BREAKING THE CYCLE OF REINCARNATION

Unfortunately, even though Alex's plans were grand, his body was not. It took him over two hours to get to the door. From his perspective it felt like eternity, but he could judge the time flow from how the shifts changed for guards on the watch.

But he didn't lack patience. In fact, a person wouldn't be suited for his line of work if they lacked patience. He still clearly remembered how for almost a week he lived in the walls of princess Christina's estate last year just to steal a lousy hereditary engagement ring in order break off her upcoming marriage. He did feel a bit bad for the fat bride, but it was better than her being killed for the same purpose, right?

'Focus!' Alex inwardly shook his head and finally left 'the office'.

He crawled under the door and turned left. Seeing the long corridor in front of him, he understood his journey was just beginning.

'How long can spiders last without eating?' He wondered.

But he had his full during the cannibalistic feast back in the egg sack. While it still felt a bit weird, he had eaten his fair share of insects in the previous life during travels in Asia and soon the earlier incident was forgotten.

To avoid thinking about his current predicament, Alex forcefully tried to focus his attention on the surroundings, his movements and even theoreticized whether spiders were insects.

He remembered reading somewhere that they were some different kind of animal, but couldn't remember the details. Obviously Old Tony tried to curse him to become an insect, or at least the guy said so at that moment. But maybe in the modern science and the ancient 'cursology' the concepts of what is insect and what is not differed.

While on his way, Alex got more and more used to this new body and when he arrived to the eastern wing, he felt moving was as comfortable as if he was in his human body. Except … it was three days later.

Indeed, everyone judges distance only from their perspective. Everything is closer when you are bigger. And when you have a car, distances are even shorter, to not speak about planes. For a young spiderling like him, this was quite the journey.

Even though there were no animals or birds in the villa who could endanger him, there was a local natural predator – the housekeeper. He almost died while carelessly wandering along the wall passing by Sicilia's bedroom when the old witch suddenly assaulted him with her enormous vacuum cleaner.

Of course, she didn't see him and it would've been an accident, but luckily at the last moment Alex noticed the incoming danger and managed to squeeze in a thin gap between a small decorative cupboard and a wall. This was the first time in his two lives he praised someone for buying a useless thing and putting it in their hallway.

After this event Alex decided to change his tactics. While he didn't exactly remember the layout of the ventilation system, he could maintain the general direction and check his route every time there was an opening in the ceiling – crawl out, verify the route and the be on his way once again.

From time to time he rested, maybe slept, although he couldn't really tell the difference. For some reason none of his eyes had eyelids, therefore he couldn't close them and enjoy the 'regular sleep'. But it was fine.

He also began to feel a slight hunger, but for now it was bearable. Strangely enough, he wasn't thirsty though. Or maybe spiders had hunger and thirst as the same feeling, he wasn't clear yet..

Be as it may, in the end it took Alex three days what a regular person would take a few minutes, but he was finally there – the bedroom of the famous Antonio Begano.

He had been here before when he did the security inspection back then, but regarding everything above the ground in this villa he had no distinct memories of, including this room, that was located on the third floor. The only thing Alex remembered was it having the best view in the region from its balcony.

Now, from what he could discern, the bedroom looked quite feminine and that probably was Mila's work. Most likely Old Tony left everything the way it was after she died.

While crawling down the wall to hide behind the exquisite nightstand, Alex wondered if that bastard even slept in the bed or just stared through the night at the spot she once slept on.

He got the answer few hours later. Actually the old man didn't do anything creepy at all. He undressed, crawled under the blanket and began to read some Hindu scriptures. The book looked quite old, but was probably only a copy Old Tony ordered to make for everyday use. He kept reading for over an hour, periodically closing it, mumbling something to himself and then continuing.

'There is no way this former mafia boss learned Sanskrit, traditional Mandarin and who knows what languages at school. Obviously this knowledge is acquired during the past decade and only due to some kind of dedication he got after Mila's death.' Alex mused.

While he intended to kill Old Tony, he didn't hate the man. In fact, in many areas he was admiring him. In addition, Alex wholeheartedly intended to help him … to reunite with Mila.

Alex snickered at his joke inwardly, but at this moment Old Tony closed his book and put it aside. Then turned towards the other side of the bed, sighed and gently caressed the pillow next to him a couple of times.

"Don't worry, dear. We'll meet each other real soon." He whispered.

'You bet! Hahaha!' Alex started to laugh inwardly, but his laughter abruptly stopped and flow of furious curses replaced it when Tony turned off the lights.

'You motherf*cker! Son of the b*tch! How in the world I could've known this?!'

