Snow Storm

Prologue

“You must have known this couldn’t go on forever.”

It was true. Deep down the feeling had been there all along; the knowing that all good runs must come to an end. But not like this. Even in his worst imaginings he hadn’t pictured this, hadn’t accepted the possibility if he was honest, not even now.

“Did you think I would just let this go on? Let you carry on with your games, let you desecrate what was mine?”

He had.

“It’s all about one of the fundamental laws of the universe you see. Every action, no matter how small, has an equal and opposite reaction. That’s how it works, and yet you somehow thought you could, what, circumvent physics, avoid paying the piper? Thought you could just keep taking without giving back? It doesn’t work like that.” The figure glowed in the firelight, a demonic presence, taunting him, the grin turning up at one corner of the mouth more than the other. Twisted. Sneering. The features flickered as the flames rose. If only it was just an apparition, a hallucination, some kind of nightmare he could wake from.

He saw the glint before he realised what it was, considered it with only child like curiosity before it dawned on him with its full consequences.

“You are the devil,” he said, without realising.

His captor laughed manically, throwing his head back. “No, not quite,” he said as he approached, the sneer returning to his face, “but you can say hello to him for me.”

The pain did not register at first. Not until he knew what was happening. And then, it was all there was.