In the north pole, the nights are short. As a result, the sun was already creeping up on the horizon when Solomon finished looking through the books at the library.

The librarian felt like this was all a dream. In the quiet library, the bookshelves were here only company once again. The only evidence that he had even been here was his parting words that still hung in the air like mist.

"My name is Solomon by the way... Stay safe and be kind."

...

In front of the rising sun, the frost that blanketed the golden sand evaporated away into a fine mist. The quietness of night was broken by the hustle and bustle of the people waking up and getting ready for a day's work.

Standing atop one of the enormous town walls, Solomon sighed. As he watched the people below go about their daily lives, without a care in the world, he couldn't help wondering if he would ever be that content again.

He doubted he would be. Case and point were what he was about to do right now. He gathered himself and leapt off the top of the wall that ringed the city.

Digging his tail into the wall, he slowed his fall and came to a slightly more grateful stop than usual. You could see where he fell because a deep groove was carved out of the sturdy stone wall.

Leaving the town behind him, he burst into a sprint and ran straight out into the desert. His plan was simple. He would kill as many scorpions as possible until his venom was powerful enough to hold its own against the Shrike.

The biggest stumbling block for this plan was that he needed to find the aforementioned scorpions. But, he had a clue when it came to this.

He had read through the encyclopedia of desert monsters in the library and memorised the portion on scorpions. Apparently, the natives called them reapers.

The reaper hierarchy was fairly simple insect stuff. Soldier, King, Queen. With him, as he was now, he doubted he could kill a king or queen so he set his sights lower. He would wipe out enough soldiers that the king would take notice and come to him.

When trying to find the scorpions, he thought back to what the book had said, "They seem to bury themselves under the sand and wait for prey to pass over their hiding spots. However, one distinctive trait they have is bloodlust. When they smell blood, they go into a frenzy and come out of hiding."

Solomon even remembered reading that their nickname was sand sharks because of their insane abilities to sense blood.

It shouldn't be too difficult to lure them out once he had some blood, the next problem came now. How was he supposed to get his hands on loads of blood?

Of course, you would assume he could just go kill something. But, in the desert, everything wants to kill everything else. This results in a stalemate where all the creatures living here are extraordinarily sneaky.

He doubted running about like an idiot would find much success. In the end, he resolved to use himself as bait. That was how he caught the last scorpion after all.

Gritting his teeth, Solomon sliced open his arm and lay down on the ground. The wound was shallow and healed quickly but it still hurt like hell.

Lying on his back, with his face towards the sky, he remained deathly still. Solomon was playing dead. Waiting for the moment when... the hunter would become the hunted.

In the sky above him, he saw the distant shadow of a vulture. Its wingspan was 10s of metres and each lazy flap carried it 100s of metres through the clear blue sky.

Solomon held his breath and watched the vulture. It circled lazily above him. Constantly scanning the area for predators. Clearly, it was in no rush to eat this prey. In the desert, there was no such thing as a free lunch.

Watching the casual wingbeats of the vulture, Solomon felt burning envy rise up in his chest. 'Arrogant bird! Just come down here and see what happens you smug prick' He thought.

He hadn't seen many birds lately, he did spend most of his time in hell after all. But, he remembered the birds he had seen in his memories. Coming and going as they pleased from the slave camp.

All the while, he was trapped there in the shack. The first time he had seen a bird, he was left in awe. 'To think such a wonderous creature exists. Even gravity can't bind them.' He had thought. These were the sorts of thoughts he had when he was young of course.

As he had grown older and his mind was twisted by the hatred and isolation, what had once been awe and wonder, warped into envy and hatred. He hated those birds that were free to live as they pleased. Every flap of their wings felt arrogant to him.

While Solomon wasn't the same person as could be seen in his memories. That didn't mean those memories had no effect on him at all. Certain things and feelings had been carried over from his past life.

For instance, he had gained a crushing fear of claustrophobia and hated every second spent in hell. Another change was that he had become less trusting. And, perhaps the strangest change he felt, was his hatred of birds.

It wasn't just him in his past life either. Even the current him didn't like them. From his perspective, they had everything he wanted. If he could only free himself from gravity and fly freely amongst the clouds. How wonderous would that be?

So, when the vulture finally stopped circling in the sky above him and began to dive down towards him, Solomon's thoughts were a mess.

'Yes! Yes! Just a bit closer you smug prick. I'll pluck out those fancy fucking feathers and use you as bait.'

The closer the vulture got to him, the harder Solomon had to suppress the urge to jump up and strangle it. Each wingbeat was bringing it closer to its death.

