridor.  More an inescapable valley of high walled cliffs than a path to freedom.

It was cold, and white wafts of anxious breaths left John's lungs. It was a nightmare. He didn't know where he was going. The streets down which he bolted frantically were not the New York streets of his memory.

Where was he?

Swallowing hard, John tried to gather his focus.

His inner voice reassured that if he took enough turns, he would find his escape. After all, it had worked so far. Yet his luck was running out and every desperate turn was now proving a dead end.

In the chilling night air, with hair clinging to his forehead, there wasn't even time then to wipe the beading sweat away.

Rounding the next corner, John could no longer suppress his howl of ire rising from his core when he was abruptly met with another dead end blocking his path.

There was no way out.

The frustrated roar rose from him as in anger, he kicked the nearest garbage can. With a loud bang, the alley was filled with its deafening crash.

Heaving, John faced the wall as the world fell back into silence. A silence that gave birth to another sound. .

From the quiet nothing of the alley, the sound of footfalls and chains began their approach. The pursuing footsteps a steady sound, looming closer like the slow second-hand ticks on a dying watch.