Ohmylawd, something from little old me? Well aren't you all in for a treat! Here's a brand new fic my darlings, because FUCK trying to even attempt to finish other projects I have! And I decided this one is safe enough (for now) to upload here so...You're welcome!


Hello me ... Meet the real me
And my misfits way of life
A dark black past is my
Most valued possessions
Hindsight is always 20-20
But looking back it's still a bit fuzzy
Speak of mutually assured destruction?
Nice story ... Tell it to Reader's Digest!


It is rare that Alex sleeps.

He will lie down and close his eyes, maybe doze at best, but he never falls asleep. He does not require sleep like a normal human, and he could go days without actual rest. He just feeds, consumes, reenergizes, goes. Alex has actually slept only a few times since he "awoke" in the morgue. Sleep is not for him. Maybe he'll doze just so he's lying down and acts quiet so he won't bother Dana. Rare is it he falls into full sleep when he does.

But for the first time, he dreams.

Alex feels he must be dreaming, that this is the sensation of having a dream. He finds himself on a random street back in New York, the first indication of the dream because he and Dana had left the city behind as it recovered from the combined Blacklight and Redlight outbreak. He is all alone on this street, there is no life save for him. It's cold and empty, gray and despairing.

Without any sort of prompting, Alex begins to walk, his footsteps echoing loudly down the abandoned street. He has no real direction of where he's going, just down the street where he thinks he'll encounter something. But the street seems to continue on and on with no end in sight. Yet Alex keeps walking, following nothing but the instincts the dream presents him with.

The more he walks, the darker the already gloomy street becomes. The more he walks, the road seems to crumble, the windows of buildings darken, and the gray in the air seems to become thicker and heavier. A red haze suddenly seems to sweep in through the air, but Alex walks through it without even blinking.

Eventually is his road comes to an end, and Alex immediately knows where he is. It's covered in vines of pulsating black and red, but he could never forget the entrance to Penn Station if he tried. Alex walks down the steps, the thick tendrils of the Blacklight virus coating the walls and steps. He wades through it as if it wasn't even there.

For the first time, Alex feels. He feels anxiety gripping at his chest, pulling down heavy at this limbs. Yet he walks on, past turnstiles and ticket booths until he stands before the last place he'd ever think to find himself. He feels even heavier here, so heavy he falls to his knees, unable to carry himself anymore.

Alex coughs and clutches at his chest. It felt like a ball had suddenly formed inside him, and he did the first human thing he thought of to rid it. Whatever it is, it's traveling. Up the chest and up through his esophagus until it comes pouring out of his mouth and onto the station platform with a wet plop.

Then it moves. The thing shifts, shudders really, and it's suddenly sliding over the floor to the exact spot where he was born essentially. Surrounding virus reaches out to overtake it, and the mass begins to writhe as it grows. It grows and grows and grows, reaching up towards the roof until-

Only in a dream could his happen. Alex stares at the mass in detached awe, watching the mass form into a perfect replica of himself garbed in his heavy, black armor. But then the armor dissipates. It dissolves away until his familiar human form is left with only a few bits of armor still attached here and there.

His double inhales, exhales, breathes, an action Alex merely copied in the waking world. His double looks down at him with cold, hollow eyes. There is no emotion, no real life, yet Alex trembles underneath that hard stare from those twin pools of blue. A sinister smile snakes across his double's face, and it clicks in Alex mind that no, this is not his twin, it's not even him staring down at him. His thoughts are confirmed when the other speaks;

"Blacklight…My precious creation…So lovely to see you again."

Alex swallows as shivers run down his spine. He knew that voice all too well. Rough yet smooth, confident to the point of arrogance, icy enough to send someone into chills. The voice Alex could remember if he tried hard enough, back to his days of infancy, nothing more than a mass of cells in a test tube. This was the voice of him, Dr. Alexander J. Mercer.

His Master.

Dr. Mercer takes a step towards him, then another, and another until Alex is staring right into his stomach. "Oh, look at you. The picture of perfection," Dr. Mercer coos at him, reaching out to run fingers through his hair. "Of course you chose me for your host, anyone else and I would have been insulted."

Alex closes his eyes at the chuckle that follows that statement. Without meaning to, he leans into that hand atop his head, breathing slowly as he does. "Oh that's right, I can finally touch you without fear of infection," his creator remarks, the ugly pride too evident in his voice. "Did you miss me? Surely you thought of me while you were cavorting around New York. Good thoughts I hope?"

He can't answer him, because no, Alex has never thought anything pleasant about this creator. The doctor was anything but good, the real monster, the real terrorist, the real madman. Alex had merely stolen his face, his voice, his memories. Became the mask, and nearly broke down when he was presented with the cold hard truth. Since New York, Alex had put his master behind him, determined to change the meaning behind the name Alex Mercer for the better.

Yet here the man himself was, fingers leaving the top of his head to slide down his face and grip his chin, wrenching it upwards. Alex's eyes snapped open, and he found himself making direct eye contact with the doctor.

"Your head is filled with so many lies," Dr. Mercer starts. "So many ideas and memories not your own. That's bad for you, you know. I should be the only thing in that big head of yours, everything else is inferior. You know that much, don't you?"

"Yes" Alex says.

"Yes, what?"

"Yes Master, it's all bad for me. I'm sorry."

The words tumble out of his mouth without him realizing, but he couldn't stop them if he tried. It was as if every cell in his body had its attention on the phantom of their creator, to please him, say the things he wanted to hear because no one knew the bad doctor better than the ones who invaded his corpse and stripped everything away for themselves.

"You know better now," Dr. Mercer says to him. "Remember, I'm the only thing that's important. I'm the one who gave you true life after all."

"I won't forget," Alex promises. "I never will."

"Good boy." Dr. Mercer purrs at him. "And I will be watching to make sure you do."

His creator crumples into nothingness before him. The station around him seems to melt and wither away until Alex is left in an empty gray expanse. He blinks, blinks twice-

And he's suddenly staring up at the ceiling, sunlight streaming into the room, the TV already on and reporting the morning's news. Alex sits up on the couch he had lied himself down on the night previous.

"Morning sleepy head!" Dana says to him cheerily from the armchair adjacent the couch and TV, a bowl of cereal in her lap. "Sleep well?"

Alex slowly nods at her as he swings his legs down so his feet touch the floor.

"Well that's good, you really need it," Dana continues, pausing to shove a spoonful of Cheerios into her mouth. "Did you dream of anything nice?"

"You could say that" Alex replies. And he leaves it at that.