Pant! Pant! Pant!
Where am I?
What actually happened?
I had the weirdest dream ever?
Samon Salvatore was trying to open his eyes. He fluttered them a few times—maybe five at best. He couldn't remember anything about what happened before he collapsed on the floor and everything around him went all black.
The headache that he had before had now stopped, and all he was doing was panting heavily. The part about him having a panic attack was the only thing that still remained with him.
When he collapsed on the floor, he collapsed next to the mirror—the dressing mirror of this room—which he still had no idea who it belonged to.
Ah, damn it! I can't believe I locked out again. What's happening with me, really?
Samon Salvatore clutched his head, though it wasn't in pain or anything that needed him to touch it. But when he fell, he did kinda hit headfirst, and though it wasn't anything that concerning, he just rubbed it where he felt it still a little bit.
Another thing: he was drooling, and multiple pages were stuck on his face. They were the same yellowed pages that were pasted on the wall.
Samon Salvatore got up. He was still feeling a little woozy.
Jesus! I really need to get the hell out of here before the owner of this room comes back. And since this place looks like a voodoo heritage site, who knows what they'll do to me when they come back.
One thing still remained the same and never changed—the fact that Samon Salvatore was feeling like he was all better and all, but at the same time he felt like he had left his head somewhere else.
The dressing mirror stood in front of him, and though it was looking so old and out of touch, the mirror really looked so classic. It was a vintage Victorian mahogany, oval in shape and a little stained, meaning that the reflection wasn't as good as before, but one could still see themselves.
Samon Salvatore tried to maintain his balance.
What are these papers doing on my face?
He was removing all the papers that were on his face and throwing them down as he tried to stand still and maintain his balance. He couldn't help but check under his shoes to make sure there wasn't any weird page stuck on him.
Samon Salvatore was shocked to realise and see that the whole floor was covered in these yellow pages.
What kind of demonic seance was happening here?
But the floor wasn't just covered in yellow pages; there was something else too. It looked like a river of dark crimson-red, which was where he woke up from the first time he found himself here.
That piqued his interest. He was already intrigued to know where the hell that crimson-red came from. But the most important part was to know and identify what it was exactly.
Samon Salvatore crouched and used two of his fingers to check on one of the few papers that was stained a lot. He first rubbed it against his fingertips and felt that it was watery, then he sniffed it and realised that it smelt like something he was used to but couldn't put his finger on.
Well, I guess one last thing to do is taste it.
Samon Salvatore put his fingers and the crimson-red stain into his mouth, and that's when he realised what it actually was.
Why does this taste a lot like—
"Blood?" He spit it out as soon as he diagnosed what the hell that thing was.
He backed away fast, almost causing himself to trip and fall over backwards, but luckily for him the dressing mirror broke his fall.
"Whose blood is this, and where is the body?" Questions began to linger in his mind.
He got up from the mirror as his balance returned. What he didn't notice was that when he got up and moved away from it, he actually stained the mirror too.
Samon Salvatore was still having a hard time catching his breath, and each time he breathed it was like there was something passing through his chest.
He was suspicious of this, and before he could actually give himself a chance to see what was going on, he tested it out first by doing breathing exercises. The first time he breathed in slowly and out slowly, he realised the same thing as before was happening. Then he breathed for the second time, now his breathing in and breathing out were steady. And one last time, he breathed in four times and breathed out four more times, and nothing changed.
What is that?
Samon Salvatore decided to check out for himself. He placed his hand on his chest—only for his hand to go through him and his chest.
I must be still dreaming.
Then he took out his hand and saw it dripping with blood.
"What the actual f—" he couldn't finish that sentence.
Thinking that maybe he was still experiencing a minor mental breakdown from that bump to the head after falling, Samon Salvatore turned around and faced the mirror to actually see what was the meaning of this, but only for him to see the mirror tilted up.
Sighing.
"Seriously?" He fixed the mirror and tried to wipe it off, but nothing was happening—it was already stained looking.
Then, after he was done with his attempt, he stood in front of the mirror straight up and saw that there was indeed a big hole in his chest, and the blood was still dripping all over the floor.
How am I alive without a heart? It's not supposed to be possible. Even science could not explain this.
Samon Salvatore's chest was cut open and there wasn't a heart inside of him, but he was walking around and alive just like a normal person would.
He froze.
How is this possible?
What actually happened to me?
Samon Salvatore thought that maybe all this was happening because of the kind of alcohol he drank, so it was easy to blame the misunderstanding on that instead of facing the truth.
