Noah was dead. He had been dead long before the bullet pierced his body. But today he was finally able to kill and die without any regrets.
Death was peaceful and comfortable.. He drifted into the quiet darkness, finally at peace. Free of the violence he had known all his life.
"No."
Voices interrupted his requiem, a chaotic symphony that made the dark tremble. He had no body to move, simply slotted in the darkness like a peg. But he turned slightly.
"Not yet, not when you can cleanse them from this world. Come back."
Pain filled his body, the smell of petrol and paint suffocating him.
And somewhere in the distance, he could hear fire.
His eyes snapped open in a grey, degraded room with a single light swinging over his head.
He was alive again, filled with heat and pain.
Why am I so close to the roof?
Then he felt the rope around his neck tightening and his throat burning.
He was being hanged. Or rather… he looked down at the chair below his feet.
I'm hanging myself?
There's no way I'm this brave.
He considered letting himself just die again, but memories flashed through his mind. Memories that weren't his but also were.
A life he hadn't lived but was fully his. In this life, his father never got addicted, never lost his job, never killed himself.
He kicked against the wall in front of him and grabbed the rope. His eyes trembled; there was no way those memories were real.
He told himself this was a dream, that he was already dead. But there was a mad longing surging in his belly; he wanted to see his parents again.
This isn't my world.
No. Things are different but similar. An alternate version of earth?
His feet scrambled against the crumbling, pushing with all the strength this weak body had to offer.
After an agonizing climb against the wall with his weak body, he reached up and unhooked the rope from the roof.
But this meant he had nothing holding him up.
He fell to the ground abruptly, back slamming against the wooden chair beneath him. The pain blinded him for a couple of moments, but for some reason, it faded quickly.
Immediately, someone burst through the door of the room.
A short, bald man with a skinny frame and brown teeth, wearing a baggy black jacket and trousers. He knew the ratty face and beady black eyes.
Dalton.
"I killed you?" Noah rasped.
He remembered it clearly; Dalton begging for his life, the bullet drilling through his skull like everyone else.
Dalton was one of the mob's dogs, a worthless rat that he enjoyed killing. A little more than he enjoyed killing the rest of the mob.
"Fucking junkie," Dalton hissed, walking over and dragging Noah's weak body up. "Did you really try to kill yourself?"
Dalton slapped him roughly, insulting him with a breath that reeked of alcohol.
"We'd just pass the debt to your family. Maybe I can have a toss with that sister of yours?" Dalton jeered with a slimy grin.
Strength surged through him. He pushed Dalton's scrawny arms away and grabbed his throat, fingers digging into the skin.
Noah's face twisted up, his green eyes filled with malice. "Rat bastard, it's a great pleasure to kill you twice."
Dalton opened his mouth to scream, but Noah's hands were so cold and he was rapidly losing strength and warmth. He slammed his palms into Noah's chest, but it felt like pushing a boulder.
On the other hand, Noah felt more alive than ever. Fire was pumping through his hands and into his body. His heart kept pounding, the realization dawning on him.
I'm stealing Dalton's life?
Before he could come to terms with what was happening, his body stiffened, then he fell over.
Dalton escaped the death grip, stumbling over to the bed as Noah crashed to the ground.
"What the hell," Dalton whispered weakly. "What did he do to me?"
His voice froze as something rose from Noah's body.
It was a spectral copy of him, wearing the same stained white shirt and black trousers, but its head was a bonfire of black flames. His voice rumbled from the fire.
"This is new."
Noah turned, taking in his strange body in the mirror. The black flames that replaced his head were cold.
And his physical body… it was still there, lying motionlessly on the ground. Almost like a corpse with how pale he looked… And the lack of breathing.
"This is so wrong," he whispered.
Cold fire, dead people that are still alive, what's next?
Then the sound of movement drew his attention. Dalton was still alive, albeit half dead. The rat's skin was white as chalk and his legs wobbled as he tried to run.
A vicious grin would have lit up Noah's face if he had a mouth. Instead the flames pulsed as he walked over to Dalton.
"Wait… Noah," Dalton pleaded. "I'm your friend, dude. I can help… I—"
"Help me with what?" Noah rumbled through the flames. "You helped the me in this world get addicted to your drugs. Shucks, what a good friend you are. I should have called you to help me hang myself."
He grabbed the back of Dalton's neck, expecting to have some time to make the rat suffer. But with an unexpected snap, he felt the neck bend under his fingers like a plastic bottle.
He dropped Dalton's body, unsettled by how easily the bones snapped beneath his grip.
For a moment, he just stared at the hand like it wasn't his, the bloody tips of his fingers. This form was far stronger than the average human.
What the hell am I?
He had faint memories of voices while he was dead. Their feeling of dissatisfaction and pleas for vengeance.
"I died, taking revenge on the mob," Noah said first. He remembered the gunfight, remembered killing his adopted father Pierre.
He tore through them like it was nothing, almost every shot ended in a man dead, and anyone that came too close ended up broken and full of stabs.
Georgie, the boss of the Ironfield Mafia killed him in the end with some luck. If not, Noah would have killed them all for the lies, exploitation and evil he endured from them.
But on this alternate earth they were all still alive. Just like Dalton.
Well, they were alive for now.
This was a second chance to finish what he started and avenge his parents, even though they were alive here.
"They don't know me here. Pierre, Petrov, Isaac, Georgie. And with these powers I can erase all of them."
He turned back to the mirror, noticing change in the black flames. He had eyes now, little white circles like the ones you'd see in a cartoon.
Killing Dalton made him stronger. As if he needed more reason to hunt the rest of the mob
First however he needed to know where he was. He dove through alternate Noah's memories, flowing between scenes in his mind with ease and managed to draw a conclusion.
He was in an underground warehouse where the mob stored drugs for distribution in the Hudson Valley.
They had a lot of new drugs he had never heard of in his past life though, and the location was strange.
Too close to the river.
An abandoned boathouse outside the city.
There was no point in overthinking things now though; there were more people here that he had to deal with. Before he left, he took Dalton's little pistol.
Then he walked out of the room where he hung himself into a dark hallway and a new world.