2025-06-16 15:03:13The Man in the Mirror
The first thing he felt was breath.
Sharp. Ragged. Loud. Like someone had been drowning in silence and just tore up through the surface. His chest heaved like something was sitting on it. His eyelids fluttered open. Light stabbed through his skull.
White ceiling. Still.
He wasn’t dead.
But this wasn’t life either.
Nathan tried to move but everything felt wrong. His arms. His legs. The weight in his gut. Even his lungs felt smaller. His fingers curled slowly, like the joints forgot how to bend. He blinked hard, sat up too fast, and nearly threw up on the floor.
The bed was soft. Too soft. Sheets were smooth like silk or something richer, but they clung to his legs like they didn’t know him. He looked down at his hands and froze.
These weren’t his.
Pale skin. Long fingers. No callouses. No scars. No burn mark near the thumb from when he fixed the warehouse boiler last winter. The nails were clean. Trimmed. Delicate.
His lips parted, and his voice came out thin.
“What the hell...”
It sounded wrong. Higher. Fragile. Like glass. Like a boy who’d never fought a day in his life.
He threw the sheets off and stumbled to the mirror across the room. The carpet was cold under his bare feet. His legs shook like a baby deer’s. He gripped the edge of the vanity and looked up.
The face staring back wasn’t Nathan Gray.
It was a stranger.
Young. Soft-jawed. Chestnut hair. Thin eyebrows. Eyes too bright to have seen the things Nathan had seen. But inside those eyes now, something stared out that didn’t belong.
Nathan.
His lips snapped together. He touched his cheek. Cold. He winced.
This body was real.
There was a knock. Light, unsure. Then the door creaked open.
“Young Master?” a girl’s voice said. Nervous. “You shouldn’t be standing.”
He turned.
She gasped, tray clattering in her hands. Water spilled across the floor.
“Excel...?” she whispered.
He didn’t answer. He didn’t know how.
She backed up a step. “I—I’ll call your grandfather—”
“Wait,” he said, but his voice was too firm. Not Excel’s voice. Hers froze.
She stared at him like she’d seen a ghost. Then turned and ran, shoes slapping the hallway like thunder.
Nathan’s hands dropped from the mirror. They shook. He clenched them tight, but it didn’t help. His breath came fast again.
“What the hell is this,” he whispered.
Then, the chime.
A soft bell. Like an elevator arriving.
He turned, heart thudding.
There, on the wall—where there had been no door before—stood a sleek black elevator. No buttons. Just a smooth reflective surface. The doors slid open soundlessly.
No one inside.
Just a phone. Resting on a small velvet tray. Old. Not Excel’s style. A model Nathan remembered from years ago. It buzzed once.
He stepped closer.
Picked it up.
One message.
> You died. Now you live again. You have one year.
Survive. Or die twice.
His throat closed. He almost dropped it.
Behind him, footsteps. Slower. Heavier. Then a voice.
“Still clumsy, I see.”
He turned.
An old man stood in the doorway. Cold eyes. Cane in one hand. Expensive watch gleaming on his wrist. Behind him, two more people — a woman in her thirties with a tight bun and a clipboard, and a younger man with a frown like it was painted on his face.
The old man stepped in, the others staying back.
“You should’ve stayed dead, Excel,” he said. His voice was like gravel, but controlled. Like a judge who didn’t blink when he dropped the gavel.
Nathan—Excel—stood straighter.
“I don’t plan on dying again,” he said.
The old man paused.
So did the woman. The young man blinked.
That wasn’t how Excel spoke.
That wasn’t the timid, trembling, anxiety-ridden boy who barely left his bed for two years.
That was someone else.
“You sound... different,” the old man said slowly.
Excel—Nathan—tilted his head.
“I feel different.”
“Don’t be clever,” the man snapped. “You never were.”
Silence stretched between them. The old man’s gaze narrowed.
Then he turned to leave. “Rest. The doctors said you’ll relapse if you overexert yourself. Not that it matters. You’ve always been a disappointment.”
The woman in the hallway hesitated. “Mr. Winchester, the press—”
“Tell them nothing,” the old man said. “Let the vultures wonder.”
Then he was gone.
Nathan stood alone in the room again, the phone still clutched in his hand.
Hours passed. He sat on the bed, staring at the message.
You died. Now you live again.
Was this punishment? A second chance? A game?
A soft knock broke his thoughts. Another servant entered. She placed food down—soup, bread, nothing fancy—but didn’t meet his eye.
As she turned to leave, he spoke.
“What’s your name?”
She flinched. “Me, sir?”
“Yes.”
“Leena.”
“You afraid of me, Leena?”
She hesitated. “No, sir. I mean, it’s just... you were different before.”
Nathan didn’t respond.
She looked at the ground. “People used to call you the paper prince.”
“Why?”
“Because you looked pretty on the outside but always crumpled under pressure.”
Nathan’s lips twitched.
“Not anymore.”
She left quickly.
Later that night, he wandered the halls.
They were quiet. Too quiet. Marble floors. Tall ceilings. Cold light. He passed paintings of men in suits and medals. One of them was his—Excel’s—grandfather.
The plaque read: Alistair Winchester. 1957–2002.
Nathan stared at the portrait for a long time.
The man had sharp eyes. A storm behind the glass. He wondered what secrets the Winchesters buried behind those oil-painted smiles.
Back in his room, he opened the drawer.
The phone buzzed again.
Another message.
There will be no third chance.
Don’t waste this body.
And beneath it, a photo.
A still image.
Victor Carr. In a boardroom. Laughing.
With a caption:
Target: Victor Carr
Status: Active
Last Seen: Titan Logistics — 3rd Quarter Finance Review
Nathan’s blood ran cold.
