CHPT 6: Level One…..

"I'm in a different….world….."

The realization collapsed in on his psyche with a force he'd never felt before. An emptiness filled his stomach, his skin sweat bullets as if it were crying where his eyes weren't. His jaw crushed his teeth together hard enough to send them through his jaws and into his skull.

A different world…

Not just a reversal in time– or some existential glitch made by the eyes in the sky. A genuine new world….universe. An entirely new mode of being that he'd just been thrown into. A world that seemed on the brink of collapsing based on what the newspaper had to say. A roaring tide of rage washed over him in a flash at the thought of what it all meant. No shot at revenge, no second chance to easily get his mother's horrid words out of his brain. He'd been restarted, back to ground zero in a place he had no footing in. He was a man placed at the foot of a mountain in a blizzard by a god...for entertainment.

"Mother fucker!" He snapped, rising to his feet in a flash to send his fist smashing into the dumpster. What followed was a series of long winded curses and extra punches that rang out through the alley like gunshots.

After a few seconds, he stood over the trash heaving yet no worse for wear as he studied his fist. Foul smelling brown fluids and specks of what smelled like meat stuck to his scarred knuckles.

He looked back to the dumpster and found himself looking straight at a fist sized hole in the green metal that leaked with the trash stuffed within. Almost like the metal caved from the force of his punches with deadly ease. But that couldn't be possible…..his knuckles didn't even hurt…

"Must've already bee–"

Before he could finish speaking, a searing line of heat laced through his head like a molten snake riding the grooves of his brain. It felt like a migraine on steroids. The voice followed, giving the pain an unwanted level of realism.

"You are at the bottom….."

"Stop!" He snapped reflexively as the words ran down his spine. A woman crossing the alley's entrance on the sidewalk beyond caught the tail end of his outburst and shrieked to herself before speeding up to escape his sight.

The sounds of her clicking heels faded into the collective buzz of the city, giving him a sound to focus on as he stuffed all the rage somewhere deeper inside himself to be dealt with at a more appropriate time.

Compartmentalization. Now was not the time.

"The bottom….." He mumbled before rising from the crate he sat on and heading deeper into the alley to step out onto the city streets beyond.

As soon as he stepped out of the cool shade of the alley, the warm august sun hit his face accompanied by the much closer sounds of people and boisterous construction workers. The same one's he was hearing small inklings of in the sewers when he'd first awakened.

Whatever they were doing, there was a lot of them. Leading him to believe there was some sort of facility being built or torn down. It only took another few steps for his question to be answered.

Out from the shadows of a dusted and abandoned looking apartment complex, a much larger building stood. At least it was larger….before a massive chunk of the building was ripped away, leaving scorched and cracked barely standing bricks bordering the massive hole in the structure.

As he moved closer to the building, going with the flow of the crowd, he could see through the windows how the interior was mangled and abused when the construction workers weren't in the way. Each room's walls were lined with arcing streaks of deep cracks and rips while squares of clean whiteness stuck out on torn surfaces. A place where pictures must've once stood.

He was no architect or any sort of studied professional when it came to buildings, but what he was viewing was not of the norm. An impact hard enough to blast out such a large chunk of the top corner of the apartment should've crashed through the rest of the building and landed somewhere in the alleyway behind it– damaging a great portion of the block in the process. Instead, the damage done to the interior levels below reminded him of something like a recoil from a blast…..going upward.

He didn't know of any tech with a punching power that deadly– while also being able to fit into an apartment room safely. He was stumped, until he was reminded of the newspaper in his hands and all it entailed.

"Maybe…."

Before his mind could try and fail to spin up any idea as to what…or who, blasted open a massive chunk of the apartment, which was labeled by the construction companies title that was littered with graffiti over the first word, transforming the title to "Hellions Allied". Not good, especially since he was beginning to consider the professionalism of the place, based on the lackluster safety precautions and rushed flow of it all.

He felt his booted feet crunch over the stiff yellow plastic of caution tape. He was wondering why he hadn't seen it before. It had simply been overrun by pedestrians.

More willing to take the risk on the outside then try to take a detour through the alleys– even in broad daylight. Another aspect of New York that seemed to travel across…universes.

The gravity of the issue sent another wave of searing pain through his skull as he tried to hurry past the building and not have his head split open by a falling cinder block.

During that time, his senses failed to alert him to the sound of something falling hard, followed by the sound of a hinge breaking and allowing the main doors of the building to fall on him and the nearby pedestrians with a slow and heavy screech.

The pedestrians around him scattered like cockroaches as he reflexively put his hand out to catch the falling connected doors and shove them back into the doorframe.

