Somewhere far from Frank's quiet suburb, night reigned like a tyrant. The city below breathed in smog and neon, each streetlight flickering like a dying star.
And in one of those streets, a man knelt beside a pool of blood—his own hands shaking, eyes blank. Then came the whisper.
A whisper that wasn't born of memory, but of connection.
> Fragment detected.
The man—no, the other Frank—snapped his head up.
His reflection in the glass storefront warped. His irises glowed faint red, like molten metal cooling too slowly.
"Who's there?" he growled. His voice was deeper, rougher, tainted by too many lives of violence.
Jessica's voice didn't reach him here.
This fragment had no guide, no balance.
Just instinct—and rage.
He looked at the corpse at his feet, at the fear still frozen on its face. "I didn't want this," he muttered. "I never want this… and yet…"
He laughed, bitterly. "I keep fuc..ng doing it."
In the distance, thunder rolled—only, there was no storm. Just an echo of another world, another heartbeat syncing for the first time in centuries.
---
Back on Earth, Frank jerked awake in the middle of the night. Sweat clung to his skin. His heart raced like it was trying to run out of his chest.
Jessica materialized instantly, serious for once. "You felt it, didn't you?"
He nodded slowly. "He's awake."
"She," Jessica corrected. Then frowned. "No… this one's male. I'm getting mixed readings. Violent energy—unstable. One of your darker pasts."
Frank swallowed. "How dark are we talking?"
Jessica met his eyes. "The kind that leaves cities burning."
Silence stretched. Outside, a siren wailed somewhere, and for a moment it sounded too close.
Frank looked at his hands. "If every fragment's a part of me… what does that make me?"
Jessica hovered closer, voice barely above a whisper. "The sum of your choices, Frank. Not your shadows."
Then, softer—almost human—
"But shadows still follow the light that creates them."
---
Meanwhile, the other Frank—the Blooded One—looked up at the crimson moon over his own fractured world.
Something inside him whispered a name he didn't remember.
"Frank… Winchester."
He clenched his fists. "I'll find you," he said. "And I'll take back what's mine dead or alive."
The glass behind him shattered from the force of his aura.
The hunt had begun.