"If ever I say to the moment: Stay, you are so beautiful—
Then forge your chains and bind me.
Then let the death bell toll.
Then from your labors you shall be free.
The clock may stop, its hands may fall,
And time itself may end for me."
The words echoed in Derek Morgan's mind as his consciousness unraveled.
They did not arrive all at once. They drifted in fragments, rising from somewhere deep and forgotten, clinging to his thoughts with a persistence that felt almost mocking. He could not remember where he had first read them, nor why they mattered now—only that they did. As though they were a verdict already passed.
Derek was dying.
That fact settled into him with an unsettling calm. There was no pain, no terror at first—only the sensation of slipping, as though the edges of his awareness were being gently peeled away. He tried to focus, to anchor himself to something solid, but the world had already begun to dissolve.
And then the memories came.
Not as a gentle recollection, but as a flood.
Numbers, formulas, and schematics burst into his mind with impossible clarity. Equations he had solved decades ago unfolded step by step, pristine and perfect. He saw pages filled with his handwriting, margins crowded with revisions and corrections, entire theories compressed into symbols only he could decipher.
Then his father's voice cut through the noise.
Low. Stern. Always controlled.
You're brilliant, Derek—but brilliance without restraint destroys more than it builds.
He remembered the countless arguments. The warnings disguised as advice. The disappointment that lingered behind every conversation, even when praise was offered. His father had feared what Derek might become long before Derek himself had understood it.
The memories shifted.
Late nights in sterile laboratories. The hum of machinery. The smell of ozone and overheated circuits. Experiments that worked too well. Discoveries shelved not because they failed, but because they succeeded in ways that unsettled even him.
Some had been deemed unethical by review boards—too dangerous, too disruptive. Others were quietly abandoned because no one else possessed the understanding necessary to replicate them. Derek alone stood at the edge of those ideas, peering into possibilities the world was not ready to face.
Rejection followed.
Grants denied. Papers dismissed. Colleagues smiling politely while their eyes betrayed fear—or envy. Love came and went just as quickly, unable to survive his obsession, his absence, the way his mind was always elsewhere.
And beneath it all—anger.
Not the explosive kind, but something colder. Sharper. Anger at limitation. At inefficiency. At a world content to crawl when it could run. It simmered quietly, fueling him even as it consumed him.
All of it replayed with brutal clarity, as though time itself had decided to indulge in irony during his final moments.
Then, suddenly, there was silence.
True silence.
No thought. No memory. No self.
For an instant—perhaps an eternity—Derek ceased to exist.
Noise crashed into him.
Shouting voices overlapped chaotically. Footsteps hurried past. A sharp, rhythmic beeping pierced the air, relentless and demanding. Derek inhaled sharply, his lungs burning as though they were drawing breath for the first time.
His eyes flew open.
Blinding white light assaulted his vision. He squinted, blinking rapidly as shapes slowly came into focus. A ceiling. Fluorescent lights. The faint smell of antiseptic and plastic.
A hospital.
Relief surged through him before he could stop it. The sterile environment, the steady mechanical sounds—it all made sense. Hospitals meant survival. Intervention. A second chance.
He tried to move, only to feel resistance. Tubes tugged at his arm. Something cool pressed against his chest. His heart rate spiked as awareness returned to his body in fragments.
Then he saw it.
A polished metal surface reflected a face he did not recognize.
At first, Derek dismissed it as disorientation. Shock could distort perception. Trauma could play tricks on the mind. He leaned closer, heart pounding, and the face followed.
It was not his.
The structure was wrong. The jaw too narrow. The eyes—his eyes—were unfamiliar in shape and depth. The skin tone differed subtly, the scars absent, replaced by marks he had never earned.
Cold dread crept into his chest.
No.
This had to be a mistake.
His mind raced, grasping for memories that should have belonged to this body—childhood moments, habits, sensations—but found nothing. It was like reaching into an empty drawer again and again, hoping something would magically appear.
"I am Derek Morgan," he whispered hoarsely.
The words felt right. Certain. That identity was unshakable.
But this body did not belong to him.
Panic surged, sharp and overwhelming.
For the first time in longer than he could remember, Derek's rationality fractured. Logic screamed that he should wait, assess, observe—but instinct overpowered reason. His breath came in shallow gasps as he tore the IV from his arm, ignoring the sting and the thin line of blood that followed.
Monitors began to protest.
He ripped away the adhesive pads, swung his legs off the bed, and stood—unsteady but driven by desperation. The room spun briefly, then stabilized as adrenaline flooded his system.
He had to leave.
Now.
Bare feet slapped against the cold floor as he staggered toward the door. The hallway beyond was a blur of motion and color—nurses, patients, equipment rolling past. No one noticed him at first.
Hope flared.
Then an alarm wailed overhead.
"Code purple! Code purple! At-risk patient eloping!"
The words sliced through him like a blade.
Before he could react, a heavy presence collided with him from behind. Strong arms wrapped around his torso, lifting him effortlessly off the ground. He kicked and thrashed, fear stripping away the last remnants of composure.
"Let me go!" he screamed, voice cracking. "You don't understand—!"
A needle pricked his arm.
The world slowed.
Cold spread through his veins, heavy and numbing. His limbs grew sluggish, his thoughts blurring at the edges. The ceiling lights smeared into long streaks as his vision darkened.
The last thing he felt was the crushing certainty that whatever had happened to him was far beyond any experiment he had ever conceived.
Then—nothing.
When Derek awoke again, the silence was different.
It was not empty this time. It was controlled.
He lay still, breathing evenly, his thoughts surprisingly calm. The panic from before felt distant, like a memory belonging to someone else. He opened his eyes slowly.
A doctor stood beside his bed, expression somber. A detective leaned against the wall near the door, notebook tucked under one arm, eyes sharp and assessing.
"Derek," the doctor said softly, "you're awake."
He nodded faintly.
"I'm sorry," the doctor continued after a pause. "Both your parents are dead. The accident was severe. It's a miracle you survived with only minor injuries."
The words echoed inside his mind, hollow and distorted.
Parents.
Dead.
He waited for grief to arrive—for despair, shock, or denial—but none came. Instead, there was only a quiet, analytical curiosity.
Parents.
So this body had a history. A family. A life that had ended—or perhaps, been interrupted.
The detective spoke next, asking questions about the accident, about memory, about how he felt. Derek answered when necessary, carefully choosing his words, offering just enough to appear cooperative without revealing the truth he himself barely understood.
All the while, one fact dominated his thoughts.
This body had a name.
Derek Morgan.
The same name.
Coincidence was statistically improbable.
Even for a scientist—a man who believed the universe operated under strict, discoverable laws—this defied explanation. Consciousness transfer? Identity overlap? A form of reincarnation governed by principles he had yet to uncover?
His mind sparked with possibilities.
As the doctor and detective eventually left, Derek stared at the ceiling, heart steady, thoughts sharp.
He did not know why he had died.
He did not know how he had arrived here.
But he knew this much:
He had been given another beginning.
And this time, with a younger body, a clean slate, and knowledge the world had never possessed—
He would not waste it.
Somewhere, deep within him, he imagined the hands of a clock hesitating.
And smiled.