Neon Confidential 10 - Death Becomnes Me

NOTE: This may not be the final revision, published form may vary.

The jolt was a dirty back-alley sucker punch, the kind that leaves you tasting copper and regret. No shimmering premonition, no dramatic lightning strike, not even the polite cough of a warning.

One heartbeat, I was staring out the rain-streaked window of Mira’s car, the city lights of Duskwire blurring into streaks of neon and sodium. Each drop of water on the glass was a distorted lens, twisting the familiar grime of the streets into something unsettling. I was mid-sentence, spouting half-baked philosophical nonsense to Mira about the soul or waxing lyrical about the futility of existence or maybe even the dubious pleasures of a cheap cigarette. Mira was probably nodding along, her gaze fixed on the slick asphalt ahead.

The next heartbeat, the floor dropped out from under me. Not literally, not a sudden plunge into a sinkhole, but a far more insidious fall—a sickening slide back into the abyss I thought I’d left behind.

That cold, familiar nothingness.

Weightless.

Numb.

Utterly, terrifyingly alone.

Duskwire, the city that clung to the edge of the world like a barnacle on a rotting hull, vanished as if it had never been. Its gaudy glow, the twinkling promises of cheap thrills and forgotten dreams, dissolved into phantom limbs of neon, fading into the infinite black canvas behind my eyelids.

There was no searing pain this time, no gut-wrenching agony. Just a bone-deep stillness, a silence so profound it reverberated in the absence of sound. It was the kind of stillness that whispered promises of oblivion, a seductive lullaby you didn't just shrug off and walk away from.

I’ve been here before.
The thought wasn't a fragile whisper; it was a glacial tide, cold and inexorable, washing over the emptiness.

Gods. Not again.
The realization hit with the force of a physical blow, leaving me breathless in a place where breath didn’t exist.

This place… this utter absence… it wasn't just empty; it was a void pregnant with a sense of wrongness. It felt like an old bullet wound that never quite closed, a phantom ache that lingered in the silence. The same suffocating dark, the same low, buzzing static that pressed in from all sides, a tangible weight on a form that no longer existed.

I knew this terrain. This was the desolate no-man’s-land between a life lived in the grimy reality of Duskwire and whatever greasy, ill-defined afterlife the corner preachers ranted about – assuming, of course, those purveyors of cheap salvation weren’t just peddling another brand of snake oil.

I’d foolishly allowed myself to believe I’d kicked this particular habit. Thought I’d clawed my way back from the brink last time, spitting blood and defiance into the face of whatever malevolent force resided here.

But maybe that was just wishful thinking, a temporary reprieve. Maybe this was just another charming little perk of Project Omen; of ÆtherCore, who is trying to lay claim to my soul, or at least, what was left of it. Maybe this brief flirtation with oblivion was just part of the gig now, a recurring occupational hazard.

Property of the corporation, even in death.
The thought eked out a dry, humorless chuckle that echoed in the silence, a sound that wasn't a sound.

Hell of a benefits package.

Unlimited existential dread.

I floated, or drifted, or maybe just… un-existed. Whatever this state was, it defied definition. It wasn't movement in any recognizable sense. It was the unraveling of me, the slow, inexorable dissolution of whatever constituted "Malik Rune."

I reached, a phantom limb stretching into the oppressive dark, for something real, something tangible to anchor myself to the tattered remnants of my sanity.

A sound.

The harsh, comforting rasp of Mira’s voice, laced with impatience and a surprising undercurrent of something akin to affection. A face etched in memory, her sharp features softened by a rare smile. The ghost-warmth of her hand gripping mine, a lifeline in the storm-tossed sea of Duskwire. The stolen kiss behind the precinct’s reeking fire exit, two weeks and a lifetime ago, a brief spark of warmth in the perpetual chill of our lives.

Her fury, a predictable and strangely comforting inferno.

Her unwavering loyalty, a rusted blade I’d bet my nonexistent life on.

Anything to pull me back from this… this edge.

But here I was. Again. Adrift in the void.

The echo of the city I no longer felt burned like phantom pain, a dull ache in the absence of sensation. Duskwire, a ghost on my tongue—the mournful wail of sirens slicing through the perpetual fog that clung to the streets like a shroud, the gritty crunch of discarded cigarette ash underfoot on rain-slicked pavement, the sharp, insistent click-clack of high heels slicing through the silence of a blood-stained alley.

A city teeming with ghosts, both living and dead, whispering desperate prayers to forgotten gods in the shadowed corners of their despair.

And me?
I reached for it anyway, this fading echo of a life, desperate to anchor myself to something solid, something real.

It was distant, muffled, like a blues riff bleeding through the thin walls of a tenement, a haunting melody just out of reach.

Too stubborn to stay dead.
That was the damn truth of it. Not letting Project Omen have the last word. Not yet. Not without a fight.

Then the silence cracked, shattered by the intrusion of something alien. Voices slammed into the void, not as sound, but as a visceral vibration, twanging like cheap banjos strummed in the dead of night beside a muddy riverbank.

The first voice was a shard of broken glass—sharp and jagged, bitter and coiled tight with an insistent fury. It ripped through the oppressive stillness with pure, unadulterated contempt.

"You again."

The words weren't spoken; they were etched into the nothingness, a brand on my nonexistent soul.
"You have no right to be here."

I reacted—or tried to, a ghost winching against a phantom blow. The voice snarled, intimate and full of a cold, knowing hatred that chilled me to my non-existent core. It slithered through the dark like broken glass drawn across bare skin, each syllable a fresh laceration.