Unfortunately for him– and the building, the act was less of a shove and more of a metallic rattling slam that shattered the windows of the apartment three floors above, causing the glistening shards to fall onto the tarp bordering below meant to catch debris before it hit the streets while the construction workers inside attempted to recover from the shock. Spewing a litany of curses and questions about everyone's wellbeing.

Kane looked from his hand to the door in a state of confusion. The doors were metal– solid steel with even thicker framing. If they were anything closer to the norm like wood, it would've damn near exploded from the force of his shove. A shove that manhandled upwards of two hundred and thirty pounds like it was nothing.

That was not normal— and anything but normal was immediately scrutinized under the public eye. Eye's that he could feel as the crowd of walkers warily continued their journey's while casting uneasy glances at him. Some people outright began sprinting.

He needed to move.

His feet carried him back into tempo with the crowd, pulling him towards the alleyway on the other side of the building.

Before he could make it, he found himself colliding with another person– only this time he was on the right side of the sidewalk. When he came to a stop at the far left side of the apartment complex he just hit with a low level shockwave, he found himself looking down at a middle aged man of hispanic descent wearing a dirtied cap, stained white tee and pants that looked about as old as himself. Small specks of paint and dust were caught in his thick stash and fingers hardened by a life of hard work.

One of the construction workers. One with experience and an assumed higher than average ranking.

Kane cleared his throat and pushed past the man, "Excuse me."

Immediately after, he could hear the short and stocky man follow behind by the crunch of his boots and loud ruffle of the plastic bags filled with food in his arms. The man continued to cut through groupings of people until he was within earshot.

"Sir!.....Sir!"

Kane ignored him and moved quicker, pushing through the crowd to reach the alley entrance that was now merely a few feet away, trying to ignore the way people looked up at him as he passed.

When he finally turned and entered the dark of the alley, the urge to feel the infinite exhilaration of running once again was almost inescapable. But, before he could….

"Sir!.....I just want to offer you a job, my friend."

"Persistent…" He whispered with irritation before turning around to face the man, leaving his black shoulder length locs covering his face like a mask of tendrils, "I'm sorry. Not interested."

The persistent construction worker stood in a stunned state for a fraction of a second, assumedly taken aback by the accented softness of his voice before looking him over and speaking, "Are you sure, my friend from afar? You look like you could use a couple dollars….maybe a couple showers, no offense."

Kane looked down to where the man's eyes lowered to, spotting the dried dumpster fluids caking his fist and catching a whiff of the scent of sewer air that clung to his white shirt and jeans.

The man raised his hands in defeat– as much as he could while holding the food, "Ah, listen. I only come to offer a job to a man that looks fit for labor. It's a demanding market…..I'm sure you know exactly why, no?" He said, pointing at the newspaper Kane held.

"We could use someone with your size up there. These buildings ain't gonna rebuild themselves. And with the amount of times a block gets destroyed by the others….these days, we need anyone and everyone, hombre. All I'm asking is that you consider, you don't even need to sign up officially. Just come in, work, take your cut and repeat."

Kane suddenly remembered he had no form of identification, no records, no money and no footprint in the world. It had it's advantages– none of which became apparent at his current level. Ground zero. Especially with the voice still plaguing his mind. He needed money, he needed connections, he needed access and he needed a lay of the land.

"Here– No need to set anything in stone now, but at least take my card." The man spoke into the silence, cautiously approaching him after digging a card out of his pocket.

He came to a stop a few feet from Kane, reminding him how tall he'd become.

"All I ask is that you consider."

Kane stayed silent, reaching out to take the beige business card– dusty and stained by blotches of old paint of varying colors. Despite this he could still make out the title. The correct name of the business this time.

"We're under new management– a joint venture. But our brick and mortar location is still the same. If you consider joining, you can find me there. I hope to see you in the future. Something tells me you'll do some good work." The man said with a knowing smile that ruffled his mustache before heading out of the alley.

Despite the small size and lacking physical definition of the man, his smile sent a shiver down Kane's spine…

He shook it off. Heading deeper within the alley, hoping to get away from the claustrophobic streets. Without even managing two steps, the man called out to him again.

"Oh, also! Heads up!" He said, tossing something through the air towards him.

Kane's reflexes kicked into high gear, spinning him around to catch the object wrapped in white paper. As soon as it hit his hands, he could smell the processed meats and salty sauce drowned bread beneath. His stomach roared in response to the smell.

Kane looked back up to where the construction worker once was and found that he was already gone, disappearing behind the neverending crowd of people.

He headed deeper into the alley, no longer facing interruption as he unwrapped the sandwich and studied the card.

It read, "Union Allied."

Kane found himself whispering his mode of being once more as he looked over the business card.

"The bottom….."

A long day awaited like never before.