Divine Intervention

  The cell was pitch black and smelled of piss and excrements from the countless other prisoners who had previously occupied it. 

  The prisoner sat in silence with only the occasional rat to keep him company. He could hear it scurrying in the dark in search of food or anything to satiate its hunger. 

  He could relate to that. It had been nearly five years since he was brought to this place. And not once was he offered something that could be considered “food”. 

  The rat, having decided that its hunger was greater than its fear drew closer to the still prisoner unable to resist the easy meal.

  Just as the rat came within an arms reach, the prisoner scooped up the rat and in one swift motion he broke its neck. 

  He didn’t enjoy the taste but it was far more pleasant than the insects he’d tried to eat during his first year in the cell.

   After he finished eating he wiped the blood from his mouth and continued to do as he did everyday since his incarceration.

 He waited.

  No one stayed in the cell for long and once he was gone he had no doubt there would be another prisoner to take his place. It was only a matter of time before his execution would be carried out. 

  He often wondered “what was taking them so long?”

  He’d expected to be dragged from his during his first year and presented in front of the world so that everyone could witness his demise.

  They’ll probably have parades to commemorate the occasion. People from all around the world would come together. Waring nations would hold ceasefires. 

  For a brief moment the world would be at peace. 

  Most people would have found some comfort in knowing that their deaths would accomplish what years of wars and treaties could not. However, the prisoner wasn’t most people.

  To him the world was nothing but an empty void. 

  People would just end up killing each other eventually. 

  For all their talk of evolution he found people to be the most savage creatures to have ever walked the earth.

  They fight wars and slaughter thousands over their made up beliefs and ideals. 

  They enslave and discriminate one another for simply looking different or believing a different religion. 

  They destroy the planet for personal profit and cause the extinction of entire species.

   The list goes on and on. 

  It would be sad if it wasn’t so pathetic.

  Footsteps thundered down the corridor and stopped in front of the cell.  

  There was usually only one guard to “check in” on him around this time and yet he counted at least four based on their footsteps.

  “Prisoner 071304, step away from the door with your back turned and your hands against the wall.”

  That’s odd he thought, “they’d usually just start beating the hell out of me, perhaps today’s the day.”

  After a pair of handcuffs were tightened around his wrists a sack was thrown over his head.

  He was led down a long corridor with a guard on either side. 

  Click

  He heard the click of a door opening before the sack was removed. 

  He stood in a dark room with only a dim light hanging from the ceiling. 

  In the center of the room was a warn down black leather chair with restraints hanging from its sides. A man dressed in all white stood off to the side with a cart carrying an assortment of medical instruments. 

  The ones that stood out the most to him were a syringe and cannula. 

  “How original” he thought.

    Once he was seated the guards removed his handcuffs and tightened the chair’s restraints around his arms, legs and body.

  The man dressed all in white inserted the cannula into the prisoner’s arm before filling the syringe with potassium chloride. 

  “This is a lot better than what you deserve scum bag” said the guard on his left. “As far as I’m concerned you’re getting off easy.”

  The prisoner didn’t respond. He hadn’t spoken a single word since he arrived to this place. 

  “Yeah, If I had it my way I’d cut a piece of you every day till there wasn’t anything left” said the guard on his right.

  He couldn’t blame them for wanting him to suffer. It was only natural after all he’d done. Some of these guards probably lost friends and family because of him. 

  “It doesn’t matter” he thought. “Nothing matters.”

  The potassium chloride was administered into the cannula. In moments his body would go numb and his heart would slow before completely stopping.

  He was given no sedative nor paralytic agent to stop his body from jerking and thrashing uncontrollably. He may have accepted death but his body would not. Like all living things it fought and struggled against the inevitable hands of fate.

  However it seemed as though fate had other plans in store for him.

  As death’s cold icy grip tightened around him a voice called out from beyond the boundaries of space and time.

  Through his clouded gaze, he could no longer see the dim light that had hung from the ceiling but an enormous sun in a vast blue sky.

  It was as if reality itself had shattered like glass around him and a new world had presented itself. The guards and man in white had faded away along with the rest of the room.

  The voice grew louder as his gaze sharpened and his heart began to beat once more.

  “Excuse me sir” said the mysterious voice. “You wouldn’t happen to be the great hero, Maximus Luminose?”

  It was in that moment that prisoner 071304, aka Maxwell Lumin, the most hated and feared villain on earth was sent to another world.