Prologue

'I think that's about it for this thing,' the man thought to himself as he finished repairing some loose clay tiles on the roof. Looking up, the sky was just starting to show the first signs of red off in the horizon, signaling the end of the day.

A little over a week ago, his wife had complained of a minor leak in the upstairs of the house and asked him to take a look at the roof. A couple of days after that, after he'd still not done so, she'd gone up to the roof herself and noticed that several tiles were loose, and reported this to him during the evening meal and again asked him to take care of it. And finally, three days ago, while doing some household chores, the woman had lost her balance while coming down from the second floor and grabbed hold of the banister only to have it give way under her full weight. She ended up tumbling awkwardly down the stairs breaking her neck and dying instantly.

The man glanced around the roof making sure he'd gathered all his tools before moving towards the edge of the roof to lower his tools down to the ground when he suddenly burst out laughing.

"Ahahahaha! The stupid bitch! It took her long enough to have a bloody accident in this house!" he exclaimed gleefully as he finished lowering his tool box. Tossing the rope end to the ground below, the man stood and started moving towards where he'd propped the ladder against the house, when he suddenly felt a tile give way under foot. Surprised, he threw a hand out to balance himself as he felt his body tumble slowly towards the edge of the roof. The man desperately tried to stop himself from sliding from the steep rooftop when he felt his legs go over the edge. Just then, he managed to catch himself and stop his fall on the tiles. Working carefully, he slowly began to lever himself back onto the rooftop, when suddenly

CRACK!

The tile he'd been propping himself against snapped beneath his weight and started sliding out from beneath his hand. As his hand slid downwards with the tile, he felt his body lose all balance, sliding inexorably towards the edge. His fingers grasped desperately for the edge of the rooftop as he tried to catch himself at the last minute. As the man hung from his fingers from the edge of the rooftop, his gaze slid for a brief instant down towards the side of the house and the ground below when he felt himself suddenly go very cold.

There, standing at the second floor window, looking out, was his wife. The man barely felt his fingers lose their grip slipping from the edge of the roof. The man's body began to fall, in what seemed like slow motion, towards the ground.

'That's impossible! You're dead!! We burned your body this morning!!' the man thought horrified. His gaze never once left the window. His wife continued staring at him as he fell past the second floor window. An instant later, he felt an incredible force as his body slammed into the ground several feet below. As his vision began to fade into blackness, one final thought rose in his mind.

'You lousy bitch! Die!!'

Anger rose bright and sharp in his mind, battling away the darkness. And in his anger, the man didn't even realise that his broken body remained lying on the ground as he climbed slowly to his feet...