The hum of fluorescent lights buzzed faintly overhead, mingling with the rhythmic beeping of a heart monitor. Alex Mercer blinked against the sterile white of the hospital room ceiling, his body stiff and foreign. He couldn't remember how he got here. The last image in his mind was the screech of tires, the blinding flash of headlights, and then—darkness.
Now, something else stirred behind his eyelids. Memories that weren't his. A boy running through the woods. A growl in his throat. Clawed hands. A name whispered like a heartbeat—Scott McCall.
Alex jolted upright, gasping. His pulse quickened, triggering a flurry of alarms. A nurse rushed in, calling his name. But it wasn't his name that haunted him. It was the feeling—this burning sense that something primal had awakened inside him.
"Take it easy," the nurse said gently, placing a hand on his shoulder. "You've been in a coma for three months. You're lucky to be alive."
Alex barely heard her. His senses were razor-sharp. He could hear the footsteps of a doctor down the hall, the nervous breath of a patient next door. And the smell—everything was so distinct. Antiseptic, latex, the faint trace of blood beneath it all.
Later, the doctors performed scans, ran tests, and questioned him. But he offered little. What could he say? That he could hear heartbeats in the walls? That shadows seemed to twitch when he looked too long?
And then there was the mark.
On his wrist, just below the bone, a symbol shimmered faintly in the light. Circular and ancient, it seemed to move when he looked too long. It hadn't been there before—not in this life. It felt branded into him, a glowing echo of something older.
At night, when the staff dimmed the lights and left him to rest, Alex stared out the window at the moon rising over the trees. Something inside him stirred. A low hum in his bones. He pressed his palm against the cool glass and exhaled.
His reflection stared back, unchanged. Blue eyes, short dark hair, the scar just under his lip. But the eyes were different. They belonged to someone else. Someone older. Someone dangerous.
And then, like a whisper on the wind, he heard it again.
"You're not just human anymore."
He turned quickly. No one was there.
But something inside him knew—it wasn't over. It had only just begun.
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Chapter 2: The Mark Coming soon...