Prologue

This was a dead place.

Nothing that lives had ever been here. No bugs had ever crawled on this floor of rock. Their surface covered in irregular brows, vertical walls of this place were never touched by a single bat. The high ceiling, filled with running cracks, was impervious to drops of water since the beginning of time. And no one's glance had ever been there to pierce the pitch darkness that reigned inside this stone appendix.

In the world that expects mortal men after their imminent demise, this place was deader than death itself. Even though this was but a corner of the afterlife's realm, the very concept of life had never existed in it.

But something had changed.

Something interfered with the usual flow of things. Obeying a whim that was known only to itself, an unknown force dared to challenge that which knew no change. Something that had been stagnant, rigid for thousands and thousands of years, isolated from the rest of the world, no longer belonged to emptiness, devoid of life no more. Air, primeval and untouched, had suddenly become filthy. Sticky wet stains were all over the stone floor. Even the darkness had to make room for that which intruded and turned it into bashful gloom. And the walls… Walls became home for something they'd never known before. Alien. Sinister.

Croaky breathing ragged in the silence. A huge silhouette was framed with a flickering blue light that seemed to hover in mid-air. The creature that possessed that mighty figure was ten times the size of a man, but still bore resemblance to one, if only remotely. The giant was sitting in an uncomfortable pose, with its arms lifted, as if chained to the wall behind it.

It did not move, except for its chest's barely noticeable expansions. It did not sleep. Nor was it aware of where it was and how it ended up here. It was caught in-between two states of awake and asleep, but would a miracle ever let it free and allow it to choose one, even then it could never stop what was to come.

Although, were it conscious, the colossal prisoner would certainly try and free itself, if it heard the sudden violent scream. It came from another, much smaller figure, and it trembled in terror before the blue flame, and struggled desperately. One would think this being was in perfect harmony with this pocket-sized domain that was one with death itself… But it shivered; it tried to throw its shackles off and shrieked in despair.

Even something which had died before in two different ways was afraid of its fate.

It feared the tiny blue star in front of its face.

It feared the giant, immobile and just as powerless to stop the process, already set in motion.

It feared that the third death, that befalls its kin sooner or later, will be final.

Isn't it true that number three has its own mystical power?

The blood-curdling scream became louder and echoed through the dark cave. The shackled giant moved, and a shudder went through all of its body. It was affected by an inconceivable power, and it was doing something beyond the order that was established by the laws of the universe. The little creature's voice was begging for mercy. It took a higher pitch, and then an even higher one, and it made the once naked walls shake. The blue fire burnt brighter and brighter… and then the voice went silent.