You know that thing people always say?
That when you're about to die, your whole life flashes before your eyes.
Yeah, sure… bullshit.
You don't see it before you die.
You see it when you're already dead.
And only because there's literally nothing else to look at.
What nobody tells you is that death, more than anything, is insultingly boring.
It looked nothing like the paintings. No lights. No old bearded bastard tallying up your sins. Not even that damn tunnel everyone keeps talking about. It was more like someone flipped a switch. Click. Done. Over.
What came after? Yeah—nobody ever gets that part right.
No loved ones waiting for you. No heaven. No hell. No purgatory. No warmth, no cold. No body. No hunger. No thirst. Not even the urge to take a shit. There was nothing.
Just this endless void of shit. Absolute darkness. And me, hanging in the middle of it, clinging to broken thoughts because they were the only thing left.
I think, therefore I am.
I always thought Descartes was full of crap.
I preferred Machiavelli. The pragmatists. Do what it takes to get what you want.
But the French son of a bitch was right.
There—no body, no world, no anything—thinking was the only proof I still existed.
Or that I had existed, and I hadn't yet dissolved into that cursed nothing.
Maybe that would've been better.
Because the problem with thinking when you can't do anything else… is that you think too much. And when memories are all you've got, you realize they don't all weigh the same.
The good ones were smoke. You could almost grab them. They comforted you for a second… and then vanished.
The bad ones stayed. They clung to you. Bit you from the inside. Lodged themselves like splinters under the skin of your soul.
And there it was again.
The same damn memory.
The headquarters. My headquarters. My fucking throne. That oak table where we decided who lived and who didn't.
Marcus was across from me, wearing that crooked grin I should've smashed off his face years ago. The bastard I dragged out of the mud when he was twelve. I gave him everything—respect, power, my goddamn trust.
He gave it back in lead.
The bullet went through me before I could even move. The pain was… fuck… like my shoulder got ripped clean off. I dropped to my knees, my blood spilling over contracts worth millions.
And then Tommy showed up.
My cousin. My own fucking blood.
Cold barrel to the back of my head.
Bang.
—Nothing personal, boss.
Nothing personal.
I repeated that line now, floating in this endless dark. Like betrayal could ever not be personal. Like spending your whole life building something from scratch—drugs, guns, territory, power—could end without it being personal.
I went from pickpocketing in Brixton to controlling half of London. From sleeping in cardboard boxes to having politicians licking my boots.
And in the end, the one thing I couldn't buy was loyalty.
I should've seen it coming. Of course I should've.
But I got comfortable. I thought I could trust them.
Idiot.
The fucked-up part is I was never just the monster. I had cracks. Small ones, hidden—but they were there. When my mother ditched and my stepdad turned me into his punching bag every time he got drunk, I had somewhere to escape.
It wasn't the streets.
It wasn't the fights.
It was a dusty library in Southwark.
And a book about a boy with a lightning-bolt scar.
Yeah. Harry Potter.
Ridiculous, I know. London's most feared criminal boss reading about kids with wands. Not just the books. The fanfic too. Thousands of them. Stories where Harry was darker. Smarter. Where he rewrote his own fate.
The way I wanted to rewrite mine.
I never told anyone. Imagine it: me, behind my iron mask, reading about Hogwarts at three in the morning in my armored office.
They would've killed me.
Or worse: they would've laughed.
But those stories saved me more times than I ever saved my own skin. When the world got too gray, too broken, I ran to that shit castle. To a place where magic had rules. Where even an orphan could change everything. Where betrayal got punished with something more than a bullet to the back of the head.
What was my name?
Shit. I couldn't remember.
It got swallowed by that nothing. Like everything else. My face. My body. My empire of lies and blood.
But if there was something after this… if there could be a second chance—reincarnation, whatever—
I wanted it to be there.
In that world of castles and prophecies. Where a kid with nothing could become a legend. Where magic was real and second chances weren't some self-help-book motivational load of crap.
Because this time I'd do it different.
I wouldn't trust anyone.
I wouldn't drop my guard.
I wouldn't make the same stupid mistakes.
This time—
But there was no "this time," right?
Just silence. Heavy. Absolute. Eternal.
I let myself sink again. Floating. Weightless. Bodiless. Destineless. Certain there was no "after."
And still… I kept thinking.
I kept remembering.