"You were meant to be erased. Wiped clean. Why do you cling to the rot of your existence?"

It dug in, unseen claws tearing at whatever fragile form I held in this desolate place. It wanted me undone, shredded into oblivion, reduced to nothing more than a forgotten whisper in the void. Gone.

I tried to answer, to lash out with defiance, but my thoughts were thick as swamp water, choked with the buzzing static of this dead place.

No mouth to form words,

No breath to give them voice.

Just a primal scream trapped inside, a silent roar of resistance.

Then the second voice arrived. It was a floodlight in a smoky interrogation room, calm and unrelenting, cutting through the darkness with an almost physical presence. "Malik Rune." It vibrated through the emptiness, a deep resonance, like a tuning fork struck by a god I didn't believe in, yet I couldn't feel it in this absence of sensation. "You must return to Duskwire."

The darkness itself seemed to stir, a subtle tremor in the expanse. It shuddered, recoiled as if struck by an unseen force. The two voices didn’t acknowledge each other, existing on separate frequencies, like a scratched blues record layered over a static-filled late-night broadcast. Out of sync, yet both aimed squarely at me, their intentions as opaque as the darkness that surrounded me.

The first voice spat something guttural, a choked snarl of pure animal fury, the sound of a wolf denied its kill. The second voice ignored it, its tone implacable, unwavering.

"Find Coretta Montcourt."

The name hit me like a bat wrapped in barbed wire, a sudden, brutal impact in the emptiness. Coretta Montcourt. Who the hell was she? The name meant absolutely nothing, yet it ricocheted through my skull, an unwelcome intruder, like a stray bullet finding purchase in my brain.

Coretta Montcourt.

Yeah, it didn’t land soft. It seared, a fresh cigarette burn pressed in closer to a soul I wasn’t even sure I possessed. I’d never heard it before, never encountered that name in the grimy rendition of Duskwire. But deep down, something twitched, a long-dormant nerve awakening, a corpse stirring with a half-forgotten… what? A memory? A warning?

"She holds a key," the second voice continued, its tone flat, devoid of emotion, as if stating a simple, undeniable fact. "Go back. Pull the thread. See where it frays."

Then the light came again. Not a hesitant sliver this time, but a brutal, blinding flood, white-hot and relentless, dragging me back towards the world of the living. I tried to resist, not out of fear of the void, but out of a desperate need for answers. More. More of these cryptic pronouncements, a direction in this goddamn rat maze that ÆtherCore was laying down. Maybe even another name, another breadcrumb to follow in this bewildering game.

"Wait – who is –?" I tried to ask, the silent plea echoing in the emptiness.

The hateful voice shrieked, a final, desperate lash as I slipped from its grasp, the sound like tearing fabric. "You don’t belong—"

But it was already fading, its malevolent presence receding into the darkness. Everything was fading, the oppressive stillness, the conflicting voices.

Except that name. Coretta Montcourt. It lingered, a bitter taste on my phantom tongue, a nagging question mark etched into the endless dark.

And then even that was gone, swallowed by the encroaching light.

Just her voice now. The one that always managed to yank me back from the precipice of oblivion. This time, it was raw with fury, laced with a desperate edge I hadn't heard before. "Malik, you goddamn idiot. I told you not to die."

I gasped, a ragged, drowning inhale, like a body dragged from the icy depths of a river. Air slammed into my lungs, a brutal, unwelcome punch. I convulsed, coughing, my back arching against the unforgiving teeth of broken concrete. My coat was a sodden vestment of mud, blood, and the ever-present grime of Duskwire. My fingers scrabbled for purchase on the ruined pavement, slick with rain and grit.

My eyes snapped open to a storm-drenched sky, swollen with clouds the color of old gunmetal. They hung low and mean, like trouble looking for a place to land. Thunder growled in the distance, a low, guttural warning that echoed the unease in my gut.

And then her face swam into focus, inches from mine. Drenched. Wild-eyed. Mascara smeared like war paint, rain-slicked and desperate. She looked like she’d been crying. Maybe she had.

"Malik," she choked, catching herself before the scream fully formed. "You… you nine-lived bastard." Her voice was etched with a mixture of relief and incandescent fury.

I tried to speak, my mouth a desert of dust. But the words clawed their way out,  rasping.

"Coretta Montcourt."

Her stare was blank, lost in the immediate aftermath of my return. "What? Who is –?"

I pushed myself upright, every nerve screaming in protest, a chorus of agony. My ribs felt like they’d gone a few brutal rounds with a heavyweight, and the heavyweight had won. Twice.

Sirens wailed in the distance, a mournful, familiar sound in the cacophony of Duskwire. Gunshots, maybe, or just another clap of thunder rattling the grimy windows of the surrounding buildings. Hard to tell in this godforsaken city where violence and the weather often blurred together.

I blinked against the stinging rain, trying to clear the lingering haze of the void. Everything was off-kilter, the world tilting precariously on its axis. But I was alive.

More or less.

Mira was still hovering, her grip tight on my arm, like she didn’t trust me not to dissolve back into the shadows that clung to the edges of our existence. Her knuckles were white, her breath coming in ragged gasps.

I grabbed her wrist, a shaky anchor for both of us, drawing strength from her fierce presence.

"We’ve got work to do," I muttered.

The city was waiting, a beast lurking in the downpour, its secrets hidden in the alleys and bars, boardrooms and secret labs. And somewhere out there, a woman named Coretta Montcourt was holding a key.

To what?

Hell if I knew.