Chapter 1: Dead Man Walking
The Honda Civic's headlights cut through the Oregon darkness like dying stars. Elijah Chen's hands gripped the steering wheel, knuckles white against the black leather. January 3rd, 2008, 11:47 PM—a time that would have meant nothing to him an hour ago. Now it felt carved into his bones.
The radio crackled with static between stations. He'd been driving for six hours straight, fleeing a job interview that had gone spectacularly wrong, fleeing a life that had never quite fit. The heating vents wheezed warm air that smelled of old coffee and broken dreams.
"—weather advisory for the greater Portland area—"
Black ice. The words registered a heartbeat too late.
The world tilted sideways. Physics became poetry, cruel and inevitable. The guardrail rushed toward him like an open mouth, hungry and patient. Elijah's last coherent thought, absurd in its mundanity, flickered through his mind: I never finished Breaking Bad.
The impact swallowed sound, swallowed light, swallowed everything.
Elijah woke in nothing.
Not darkness—darkness implied the absence of light, and this place had never known such concepts. This was the void between thoughts, the pause between heartbeats. He existed here without form, without weight, a consciousness adrift in an ocean of absolute emptiness.
"Fascinating."
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, silk wrapped around razors. Elijah turned—or thought he turned—toward the sound. A figure materialized from the nothingness, tall and luminous, wearing the shape of a man but moving like liquid starlight. Its face shifted constantly, features flowing like water, never quite settling into anything recognizable.
"You're dead," the Entity said conversationally, as if commenting on the weather. "Cervical fracture, massive cranial trauma, exsanguination. Quite thorough, really."
Elijah tried to speak and discovered he had no voice, no throat, no lungs. The Entity smiled—at least, Elijah thought it smiled. The expression was more felt than seen.
"Ah, yes. Communication. Allow me." The Entity gestured, and suddenly Elijah could speak, though he still felt like vapor given temporary purpose.
"Where—what—am I dead?"
"Very. But death, like most absolutes, has loopholes." The Entity circled him, or perhaps the void circled them both. "I am The Curator, and I collect interesting specimens. Souls with potential. Consciousnesses capable of... adaptation."
Terror clawed at Elijah's formless being. "What do you want?"
"To offer you a choice. You can proceed to whatever cosmic paperwork awaits the recently deceased, or..." The Curator paused, savoring the moment. "You can accept my terms and continue existing. In a fashion."
"What terms?"
The Curator's form solidified slightly, features sharpening into something almost human. Almost. "I'm placing you in what you might call a merged narrative reality. Two specific storylines that intersect and diverge in fascinating ways. You'll need to stay close to the central characters of both—Walter White and Dexter Morgan. Consider them your... anchors."
The names hit Elijah like electrical shocks. "Breaking Bad. Dexter. Those are—"
"Television programs in your reality, yes. Here, they're quite real. And quite dangerous." The Curator's smile turned predatory. "Stray too far from their narrative gravity wells, and you'll simply... fade. Cease. A lingering death that makes your car crash look merciful."
Elijah's consciousness recoiled. "That's insane. I won't—"
"You will, because the alternative is non-existence." The Curator leaned closer, though distance meant nothing here. "But I'm not entirely cruel. I'll give you three abilities to help survive. Nothing magical—magic draws too much attention. Think of them as... enhanced pattern recognition."
The void shimmered, and three concepts burned themselves into Elijah's awareness:
Omniscient Locator: Know the precise location of any character from either timeline.
Leverage Finder: Learn the worst secret of anyone you can see.
Probability Assessment: Calculate the percentage chance of any action's success.
"Generous, aren't I?" The Curator's voice dripped mock kindness. "Of course, there are costs. Each use requires payment—your money, specifically. Consider it rent for living in someone else's story."
"My money? How much—"
"Depends on the complexity. A simple location check might cost hundreds. A deep secret could run tens of thousands. The mathematics of reality aren't cheap." The Curator gestured dismissively. "Oh, and one more restriction. You cannot tell anyone about this arrangement. Ever. Try to speak of your transmigration, your death, or my existence, and your words will become... creative nonsense. A small curse to ensure discretion."
