Ten Lives

By Christian Terry

Go to Kelenia, grab the fire emerald then return to Earth rich men. That was the proposition given to Mike Wesley and his brother Louis Scott.
After accepting the quest to hunt down an ancient relic on an alien world from a cryptic stranger, Mike may have gotten more than he bargained for once he awakens with the mark of the hero which grants him the ability to respawn after death, ten times.

Now, between the deadly puzzles and the cuddly yet murderous cat creatures that inhabit the jungles of Kelenia, Mike will need each one of his new lives and his wits if he wants to make it back to Atlanta with his brother in one piece.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Terry
• Release date: Aug 3, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463550366

Book preview

What you're holding in your hands is the culmination of a number of ideas that came together as a story from years of me as a young kid playing in my back yard in Atlanta saving the world from evil and spending my tween and adult years saving the world from evil only using a videogame controller from the comfort of my couch. Look, I'm not trying to brag (even though you're clearly impressed). The idea for Ten Lives came together after a very close friend of mine and I had a phone conversation while we were having a gaming session one night years ago. We were playing a first person shooter, and in the middle of a heated match, my friend asked me, Would you sacrifice yourself to save the world? Deep, I know, asking questions about life while playing a videogame. I hesitated to answer the question, not because it was necessarily a tough question but because my character died. Then he respawned. For those of you who don’t know what respawned means: in videogame terms when you respawn, your character is returning to the game after he or she dies on screen. This isn’t anything new; respawning has been around since the mid 80s. And thus Ten Lives was born, and my friend still didn’t get the answer to his question.

To all the readers out there, I hope you enjoy the ride that awaits you on the next few pages, and if you do happen to be having a good time, be sure to throw me a shout out on social media; I’d be happy to respond! I said respond not respawn. Enjoy the book!

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For Thomas, Desirae, Micah, and all of the daydreamers in the world: this is for you.

Sweating, Louis Scott ran as fast as his legs would carry him, which wasn’t all that fast, objectively. His pale cheeks were flushed with exertion and the heat of the afternoon. He had to make the construction site. If he could just make it there, he had a chance.

Lou, who the kids at school had called Piggy thanks to the low gut that always pushed down on the waistband of his pants, ventured a look over his left shoulder. Shit, he thought, still there. And they were.

All three men Lou had been running from were still right behind him. The only thing keeping them from gaining on him was the general impracticality of their pants. Two of them ran with their hands firmly on their sagging waistbands. The third, a short, stocky guy with a gold front tooth, was taking wide steps as if trying to straddle a low horse.

Lou pounded down the street, although which street it was he wasn’t entirely sure. It was probably one of the ones named after the peach trees Lou had never seen despite living in Georgia his entire life. Of course, he had been living in Atlanta for that whole time, so it was entirely possible, he supposed, that outside of the perimeter was wall-to-wall orchards. But he doubted that.

The low speed chase continued—a chubby, pale twentysomething in jeans and a Battlestar Galactica shirt being chased by three men in baggy pants who were cursing him the whole time.

When I get a hold of you, I’m gonna mess you up, fat boy! the stocky one yelled.

Louis, in response, tried to run a little faster. It wasn’t happening. He was at top speed and slowing every moment.

He had to make it to Mike. Mike would help. Mike always helped. He probably should have had Mike with him in the first place, but the plan had been to be stealthy. He was just going to check things out. Of course, Mike probably would have objected to poking around a gang’s headquarters in the first place, which is why Lou hadn’t bothered him.

In Lou’s pocket, the emerald locator Ariel had given him bounced against his thigh, reminding him of how he had gotten into this mess in the first place.

Louis had met Ariel in the MARTA station. MARTA was Atlanta’s answer to the New York subway system. It was crowded, and Lou, who had never quite gotten the scheduling down, often found himself waiting on his train in the echoing station. The day he met Ariel had been no different. Louis had been on his way to work: a tech support job where he took irate phone calls from people who hadn’t yet bothered to see if their modems had come unplugged. Suddenly, as Lou sat on a bench waiting, a gaunt man with salt and pepper hair and a grey goatee approached him.

At first, Lou had tried to ignore the man. After all, there were plenty of people in Atlanta who wanted money and were none too shy about asking for it should one accidentally make eye contact. But Ariel had been different.

First off, he was claiming to have come from another world. He said that there was no one from his world to vouch for him, but that he could prove he was not from Earth. That claim had sparked Lou’s curiosity. He had approached Ariel, expecting some sort of sleight of hand or trick that would help pass the time until the next train came along.

After a little convincing, Ariel had gotten Lou to follow him to a secluded corner of the MARTA station. Lou, for his part, was becoming surer and surer the old man was going to expose himself and run away laughing. But that is not what happened at all.

There, in a corner tucked behind an overflowing trash can, Ariel showed Lou what he referred to as the emerald locator. It was a small ovoid object sitting in Ariel’s palm, about the size and shape of a metal avocado. Carved into the silvery exterior were strange hieroglyphics the likes of which Lou had never seen before. Then again, Lou’s experience with hieroglyphics was severely lacking, so they might have been very commonplace hieroglyphics for all he knew. Either way, as the old man’s fingers slid over the surface of the oversized metal egg, the hieroglyphics lit up. Above the old man’s hand, a green three-dimensional map floated in the air. There in the middle of it was a pulsing red dot.

That’s the Earth emerald, Ariel said with the air of a magician who had pulled off a trick he wasn’t sure was going to work.

Lou had been convinced. He missed his train while the old man explained how he had traveled from another world to this one using a portal opened by the emerald, how he had been assaulted by a gang (which he referred to as a roving band of highwaymen disguised as clowns), and how said gang had stolen the emerald.

It was the only thing of obvious value I carried upon my person, Ariel finished.

That’s messed up, Lou agreed.

I need help obtaining it again. The reward will be quite handsome.

Why me? Lou asked. It was the first reasonable thing he had said in quite some time.

Because you know this world and its customs.

Louis had agreed that he was, in general, familiar with Earthly customs, but he wasn’t all that sure how that made him a good thief. The next day, however, he had agreed to meet Ariel back at the train station. There Ariel had given him the emerald locator and told him where to find him when he had the emerald in hand.

The portal is near a vast underground river that can be accessed through man-sized holes in your thoroughfares, Ariel said with a flourish.

You’re talking about the sewer, aren’t you?

I don’t know this word: sewer.

Does it stink down by this river?

There is the smell of putrescence, yes.

You live in the sewer.

Lou had made his way to the headquarters of the gang: an abandoned apartment complex. The place had been in the process of being built when the economy collapsed, leaving it finished but empty. There was a tall chain-link security fence around the property that sort of rattled in the breeze as Lou approached. He looked at the floating map above the emerald locator. This was definitely the place.

Lou walked around the property for some time, looking for a break in the fence. The hot August sun beat down on Lou’s head. It was brutally hot out. It was the sort of hot that made one long for the dead of winter. Lou found himself thinking about that as he circled back around to where he had started. Damn, he thought, No break in the fence. There’s no way around it. With that, Lou decided it was time to climb the fence.

Climbing fences had never been a strong suit of Lou’s. When he had been a kid, about twelve years old, Lou had gone with Mike and some of Mike’s friends to go pool hopping. Mike lived with Lou, was his adopted brother, and had always been the more adventurous, stronger, and taller of the two despite being a year younger. That night, the two brothers had snuck out late. Or at least it was late to a twelve-year-old boy. In all reality, it couldn’t have been much later than midnight. The plan had been to make their way to the public pool a couple of blocks from the house, climb the fence, and enjoy the cool water on a hot summer evening.

Things started off