The first time he saw himself die, the world came undone.
Eclipse stood at the edge of a rooftop, his breath steady, his presence a whisper in the night. Below, the city pulsed with dim, dying lights, a maze of concrete veins carrying shadows that never quite fit their owners. His target moved through the alleyways like a ghost, silent, deliberate. A man feared by those who knew his name.
The Omen.
A contract had led Eclipse here. A simple kill. A job like any other. But as his gaze locked onto his target—his own reflection staring back at him—the air turned to ice.
This wasn't just a hunt. It was a reckoning.
A pulse of déjà vu struck Eclipse, sharp as a dagger. He had been here before—this street, this hunt. The flickering streetlamps cast shadows that twisted in ways they shouldn't, as if recoiling from something unseen. His head throbbed. Memories crashed into him, violent and raw. A sword through his heart. A fall from this very rooftop. Fire devouring his flesh. A life stolen, rewound, erased. A cycle that refused to break.
How many times have I died?
The thought was not his own, yet it felt like a memory.
The Omen stopped at the alley's dead end. Slowly, deliberately, he turned. A mask concealed his face, but Eclipse knew what lay beneath. He had seen that face in reflections, in glimpses of places that no longer existed. And when the Omen finally spoke, it was with a voice that sent chills through his soul.
"You were never meant to remember."
Eclipse did not move. His gloved fingers curled around the hilt of his blade, but something deeper inside him screamed no—an instinct beyond fear, beyond reason. The Omen tilted his head, watching him with an unsettling stillness.
"You are a shadow of a man who has died a thousand times. A puppet made to dance until the strings are cut."
The city around them flickered. For the briefest second, Eclipse saw another world—a ruined skyline, streets abandoned, time shattered like glass. Then reality snapped back, leaving only the alley and the man who should not exist.
"Who are you?" Eclipse demanded, voice barely above a whisper.
The Omen took a step forward. A presence unseen and ancient pressed against the edges of reality, distorting the air. "I am the end of the cycle," he said. "And this time, you will not forget."
A memory tore through Eclipse's mind, violent and unbidden. A blade. Blood. A whisper in the void: Break the chain.
The Omen moved, too fast to track. Shadows folded in on themselves, and the world collapsed.
Darkness swallowed him whole.