“The Death Ratio,” The Butterfly uttered, frightening the people present.

“What... is that?” The man he was meeting with asked hesitantly.

“It’s the number of universes where you die starting from now to a certain time divided by the number of possible universes. For some, the ratio is very high, meaning that at any moment, there is a good chance they may die.”

The man gulped, he was visibly distressed

“Do you want to know what your number is? It’s a good 99.314%, so you can imagine what will happen next...”

The man started to cry. He got up and tried to run, only to trip over and go unconscious. Then, blood, lots of blood. Then laughter, and a smile. The Butterfly sat there for a moment, deep in thought. He thought about his own death ratio. The more powerful a man is, the lower his death ratio is. Why? Well, picture a man who is stronger than a bear. If he ever fights a bear, instead of dying, he lives. He always believed that the strongest man, the one to be revered as a god, would have a ratio of 0. So why, why wasn’t he the one, why was his ratio 50%? An exact 50, no decimals, higher than a lot of people weaker than him. It made no sense, he had never found a time in which he died prematurely. He searched everywhere, he had already done so years ago, measuring out each and every future and the path it would take to get there. He walked out of the room, his clothes stained red.

From behind him, Miko found himself being yelled at like a six-year-old.

“What a pain, some random guy comes and starts pissing himself while shooting and I get shit when I end his miserable existence?”

Once he turned the corner, the yelling stopped. Miko wanted to teleport himself far, far away but knew that by doing that, he’d be breaking his promise. He couldn’t do it, he could never teleport again. What would Reese think of him then? He shuddered at the thought and continued walking. Then, he suddenly realized that he didn’t actually have a destination in mind. There were several places he could go. He could go back to his house, Reese’s house, or the furniture store to sleep in their comfy, expensive, beds. He then noticed the truth, there was only one real answer, those sweet, elegant, luxurious, sensational beds. Although he did hesitate for a moment, he could not resist the temptation. He was drawn in like a moth to a flame. When he arrived at the front door, he noticed that inside, lay his most feared arch-nemesis, people. Disgusting, evil, people. Thankfully, he was able to hide from this fearsome opponent with his power of invisibility and was able to claim his prize, a bed. While snuggling between the soft white sheets, he started to think about the bed, and what it was made of. A long time ago, when he first laid his back on it, he tried to replicate it with his powers. He tried so many countless times but was never able to replicate that soft, smooth feeling. He wondered if there was some special step to creating a bed that he was unaware of, some minor detail that made all the difference. He sometimes wished he could create a bed on his own, then he’d never have to enter this stupid store, but he did not care. The bed gave him comfort no matter what. That warm comfort stopped him from thinking too hard, and slowly made him drift off to sleep.

He woke up to some surprised faces. It appeared that someone opening the store found him snoozing on a mattress. Then he remembered that he had no control over his powers while asleep. So when he fell asleep, everyone could see him. He suddenly felt his face redden as he ducked underneath the covers to hide from the angry people. Usually, the store owners wouldn’t mind, but today, they became tired of his crap, every day for the past two years he’d been coming to this store and unknowingly terrorizing them with his bad habits. Up until now, they put up with it because retail workers always get screwed over in these situations and they also didn’t like the idea of confronting a man with powers like Miko had, especially when they seemed to have a screw or two loose. But now, they had just about all they could take and started to smack the bed with pillows. Feeling the pillows, Miko poked his head out of the covers just in time to see a worker slowly walking towards him, with a large lamp in his hands. That was when Miko realized he was in big trouble, so he jumped out of bed and sprinted towards the door. And, like an angry mob, the workers chased after him, yelling one obscenity after another. Miko ran as fast as he could, trying to lose his followers. He kept on, hoping to tire out the workers, but they didn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon. With enough space behind him, Miko turned into a narrow alleyway to take a rest. Without looking, he bumped into a woman, also oblivious to his sudden turn. They both fall over in pain, clutching their faces.

