Rebirth of Vengeance

CHAPTER 8 — Ghosts Don’t Stay Quiet

The whisper came before the sound did. Move. The word slid through his head like a blade through silk. He stopped walking.

A second later, a delivery truck roared past the corner he’d been about to cross, horn blaring, brakes screaming. Wind slapped his coat as the truck missed him by inches.

People shouted. Someone cursed. Time snapped back into place. He stood there, heart pounding, not from fear, but from recognition. “That wasn’t instinct,” he murmured.

His phone buzzed. A news alert flashed across the screen.

COURT ACCEPTS EXPEDITED HEARING — DIVORCE PROCEEDINGS ADVANCE

Good. He stepped back onto the sidewalk, moving slower now, senses stretched thin. The city felt… wrong.

Sounds lagged, like audio out of sync with video. Footsteps echoed a half-second too late. Conversations blurred into a low, underwater murmur until individual words surfaced, sharp and isolated.

“…lawsuit”

“…camera footage”

“…he’s unstable”

Faces did it too. People’s features smeared when he looked at them directly, as if reality couldn’t decide which version to present. Only when danger brushed close did the world sharpen.

Like now. His head tilted slightly. Across the street, the same car from last night idled at the curb. Engine running. Driver hidden behind tinted glass. Don’t stare.

He obeyed. He kept walking. Too obvious, the voice inside him said.

He clenched his jaw. “You again,” he muttered.

The voice didn’t answer. It never did. It didn’t argue or explain. It warned. By the time he reached his apartment, the distortion had settled into a low hum beneath his thoughts, like electricity in the air before a storm.

Inside, he locked the door and leaned against it, breathing slowly. “This isn’t just memory,” he said aloud. “Is it?”

The apartment felt smaller today. Tighter.

He poured a glass of water and watched it carefully. The surface rippled once, without being touched. He set the glass down. Okay.

He opened his laptop. The screen flickered. Once. Twice. Then stabilized. He pulled up the financial model he’d been working on since dawn, his next move. A quiet one.

A way to expose a series of interlinked shell accounts without triggering alarms. Someone had already triggered them.

Lines of code were missing. Values altered subtly, surgically. Not enough to destroy the model. Enough to make it wrong. He stared at the screen. “No,” he said softly.

He hadn’t shared this file. Hadn’t backed it up to the cloud. The whisper returned. You waited too long.

His fingers hovered over the keyboard. “Who did this?” he asked.

Silence. Then, pressure. A tightness behind his eyes. Memory surged forward, unbidden. A boardroom. A vote delayed by twelve minutes. A name he hadn’t thought important because it hadn’t been loud.

The distortion spiked. He grabbed the edge of the desk as the room tilted. Faces flashed in his mind, past and future overlapping.

Evan in the hospital bed, furious and afraid. Her, standing too still, watching numbers fall. A man in a gray suit, always present, never quoted. The whisper sharpened. Not him.

“Then who?” he demanded.

The laptop chimed. An email appeared.

From: [e-mail]

Subject: Filing Error — Immediate Action Required

He frowned. Too clean. Too fast. He didn’t click it. The whisper pulsed. Trap.

He exhaled slowly and closed the laptop. “Someone’s trying to rush me,” he said. “Make me sloppy.”

The room felt heavier, like unseen weight pressing down. For the first time since the rebirth, doubt crept in. “How much does this cost?” he asked the empty room.

He thought of the heartbeat in the dark. The way it hadn’t felt like a miracle. It had felt like a transaction. His phone rang.

Unknown number. He didn’t answer. The ringing stopped. A voicemail icon appeared. He played it. Static. Then breathing. Then his voice. Not recorded. Not distorted. Perfect.

“Careful,” it said. “You’re pushing too hard.”

His blood ran cold. “That’s not possible,” he whispered.

The voice continued, calm and measured, the tone he used when he was thinking three moves ahead. “You’re changing variables faster than before. That attracts attention.”

“Who are you?” he asked.

A pause. Then, quietly, “You.”

The line went dead. He stared at the phone, pulse steady despite the shock. “Great,” he said hoarsely. “I’m haunted by myself.”

The distortion eased slightly, like approval. He laughed once, short, humorless. “So that’s the price,” he murmured. “Not just memory. Awareness.”

He moved to the window and looked out at the city. Lights blinked. Cars flowed. Somewhere out there, someone was watching him.

Somewhere else, something was watching through him. He didn’t know how many chances he had left. Only that he couldn’t waste them. The whisper returned, softer now. Next time… listen sooner.

He closed his eyes. And for the first time since he came back, He wasn’t sure if the ghost was following him Or leading him.