Chapter 2— Awaken

"My body hurts."

Is the only thing I can say as I lay in a tight alley. Soaked and covered in bullet wounds and cuts with my back against the wall. Through the heavy rain, faint sounds of splashing puddles can be heard.

"Where did he go!"

Men in black suits walk through the streets. On their chest is a badge decorated by a two-headed snake biting each other under a crown. My family emblem, the Ultar, they dare betray us. I nearly laugh at my predicament.

Men, who swore their loyalty to the law and justice, to my family. Yet here we are. No matter who or where, humans will always be conquered by greed.

I pick myself up and lean on the wall. Slowly, I move through the dark passage. My legs screaming to stop but my mind pushes me forward. Escaping from the other side, I thought I was free— I should have known better.

And then it comes out of the dark— somewhere I can't see. A bang! My world flips upside down. A bullet in my back. My body tumbles and falls with envelopes of evidence scattering in the wind.

A sleek car drives by me with the back window half down. The side profile of a familiar jagged face taunts me by not even acknowledging my existence.

"Should we finish him?" The driver asks.

"Leave him." A deep, grumbling voice replies. "Nobody will look for him."

He's right, who would look for me in this backwater place? The sound of the engine purrs loudly and rubber burns as it moves away. This should have been the end.

"I should have just close my eyes and be dead already."

"You should have, but you are not." A black girl with a shaved head replies in a strange posh accent.

We were in some kind of white space; she sits behind a desk in an egg-shaped chair. And me, I'm sitting here in front of her. Hoping I'm high or something, because I can't explain what the heck is happening to me right now.

"Are you frustrated or do you just not like unfamiliar places?" She says with a lazy smile on her lips as if she was sharing an inside joke.

"What do you want?" I try to relax but the muscles in my body seems locked, ready to run at any moment.

"Relax. How do you humans like to say it? Me casa su casa."

"What?" What language is that?

Click—

She presses a button on her desk. The floor rumbles and a trap door pops open behind her.

"My name is Number Five, but you may call me, Five." She says while a white pod rises from out of the ground. "And this is my partner..."

She points at the pod that slowly blossom, revealing a sleeping person. "Her name is Carter Ultar."

I look at Five, my heart is beating like crazy. What does this mean? My muscles coils tighter like a spring ready to run far from this insanity.

"I know this is hard to listen to," she says as gets up from the moving furniture descending into hidden trap doors. Only the seat I'm sitting in remains, yet It follows her as she steps close to the sleeping girl. "but she is you."

My mind at this moment was already a mess and to hear such insanity. What am I supposed to say, to think? But as I slide closer, the proof is evidently in front of me. The same dark skin, the same mole, same purple hair of different length.

Something is not right.

"We are not supposed to be here Carter. But there is a war in our plane, our dimension, we were forced to escape through a black hole, which descended us down to this lower plane. Now, there are two Carters who exist. Unfortunately, there can only be one of you. Co-existing is not possible."

I laugh at the irony, not knowing how to feel. "In the end, I'm still going to die."

"I'm going to allow you two days of life to tie your loose ends."

"And afterwards?"

Stupid. I'm stupid for asking such a question, but what I really want...

"Then, your soul and body will be used to repair my partner's. Through her, you will live."

What I want is...

"I have never once lived for myself, and I'm not willing to pretend to care about it now." I reply sincerely.

What I really want...

"What do you want?" she replies, standing by the girl's side...

"I want revenge."

And that's what happened.

In a blink of an eye, I'm back on Earth in an unfamiliar place. Still injured, but the envelopes and papers are intact. And the events that happens later comes too fast to process. Too bloody to want to remember. I don't want to relive my shame, to feel my sanity deteriorate any longer.

I write everything down on a paper for her, my last will, the events that unfolded in-between because I'm too guilty to say or think about it. The things I did. The beast I've become. I hope it doesn't taint her. My bloody hands almost touches her before I jerk them away at the thought of dirtying her.

"Are you ready to be reborn, Carter Ultar?" Number Five asks by the pod.

"Yes, I'm ready to die." I reply before stepping into the pod with the sleeping girl.

.

.

.

"Have you come back to the living madam?" Number Five asks.

I open my eyes to see the familiar face overlooking me with boredom. She then smiles at the positive result in front of her.

"Finally, you have awaken."