Elijah felt the weight of the trap closing around him. "And if I refuse?"
"Then you're dead. Permanently. No appeals, no second chances." The Curator's form began to fade. "Choose quickly. Your new body grows cold."
The void pressed in from all sides. Elijah closed his eyes—did he have eyes here?—and made the only choice that wasn't death. "I accept."
The Curator's laughter followed him into darkness.
Elijah gasped awake, lungs burning, heart hammering against ribs that felt foreign. The ceiling above him was water-stained plaster, not the twisted metal and shattered glass he'd expected. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead, casting everything in sickly yellow.
He sat up, body moving wrong, muscles responding with unfamiliar tensions. This wasn't his body. The hands that gripped the thin motel sheets were broader than his had been, callused in different places. A quick inventory revealed brown hair instead of his black, green eyes instead of brown, and a face that looked like it had seen too much and enjoyed too little.
The nightstand held a wallet and a folded note. Elijah—was he still Elijah?—opened the wallet with shaking fingers. Marcus Reid, age 27, Albuquerque address. Behind the driver's license, he found a second ID: David Chen, Miami address. Both looked professionally made. Both looked like him.
The note was handwritten in elegant script: Episode 1 has already begun. Choose your entrance. Welcome to your new life, Marcus Reid.
Inside the wallet: fifty thousand dollars in hundreds.
Elijah's mind reeled. The Entity had been thorough. New body, new identity, new city, and enough money to... what? Buy his way into a story where people cooked crystal meth and dismembered serial killers?
He needed information. Standing on unsteady legs, he focused on the name "Walter White" and felt something shift behind his eyes.
The vision hit like a sledgehammer. Coordinates burned across his consciousness: 308 Negra Arroyo Lane, Albuquerque. A modest two-story house, beige stucco and unremarkable landscaping. Inside, a man in his fifties graded chemistry papers at a kitchen table. Thinning hair, tired eyes, the weight of compromise heavy in his shoulders.
The vision faded, leaving Elijah dizzy and nauseous. Text appeared in his mind like a receipt: Omniscient Locator Activated. Cost: $800.
Eight hundred dollars. For a ten-second glimpse of Walter White doing homework.
Elijah stumbled to the bathroom mirror and stared at Marcus Reid's face. Unremarkable. Forgettable. Perfect for hiding in plain sight, terrible for mattering to anyone.
He pulled out a burner phone from the nightstand and dialed 911, then stopped. He needed to warn someone about what was coming. Walt would start cooking meth. Jesse would spiral into addiction and violence. People would die.
"911, what's your emergency?"
"I need to report—" The words twisted in his throat like live snakes. "I need to report that someone is going to—going to feed dolphins with—with volcanic enthusiasm and—"
The gibberish poured out of him, nonsensical and humiliating. The speech curse. He hung up, face burning with shame and terror.
The Entity had been thorough indeed.
Elijah sat on the motel bed, head in his hands, and tested his other power. "Will I survive this month?"
The calculation ripped through his consciousness like a buzz saw. Variables cascaded behind his eyes: proximity to timeline characters, financial resources, threat levels, adaptation speed. The percentage materialized: 67%.
Cost: $12,000.
Twelve thousand dollars. For a number that meant he had a one-in-three chance of dying in the next thirty days.
Elijah checked Marcus Reid's ID again. Expiration date: six months. A deadline within a deadline.
He walked back to the mirror, studying the stranger's face that was now his face. Brown hair, average build, unremarkable features. Perfect for disappearing into crowds. Terrible for building the connections that might keep him alive.
Outside the motel window, Albuquerque sprawled under the desert stars. Somewhere in that city, Walter White was grading papers and Jesse Pinkman was probably getting high. Neither knew that their stories were about to collide, and neither knew that a dead man named Elijah Chen was now counting on them for his continued existence.
The Entity's final words echoed in his memory: Stay close or fade away.
Elijah—Marcus—whoever he was now—closed his eyes and began to plan. He had forty-nine thousand two hundred dollars, two fake identities, and sixty-seven percent odds of seeing February.
It would have to be enough.
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