I woke up with a start. My chest tightened as if the air around me had turned too heavy to breathe. The world was blurry, caught somewhere between darkness and light, and my body felt wrong.
The bed beneath me was warm, yet somehow cold. My hands shook as I pushed myself upright, trying to make sense of what had happened. Everything felt distant, like I was trapped in someone else's skin.
Then it hit me. Something was off. Terribly off.
I could hear things I shouldn't be able to hear. Three heartbeats in the house. I could smell a woman's perfume coming from a room down the hall. And beneath it all, I felt it, a strange mix of death and chaos lingering in the air, something heavy and uncomfortable.
My pulse raced. I swung my legs off the bed and forced myself toward the mirror on the wall. The face staring back at me wasn't mine.
It was one I had seen every day on TV, at school, even in my dreams. A face I had admired for bravery and cursed for recklessness.
Scott McCall.
But not the Scott I knew from the final season. This version looked younger, alive, yet strong in a way that shouldn't have been possible. His brown eyes, filled with confusion, shock, and fear, locked onto mine through the reflection.
I pressed my hands to the glass, as if it might somehow explain itself. "This can't be real," I whispered. My own voice sounded wrong. Deeper, steadier, but with something else underneath. Something dangerous.
A strange warmth spread through my chest, and I realized my body moved differently. Stronger, faster, more aware. Every sound, every scent, every movement in the house pressed against my senses like it was shouting at me.
I took a tentative step back and tried to breathe normally. But my heartbeat wouldn't settle. My mind raced, memories of another life trying to collide with the reality staring back at me. I remembered mistakes I had made. People I had lost. Lessons I had learned too late.
And then I felt it. A rhythm beneath my own heartbeat. Something ancient. Something alive. The Alpha instinct.
I swallowed hard. My pulse throbbed in response. The instinct demanded acknowledgment, and the longer I ignored it, the louder it became. My hands itched to move, to feel, to assert control over something I didn't yet understand.
I forced my gaze back to the mirror. The reflection's eyes were still wide with shock, but there was a fire there too. A promise. The promise of survival, of strength, of power.
I wasn't me anymore. I was someone else. Someone strong. Someone who could survive anything.
I took a deep breath, letting the fear and confusion settle just enough to focus.
I was Scott McCall.
But I wasn't the Scott from the TV show.
I was him reborn.
And this time, I wouldn't fail.
.