The first sensation was the wind.
It tore at his clothes, whipped his dark hair, and screamed in his ears with a sound like a train. Andrew Garfield's eyes flew open into a void of white and blue. Clouds, thin and insubstantial, streamed past his face. There was no ground, no sky—only the endless, scary fall.
His heart hammered against his ribs, like a frantic bird in a cage. A scream built in his throat, but the wind stole it away. How? Why? The questions were swallowed by the terror of the drop.
Then the clouds parted, and the world rushed up to meet him. He fell in a sequence:
A slate roof. A manicured lawn. And the sharp, wrought-iron railings of a garden gate, rising like a line of spears.
"No—"
The impact was not a sound, but a feeling. A brutal, crack that shuddered through his entire being. A searing agony erupted in his chest, so absolute it for a moment silenced even the terror. He looked down, and his mind faltered, refusing to process the image.
A polished black spike, slick and red, protruded from his sternum. He could feel the cold metal inside him, feel the ragged edges of his broken ribs grinding against it. He was skewered, like a piece of meat on a spit. With every shuddering, involuntary breath, he slid a fraction of an inch further down, the metal tearing new pathways of pain.
Blood, warm and deep red, welled around the wound and began a steady, drip onto the gravel path below. Pat. Pat. Pat.
Tears mingled with the spit on his lips.
_This can't be it. Not like this. I don't want to die._
The world dissolved into a blot of color and pain.
---
He materialized with a gasp, the scent of old paper and polish replacing the metallic taste of blood. He was standing. His hands were on a wooden desk. Relief, warm and dizzying, flooded him. A dream. A horrible, vivid—
Then he felt a presence behind him. A shift in the air.
He started to turn, but a hand clamped on his shoulder, holding him fast. Before he could cry out, there was a searing pain punched through his back, directly between his shoulder blades. The pain was different this time—a deep violation of his insides. He looked down, stunned, as the tip of a glistening, black-taloned hand emerged from the center of his chest, clutching a still-beating, grotesque muscle.
_My heart._
The hand withdrew sharply. The strength fled his legs, and he collapsed to the polished floor, the world tilted. The last thing he saw was a pool of his own blood spreading across the dark wood, reflecting a distorted, terrified version of his own face.
_No… not again… I don't… accept…_
---
There was light. There were bookshelves. He was seated behind a desk, his right arm already raised. His fingers were curled around the cold grip of a pistol, the barrel pressed hard against his temple.
Panic, pure and uncontrolled, seized him. He was screaming with terrified frantic eyes he could not control.
"Stop!" he tried to yell, but his vocal cords were not his own. The word came out as a whisper. He fought in his own flesh, trying to unclench his finger and lower his arm. A tear traced a path down his cheek. He poured every ounce of his will into one, final, mental shriek.
"I DON'T WANT TO DIE AGAIN!"
His finger tightened.
The crack of the gunshot was the loudest sound in the world. Then, there was silence. His body slumped forward, his head crashing onto the open pages of a book on the desk. A splash of crimson blood bloomed across the text. His last, fading thought was a strange, desperate plea.
_Not this. Any death but this. The first one. I'd rather the first one._
---
The wind was back. The screaming wind.
His eyes opened to the white and blue void. The clouds. The falling.
"No. No, no, no—"
The roof. The lawn. The railings.
Crack.
The agony. The impalement. The dripping blood. The same tears. The same silent, screaming rejection. He underwent the same sequence.
---
He woke up.
It was not a gentle awakening. It was a violent return. A jolt that arched his back and earned a gasp from his lungs. He was in a bed, tangled in soft white sheets, morning light filtering through a window.
For a long moment, he just laid there, his heart trying to beat its way out of his chest. He dragged breaths into lungs that, miraculously, did not have metal bars through them.
Slowly, trembling, he pushed the sheets away. He patted his chest, his stomach, his face. No wounds. No blood. Just whole skin.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed, his bare feet pressing into a rough-woven rug. The room was… normal. A dresser, a closet, a desk. Potted plants sat on the windowsill. Outside, he could see people walking past on a brick-paved street. It was all so mundane, so peaceful. And yet, something was profoundly, terrifyingly wrong.
His eyes fell on the desk. An open notebook lay there, its pages splayed.
And on those pages, a dark, rust-brown stain.
His breath spiked. He knew that stain. He'd seen it bloom before his dying eyes.
He crept forward, every instinct telling him to run. He stood over the desk cowering, his hands shaking. He had to know. Mustering some courage, he reached out a trembling hand and flipped the notebook over.
On the cover, a name was written in neat handwriting.
Foster Ambrose.
The name meant nothing to him. But the realization that followed was like a second, more subtle death.
Andrew Garfield was dead. He had died three times over.
So who the hell was he now?