text: Walking home from work I take my usual route, a shortcut that I take every day around this time but today is a little different, today there is someone taking this shortcut with me. There was a man waiting here today, waiting for me. He pulled a gun and said "Today I give you a choice, I can take your life, or I can take what your life is worth to you." I told him I will give him my lifes worth, as most of us would I imagine. I told him that I just need to get it from my bag, he didn't look very convinced and tightened his grip on his pistol as he nodded to me. From my bag I took a pen and a book, I always carry a book with me, there are always times when you find yourself with nothing to do and they are just the best for killing time. Oh, I didn't even realize then that i used those words in my head at a time like that, I even suprise myself sometimes. I opened the book and after a moments thought wrote, "A life for a life. In return for mine, I give you this. A life that neither of us can hope to have, but a life that we will both live. Every book you read, every game you play, is another life lived, another world experienced. I hope this life I have given to you is only the first of many that you will live." With this I handed him the book and bagged the pen. He opened the book and read what I wrote and the most astonished look came across his face. Without looking up from the book he said "You are the first person who did not throw money at me, but something that you believe to be worth your life." With no other words spoken, no eye contact given, with no hesitation he turned and started to walk away, only to vanish under the street light after a few steps had been taken. As I made my way home I was fighting with myself trying to figure out what had happened, was it real or something I had conjured, how could it even happen, who was he? None of these questions I could answer, not in the slightest and I fought with them as I lay in bed till I found myself drifting into a deep sleep. As I awoke the next morning I wrote it off as another crazy dream and went about my day as I usually do, I even took the same shortcut to and from work, just to prove to myself that it was a dream, that nothing happened. As I arrived home from work, fumbling with my keys as the sky was turning dark, I felt something, it's that feeling you get when somethings off, when the hair on your arms starts to stand up and your heart starts to beat faster, it's almost as if your body knows what's happening before your brain does. With the dream I had last night and the reaction my body was having, I admit I started to panic, and because of this my previous key fumbling turned into key dropping. Before I could reach down to pick them up another hand wrapped around them, my heart was beating out of my chest, I was sure they could hear it, it was the only thing I could hear, it was deafening. I followed the hand to the arm, and the arm to the chest and the chest to the face. It was the same man from my dream, from what I thought was a dream. "Hello again" he said with a sly half smile, "I was wondering if you have any more lives that you would mind sharing with me.