Thunder rumbled with a ferocity unknown upon the city. It was dark and cold, in the dead of night with heavy downpour. The rain harsh against the cobblestone, as though keen on trying to erase the filth of history from each stone. Dogs whimpered and turned, eyelids flinched whenever lightning flashed.
In one particular house, indistinct from the rest of the neighborhood, a family resided, so tangled in the threads of fate and strings of destiny they were, but for now, they were in slumber, undisturbed by the ramblings outside their paper–thin walls.
Apart from one. He stirred and turned, his eyelids shifting, fighting to snap open against a phantasmal veil. He balled his fists, nails digging into his palms, drawing blood. He kicked his feet against an unseen enemy, cold sweat drenched his sheets. When there was a flash of lightning, it illuminated his face, young, yet carved in terror and helplessness. His torso rose and dropped in urgency, his mouth agape, nose flared, gasping for air like fish out of water, yet, oxygen drew thinner with every inhale. He moaned into the night. He screamed for help as he drowned, burned, and suffered. But, the wrath of the rain screamed louder.
Hours crawled, and it felt like an eternity, until—
He stopped twitching, the storm outside was reeled in as he drew his last breath. A single tear escaped the confines of his eye.
Hhaaaaa~
Suddenly, his eyes snapped open as his lungs burned with excessive air, he gasped in mouthfuls. He keeled over, falling off his bed and retched out his guts.
Sharp pain assaulted his mind. His skull thrummed, it felt as though a fork had been inserted through his cranium, scooping, twirling, and shuffling his brains as an inheritance forced its way into his soul. He lost consciousness and fell over his filth.
°°° ••• °°° •••
Birds chirped at the crack of dawn, the rain had brought out all sorts of creepers from hiding. It was bound to be a feast. And of course, the earliest bird would indeed catch the fatest worm.
"Ugh!"
There was an offputting stench about him, he gagged and cracked open an eye, his vision was blurred. He somehow could make out the outline of a bed? And there was a ceiling too, but he couldn't figure out how far up it was. Nonetheless, he took in as much of his surroundings as possible. Ever so slowly, he rose from the ground, the headache still lingered, but nothing he couldn't work around.
He groaned as he got to his knees, his joints popped as he rose further.
"Ugh! I, ain't," he huffed, his voice was raspy, as if he'd run a marathon all day without a drop of water, in the desert, "ain't that old!"
Now then, where should he go? His vision wavered, a smudge of grey and grain; like watching life through low resolution lenses. And he was losing his balance, his consciousness blinked in and out often. He didn't like that, at all!
Water! Yes, he had to get his hands on some liquid, he didn't care what type, he was ready to drink with the dogs off a toilet bowl!
While his mind looped around the same thought, his body had its departure. Mechanically, his legs led him out of the room and into another. He allowed it, for some time now, little snippets of memory had slowly but truly, been integrated into his mind. Vertigo still held him in its clutches, but a dead man could only have so little to worry about, and insanity wasn't at the top of the list.
Step by step, his feet ushered him into a washroom of sorts?
'Ugh! Such a low class!'
Discomfort stirred his guts.
Poverty.
He made a face, but soon schooled his expression and walked over to the sink.
'Oh, thank god, there's running water.'
He splashed his face with what he assumed to be freezing water. Perhaps he could no longer feel the cold now. He chuckled at the thought. After all, no amount of cold could compare to the frosty embrace of death. He leaned over the sink, and drank, drank some more and kept drinking until he could no longer.
"Heh! Quenched the thirst of a dead man." His voice felt unfamiliar, now that he thought about it.
With his brain unclogged, thoughts rushed past the dissipating fog. His eyes glazed over as he sorted through events. Surprisingly, he had access to countless memories of two lives, no patches in between whatsoever.
"Oh, you poor child." A pinch of sympathy sprinkled his words, yet the mirror reflected otherwise.
He raised his eyes and caught sight of his expression, his grin growing wider, carving into his cheeks until his face hurt. Before him was a reflection of two entities.
Dressed in an exquisite phthalo green suit, a well established handsome man with cold charcoal eyes stared condescendingly at him, yet the smirk on his lips matched his own. The man's ardoned hands were settled on the shoulders of a lad seemingly in his late teens. The boy's complexion was of a lighter shade than the man's, caramel perhaps? Those silver–grey eyes nestled in the shadow of his nest of dark hair. Quivering under its current predicament.
On the mirror's surface, beyond the faces his mind conjured, both lives flashed by in a blur of film — memories, achievements, moments, regrets, goals, incomplete goals – and what unsettled him most was how easily his mind effortlessly kept pace with and absorbed the identities.
"Zalach el Jaar. A worthwhile life, if I do say so myself." He drummed his chin pensively, "Now as Malique Benjamin Parker. Seemingly average fellow, excluding his enormous intellectual potential. Alright then. My priority is to escape my current background. It stinks of the middle class!"
The new name rolled off his tongue, the unfamiliarity slowly fading as he settled into his new identity. For a fleeting second, the room pulsed, two heartbeats thumping erratically before merging into rhythm. Fortunately, his previous life's experiences overshadowed the boy's, he breathed out a sigh he hadn't realized he held onto.
He was in all senses, Zalach, just in a different vessel. His soul – the most important aspect for a being – overshadowed Malique's meagre seventeen years of life; all his beliefs, ideologies, experiences, and personality were filed and archived.
His stomach rumbled, and the house's blueprint seamlessly slipped to his mind's eye.
'How convenient.' He departed, mildly hoping that the disgraceful excuse of a kitchen would not be without food.
In his wake, the 'mental' impressions of both his lives lingered in the mirror. The image of Malique frighteningly glanced at the bigger man, only to realize that Zalach had been staring. The boy flinched under the gaze and employed as much distance as the mirror frame could allow. Zalach's mouth quivered and his massive shoulders trembled. The corners of his lips were slightly uplifted.
He outstretched an arm and caressed the boy's head as one would a pet. His lips parted as he whispered in length. Malique occasionally glanced up at him, his smaller frame going through a cycle of trembling, stiffening and finally slacking. He nodded solemnly and smiled in acceptance. Suddenly, their forms became indefinite, the mirror cracked in half, diagonally, as they overlapped and faded out.
And so it begins!