So it wasn’t random. This wasn’t a fluke. Someone—or something—had chosen him. Chosen this body. Given him a path back to where it all began.
His fingers curled around the phone. His mouth set in a line.
He walked to the mirror again.
Stared at the face.
It still looked unfamiliar. Too soft. But behind the eyes, something was changing.
No longer afraid.
No longer obedient.
He touched the glass.
“You wanted me dead,” he whispered. “Now I live in someone worth killing for.”
Then he stepped back.
And smiled.
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
The Price Of A Life
The fire crackled soft, low, like it was tired of pretending it still mattered. Alaric Winchester sat in the high-backed leather chair that had probably outlived three CEOs, a glass of something old and brown resting in his hand. The flames threw gold across his skin, made the lines around his eyes look deeper than they were. Or maybe they were always that deep, and people just didn’t stare long enough to notice.Excel stood at the door.Didn’t knock.Didn’t move.Just stood there like he was balancing everything in him on the edge of that silence.Alaric didn’t look up. Just swirled the drink, slow, lazy."If you’re gonna speak," he said, "at least close the damn door first."Excel stepped in. Shut the door. The click echoed too loud. His hand stayed on the knob a second too long.He walked forward. Not fast. Not slow. Like he was walking into something that could bite."I saved your life," he said.Alaric blinked."That so?""You know it is."Alaric finally looked up.Excel wasn’t s
No Room At The Table
Sebastian couldn’t sleep. His pillow was soaked. Not with tears. With sweat. Cold, sick sweat that made his shirt cling to his back and his chest feel like it was folding in on itself. He stared at the ceiling like it owed him something. Like it might explain how everything had flipped so fast.He wasn’t just losing. He was drowning.That night after Excel exposed him, the whole house had shifted. Doors didn’t open as fast. Conversations stopped when he walked in. Even Steve didn’t speak to him in the hallway, just nodded once like he was some mailman. One of the guards at the back gate didn’t even salute. That had never happened. Not to him.He sat on the edge of his bed and cracked his knuckles, one by one, slow like bone was all he had left to control.Excel.That bastard. That ghost of a boy who couldn’t even talk right last year. The one who used to flinch when someone raised their voice. Now walking around like he owned the name. Like he was something more than a favor from Alar
Blood In Their Wine
He didn’t plan to destroy Sebastian that day. Not really. At least not in that exact hour. He only wanted to trace another thread, something tied to Victor. Something cold and undeniable. But that’s the thing about hunting shadows—sometimes you find the ones standing closest.Excel sat hunched over in the old music room, the one no one used since Anne died. It smelled like old perfume and dust and something else. Regret maybe. There were cracked picture frames stacked behind the piano. A broken wineglass in the corner. No one cleaned in here. Maybe they thought the dead were still watching.The papers were everywhere. Spread out in layers like a madman's map. He'd taken them from the archive wing, the locked cabinet Steve never checked. He thought about the elevator. The buzzes. The clue about the left hand. It had been days and it still gnawed at him. He tapped the corner of the folder against his thigh. His knee bounced. He didn’t even notice until his legs cramped.Victor Hayworth.
What Clues Had To Offer
Excel didn’t sleep that night. Not because he was afraid, not really. It was something else. Something like rage but quieter, thicker. Like oil in his blood. It moved through him in slow waves, kept him up even after the noise of the gala had died in his head. He sat on the edge of his bed, elbows on knees, hands clenched like they were trying to squeeze something invisible.Victor Hayworth’s voice kept echoing in his skull. That smile, those words. "Died like a dog in a ditch."Excel’s jaw locked again. He had clenched it so long it ached now. His teeth felt like they’d fused. His fingers twitched. He could still feel the ghost of Victor's handshake. Still warm. Still smug. Still clean. So clean. Like nothing had ever bled beneath those nails. Like nothing ever touched him but silk and power and sin hidden behind legal papers.He stood up too fast and nearly tripped. His knees didn’t want to work right. The world tilted sideways and then settled. He paced. Back and forth. The carpet
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The suit didn’t feel like it fit. Not just the cloth, though it was tailored like armor and crisp like money. No, it was the weight of it. The smell. The clean cold feel of something that wasn’t earned by the hands wearing it. Excel adjusted the collar for the third time.“You keep doing that,” Alaric said beside him in the limo, “and you’ll look like a nervous intern.”Excel froze, then dropped his hands to his lap.“You invited me,” he said, not looking at the old man.“And I expect you not to embarrass me,” Alaric replied, sipping whiskey from a flask like it was water. “This isn’t family dinner. This is the war table.”The city outside rushed past. Glass towers like knives against the sky. Excel stared at his reflection in the tinted window. He still didn’t recognize the face looking back. But the fire inside it? That was starting to look familiar.“You’ll see everyone tonight,” Alaric continued. “CEOs, politicians, parasites in tuxedos. Eyes on you. So talk less. Watch more.”Exc
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The hall smelled like money and arrogance. The table was shorter this time, but the people around it weren’t any smaller. It was glass-topped, gold-rimmed, and surrounded by men and women who hadn’t had to ask for anything in years. Everyone wore suits like armor. The air felt expensive. Stiff. Hostile.Excel sat near the end. Not too close to Alaric, but close enough to make the others uncomfortable.Nobody said it out loud, but he felt it.They didn’t want him here.Steve Winchester tapped a pen against his folder like he owned the rhythm of the room. Sebastian slouched back, pretending to scroll his tablet, eyes darting toward Excel every few seconds. Elias whispered something to his assistant and chuckled.And Excel?He sat quietly.He didn’t speak. Not yet. He just watched. Listened. Waited.The numbers flew around — percentages, unit projections, capital shifts. They spoke fast. Over each other. Trying to out-smile, out-talk, out-shine. It wasn’t a meeting. It was a war without
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