The 826NYC Review, Issue No. 12

A dark skinned man in a black shirt, gray military pants and boots runs through a hiking trail leading up hundreds upon hundreds of meters like his family depended on it. “Because it does.”

He is almost at his destination, a plateau halfway up the tallest mountain in the world, Mt.Kinko. Formed through unknown means, Mt.Kinko is the tallest mountain on the planet, standing at a not so humble height of 14.69 kilometers, beating second place by a whole six-thousand meters.

Reaching his destination, he finds a lighter toned man standing in the middle of the plateau, holding a golden crown adorned with jewels over his head about to put it on before he stops; he turns around and sees tall, dark, and angry glaring at him into the ground.

—————————————————————————————————— “It doesn’t have to be like this Nobu!”

Two men stand on a plateau thousands of meters in the sky. One man is dressed in a black, short sleeve shirt and gray military pants and boots. The other is dressed in a yellow t-shirt over a pair of black camo pants, tucked into navy blue combat boots.

“What are you talking about Jiska? You have taken what is rightfully mine; the fate of my family rests on that crown!”

“Rightfully yours? The only person that owns this crown is who’s inventory it’s currently sitting in,” the man in yellow retorts.

“I’m giving you one chance. Give it to me alive, or I loot it from your corpse,” the man in black says, holding out his hand.

“You know I can’t do that Nobu. I need this crown just as much as you do,” Jiska states calmly.

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