The fact that the whole incident took place on Friday night was a blessing in disguise, as it allowed me the opportunity to regain my bearings. The weekend found me back at Samuel’s place. I was eager to share my conundrum with Samuel so that I could resolve the conflicted emotions within me.

I reached Samuel's place early in the morning and was welcomed with the familiar dry tone. We soon made our way into the gym and Samuel instructed me to join him on the training mat. Seeing no reason to decline, I followed to the mat and soon we were having a practice spar.

As soon we got into the rhythm of the spar, Samuel asked me, “So, what brings you here?”

“The dead rising.”, I replied nonchalantly, almost as if it was a daily occurrence.

Samuel was taken aback and there was a momentary pause in the action as he stared at me and asked, “What do you mean?”

I answered, tone still nonchalant, “I was at a party yesterday.  Guess who showed up uninvited?”

Samuel just shot me a curious look, so I said, “Tom.”

“Tom?”

“Yeah, Tom! You know, the guy who had betrayed us. The guy you pummelled and left for dead. The guy who the Council confirmed as deceased.”

Samuel stood there gaping like a fish as I took in his expression with joy. It was not every day that I managed to stump him and leave him at a loss of words,  after all.

I didn’t wait around for him to respond. I continued, “Anyways, he showed up at the party, eyes dead and face devoid of any emotion. It was clear to me early on that he was resurrected, or rather, reanimated.”

He quickly asked, “Sol Syntrivon?”

I nodded, “Sol Syntrivon.”

Samuel’s visage turned into a grim one as he asked, “What happened?”

I proceeded to relay the events of my fight with Tom. Just like me, he was concerned about the self-healing powers of the reanimated corpse. The rumour was that the necromancer had a massive army mainly comprised of the dead. Reanimated corpses with healing powers and in large qualities would prove to be a major problem.

He wasn’t too concerned with the mark of the reaper on Tom, much to my surprise. He seemed to have a mentality of what will happen and there was no use in too much fussing over it. It was in complete contrast to the obsession I seemed to have the mark of the reaper and it seemed to have taken over a major portion of my life, especially with it popping around at completely random and inopportune moments.

I had an inkling that the arrival of Sol Syntivon on earth would shed some more light on this whole situation with the Grim Reaper. My only concern was that I wouldn’t survive the encounter with Sol Syntrivon to do anything with the acquired knowledge.

Our conversation was interrupted by a knock on the window. Turning around, we saw Eirini outside, floating in the air, stiff as a board. I was quite surprised to see him here as I expected him to be deeply involved in the strategic meetings for the war against Sol Syntrivon.

Samuel proceeded to open the window to allow him to enter. Eirini’s stoic look shifted into one of embarrassment as he said, “I am sorry for coming through the window. I know its considered proper to enter through a door. I just didn’t see any way to enter the building by the door without breaking it open.”

We could only gaze at him before Samuel said, “Couldn’t you ring the bell? To signal your desire to enter?”

Eirini looked puzzled, “Sorry, Samuel but I don’t carry a bell around me at all times. You earthwalkers surely do have strange customs.”

Samuel replied, incredulity evident in his tone, “No, I meant the doorbell that is already present at the door. Every house has one. Don’t you have anything on your planet resembling this?”

Eirini was quick to quip, “Mars isn’t a planet that is overtaken by paranoia like your planet is, Samuel. Doors of every abode in Mars is always open for any guest, no matter the reason or the time. We never do need to signal our intent to enter. Now, can you take me to see this contraption? The whole concept is fascinating to me!”

It was with great amusement that I watched a clearly irritated Samuel take Eirini to see the ‘contraption’, as he’d put it. When they came back, Eirini asked me a question out of the blue. “David, I have come to find out that an expected acquaintance of yours made his presence felt last night. An acquaintance that you believed to be dead if I am correct?”’

I was quite surprised that he knew about my confrontation with Tom last night, before realising that the Council must have someone or something monitoring me. It only made sense, I suppose, not to let your ‘potentially valuable asset’ get damaged somehow!

“Yes, I guess the Council informed you, huh?”

“That’s true. Did anything significant happen that stood out from the fight,”, Eirini seemed more intrigued than usual.

I once again relayed the sequence of events. But this time, I concentrated on two parts that were especially significant to me.

“Yeah, first of all, after I put Tom in an irrecoverable state, he just disintegrated into ashes. That is quite different than what you described to your brethren. And secondly, he had a mark on his chest that represented the Grim Reaper. Any idea what that is about or how Sol Syntrivon could be connected to the Grim Reaper?”

With raised eyebrows, Eirini asked, “The Harbinger of Death? How are you aware of his mark? I wasn’t aware that he was held in any regard on this planet.”

