Mercenary Work

Chapter 8 A Change

Jackson lay on the floor spread out like a star, motionless. His chest was the only thing moving, slowly raising and lowering. His breathing was steady but soon he started coughing when a liquid entered his throat. He quickly shot up bending at the waist coughing the liquid on the ground next to his leg, painting the ground red with blood. After he finished his cough fest blood was dripping from the side of his mouth, he reached up and rubbed away the blood leaving a red mark on his black glove.  

He looked down at his hand and he seemed taken back, then looked down seeing himself fully clothed. That's when he finally took a look at his surroundings. If you could call it that. All around him, was nothing. A blank white canvas stretching on and on, no end in sight. Jackson put his hand back on the ground with a slap and it echoed close to his ear before slowly leaving him and wandering the nothingness.

"I thought so." He mumbled to himself. Not like there's anyone around to hear him. So Jackson leaned forward shifted his legs to a kneel then stood up. All while his movements echoed onward. "I wonder how many it will be this time."

When he finished two simple steel swords fell from the sky and embedded themselves deep into the ground, then a third, a fourth, a fifth, and so on. After a fairly short amount of time two thousand two hundred fifty swords surrounded Jackson .in a perfect circle. Jackson was just simply sitting calmly in the middle eyes closed, not watching just listening. But then he heard something he shouldn't be hearing. Silence. He quickly got up and looked around. Nothing was different just the endless void and swords. But what was off was that no more were falling. Nothing was happening, and that shouldn't be happening. One new thing did happen though, a hole opened under Jackson's feet and he fell. He fell into a new endless black void.

Jackson lay on the floor spread out like a star, motionless. His chest was the only thing moving, slowly raising and lowering. He quickly came back to reality when he opened his eyes and shot up bending at the waist. His breathing was now fast and heavy, like he had woken up from a nightmare. He brought his hand up and held his head over his eye.

"He lives again!" Jackson turned his head to meat Sora looking over at him. "Your cloths are in there." He pointed to a duffle bag to the left of Jackson. He was in the throne room of the castle and in a small crater of all things.

Jackson looked down and was met with his bare chest. "The hell happened?"He mumbled getting up and opening the bag revealing his clothes and necklace, He quickly put them on. as Sora started talking.

"Come on I'll explain on the way." He started to walk away and for the large kicked in double doors.

"Wait isn't this the castle shouldn't we kill the lord while we're here?" He said running up to Sora.
"Change of plans. We are now working for the lord of this place."

"Why?" At this point they were in a stairwell walking to the ground floor.

"Well I met with the resistance, and as the proper mercenary that I am, I asked how much we're getting for this. They said one hundred."
"Hundred thousand?"
"No, no. You'd think that wouldn't you considering that we're supposed to topple a government for them but no. Hundred flat." They were now walking out of the castle and onto a bloodied street full of people looking at mangled corpses. "I guess this is your handy work."

"No. No, It's not."

"Ominous. I'll ask later. Now on with my story. Now after they told me that I would only get a measly hundred coins I took off and my plan was to meet with the lord and maybe bump that number up a bit."
"And considering we're walking to the outskirts of town, you were successful in bumping that number up a bit. How much?"

"Two."

"Thousand?"

"Mil."

Jackson stopped dead in his tracks. Mouth wide open. "Two Million?"