POWER DREAD

Prologue (Rewrite)

A rewrite of the story because I find it to be unsatisfactory, and I have improved vastly as a writer, so I hope you will enjoy this version even more...

He didn't know how long he was falling. He lost the count of time, never bothered to try. What could he possibly gain by doing that anyway? None of it matters. All it mattered was for him to die, nothing else.

He felt the friction against the air as he fell into a spiral of dizziness, the rain soaking his exposed skin.

The dim light of the moon was the last thing that entered his eyesight, before completely crashing to the ground with a loud thud.

A few agonising moments later, light entered his vision, his fuzzy vision suddenly returning to life.

He survived yet again, in another one of his countless attempts to take his life away.

His head tilted upwards, greeted by the grim view of the cesspool of a city he was living in.

"Again..." He uttered, looking at his already healed wound, "Wouldn't hurt to try it once mor-"

A wild vibration was felt inside his pockets. He reached for it, gripping the shattered screen of his phone, before answering the call...

"Jack!" The voice from the other line called out. He felt instantly tempted to close the line, but decided to indulge the other party, "What do you want, Doc?"

"You better have a sensible explanation as to why you haven't been answering my calls." The voice demanded.

He let out an exhale, before replying, "Was eating at some place, the food tasted good. I think you'd love-"

"Don't bullshit me, Jack. I know."

"Know what?"

"Judging by your heavy breath, you just did something extremely stupid moments ago." The voice replied.

Jack didn't respond for a while. He was really tempted to turn it off.

"God, you're so dense, aren't you? I told you to hold tight-"

"And then what?" Jack interrupted, "It's been fifteen years and nothing else came up. I'm just being coerced to live a pointless life at this point."

"We can fix this. I know we can. It's our vow to help people like you." The voice from the line said, "Jack, please, give us one more chance."

"I've given you folks chances, and I've lost the count of em. Never bothered to try to keep a track anymore." Jack replied with a grim tone.

"Give us one more. Just this night. I have a medicine prepared for you, to remedy your situation for just the tiniest bit, but.. I'm sure we can work around it in the future."

"A medicine?"

"The neurovaxcyn. We came up with it to reduce the side effects of the biovirus inside of you, mainly the fact that you can't feel even the slightest touch." The voice replied again, "But we're close to finding a cure."

"Close? How close, exactly?"

"We're not sure-"

"You lost me at 'we're not sure'." Jack interrupted with a slight disappointed tone, "Fuck, fuck! Fine. I'll come over to a bar. A regular, you know which one. You can do your 'undercover' magic while you're at it."