Chapter 1: Phoenixes are Reborn from Flames

"Just die, Gerald. Thank you for being my Hero but Heroes are useless during peaceful times..."

I alarmingly gasp and abruptly opened my eyes. I clutch my aching chest and took deep breaths as if I just emerged from drowning.

"A-alive..." I murmured.

All of a sudden, a Piercing pain attacked my head.

A man.. No. Not just any man.

"Rick ." I muttered his name with deep hatred.

My best friend for 30 years. An orphan I begged my parents to help. A friend I trusted my life with. The only dearest friend who didn't leave me even with my Scarred and scary face but surprisingly burned the bridges by personally shooting me dead after using our friendship.

resentment fuels my rage and I mustered the strength to stand up.

I look around. I'm in an unfamiliar room.

"W-where..." I'm still trying to think where I am when my eyes caught the mirror from the opened door of the bathroom.

I know I might be hallucinating but the sight made me limply but hurriedly walk in front of the mirror.

A gasp escaped my lips when I saw 'my' face on the mirror.

With horror and surprise written on it's face, the young man in the mirror has the same brown eyes, aquiline nose, and thin lips I used to have 20 years ago. Back when my face wasn't ruined and my life wasn't fucked up.

"How..." I stretch my hand to touch the face reflected in the mirror. Our fingers touch and joined. The coldness from the transparent wall tells me that it's too realistic to be a dream.

I then tried to touch my own face. The action was mirrored by the young man in the mirror.

Yeah. It really is real.

"H-how did this happen..."

did I reincarnated?

Impossible. Why do I look exactly the same?

I would never forget this face even after the twenty years that passed. This is surely the young man that kept on hunting me in my long years of solitude.

Then did time turned back?

My eyes turn to the flat screen television in the room.

That's even more Impossible.

I'm still trying to will my messed up mind to think when my eyes caught the mole in the young man's right ear.

An idea immediately entered my mind but I brush it off. Isn't that more stupid than reincarnation and time traveling?

Those thoughts slowly faded when my sight traveled to the unnoticeable dried blood stuck on the hair of my right temple and the baggy shirt I'm currently wearing.

I hurriedly brush my hair back. A light scars but still surrounded by dried blood lies there.

My eyes frantically roamed the room for the second time. My heart racing erratically.

What unfamiliar?

There's the unnoticeable stain on the wall that my eyes caught while I was taking my last breath. There's also the shredded rope used to tie me up before I was shot, and the phone..

yeah. the mobile phone!

My legs limps and my arms trembles but I willed myself to stretch my arm and grab the phone.

The young face was reflected again in the large dark screen before the image of an elderly but devastatingly beautiful woman flashed.

Tears instanly welled out from my eyes. Seconds later, a bitter wail sounded from the four corners of the room.

I came back. I really came back.

Is this rebirth? Age regression?

Is this my second chance?

is this the redemption from all the pain and trauma that I had suffered?

no. That is not important.

Godly or Demonic, why does it matter?

I clutch the phone in my hands .

Whether it's the work of a devil or a god, Why should I care?

Only one thought currently dominates my brain.

I, the former Gerald Michaels, I will rise up again. This second life is my chance to turn it all aound.

I'll make those damned traitors and vermin crawl and struggle bitterly beneath my feet!

With glaring eyes still full of tears, I swore while gritting my teeth.

"I. Will. F*cking. Make. You. F*ckers. Pay..."