Prologue II – February 5, 2011

Disclaimer: except for Alexandra, none of the characters are mine, but belong to Impossible Pictures™.

Ethan raced through the streets, his mind awhirl. He was a fool for thinking that he could stay here – here, in a time and place of so many memories, good and bad – but most importantly, they were memories...

WhathaveIlost, he silently mused, as unbidden memories of his family – father, mother, big brother Danny – raced through his mind. WhathaveIlostingainingthepowertokillanythingIwant,givenenoughtime?Ialmostknownotanymore,butIstillremember!God,butIwishthatthatwouldstop!

As Ethan ran, he was so busy thinking, that he did not watch where he was running.

Smack!

Dazed, Ethan staggered back and looked at the ad at the bus stop that he had run into. "Lee's Hardware Store, opened this week? Hmm. Lee..."

As Ethan looked at the ad, memories of his past continued to swirl in his head, this time bringing to mind a taller, stronger, blond boy that constantly harassed him in shop and music class, especially whenever Ethan's older brother was not around.

"Lee," Ethan said slowly, as he remembered. "Lee..." His facial expression shifted, transforming from a face of a man who was lost back into a face of a man who was one a mission – a seriously nasty one. "Lee. Well. I may not belong here, but gosh and damn, I still can have some fun while I'm here!"

With a nasty smirk that did not quite reach his hollow eyes, Ethan abruptly shifted his position and went off in a new direction, full of his old, deadly purpose.

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"Excuse me, Mr. Lee?"

"Yes?" the blonde asked as he turned around and found himself confronting a shorter and darker man than himself, but approximately of the same age as he. "What are you doing here? We are not open yet! For that matter – how did you get into here? The store's closed!"

"Oh, Lee," the other man shook his head, "you always were so fast in your head – surely you can remember me, the little Patrick?"

"Patrick?" the man blinked, as indignation gave way to confusion and fear, "what are you talking about? I don't know any Patrick!"

"No?" the other man grinned nastily, as he picked up several of hardware store's merchandise from the shelves behind him. "Then let me remind you in a great detail!"

\\\

"Well! That was fun!" Ethan exclaimed about two hours later, after he finished doing what he did best: killing people with great prejudice, blood and pain: Lee's consciousness was gone even before his life was over.

"Aye! I quite agree!"

Slowly, Ethan turned around, worried as to how a stranger could have sneaked up on him without him noticing and realized that she was standing in front of a manifested time anomaly.

"Hmm." Appraisingly, Ethan looked at his interlocutrix, from the tips of her toes to her blue-tinged hair and the horn, jutting from her forehead. "Interesting. I believe I saw you – or someone like you in that land, where dinosaurs attacked from trees. Are you from that time?"

"Yes," the woman nodded cheerfully. "Alexandra Anderson at your service, though I'm hoping that the service will be yours."

"Excuse me?" Ethan said, curious despite his best intentions.

"Oh, you know, do you care to join my force and all? There are times to travel, people to kill and all that other tripe that you read about in advertisement papers..."

"Don't diss the advertisements," Ethan spoke-up in a mock-stern voice. "That's how I found my fellow Lee here, after all."

"Mmm, and a nice job you did on him," Alexandra nodded solemnly, clearly impressed. "If you were to work with me and my people, you will have many more opportunities to do something like that."

Ethan did not hesitate one bit. After all, killing people was what made him feel better, or at least good.

"All right, lady, you got yourself a deal!" he said, rubbing his hands with near delight as he approached Alexandra and her time anomaly. "Where shall we go first?"

End of Prologue