Chapter 1 : Rebirth
Nash groaned.
The young man put his palm over his forehead to numb the pain from the headache he was experiencing. It was an uncomfortable situation and briefly, he felt líke yanking his head from his shoulders just to get some relief.
"What the hell?" Nash groaned again but slowly, his face grimacing from such intense discomfort.
He tried to sit up and the room spun in that instant. This made him calm down a little bit to take things slowly enough for his body to adjust.
There was no rush to do anything at all, else Nash risked his body failing and embarrassing him.
Nash was dressed in a sky blue gown that stopped just below his knee, similar to the one given to patients at the hospital.
His eyes were listless, unwilling to show enthusiasm for anything at all as he stared clueless at the wall in front of him. Nash looked around, noting a few equipment in the room and his first thought after was an accurate guess that he was at the hospital.
'How did I get here?' he wondered. 'That bastard—'
Nash grimaced again as he recalled his most recent memory that caused his head to bang like a hundred drums.
He recalled a truck heading straight towards him and jamming into him. This sent him flying and landing with his head on the tarred road of the city.
However, Nash did not fail to get a look at the person behind his ordeal—the one who wanted to kill him.
…Zebediah Gates.
While laying in the pool of his blood as his body grew colder and colder with every passing second, Nash cursed Zebadiah internally.
'...I, Nash Elias O'Neil, swear it,' Nash thought as his vision grew darker.
Zebadiah Gates was one of the sons of the Gates family, an influential bunch with long money, enough to wrap the people that they want around their fingers.
Such was the privilege that Zebadiah enjoyed thanks to his family name. He was an arrogant brat but surprisingly, he had seemed to be more friendly with Nash, causing the latter to let his guard down.
Nash didn't believe that Zebadiah could be cruel to this extent.
Nash knew that he was a bully but to attempt to hit him with a truck… that was devilish of the person he thought was his "friend".
All for what?
While several minutes passed as Nash proceeded this, his eyes couldn't move away from the digital device that hung in his line of vision on the opposite wall.
He was looking at the time and the date displaced on this device, his breath ceasing briefly as he was drowning in disbelief.
After many minutes, Nash finally let out some words, "Was I reborn? Did I go back to the past?"
Those were the only possible explanations as to why the date he was looking at was one of five years from the date he last recalled.
If the device had been faulty, it would only make sense if the date showed maybe an error of a day or two or even three days…worst case scenario, a month but to be dated five years back.
That just wasn't aligning as a normal error.
Nash immediately picked up his phone and behold, it was the same date and time.
His breath ceased again as he stared at the date in disbelief.
Nash Elias O'Neil had been truly reborn, and he was reborn to a seamlessly fitting scenario where he was in the hospital following an altercation with the young man who killed him in his previous life.
"I survived the accident," he muttered, his mind still warped from the occurrence of his rebirth. Nash then clenched his fist quietly, a deathly look gracing his cold blue eyes as Zebadiah's face flashed across his mind.
"Hello, Nash," a voice suddenly interrupted, pulling him away from his deep vengeful thoughts.
Nash looked forward and saw a beautiful lady, dressed in a grey scrub, standing at the entrance of the room with a file in her grasp.
"You've been discharged," the young lady announced with a smile on his face.
Apart from the fact that she knew Nash from his medical record, she was also a bit familiar with him outside of the hospital since they attended the same secondary school.
"Thank you, Senior Eileen," Nash answered with a nod.
Eileen Weatherbee was a third year senior at Nash's secondary school while the latter was in his first year of seniorship.
She volunteered at the health centre where Nash was admitted in hopes of scoring points to better her credentials to get into medical school.
Eileen smiled and nodded repeatedly with a contagious smile that made Nash blush a little.
"You are welcome, Nash," she said. "You can start getting your things ready while we work on your discharge."
Nash nodded.
"But you know, Nash. Try as much as you can to avoid that Zebadiah guy. He's no good and unlike you, his family can pay his way out of trouble and that's why he can afford to bully people without a care in the world. Just let him be."
Bully? That was an understatement to describe Zebadiah Gates.
If only Eileen knew that Zebadiah would become a killer too, then she would have been more descriptive.
Nash folded his fists even more tightly.
It wasn't Zebadiah's fault that he was a member of the Gates family, nor was it his fault that he could get away with anything.
If Zebadiah had left it just at bullying and the normal messing around among young men, then Nash might not have gotten so vengeful.
But this one was different.
Zebadiah ran him through with a truck. He lost his life because of this.
Nash swore that this time would be different.
Zebadiah Gates wasn't going to get away with killing him. Nash had a score to settle.
While he and Eileen still talked, something strange happened that only Nash seemed to have noticed.
Nash's shadow seemed to have moved.