Because it was all I had left.
And because something inside me—some stubborn fragment that survived the bullet, the betrayal, the death—refused to quit.
I think, therefore I am.
What a fucking irony.
The pressure hit without warning.
—What the hell…?
A crushing force in my chest. Like something was squeezing from the inside. Did I even have a chest? Did I have anything?
It spread fast. I couldn't move, but I felt everything: suffocation, something warm and wet crushing me, total loss of control.
And then came the yank.
Something dragged me upward. Fast. Violent. Like I was being ripped out of the world's guts. The smothering heat vanished and got replaced by icy air that slammed into me like a punch. It forced itself into my lungs, blowing them open brutally.
And then I screamed.
It wasn't a choice. The sound tore out of me—sharp, desperate, completely uncontrollable.
—Shit. Shit. What the fuck is happening?
Everything was blurry. Yellowish lights floating above. Shapes moving with no clear edges. Muffled sounds, like my head was underwater.
I blinked.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
The shapes started to make sense.
A high ceiling. Stained. Cracks branching like veins.
Huge hands holding me. Cold. Slick with something slippery.
I'd been reborn.
The thought hit me like a gunshot.
I'd been reborn. Holy shit. I'D BEEN REBORN.
Not a metaphor. Not a dream. I was in a body. Small. Useless. Crying like a fucking baby because I was a fucking baby.
I asked for a chance. And the universe, that bastard, gave it to me.
I wanted to laugh, scream, tell it all to go to hell. But all that came out was this shrill crying I couldn't control.
Slowly, my vision sharpened.
A man in a white coat with thick-framed glasses held me up. His surgical cap sat crooked, sweat running down his temples. Behind him, a wall clock read 12:02 a.m.
Real hands. Real ticking.
Who the hell still uses that?
I looked around while they cleaned me. No touchscreens. No modern monitors. Just boxy machines with blinking green numbers. Thick cables like ship ropes. Yellowish fluorescent lights buzzing like dying flies.
Everything looked… old. Outdated. Like some hospital ripped straight out of the eighties.
Where the hell am I?
—He's healthy, the doctor said. Spontaneous breathing. Good weight for gestational age.
—Gestational… what the hell?
No time to process.
They wrapped me in a rough blanket that smelled like cheap industrial detergent. Then I felt other arms. Softer. Shakier.
A woman pressed me to her chest.
The smell hit me. Simple soap. Air-dried clothes. Sweat from effort. And something deeper.
Exhaustion. Relief mixed with fear.
—Shh, it's okay, she murmured, her voice breaking. Mom's here.
Mom.
The word sounded strange. Far away. Like something from another life.
I forced my eyes to focus on her. Young—maybe twenty-three, twenty-four. Messy black hair, half tied with some improvised ponytail. Green eyes, bright, but rimmed with deep dark circles.
She looked exhausted. Terrified. Like all of this was too much.
This isn't the first time she's been through this, I thought suddenly.
And then I saw it.
Another baby. Already there, tucked on her other side. Small. Eyes shut. Breathing softly.
Something twisted inside me. Not pain. Something else.
Recognition.
Like some part of me knew that bundle of cloth mattered. That it was tied to me in a way I didn't understand yet.
My brother.
I didn't know how I knew.
But I knew.
The woman looked at both of us and her eyes filled with tears.
—Two, she whispered. Two babies. Oh my God.
Someone else stepped closer. A man. Tall. Lean. Scruffy beard. Wrinkled clothes. Dark circles as deep as hers.
—Are they okay? he asked, hoarse.
—They're perfect, the doctor replied, peeling off his gloves. Healthy twins. It was a long labor, but everything went well.
The man let out a long breath like he'd been holding it for hours. He leaned in and kissed the woman's forehead carefully, like she might break.
—You did it, he said. You did it, Elora.
She nodded, but she didn't take her eyes off us. Not me, not my brother. Like she still couldn't believe we were real.
I stayed there in her arms, feeling the warmth of her body, listening to the uneven rhythm of her heart.
And through all of it, one single question drilled into my skull.
Where the hell am I?
Because this didn't feel like London.
It didn't feel like my world.
And something about the way that man glanced around before stepping in, something about the tension they both carried like an invisible weight…
Something was wrong.
Or different.
Or both.
Fine, I thought, as my brother shifted beside me… guess I'll find out.