"No! No! NO!"
Boot cries as he wakes up from another terrible nightmare that has been haunting him for quite a while now. He sits up groggily and reaches for his water bottle on his nightstand. Trying to regulate his racing heartbeat he looks at the calendar on his nightstand and curses under his breath as he realizes that his 45th birthday is seven days away. A day when he will be put down like a dog or discarded like garbage.
With a heavy sigh, he picks up his laptop from his nightstand and carefully removes one of his molar teeth, which is actually a case rather than a real tooth. The false tooth houses a little memory card inside with dirty secret information about The Celestial Council. Secrets that might destroy them and expose them to the world for what they truly are.
If his plan A doesn't go as planned, the information in his possession will be his backup plan. Boot does not want to leave Umbra without bringing down the council. He knows they wouldn't let him go just like that without haunting him down to the ends of the earth which they will do with all the tools and power they have at their disposal.
Accessing the memory card, he begins to skim through and arrange all the information he had been gathering secretly for the past year. Then he remembers that a part of his plan A is yet to be executed, which entails how he was going to move his money quietly out of the Umbra banking system. Quickly, he shuts down his laptop and leaves his apartment in a hurry…
It's been three months, and Carlos, the accountant, believes that the Skull Man who spared his life won't come looking for him anymore. He had moved with his family to a new town and started a new, decent job in a bank. Unfortunately for him, he received an anonymous letter with the Celestial Council's seal, and the letter contained an image of a boot print. Right then, he knew it was time for him to work for his life that was spared or the Skull Man would kill him.
By almost nightfall, Carlos was about to go home when he met the Skull Man standing beside his car in the parking lot.
"I received your letter," Carlos said.
"It is time. I want you to do something for me," the skull man said.
"What is it? Remember, I-I said anything, and I will do it."
"Can you move a large amount of money to a secure account in any country of my choice?"
"Yes, I can do that, without leaving any trace."*
"Good, here are the details of my accounts. Move all my money into a secure account. My country of choice is there also" The Skull Man said as he handed over Carlos a piece of paper.
Before Carlos could unfold the paper, the Skull Man disappears. So he gets into the car and drives off with a screeching sound, but the Skull Man watches him as he leaves the parking lot at high speed. With that done, Boot receives a call from the Celestial Council. He was summoned by the council. Boot's heart skips a beat, and he wonders if they have discovered he was planning to leave Umbra.
An hour later, Boot appeared before the council without his mask but he noticed that one of the council members was not in his seat. That made a lot of questions swirl in his mind, but regardless, he stayed alert and prepared in case the council had found out he was leaving Umbra.
"Boot, we have summoned you to undertake an impossible task that has taken the lives of four of your brothers today." said one of the council members who was dressed in a well-tailored gray suit. His face was covered in a mask like the others, his hands were gloved, and he was embellished with a silver locket similar to the rest.
"How may I be of service to my councils?" Boot said.
The Man continues, "One of ours has gone against one of the most sacred codes. We discovered he has been feeding our secrets to "The Blackburn Titans," and he has become a threat to the Celestial Council. We want him taken down, but unfortunately four of your brothers failed, and their body parts were mailed to our homes respectively by him."
A Woman Continues, "You will have access to all private information as your previous brothers did. But beware; he is skilled mentally and with the best among us in fighting strategy. Though there is one thing we are not sure of about him, he is rumored to be skilled in black magic. Take him down as you see fit."
The other man continued, "You have just been sent the necessary information you need to identify and locate him, and every resource you might need will be made available for you. Good luck Boot."
Boot's phone rang immediately, and with that, he left to see to his new task at hand.
To be continued...
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