“Ahh, my head” she moaned, “please watch where you’re going next time”

She leaned her head against the wall and looked at the man who ran into him. She could also hear loud shouts from outside the alleyway, so she got up and poked her head out.

“Where’d he go, he just turned this way,” said one of the workers.

“Find him!” yelled another, eager to get revenge.

He watched her very closely, he knew what was about to happen next. He was on the run from a bunch of people who didn’t seem to be gangsters, he knew how he looked to her. But what she said, he didn’t expect.

“He went that way!” she said, pointing further down the street, away from the alley. While the crowd went by, she blocked the alley so no one could see inside it. Miko watched and was completely baffled. He wondered what this person was thinking, why she chose to help him. These thoughts made his heart throb, and that scared him. He panicked, and in the heat of the moment, he teleported away. He clutched his chest, his head bursting with pain. He staggered forward, then fell to his knees in agony. He didn’t understand, all he could think about is why. Something changed in him then, the pain stopped, and he lay on the floor to rest. He looked up at the clear sky and sighed, he wasn’t getting anywhere, he saw nothing about what was in front of him. Of course, one little, tiny, inconsequential action would have him overreacting. Nothing he did or said was truly unconscious, only a natural reaction his brain would have otherwise chosen even in a different circumstance. To say something is magnificent at first sight is just the brain convincing itself of a miracle. With that logic, destiny is just our imagination, when things line up, we assume the world told them to. At this moment he was reminded of his childhood dog, Doggy, the only thing he ever cared for as a kid. He loved that dog, ever since he first saw him by the lake in the park he would always walk through alone. He was so lonely, and then there was another creature, without anyone beside it. The dog had a collar, but nobody around the park said it was theirs, so he concluded that it had been abandoned, and decided to take it in. He slowly walked it home, at first, it was reluctant to go with him, barking as if they were strangers. It seemed Doggy didn’t understand the connection he felt when their eyes met, the pain that they shared, both together and alone. When he got home he hid Doggy in the shed, where nobody went, since it was covered in spider webs and dust. Every day when his parents weren’t home, he’d take Doggy out to play, and then as soon as he heard them return, he’d put him back in the shed. He couldn’t risk his parents finding out, they loved to take everything that he ever felt close to away. If they found Doggy, they would kill him for sure. So he would be extremely alert when playing with Doggy so that his parents would never catch him. But one day, he got too excited playing with Doggy that he forgot to check the driveway, and his parents found Doggy. He had lost all hope for keeping Doggy safe, he was sure his parents would kill him, but instead, they did something much worse, they kept him for themselves. Those bastards, they never allowed him to see Doggy again, and he was sure that they now played with it, all the while laughing at his misery. It angered him, the unfairness of the world angered him, his powerlessness angered him, and he vowed to get revenge. If the world was truly unfair, then all he had to do was play by the rules. The dog first gave him love, and it now fueled his hatred, and it made the pain worse. So he decided to take care of both of his problems. He knew where the dog slept, it had to be the shed. So, one night, while everyone was sleeping, he took a knife from the kitchen and headed to the shed. He found the dog, curled up and shaking from the cold of the winter. He raised the knife and slammed it on the dog’s head. The dog instantly woke up and started snarling, but was too hurt to move. So he stabbed him again, and again, and again, until the snarls turned into whimpers, each one quieter than the next until there was silence. The blood had splattered all over the shed and silently slid down the walls and out of the dog, forming a pool of red. It was over, the pain was over, but, as one moment of hell ended, the next one began.

