Emperor's New Clothes

Chapter 1: Phoenixes are Reborn from Flames

"Just die, Gerald. Thank you for being my Hero but Heroes are useless during peaceful times..."

He alarmingly gasp and abruptly opened his eyes. He clutched at his chest and took deep breaths as if he just emerged from drowning.

"A-alive..." He murmured.

All of a sudden, a Piercing pain attacked his head.

A man.. No. Not just any man.

"Rick ." He muttered with deep hatred.

His best friend for 30 years. An orphan he begged his parents to help. A friend he trusted his life with. The only dearest friend who didn't leave him even with his Scarred and scary face but surprisingly burned his bridges by personally shooting him dead after using their friendship.

With resentment fueling his rage, he mustered the strength to stand up.

Looking all around the room, he learned that he's in an unfamiliar room.

"W-where..." His eyes caught the mirror from the opened door of the bathroom. He hurriedly but limply walked in front of the mirror.

He gasped the instant his face showed from the mirror.

With horror and surprise written on it's face, the young man in the mirror has the same brown eyes, aquiline nose, and thin lips he had 18 years ago. Back when his face wasn't ruined and his life wasn't fucked up.

"How..." He stretched his hand to touch that face reflected in the mirror. their fingers touch and he felt the coldness of the transparent wall.

He then tried to touch his own face mirrored by the young man.

It is real.

"How did this happen..." did he reincarnated?

Impossible. Why did he look the same?

He would never forget this face even after the twenty years that passed. This is surely the young man that kept on hunting him in his long years of solitude.

Then did time turned back?

His eyes turned to the flat screen television in the room.

Impossible .

his eyes caught the mole in the young man's right ear.

An idea immediately entered his mind but he smirked it off. Isn't that more stupid than reincarnation and time traveling?

his smirk faded when his sight traveled to the unnoticeable dried blood stuck on the hair in his right temple and the baggy shirt he's wearing.

He hurriedly brush his hair back. A light scar lies there.

His eyes roamed the room for the second time. his heart race.

What unfamiliar?

There's the unnoticeable stain on the wall that he saw on the last moment of his life, the shredded rope that was used to tie him up before he was shot, and the phone..

His legs limped and his arms trembly stretched to grab the phone.

The young face reflected again in the large dark screen before the image of an elderly but devastatingly beautiful woman flashed.

Tears welled out from his eyes. Seconds later, a bitter wail sounded from the four corners of the room.

He came back.

Is this rebirth? Age regression?

Is this a second chance?

is this the redemption from all the pain and Trauma that he had suffered?

no. That is not important.

Godly or Demonic, it doesn't matter.

He clutch the phone in his hands .

Whether it's the work of a devil or a god,

This is what he swear ;

He, The former Gerald Michaels, will rise up again.

all those damned traitors and vermin will be crawling and struggling bitterly beneath his feet.

With glaring eyes still full of tears, he swore while gritting his teeth. "I. Will. Fucking. Make. You. Fuckers. Pay..."