A Shadow from the Past

The colorful environment of the Night District painted in the evening. People cheer away their worldly problems, wash it down along in the sparkling alcohol and energetic dance. Except for one man walking through the void inside a gray world. He shouldered his way amidst the crowd to get out of this place, his eyes looking at the ground while others went to the sky. How happy, aren't they? He keeps walking till he finds himself in the subway, thinking back to home is a good idea for now.The train was already there—faster than usual, looks like ready to carry his sorrows away from this place. He picks a seat beside the window, glancing upon the starry sky of neon blend—no napping just like he normally does. The carriage is surprisingly lively, yet he hears nothing but empty air. For now, he doesn't know what he has to do; should he just live in this unknown state—refuse to believe Sarah's words, or keep walking and discover the bitter truth? For now, he is just tired.A long road has passed as he reaches his neighborhood. The small lighting illuminates upon the narrow alley because he took a shortcut till it leads him to the front white door. He opens it; it is dark then he turns the lights on. He walks to the bathroom, turns on the tap and mirroring on the washbasin. He sees nothing but a man with eye bags and visibly stress, sighing and lowering his head towards the water, soaked inside of it, hoping to cool his head off. But it's not really working."Damnit!" He shouts in anger and agony. Punching the mirror, then bleeds his hand. Alex then leaned on the wall behind him, slowly he dropped off his body and sat—buried his face under his arms. Not long after that, a sound of someone walking inside his house heard. Alex snaps his head back and gets up slowly, sensing something's wrong. As he kept waiting and was silent, his assumption was right that there was someone indeed inside his house. He tries to crack the door to see who the person is that barges in. He adjusted the angle of his view until he saw an image of a person in full black clothing, just like a special force, or perhaps more than that. It is also an armed individual, but it is not clear what kind of weapon that it brought.The figure just moves his body into the living room, tries to scan something, then puts a night vision goggle and looks in Alex's direction. Unbeknownst to him, the goggles seemed to have an infrared vision; in a matter of seconds, the figure suddenly raised his gun and shot at Alex. Silenced bullets storms make less noise in the neighborhood so nobody knows what happened. Alex yanked and covered himself beneath the door, but unfortunately, some bullets struck on his thigh and right arm, making him winced in pain. He keeps covering his head with arms until the barrage is over.Once it's over, he jumps out of the bathroom then kicks the figure—knocking it to the ground. Then Alex straddled the figure's chest, but it kicked him and stumbled. It then gets up and grips a knife. Seeing this unfair situation, Alex, too, grabbed a kitchen knife. Both are in great intense fighting within the cramped room—taunting each other by rapid feint movement. The figure launched a slash attack and got dodged—following Alex's counterattack, but also failed. Alex tries to make his luck by stabbing it, yet fails as he is being punched in the face as retaliation. He shakes his head; the room is filled with void and both heart beats.The figure now attacks him with a fast movement of feint stab on Alex's head, then suddenly changes its direction to his chest with a slash. Alex staggers in pain. The figure clearly enjoys this duel because it thinks it's just a simple job to kill him. Meanwhile, Alex keeps standing tall on his ground, eyeing every movement and trying to find any gaps. He then slightly takes a glance at a desk lamp, giving a sign that he wants to use it as a trick. The figure also noticed him and his sight, feeling ready for whatever Alex will do. Suddenly, Alex throws the lamp towards the figure, but it successfully blocks it, then he feints an attack and follows up with a low kick that makes the figure kneel.After that, he grabs the figure's head firmly. With explosive power, his knee to the head and sends his enemy to the ground. By stabbing its right hand, Alex prevents the figure from grabbing the fallen knife and makes it shout in pain. From the voice, it can be heard that the figure was a man. So, Alex punches his head over and over, then opens his mask and questioning him."Who the hell are you?" Alex asked in anger."Does it matter... who I am?" The assassin smirks, provokes him.Alex launched a hard punch straight at his face. "Answer me!""Make me." He replied, still smirking; looks like won't tell him anything.Alex then continuously throws a barrage of punches to the assassin's face till it bleeds and swells. Instead of giving up and telling a thing to Alex—he just smiling, truly won't give up while."You fool... you're a dead meat Alex, look around, you're surrounded.""What?" Alex observes his surroundings; clearly there's nothing in sight. But suddenly, a red dot lay on his forehead. Quickly, he yanked himself to the other side and evaded the hot bullet that was shot by someone. There's a sniper, or maybe another of his group.Knowing the assassin won't give him the answer, he rushed himself to the door and tried to open it. But the assassin slowly gets up and grabs his left leg and stabs it with a knife. Alex cried out in pain, then kicked him with reflexes. He pulled out the knife, which stabbed and immediately stabbed the assassin's throat—leaving him dead alone.As the door finally opened, he ran away while covering his head from a bullet from the sky—zig zagging his way through the bloody night till he reached the subway. People panicked looking at him in such a condition, but he didn't care at all, then rammed him inside the train and hid. He peaked the window and saw a man carrying a gun looking for something. He sits and adjusts his breathing, relief from this raid. But Alex knows his life is still in danger and will not be safe anytime. Now he is assessing a plan to visit precinct 17 and looking for his old friend, Cody. Even though not remember anything at all, this was the only way.An hour passed; he shouldered his way throughout the train. Ramming each other. He ran as fast as possible to the precinct, and after a few minutes venturing the endless maze of alley, he found the location. He barges inside and asks the front door about an officer called Cody. At first, they're suspicious looking at Alex, let alone his rugged condition; luckily Alex still keeps his old badge and pretends that he is still one of them and looks at Cody because they're a friend. After a few moments, they finally told Alex where Cody lives.Without thanking Alex continue his way to Cody's house. It was an apartment of red; it similarly resembles Alex's neighborhood but slightly better. He then takes the stairs into the fifth floor, scanning the door number. He knocked at the door aggressively until the doorknob was moving. A man with a buzz cut staring at Alex widened until he dropped the hot dog in his hand."Alex!" He shouted in shock and was happy."Shut up and let me in!""O—ok, come here.""You Cody?""Yeah man, it's me! You're alive!""I know... but I don't think so. I met Sarah at the Night District and... and she told me I was dead. well... she said I supposed to be dead, and why?""Dude, you were on a mission to uncover Nexa Enterprise shenanigans, and when you sneak around their port, you get shot in the head. That's all I know. But how did you live? I saw your body in cremation—wait..." Cody stares at Alex, knowing something's off from this. "No way... perhaps... you're a clone.""What are you talking about? What's a clone?""Clones are human, well... not naturally produced instead of being made.""Like a robot?""Yes and no, essentially clones still resemble humans a hundred percent, but they were synthetic.""How are you so sure if I was one of them?""I'm not sure either. But, if I'm not mistaken, your corpse was being handled by professor Viktor for no reason; he is the one who begs and uses his privilege to have your body. He's one of many who contributed to the cloning experiment."Alex is in silent and contemplated his words; perhaps Cody was right about him being a clone."Where I can find professor Viktor?""I don't know, but he has an apprentice that currently working in KizunaTech, perhaps she can help you. Dr Song, if I'm not mistaken, that's her name.""Thanks buddy, and I'm sorry for everything.""It's alright dude, and you sure you wanna go now? I mean, we can chill a little here. I just ordered sushi.""Thanks, but I don't like fish."Alex gets out and runs his way and perish from the sight. Meanwhile, Cody found himself confused about his statement of not liking fish when he recalled he was a big fan of Japanese food. Perhaps Alex truly is a clone.