“Where did he go?” the woman asked herself, completely puzzled. “He was right there and then he just vanished”

She took a look outside and saw that the mob that had been chasing him had finally passed. She now remembered that the people that were chasing that man were from the furniture shop down the street. Considering the situation, he must have been shoplifting, so why did she help him? A confused feeling sat in her while she thought. She knew she must have rescued him for some reason, but could not guess what it was. How did she know that he wasn’t a bad person? That conflicted with her beliefs, there was no way she saved a thief. So she decided to make up some stories about why a good man was running from angry retail workers. Maybe he exposed a money laundering scheme as an undercover cop or found them to be guilty of tax fraud. Or maybe the mafia was using that store as a front, and that guy accidentally caught a glimpse of the boss’ face. Or what if they were aliens, and they tracked down the only man in the universe able to defeat them, then disguised themselves as the first humans they found in the store, then caught him by surprise while he didn't have his special powers active yet, and for that, he needs to find the old guardian of the universe in order to help him reach his full potential. And that would explain his disappearing, he can teleport! Actually, on second thought, that would be a huge plot hole since then he wouldn’t have to run away from the aliens. Well, it didn’t matter anymore, she had missed whatever tiny slice of mystery that she was gifted by the world. She cursed herself for not asking his name and went on her day as usual, but feeling a little more special.

“Nothing ever changes,” Reese found himself saying. He was never one to be so pessimistic, in fact, he was known for being the charismatic, optimistic guy, the one who lights up the party. But when he met Miko, he found a character he had never thought previously existed. And so maybe that’s when things changed. But he didn’t really change, it was only that his perfect world was crushed, the one where everyone could be happy. But maybe that perfect storm was exactly what he needed in order for him to find his next move, to restore that perfection that he found so much pleasure in all those years ago. For things to make sense again, to realign with his beliefs, nothing could stop him from that dream. Anything else would be purely unstable, and if he failed, that would mean the destruction of all that had been built. So that was why he stuck with Miko, an anomaly within an absolute universe. But sometimes he felt it was purely hopeless. One moment, he thought so much had been achieved, only to witness it being ripped away right in front of him, then run over, shredded, ground to a pulp, drunk with acid, vomited into the toilet, flushed, and then left to rot in the sewers, only to be eaten by maggots and shit out. Some say people can’t be happy if they don’t want to, and some say that they have to strive to improve themselves. Others say that happiness can be found when you find someone you love, or something you love doing, or both. But no advice makes any sense when it comes to Miko. What motivation can possibly be given to him? What would make him realize his life is bad when he could have anything? How could he find something for him to love when all he does is hate? And the more he does, the less he will do, and the further he is from happiness. It was an impossible task, and he hated himself for saying it. He wanted to believe, he needed to believe but maybe it was not to be. But he then found that he could not accept that, how could one person break the pattern so effortlessly, so meaninglessly, almost as if there was no pattern to begin with? It was almost as if he existed to prove him wrong. So then he challenged himself and the world once again and stood back up.

So, his second first step was to devise a plan to make Miko happy. He had put so much thought into what makes people happy, and after many years in the field, nothing worked on everyone except one thing, death. Hah, no that would be silly, no obviously it’s love, biological, dopamine-releasing love. Happiness comes from within the brain, because of dopamine or other neurotransmitters, which award the brain with pleasure. The more rewarding behaviour, the more dopamine, and the more it feels good. And all of his experimenting led him to believe that the strongest, most feel-good behaviour a human can possibly do is fall in love. From an evolutionary standpoint, it is the most vital process for the survival of the species. And the most important action naturally awards the most dopamine. But he always had doubts about its success rate, even though it was his trump card. After all, how do you illustrate love to someone who hates everyone? For now, this was the largest roadblock, and in order for the plan to succeed, he needed to find out how to deal with this. As for the rest of his plan, he would need to find someone and ask her to go out on a date with Miko. But then that brought up a whole new issue. It would be one hassle to get Miko to like someone, but it would be a whole other ordeal in order to get someone to like him. He’s socially awkward, has terrifying powers, and is naturally adept at keeping himself locked up. Even if he were to let someone in close, he’d just end up pushing them away. So basically, a short or long-term relationship would be out of the question, unless there was a miracle, but experience had taught him that with Miko, miracles never come. So dating wasn’t the answer, but dating isn’t the only form of love available. That's when he decided that he needed some rest, so Reese stopped thinking.