Noah turned, taking in his strange body in the mirror. The black roaring flames that replaced his head were unnerving. He touched them but they were cold and strangely silky.
And his physical body… it was still there, lying motionlessly on the ground. Almost like a corpse with how pale he looked and the lack of breathing.
"This is so wrong," he whispered. Then the sound of movement drew his attention. Dalton was still alive, albeit half dead. The rat's skin was white as chalk and his legs were wobbly.
A vicious grin would have lit up Noah's face if he had a mouth. Instead the black flames pulsed as he casually walked over to Dalton.
"Wait… Noah," Dalton pleaded. "I'm your friend, dude. I will help… I—"
"Help me with what?" Noah rumbled through the flames. "You helped me get addicted to your drugs. Shucks, what a good friend you are. I should have called you to help me hang myself."
He grabbed the back of Dalton's neck, expecting to have some time to make the rat suffer. But with an unexpected snap, he felt the neck bend under his fingers like a plastic bottle.
He quickly released Dalton and let his corpse drop to the ground with a faint sense of disgust. He had never felt anything like that, the ease at which bones snapped under his grip, skin tearing like paper.
For a moment, he just stared at the hand like it wasn't his, the bloody tips of his fingers. This form was far stronger than the average human, he needed to be careful with his strength.
He turned back to the mirror and noticed something changed in the black flames that were his head. It had eyes now, little white circles like the ones you'd see in a cartoon.
He touched them, but he couldn't really interact with it much. A haunting pair of inhuman eyes that followed you in the dark. Now all he needed was a mouth.
First however he needed to know where he was. He dove through alternate Noah's memories, flowing between scenes in his mind with unnerving ease and managed to draw a conclusion.
He was in an underground warehouse where the mob stored drugs in the Hudson Valley. They had a lot of new drugs he had never heard of in his past life though, and the location was strange.
Too close to the river. They were in the basement of an abandoned boathouse, somewhat far from the city.
There was no point in overthinking things now though; there were more people here that he had to deal with. Before he left, he took Dalton's little pistol.
Then he walked out of the room where he hung himself and found a long dark hallway. The incessant sound of dripping water and the one flickering light on the roof flowing through the long space, irritating him.
His loud footsteps were also a bit concerning, but he just kept walking. It wasn't long before he stumbled on someone.
A man with a scraggly brown beard and dark circles under his eyes was walking through the hall. His eyes widened as Noah' eerie form came into view, before he pulled out a gun.
The gun rang out twice, lighting up the tunnel with its flare. He raised his hands to cover his face but didn't feel the bullets tear through him. Rather he heard something metallic fall to the ground.
He opened his eyes to find the thug staring at him in confusion, then he checked his body for holes and found none.
Something told him to look back and he found two bullet holes in the wall. Confusion washed over him, he brought his head down to think, but saw the pistol he took off Dalton on the ground.
What the hell just happened?
The thug was just as confused as he was searching the area like Noah wasn't standing right in front of him.
"What was that?" the thug muttered, rubbing a hand off his pale sweaty face. "I need to stay off the Angel Wings, they're making me go crazy."
Noah tilted his head.
"How? I'm right here."
The thug's gun snapped up, spinning around searching for the voice, muttering and cursing under his breath. Then the man grabbed his head, murmuring under his breath.
Noah almost laughed as he realised what was happening. He was invisible for some reason, but also intangible. If he had to guess, the intangibility made him invisible because light was passing through him.
He didn't have enough of an education, other than online videos, to come up with a reasonable explanation. But that would explain why Dalton's pistol fell from his pockets.
Why didn't my clothes fall off too? Hmm, I did come out of my body wearing this so maybe it's part of my ghost form?
The thug was walking past him and heading towards the corridor that led to the room he left Dalton's body in. So he decided to try something.
He drew closer to the man and let his instincts guide him, before jumping into the man's body. The thug stumbled a bit and shook his head like a violent headache racked his skull.
Then he stumbled towards a puddle of water and saw his eyes flash green in the reflection before Noah took over the body.
He looked at the man's hands, feeling much weaker and sicker in this body. His face also felt like an oily mess.
"I'd say take care of yourself, but you die today, so…"
The voice was also different, but he didn't have the right tone or inflection. So he ended up sounding more like a rough version of himself than the man he was possessing. It would set off alarms if anyone heard him talking.