Then, right as the vulture was coming into arms reach, Solomon had a brain wave. 'What if I injure it... and then when it tries to fly away, I grab on and, and it will take me up into the skies'

Usually, Solomon was a fairly rational person. He wasn't impulsive like Hyde was and he would try his best to think things through.

The only exception to this, was when it came to flying. Recently, the idea of flying had become more and more intoxicating to him. Just the feeling of falling with the barge had been euphoric and remembering it made his heart beat faster.

If he had to place a reason for his recent obsession with flying, he would have to blame it on his [Path]. Since his [Path] focused on freedom and flying was one of the truest forms of freedom (for Solomon anyway) He felt that it was natural he would like it.

That's why, when he did what he was about to do next, he didn't think about trivial things like... being thrown off and dying or accidentally killing the bird and falling together. The only thing on his mind was the possibility of flying.

With a whoosh of air, the vulture flew down close to the ground. Behind it, sand sprayed out like the trail behind an aeroplane.

The vulture reached forwards with its wickedly sharp, talons towards Solomon who was lying as still as a corpse.

It scooped up the 'Corpse' and took off into the air without ever stopping once. With each beat of its mighty wings. The vulture gained more and more altitude. Beneath it, the desert shrank away and the horizon extended further and further outwards.

The completely cloudless sky allowed one to see in any direction. To the north, the towering walls of a fortress city peaked out over the sand dunes. In all other directions, sand sprawled out endlessly. But, if you squinted hard enough, you might be able to see and barrier of green pinning in the desert. This barrier was formed from twisting trees and enormous plants. Above the green, black smoke billowed up in all directions. The demons had begun their attacks

Solomon took all of this in from between the razor-sharp talons of the vulture. At the moment, he was slightly disappointed. Although it certainly felt amazing flying this high up into the sky. It wasn't quite as good as he had imagined.

It didn't take a genius to work out why. He wasn't completely free. The vulture still had him trapped between its claws.

Thankfully, this was a simple fix. With ease, he squirmed out of the claws and grabbed onto the wrinkled leg above.

In that exact moment, as he looked down upon the whole planet stretching out below him. He felt such a crazy sense of ecstasy that it would be hard to describe. All he could think was this:

'Yes. This is it. This was why I was born. It was for moments like these.' He was struck by this realisation.

Sadly, Moments were just that... Moments. They come just as quickly as they go. This moment of ecstasy left Solomon feeling slightly empty, and yet simultaneously, he felt vindicated. 'To be lucky enough to experience such a wonderous thing was surely reason enough for living' he thought.

The culprit for bringing such a wonderous moment to an abrupt end, was, of course, the vulture. He wasn't going to stand idly by as someone hitched a ride on his foot and he made his feeling abundantly clear by screeching at the top of his lungs.

It was exactly this ear-piercing screech that pulled Solomon out of his moment of happiness and snapped him back to reality.

The vulture flailed its leg, trying to dislodge the unwelcome passenger and send him falling to his death.

Solomon wasn't one to go down without a fight and responded in kind. He took out the two daggers from his waist and buried them in the vultures leg. Using these as support, he managed to stop himself from falling.

Desperately, the vulture began to perform complicated aerial manoeuvres in order to shake off this pesky passenger from its leg. From flying upside down to dive-bombing, it was aggressively persistent in shaking Solomon off

Stubbornly clinging onto the leg, Solomon could only bide his time and wait for a chance to strike.

That chance came when, In a moment of desperation, the vulture made the worst decision of its short remaining life.

It began to fly straight up. Furiously thrusting its wings up and down, it gained height at a terrifying rate, and soon, it was flying higher than it ever had before.

The air up here was especially thin and made breathing hard. Not only did it make breathing hard, but also flying. The vulture had an increased strain put onto its wings.

What resulted was a perilous waiting game. Who would give in first? Would Solomon pass out from oxygen deprivation, or would the vulture tire and fall to its demise?

In a flurry of feathers, the vulture reached the apex of its flight. Beneath it, the entire planet stretched out beneath it and its curvature was clearly visible. Each flap of its wings required more and more strength to keep them afloat.

Beneath the vulture, Solomon was grinning maniacally, a touch of madness tinged his green eyes. He couldn't have hoped for anything better. With the whole world stretched out beneath him and the stars at his back, he felt untouchable.

Then, with no prior warning, the journey and life of the vulture came to a spluttering end. It had died of exhaustion and oxygen deprivation.

This left Solomon in a somewhat awkward position.

His position, to be precise, was in the stratosphere.

It was only when he began to fall back down with the corpse of the giant bird that he managed to utter his first words.

"I am so fucked!"