I floated in boundless seas of memories. The first opening of eyes in a newborn body. So frightening. My heart pounded, lungs greedily gulped air, the world too bright, too loud. A glance at a girl—young, bold, with a defiant spark in her eyes. Fearlessly, she approached my ship, that iron tomb, and pulled me out. The cold of metal still lingers on my skin, the smell of rust and ash burned into my nostrils. I thought it was the end—suffocating in a sealed ship, cameras dead, darkness embracing me like an old woman with a scythe, refusing to let me move. An idiotic death… I felt panic grip my throat, fingers clawing at nothingness, my mind screaming: "Not now, not like this!"
First steps to the joy of parents filming it. Their laughter rang in my ears, warm and alive, like sunlight pouring through our home's windows. First day of school—the smell of chalk, the creak of desks, classmates' whispers. First bully's face smashed—the crunch of bones under my fist, hot blood on my knuckles, the taste of adrenaline in my mouth. First parent-teacher meeting—their gazes, a mix of pride and reproach, while I sat, eyes down, a bruise under one. Funny. It seemed like the end of the world then, but now—a trivial spark in memory.
Wasn't this paradise? A healthy body, strong as a young tree. Loving parents, whose embraces were safer than any fortress. A normal life—no war, no blood, no shadows stealing breath at night. School, university, job, wife, kids, old age. A good plan. A great one. Joy—pure, untainted, like water in a mountain stream. I could've held it in my hands, that dream, felt its warmth, its weight. But it slipped away, like sand through my fingers.
First discovery of powers. Flight. Wind lashed my face, tore at my hair, the ground shrinking below, becoming toy-like. Fear and exhilaration mixed—my heart pounded as if it would burst, a lump in my throat from a scream I held back. The feeling that the world was plastic—fragile, breakable, ready to crack under my hands. Everyone so weak, so vulnerable… I looked down at them and felt like a god—and a demon at once.
Strange to see myself from the outside. Strange to see an ordinary boy lifting a plane—metal groaning, engines howling, the crowd below gasping in terror and awe. Elusive, unusual. I was a stranger even to myself—a reflection in the mirror I didn't recognize. Who was this guy with burning eyes? Where did this power come from, this fire that consumed everything human?
The accident. I missed something vital. The most vital. Terrifying. Lose her? How could I? Her face—Tori—flashed before my eyes: soft hair, warm laughter, eyes I drowned in. Then—screeching metal, a scream, the smell of gasoline and blood. My brain raced, howling like a siren, clinging to every shred of hope, but people don't survive that. I imagined. Blood pooling on the asphalt, her breathing fading, and me standing, helpless, with hands that could lift tons but couldn't hold her life. And if they survive, they're crippled—tied to beds, machines, shadows of their former selves. Did I want that life for Tori? No. Kill her? No. But I couldn't save her, and that failure burned a hole in my chest nothing could fill. Terrifying. So terrifying I wanted to howl, tearing my throat.
First kill in the new world. First blood on my hands—hot, sticky, with a metallic tang that filled my nose. The first and last Atlantean—his eyes full of horror, his scream cut short by my blow. Hysterical searching—I ran, choked, shouted into the void, seeking answers that didn't exist. Fear and disappointment merged into a black wave, drowning me, pulling me into an abyss without light.
Fear ruled me countless times. I pretended it didn't matter—donned a mask of indifference, clenched my teeth to keep my lips from trembling—but inside, I was horrified. Of rebirth—my body breaking and reassembling, bones cracking, skin tearing. Of my death—cold, empty, with the taste of dirt in my mouth. Of my powers—this wild, uncontrollable force ripping me apart from within. Of my parents—their faces, which I could no longer recall clearly, only blurred shadows in the haze of the past. Horror gnawed at me for years, ate at me in the night, left scars on my soul no one would see.
But all that paled before what was now. A soul-chilling terror gripped me, like a vice. It seeped under my skin, froze the blood in my veins, squeezed my heart so every beat throbbed with pain. I was like a child scared by a ghost story—trembling, wide-eyed, clutching a blanket, but there was no blanket, no salvation. This fear sank into me, became part of me, like a tattoo you can't scrape off. I'd remember it my whole life—this moment when I realized I'd lost myself.
And here I stand, in this nightmare, where the air is thick with the stench of blood and rotting flesh. My feet sink into crimson sludge, bones crunch under my boots—someone's, hundreds, thousands. My eyes burn with tears I can't shed, my throat choked with a scream that won't escape. My hands tremble, crusted with foreign death, and I can't wash them, can't erase this smell, this taste. Who am I now? A killer? A monster? A tool in someone else's hands? My mind screams, battering the walls of my skull, but my body moves on its own—like a marionette, strings pulled by another.
