The Explorer's Quest

Prologue

A mysterious man in black clothing approaches a seller sitting at a round glass table in the outside of a café. He is a man of business, a man who understands the art of the deal. A pistol is situated tightly in a hidden pocket underneath his jacket, for use only on the occasion that things get messier than expected.

The seller sits as still as he can. He wipes the sweat from his hands on his pants and then folds them on the table, taking a sip from his glass of water. He's heard stories of deals that went in the wrong direction, where the buyer walks away with the item and the seller ends up with a bullet in his head. He knew this could very well be one of those deals, which is why he had chosen to meet in a public area. The Black Market was a dangerous business, he could lose his life or end up behind bars at any moment, but it payed greatly and that kept him from giving up. And besides, he liked to live on edge.

The mysterious man in black clothing sits in a chair across from the seller. He places the suitcase on the table but still leaves his hands on it to ensure nobody takes it and runs.

"Afternoon," says the seller. "Lovely day, isn't it?" It wasn't a lovely day. The sun was hidden behind dark grey clouds and thunder could be heard every so often.

"Let's just get on with the deal, shall we?" says the man in black clothing.

A look of disappointment crosses the seller's face. He usually thinks of himself as the friendly type, he likes to make each deal feel like a casual meeting with a good friend (it helps reduce the stress). This man clearly thinks the opposite.

"Look I don't wanna make this any more difficult than it has to be, okay?" says the man in black clothing. "Just give me the journal, take the money and we can all be happy."

"Is that all of the money?"

The man in black clothing opens the suitcase and proves to the seller that all six-hundred dollars are in the suitcase.

The seller pulls a small and very old notebook out of his coat pocket. He holds it with both hands, watching as the impatience grows more and more on the man's face. He opens the notebook and skims through the yellow pages with delicacy, the smell of stale paper and ink rushing through his nose. Whomever this once belonged to had the second worst handwriting he had ever seen as he was sure nothing could be worst than his own.

"Give me the journal and be gone already."

"Answer me this, first," says the seller. "What's so important about this journal that would have you paying six-hundred dollars for it?"

"Why do you need to know?"

"I wanna know what I'm selling to a man as secretive as you."

The sky rumbled above them as a tiny little sprinkle of rain plopped onto the seller's nose. The man in black clothing leaned forward and with a low voice he said, "I am not afraid to kill you if I must. Now you can give me that journal right now and walk away with your life and the money, and we'll never meet again and you can go on with your plans. Or you can refuse to give me the journal and I will walk away from here alive and you will be dead. Now make your decision before I make mine!" He slammed his fist on the table and then leaned back in his seat. The seller notices the man's hand enclosing a pistol resting on his thigh under the table.

"You shoot me and you'll go to prison. With all these people here one's bound to report you." He takes another sip from his glass of water.

The man in black clothing smiles a wide grin, his teeth white like the moon against the pitch black sky. "Look around yourself," he says. Suddenly every person that was there just a few minutes ago is gone. "Seems as though the rain scared everyone away."

Then, almost as though it were on cue, the sky flashed with lightning and boomed with thunder. The clouds opened up and let the rain pour onto the world. Thunder continued to rumble up above and the lightning blinded the seller. Suddenly the smell of hot smoke filled the air. The glass of water shattered, and the seller noticed his stomach felt hot. He felt it with his hand and realized it was blood. His blood. He stood up, snatched the journal away from the table and moved away as fast as he could. He tripped over his feet and collapsed onto the wet ground. The man in black clothing fired the gun again and opened up another wound in the seller's back. Pain surged through the seller's entire chest as blood leaked out of the bullet holes, his face reddening and palms sweating. He struggled himself back up to his feet to resume his escape.

The doors of the café opened and people rushed outside. The seller tried to yell for help but he couldn't. A few people crowded around him and asked things like "Are you okay?" and "Do you need help?" but no one seemed to care about who had shot him. He pointed at the table where the man in black clothing was sitting in hopes that the crowd would see how this happened, but both the man and the suitcase were gone.

He pushed his way out of the crowd, keeping his right hand firm against his stomach and his left hand holding the journal close to his chest. He stumbled into an alleyway and let himself fall to the ground. He crawled up and leaned his back against a dumpster. This is how it all ends, he thought to himself and then coughed out a rough laugh. Pain seared its way through his entire upper body, his eyesight narrowed as the world slowly zoomed out of focus.

A young man rushed over to him lying against the dumpster. "Hey!" The man reached down and grabbed the seller's wrist to examine the blood-stained body. "Holy hell," he murmured to himself, "I need to get you to a doctor!"

"No," the seller said. He tried to gather enough breath to speak and he formed the words in his mouth slowly, "Take it... don't let... him-". He couldn't continue. The alleyway spiraled away and everything went silent. His head fell over and his hands dropped into his lap. A single, bloody exhale of breath left the seller's mouth, leaving him all alone in the cold, dark alleyway.