“Let’s just say I had the misfortune of meeting him and he branded me with his mark.”, I succinctly replied.

His eyebrows rose higher in surprise. Any more and they would leave his head altogether.

“The Grim Reaper, or Charos as my brethren call him, is held in high regard in many planets, including mine. To be branded by him means you have earned his notice somehow. It could be a test of some sort or you may have just earned his ire. I am not too sure, as Charos hasn’t been sighted on my planet since before the birth of my clan.”

I was astounded to hear that because, in my experience, I couldn’t go two weeks without him having some sort of impact in my life, almost always to my detriment. I asked him, “Is he like a deity to the Untethered or something?”

Eirini seemed to contemplate my question for a few moments before answering, “It isn’t clear what he is, David. Some cultures say he is a deity, a God if you will, one of the forces of nature, an inevitable reckoning for any Untethered. Other cultures believe him to be just another Untethered, powerful beyond measure, but an Untethered just the same. Whatever your belief is, one thing is for certain. Charos isn’t someone to be trifled with.”

Before I could continue on this track, Samuel brought us back to the immediate problem on our hands.

“As much as I’d like to talk about the Grim Reaper and the unpleasant prospects he represents, I think our concern right now should be the necromancer about to invade our planet.”

Eirini and I could only nod at that before Eirini said, “Sol Syntrivon has made the first move. While it is unclear why he would target you, I would hazard a guess that it is the same reason why I sought you out when I was looking for the strongest person on your planet.”

While I wasn’t sure that the fact that I was targeted had just to do with me a three-slotter, I couldn’t convince anyone of that. So I asked, “What next?”

Eirini replied, “The assault on David was a part of feeling us out, getting a feel of our strength. If my understanding of the necromancer’s tactics is correct, then he will employ diversion tactics next, a perfect complement to his guerrilla warfare.”

“How? He is still on his way here, based on what you said at the Council meeting.”

“Yes, that is true. Even his generals might still be with him. But some of his forces might get ahead, just to pick us off.”

Samuel piped up at this point, asking, “You said something about diversionary tactics. How do you reckon they will do that?”

Eirini replied, “I don’t know. I just know that Syntrivon is a master tactician with a conniving mind. He will make sure our forces are divided and our focus is spread over different matters. He will try to create roadblocks on the way that is sure to take the majority of our forces to resolve. That’s his modus operandi. He will make sure that he doesn’t have to face the full might of any planet’s forces.”

I asked, “Is this what he did with the other planets?”

“Nothing was ever officially confirmed. But I know this, David. Just before the invasion of Venus, major trade ships between Mars and Venus were the targets of concentrated smuggler attacks. Too coincidental, in my opinion, especially when you consider that Venus had to retaliate with a major portion of their forces, compromising them when the time came for Syntivon to attack.”

The prospect of war grew grimmer and the chances of our victory grew dimmer with every fact about Sol Syntrivon’s methods and strategies coming to light. Underhanded tactics, dishonourable methods and tipping the scales in one’s favour even before a confrontation. It seemed like there wasn’t a low he wouldn’t stoop to win a war. While I may not agree with his methods, I couldn’t help but grudgingly respect his desire to win at all costs. It was a ruthlessness that I wished I possessed but didn’t seem to have the stomach for.

Samuel decided to make his opinion at this point. “I think the only thing that we can do right now is to prepare ourselves for the inevitable and get stronger, faster, better. I think any aggression from the side of the enemy is still some ways away.”

I would like to tell you that I don’t believe in things like luck and jinxes. But I would be lying. Because I do. A lot. And my belief was validated even more when just after Samuel was finished saying his spiel, we heard a loud, continuous noise outside our building.

We moved to the window to see what was going on, expecting to see some sort of mundane activity not concerning us. Instead, what we saw had our jaws on the ground.

There in the sky above us, dangerously close to the numerous skyscrapers that defined the skyline of this city was a large spaceship, easily resembling the most fantastical spaceships I had ever seen in movies or games. The spaceship was Untethered property as right before our eyes, it phased right through a building in its way.

There was something very wrong with the picture I was witnessing though. Because it wasn’t just us that could see the ship. On the streets below us and the various windows I could see through, ordinary mortals were also gaping and pointing fingers at the spectacle that only Untethered should have been witness to.

Before long, everyone was looking towards the intimidating ship. Most had their phones out and were recording the event and no doubt, this would be plastered all over the internet and television networks within the next few minutes.

The mortal world had just become witness to something it had no business getting involved in.

Samuel eloquently described the emotions we were all experiencing at that moment.

“Well, fuck!”