"Ahhh," he tested the voice a bit. "My name is… random thug."
After a couple tries he got the voice right and walked back towards the main room of the hallway. It was sealed tight behind a bunker door that he had to roll with a lot of effort.
The heavy door meant it was likely that they hadn't heard the gunshots properly. He was also getting used to using his ghost strength with this body, but he felt too much force would snap his host's bones unintentionally.
The moment he opened the door he was met with three guns in his face. It was the other three people guarding the boathouse. He actually knew one of them.
Carl, the only one he knew by name, cursed.
"What the fuck, Rage? Why are you firing your gun down there?"
Noah did his best to act delirious from the drugs in this body's veins. He grabbed his head and shook it multiple times.
"I swear I'm going crazy. There was something in the darkness, it had a flaming head and—"
"Gimme your fucking gun!" Carl roared, ripping the gun from his hand the moment he took it out. "I thought you could handle a little buzz. No more Angel for you, just go drink a gallon of water or something."
That was fine by him, he could kill them all with just his bare hands. He walked to the dispenser in the corner of the grey room to drink some water while he thought. There were two more doors in the small room, with a metal table and a single light
Digging through Rage's memories wasn't as easy as going through his, but he managed to remember where they kept the drugs. The single light in the room cast ominous shadows over his face; he should start now.
Thankfully, Carl came over to talk to him.
"Hey, you good? Don't hold a grudge but we can't have noises like that out in the middle of fucking nowhere. Someone might—"
Noah turned, grabbing Carl's throat with one smooth move, but he didn't break it just yet. Instead, he waited till Carl pulled out his gun and snatched it from him.
The force of the snatch was so great it snapped Carl's fingers and drew the attention of the other two idiots in the room. He fired before they could even understand what was happening, shots echoing through the underground corridor.
"Are you fucking insane?" Carl rasped, punching his arm without much success.
"I did warn you. Rage met me in the corridors." He let the green glow emerge from Rage's dark eyes, making Carl's heart skip a beat, eyes widening in disbelief.
Then Noah crushed his throat and let the man fall to the ground. Not dead yet, but he would suffocate not too long from now.
He stepped over Carl's body and walked back down the dark corridor and into the room where he hung himself to get his body. This Rage guy had a pretty weak body, but it was strong enough to carry him out of the basement of the boathouse.
The stairs were gruelling but he managed to escape the underground and smiled as the cold air of the night washed over him. The night sky was dotted with the occasional stars, and the moon glowed over the vast river in front of him.
He dropped his body outside on the grass, and then went back down into the basement to find the room where they stored some money and piles of different coloured powder and pills.
There was some kerosene in one of the rooms so he poured it all over the money and drugs. But he stopped and tore open some of the plastic wrap and took some money.
Then he went back upstairs to drop the money beside his body, he turned towards a security camera on the wall. Without hesitating, he raised the gun and shot the camera.
He let it capture the footage he wanted it to. Now when they checked footage they would think Rage just went mad and decided to kill everyone and burn their stash.
After he dropped the money off with his body, he went back down for a second time, grabbing a lighter and setting their storage room on fire.
The flames licked his arm but he didn't feel any pain. This wasn't his body after all.
He went back upstairs and glanced at his body and the cash, then he walked to the edge of the pier, breathing in the chilly air of the night.
The dark blue waters of the river glittered in the moonlight. The boathouse was somberly quiet despite the massacre he had just committed, some ships bobbed over the water quietly. He closed his eyes as the wind ruffled his hair.
Or rather Rage's hair. Looking at his reflection in the water, Noah studied Rage's face and concluded that he had never met the man. Maybe he didn't deserve this, but anyone Noah was sure he did to an extent
After all it was Ironfield Mob, it was a lot bigger in this world than his world. But trash never changed its smell. He smirked, pulling out the gun and putting it under his neck.
"Just means there are more of them for me to kill," Noah decided.
The gun roared like thunder, blood splattering over the pier and into the water and Rage's body fell into the river.
But Noah was left standing on the edge of the pier. The black flames that made up his head grew stronger and a white line formed for his mouth.
He studied the mouth for a moment in the water. It wasn't much but his power was growing. He turned towards his body slumped against the boathouse's walls. There was smoke coming from the basement door already.
"So… how do I get back into my body?"