Everything about him was still the same when he saw himself in the mirror. He hadn't changed; he looked like the twenty-four-year-old that he normally knew himself as. But the thing that was different was his clothing. Samon Salvatore had worn an old dirty rag dress that was mostly worn by those who were imprisoned a very long time ago in a dungeon.
This was not normal. Everything about this whole thing was not easy to accept and was kinda hard to swallow.
Thinking that he was still trapped in some kind of disturbing dream, Samon Salvatore slapped himself a few times.
Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!
His slaps were loud; they could be heard all the way to the other side of the room. His slaps sounded more like thunderclaps than anything.
Little did he know that while he was doing so, something else was happening. With each slap, Samon Salvatore saw his reflection in the mirror change, with him becoming someone else.
Huh?
He looked at himself again but found nothing wrong with himself.
"Sh*t, I never thought that drinking would cause me to hallucinate this much. I wonder what Shaun put in those drinks."
Though he didn't know where he was, Samon Salvatore simply opened the door and made his way into the bathroom. Funny enough, everything looked new in his eyes, but at the same time he was familiar with the place, like he had been there before.
He walked around, looking at everything in that apartment. It was a three-room apartment. On the walls there was a one-of-a-kind wallpaper printed on the wall—it was brownish and had a lot of tiled shapes printed on it. The floor was literally a floorboard, because each step he took the floorboard would creak.
"Why does everything seem so familiar? Have I been here before?" Samon Salvatore was running his hand on the wall.
He didn't need assistance; he found the bathroom himself. And the moment he touched the knob, before he even turned it open, he suddenly had this feeling that he shouldn't enter.
Tsk.
He ignored the feeling and entered the bathroom. To his surprise the bathroom as a whole was way more different from what he'd expected. It was so vintage; it was a syphon-set water closet toilet—the one that when one flushes they must pull a string.
Even the tiles were so classic and vintage, those dated pattern tiles mostly found in grandparents' houses.
And the bathtub was the kind that had legs and curtains around it, those black-and-white spotted curtains.
"What ancient museum did I walk into?" He looked around, amazed.
Not that it wasn't beautiful—because despite it looking like that, the bathroom really looked vintage and cool. Samon Salvatore walked to the basin and washed his face. When he was washing his face, he would change again.
The water temperature that he was using was very cold, and so when he poured it onto his face, Samon Salvatore would become someone else completely different from him.
Zap!
The sound sounded more like an electronic sound. Samon Salvatore saw this and he almost fell and tripped on the bathroom floor mat.
"Who is there?" He thought he saw someone.
He got closer to the basin and the cabinet mirror, and he touched his face and saw nothing wrong with him.
I must be losing my mind.
He dismissed that thought. Then he took a towel and wiped his face. He'd completely forgotten about the hole in his chest. As much as that sounded impossible and unreal, it didn't hurt as much as before. Not even a drop of blood was coming from him.
Something told Samon Salvatore to go to his room, and he did exactly that. As he reached his door and touched the knob, he couldn't help but get this crazy headache, like his head was remembering something.
Flash! Flash! Flash!
Whatever was happening in his head felt more like pictures flashing inside—brighter and brighter.
"Jesus!" Samon Salvatore entered his room and closed it.
He was remembering stuff that he wasn't supposed to remember, let alone know. Those memories belonged to someone else—someone he'd met recently.
The same person's face he kept seeing when he was washing his face and slapping his face—it was the same teenage boy who was in the picture with his family.
Samon Salvatore's head was experiencing so much pain it made him feel like his head was being forcefully drilled by someone, which caused him to have blurred vision and stumble around the room, seeing things that he didn't see the first time.
Lying around the floor was an old rusted silver-gray plate that was covered in blood, and on top of the study desk was an old medical tool that doctors used to use when performing surgery—opening one's chest and taking out their heart—a retractor.
He was very much aware of what was happening to him, but now he wasn't seeing it with his own eyes but someone else's—this kid's.
He turned around and stood by the mirror, and what he saw shook him to the core. Samon Salvatore was regenerating. His empty chest without a heart was regenerating a new heart, like how a lizard grows back its missing limb.
He thought he was seeing things, and because he couldn't believe it, he rubbed his eyes just to make sure—and what he saw after was still the same thing.
He got closer to the mirror and placed his hand on his chest, and he felt the whole regenerating process.
Zap! Zap!
Now he was himself, and now he wasn't. He was shifting in between.
"What is happening to me?" He couldn't believe it.
Thinking that was it, something else happened. He felt like he was hearing someone calling another person's name. That name felt like a whisper through the grapevine.
Marcel… Marcelous Wayne.