1st February 2010, China, [Classified Information] [Permission accepted] city : Ordos
The first thing I notice isn't the pain,
It's the clarity,
Not the kind that comes after an adrenaline rush or drugs, but the kind that comes with structure and detachment, like when you are starting to get drunk without having eaten anything, but this time you couldn't feel your emotions…
'Focus.' The word doesn't come from me, or maybe it does. I still don't know how a normal 30-year-old anime and military otaku could run straight toward a knife without flinching…
… just an hour after being killed by a stranger on the street by one. How did it even start ?
----
The blade in front of me doesn't scare me, the guy who wield it doesn't even register as dangerous in my mind after witnessing 20 years of the memory belonging to a guy who probably killed over 100 people.
Was it good for me or not ?
--
1st January 2026, France, Paris.
An hour earlier, the same knife terrified me. When you see someone wielding a knife in an open public space, your first reaction is to cry, then run. If you are not afraid, then maybe try to beat up the other party. Me ? I was scared as hell, not a single part of my body was able to move, my eyes were fixed on the wielder not even 1 meter in front me, running toward me, knife in both hand like it would hurt people more seriously —like gripping it harder could somehow make the fear sharper, more real, more effective.
I remember thinking that was stupid. Not in a brave way. Not in a heroic, "I've faced worse" kind of way. Just… a detached observation. That was not how knives worked . This cynical thought didn't help. It didn't save me. It didn't make my legs move or my arms rise in defense . Not even when warmth started spilling out of me. My body was still locked, muscles refusing orders like a system crash. But maybe it was just to help me accept the reality of the situation. I was killed, no, maybe it would be more just to say that I bled to death, losing some liters of your blood by hemorrhage could do that to you, apparently.
The world didn't end all at once. It narrowed. Sounds stretched, distorted, like everything was underwater. The man's footsteps felt too loud, too close. Then my vision started to blacken, and no word could come out of my mouth. The worst part ? It didn't hurt, maybe at first, but after that, I became quiet.
That's when I feel it—the split. Not physical, but deeper, like my mind was cut.
---
One part of me " became ? " John Reese, a fictional character from a TV show named Person of Interest, having escaped a cruise missile blast radius narrowly, but still kicked down.
While another part of me, John Wattergate, was still in the process of my death, and over the fact that I was now another person and not just an unknown individual, but a fictional character of a fictional world.
It wasn't a neat divide but an overlap. Thoughts collided—mine slow, confused, human; the other precise, cold, already analyzing threats and exits with structure.
I didn't become him. He was… layered over me. Yes, this perfectly suited my situation. I was not John Watergate, but John Reese, doted on John Watergate memories, yet John Reese and John Watergate were dead, so who was I ?
---
Waking up in the body of another person, especially in the body of someone so monstrous, should have left me terrified and afraid, maybe even mentally ill, but my mind was strangely at peace; one part of me was moving forward, scanning, calculating angles, distances, and my current situation. While the other watched, observed, and questioned the very existence of my presence, was it a game of a higher being or another chance at life ? Why was I feeling so calm in this situation despite being so human and fragile in John Wattergate?
Either way, my situation was not so good. The instinct belonging to John Reese's body allowed me to focus on my current situation, silencing most of the thoughts belonging to John Wattergate.
First accessing the situation of my body, I was injured, i was bleeding from different part of my body but nothing serious only surface wound, my legs were still fonctionnal despite my muscle hurting, the most serious wound was a bullet in my left arm, dangereous if left unintended but not serious enough to seek a doctor. Faces I didn't know flickered through my mind. Targets. Civilians. Collateral. Some screamed. Some didn't have time to. An headache started to form only to dull when the other part of my mind became focused on the situation too, the world felt clearer, more colorfull but also slower yet I feel like i shouldn't stay in this state too long.
Now analysing my situation was easier, Having just escaped a cruise missile in a abandonned chinese area where many people died for unknow reasons escaping was a must, judging by the fact that John Reese was still alive in the show mean that escaping China took near a year, Jessica death was in Nine Month meaning that i should escape in Eight if possible, without any backing and alone leaving will be hard, from what i recall this whole situation was orchestrated by Geer and Decima after the laptop was sold which mean that their armed group will soon be here.
Course of action to follow ? Thought passed through both of my mind, various plan passed, from escaping to going back kill Kara Stanton only to finnaly settle on a moderate risk plan, if succefull that could kill thre bird in one stone. While escaping was the safest option it means that it wasn't the best one, safe plan keep you alive or predicable and in such a vast territory as china it was a liability. It was only the combined vision of the Tv show and John Reese memory that I decided to go back to the hiding place of the laptop (As a CIA agent I don't beleive they were so obvious as to keep something so precious that only two agent were sent to take back to the goverment as the fact that John and Kara still survived the missile and that the laptop was not destroyed), thanks to being an insider I know that John and Kara didn't bring the laptop with them when going to the extraction site, another team of CIA agent was supposed to come here in another month once things calmed down to collect it but since Kara was found by Decima and the laptop too it means that either the laptop was found because Kara revealed the localisation or that Decima already had agent in the CIA. While either wouldn't really suprise me, after getting to know Kara from John memory i know she would not turn over a traitor so easily, she was certainaly jaded by the dark world we belonged but not yet a crazy woman. So the second option was more likely time wise.
Course of action decided; I focused back on my body, the air smelled, not just smoke, something heavier, the odor was not new to John's memory, it was building fumes. It was an odor grenade couldn't replicate, it was at this odor that you know you were in a dangereous zone back in his military days, despite working as a CIA agent in various part of the world for the past ten years and killing countless people this odor was not often smelled anymore but this couldn't help but give me more motivation to escape rapidly. Thankfully, there were no voices. No sirens. No movement. Only the start of a fire starting from the building I, or rather John Reese, escaped. Pushing myself off the ground with a grunt, I started to walk away. The missile explosion site was only around four miles, which meant there was some distance to walk.