Before me—shadows of the past, faces of those I crushed, whose lives I ended. Children. They stare at me with empty sockets, whisper soundlessly, their voices—like wind in a ruined city—boring into my brain. I want to scream, "Forgive me! I didn't mean to!"—but the words stick, choke me. A searing lump in my chest burns, tears, and I fall to my knees, into this filth, this blood. My fingers claw the ground, nails breaking, as I dig, as if I could unearth forgiveness, unearth the old me.
But down there, in the depths, only darkness. It stares at me—vast, bottomless, with a hungry grin. It knows I'm part of it. It waited for me all this time. And I hear its whisper—cold as a blade grazing my neck: "You're mine, Brandon. You always were."
Footsteps behind. Heavy, confident. Jane—or what's left of her—approaches. Her laughter—like metal scraping stone—cuts my ears, digs into my nerves. I turn, and her eyes—red, burning like coals in hell—pierce me. She's not human. She never was. And I—her puppet, her weapon, her dog on a leash.
"Get up," she hisses, her voice poison flowing through my veins. "We're not done."
I try to resist, cling to the scraps of myself, but they crumble like ash. My legs rise on their own, my body obeys, while my mind howls, trapped in a cage. Terror engulfs me in a wave—cold, sticky, endless. I don't want to go. I don't want to kill. I don't want to be this. But I go. Step by step, into an abyss with no return.
What have I done?
And somewhere far off, beyond this nightmare, I hear the echo of her laughter—Tori. She calls me, but I can't answer. I lost her. Lost myself. And now I'm just a shadow, walking into darkness, led by another's hand.
I was a marionette on strings. Like a puppet, I killed people with shields and swords, trying to stop me. To protect something. To keep me and Jane from something. Men and women in white robes—some humbler, some richer. They defended their home. Their sanctuary.
With prayers on their lips, they tried to stop us. But I can't be stopped.
I am the horror that invaded their home. Ordinary weapons can't hold me. No creature on this planet could stand in my way.
Run.
Memories returned like apple scraps knitting back together after a bite. She was doing something to me. Jane, or the creature she was. Studying, sniffing, taking blood. At the hotel, she couldn't pierce my skin, but she realized I could harm myself. She was right. With a nail, I tore my arm, and she, tasting the blood, was ecstatic. I'd never seen such intense joy. Frenzied, she drank much, then did something, and the wound healed. Magic? But how? In my world, it shouldn't exist, Faith had said…
Was I deceived? I don't know.
The path in the desert. A city in the sands. Not ruins, but a real city with people. She killed them all. I killed them all…
A passage in a city of mist. A city full of people in white robes. Fanatics? No, students and ordinary people with books and laughter. Until they saw me. Covered in blood.
Murder. Death and blood. I became a weapon. Absolute and unstoppable. Attempts to kill us. Protecting Jane—like a puppet, I shielded her from blows and arrows. An explosion underfoot, shrapnel that didn't reach us. Memories are fragmented, like frames of old film.
What have I done…
After an eternity of images and darkness, light returned to me. Slowly but surely, I was coming back. The control lifted. The sun, blinding my eyes, whispered like an old friend: "I'm here. I'm with you."
My eyes, heavy as steel, slowly opened. A headache, long forgotten, reminded me of my past life. Where was I?
I didn't have time to look around. I was yanked upright, my neck caught in a vice. The air, dry as a desert—which it was—came through as if through a straw. Furious eyes of a white-haired man, desert dunes, itching clothes, and weakness in my entire body. What was happening?
"Give me one reason to spare your life, blasphemous wretch."
I tried to mentally blast him with lasers, but I couldn't. My powers… they were gone. The world was as it had been in my old life. Hot, hard to breathe, my whole body aching. What was happening?
Capillaries in my eyes burst, air, like a coveted prize, didn't reach me. I couldn't speak, and two suns to the right and left of the man holding my neck stunned me to my core. Where was I? What happened?
After seconds of struggling for life, realizing he wasn't letting me breathe, I was released. Like a sack of trash, I collapsed into the sand, which filled my mouth. Taking a sweet breath, I crawled away from the towering Exorcist.
I recalled the last moments in my world. The creature, Apophia, controlling me, had called him that. What the hell kind of Exorcist? He reminded me of my commander in his prime—a murderous gaze, hands capable of breaking spines, the face of a beast.
Damn, how did this happen? Falling under control, losing my powers, and ending up in another world. Raising my head after gasping breaths, I confirmed: things were very bad.
Dunes and sand stretched endlessly in all directions. No cars, no roads, no cities, no people—just me and him. And two damned suns that, in my world, would've scorched the planet.
To the brute's question, in a bid to avoid death, I exhaled:
"I can get us out of here."
I spoke the truth. The Exorcist's skeptical face unnerved me. How do I regain my powers? Without them, it won't be weakness or dehydration that kills me—it'll be his hands.