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Prologue - Elementary Virtue - The Amulet -

Gregory sighed and got up; it was always the same bull, no one ever believed his tale. Well, if he was honest, he

had to admit that his story may have sounded a bit insane, and probably no one with a clear mind could believe it right away. "Ok, I guess I need to make my point a bit clearer."

He went into the kitchen and opened a few drawers; "What the hell are you looking for?" Rita was irritated, what did the guy do in her kitchen. Gregory didn’t answer and continued to search through her drawers, cursing, he got back to the table. Apparently, he hadn’t found what he was looking for. Then his eyes wandered to a baseball bat leaning against the wall in the living room. He took the bat in his hand; "Which of you three has the strongest arm?" The three looked at each other helplessly. What was going on? Rita, who had just sat down, got to her feet again. "Why are you asking?" He smiled pleasantly; "I want you to hit me with full force until you are convinced that I am dead." "You're totally crazy, no way," Rita said, and Heather covered her face with her hand in horror. "No, I'm not crazy, I just didn’t find a decent knife or some sharp scissors in your drawers, and you want me to convince you of my immortality; right?"

Rita tapped her index finger against her forehead; "And now you want to kill yourself to demonstrate it, or what?" He shrugged; "why not? It worked out quite well with Ira, apart from having to tie her up first," The last part of the sentence he mumbled barely audible to himself. Travis looked at him with wide eyes; "Who the hell is Ira? Slowly, I have the feeling to be part of a bad movie." Gregory paced nervously up and down the room when he suddenly saw a pair of scissors on the coffee table. He took the scissors in his hand and looked triumphantly around.

"Ha, now I’ll show you that I am immortal, then you’ll have to buy my story whether you want to or not." Carefully, he pulled the white T-shirt over his head, folded it neatly and put it on a chair on the other side of the table, then he took off his jeans and was standing with his black boxer shorts in front of them.

"Rita, I hope you don’t have any valuable furniture or other expensive stuff because there could be a little mess if I bleed, but unfortunately that can’t be avoided.” Rita, Heather, and Travis stared at him, as he stood there half-naked in front of them, and Travis could not help staring at Gregory's muscular body, even in this crazy situation, but then he was screaming out hysterically when Gregory rammed the scissors with full force into his chest and sank to the ground, squirming with pain. Travis waved his arms wildly and couldn’t stop screaming. Rita shook him vigorously, and when he still didn't shut up, she slapped his face. He fell silent instantly. Heather sat as if frozen in her chair and looked horrified at the ground to Gregory. The only one who remained quite calm was Rita. Strictly speaking, she was even mad as hell, she got up grabbed a few towels going over to Gregory who was lying on the ground, the scissors still stuck in him. "You bloody idiot," Rita muttered. Honestly, she felt like slapping him real good at least once. "Next time you want to kill yourself, don’t do it in my apartment. How am I supposed to explain a lightly dressed dead dude with my scissors stuck in his chest, in my apartment to the cops? No one will believe me, what just happened. I mean, I don't even believe it myself. "He groaned and pointed at the scissors with a pain-distorted face. "Can you pull the thing out please, I don’t have the strength anymore." Bending over him, she said, „you should have thought about that before, nutcake before you started bleeding all over my apartment."