Alex had never been much of an entomologist and knew as little about spiders as of any other insect. But now he learned that … spiders can't f*cking see in the dark!!! On his way here the premises had at least the dim service lighting and the ventilation shafts had those security infrared lights on, thus he always was able to find his way.

And if just a moment ago he was laughing, now he felt like crying … blinded once again by that old bastard.

'Alright! Stop!' Alex tried to forcefully regain control over his mind that got thrown into a bit of chaos, 'Focus! Think!'

During the past days he was mostly concentrating on his own safety while trying to avoid any thoughts on his current predicament and now, when he was so close to success, the darkness in the room that suddenly engulfed him, overtook his mind along with a sense of despair.

'Ok. Nothing has changed! Even though I know the general direction, I can't risk wondering around, or he'll squish me to death with a careless move of his hand while sleeping. Now then … I'm here, and he's there … I'm a f*cking spider! The fly is basically already in my net – I just have to wait for the right moment!' Alex quickly managed to calm himself down and after few more minutes fell in to some kind of a state of semi-sleep.

He once again lie shot and bleeding on the Buddhist Wheel of Life and Old Tony stood next to him, reading. But for some reason this time he was reading from Kama Sutra and pointing out mistakes Alex made while doing his daughter, and therefore there was no other way, but to curse Alex before killing him.

The hilarious lucid dream was interrupted when the mobster turned on his nightlight.

Since none of his eyes had any eyelids, Alex woke up in an instant despite the seemingly weak lighting and saw how Old Tony crawled out the bed while cursing to himself and proceeded to the bathroom door at the far end of the room.

'Right! Even though his stature has shrunken quite a bit, because of the lustful lifestyle during the early years, most likely his prostate is in a size of an apple. I bet he'll run to the bathroom few more times till the morning.'

Alex snickered and continued to wait. Even though he couldn't do much now, this seemingly unimportant event opened prospects of potential opportunities.

And he didn't need to wait for too long. The third time Old Tony came from the bathroom, he left the nightlight on … and the main thing – he drank some medicine before lying down! While there could be many different drugs old people could take during the night, most likely Tony drank some sleeping pills or painkillers.

'Showtime!' Alex smiled to himself and rushed towards the mobster who just lie down.

Even though the gap between them was less than a meter, for a tiny spiderling like him it was still a considerable distance. Thus he was not worried if Old Tony had enough time to fall asleep.

Of course, there were many variables in his current plan that could be only described as overly optimistic. But luckily everything went fine. After few minutes Alex was already on the bed and a bit later on the pillow.

Just before climbing on the head covered with gray hear, he paused, as if to make certain no one was watching him, and then carefully step by step continued on his way. There was no way for Alex to know if someone could feel such small spiderling crawling on their skin, but he was very certain his chances were increased while the person were sleeping under the effect of some drugs.

'Alright. This is 'all or nothing' play. Since I'm dying anyway, I have to give it all. Who knows, maybe with enough luck I can seriously cripple him.' Alex thought after stopping right next to Old Tony's ear.

At first, after understanding where and what he was and deciding on revenge, he hoped he would be poisonous, but soon realized that even if by some godly chance he was – his size was so small that the poison would hardly cause an itch, to not speak about killing thousands of times larger human.

After three days of traveling, the final plan was made – he would crawl in one of the ear canals and inflict as much damage as he could, the rest would be up to Lady Luck. In addition, Alex had to do it as soon as possible, before he grew larger and was easier to notice. Of course, he had no intention to live like a spider even a day longer than necessary, so basically this was a suicide mission.

With these thoughts he crawled inside the dark cave, filled with long stalks of hair. From now on he had to be especially careful. Besides the obvious – avoiding the hair so his revenge attempt wouldn't stop abruptly by instinctive poke of a finger, he had to do that in the dark.

While Alex 'kind of' had the instincts of a spider and could automatically perform actions like crawling or eating, currently his humanoid analytical mind was a nuisance that interfered with the task at hand. Luckily he was small enough or Old Tony's drug induced sleep was deep enough for him to pass the first hurdles – 'the hairy region' of the ear canal.

A moment later he felt he reached the end of the ear tunnel and stopped by a wall that should be the eardrum, at least that was his guess. Obviously Alex was not a doctor and had no clue about the ear anatomy, but he guessed that the most important and sensitive parts were locked behind it.

'Alright, phase two, commence!' He said to himself and tried to bite the wall in front.

After several minutes of struggle, he almost started to revise his plan. Even though his mandibles were much more effective at biting flat surface compared to human teeth, he was tiny and the thing in front of him was kind of slippery and felt nauseating.

'Wait! Could it be ... because of … the earwax?!' Alex thought and trying to hold back his disgust, he plunged his mandibles even deeper.