7: Doppelganger

I like outdoor walks and nature. I know, it's kind of inconvenient for me to be saying this out of nowhere, but this is something that has always marked me a lot.

When I was younger, my father always used to take me camping with my uncles and cousins, which was always something fun for me. It was during these trips that I learned how to make a fire, cut firewood, fish and even hunt.

So to say that I've always had a kind of affinity with plants wouldn't be an exaggeration. I learned to value nature, to see beauty and understand the importance of each plant and animal, and always protect the environment around me.

But make no mistake. I'm these guys who go around screaming to protect the plants and making protests, or like these crazy ecoterrorists. I'm the kind of guy who protects the environment in his own way.

I avoid throwing garbage on the floor, I take care of the plants and I avoid hurting animals unnecessarily, because I know I'm saving the planet in my own way.

And even after dying and being reborn, my love for nature did not go away. After all, I'm enjoying my afternoon sitting in a park now.

I'm not with my parents now, because the park is close to my house and they recognize that I'm old enough to go to the park alone and come home without getting lost.

Well, that's what comes from my way of acting. I may even look like a 6-year-old, in fact I'm literally a 6-year-old child, but deep down, I'm still a well-educated adult in their 20s.

As soon as I learned to walk and talk, I started acting almost the same way I was in my past life. I did my things alone. I cleaned my room alone, made my meals alone, took a shower alone and behaved like someone who had already lived for a long time and knew how to turn around, something I was. I think this made my parents see that I am more responsible than I should for my "age".

There is also the fact that I interact little with other children and always establish a very clear distance between myself and others. There was a time when my mother even thought I had some social difficulty, since I didn't even want to talk to other children.

Well, besides not wanting to associate myself with a bunch of annoying and angry children, I've always been a guy who had very strict limits with whom he related. For me, if it's not family or a very close friend, then it's the same as no one else. A mentality that I cultivated in adolescence and maintained during adulthood.

Don't get me wrong, I'm never rude, arrogant or mean to others, I just don't want to create relationships with a bunch of people who don't matter.

I think I've talked too much about myself. This should be the part where I say something interesting about my powers or about the situation of the world around me, but nothing happened that is worth mentioning.

My powers did not evolve much, apart from the slight improvement it had in energy absorption and in my improvement in the use of portals, no remarkable or important event happened for the universe, and no more magical or supernatural event happened around me.

In fact, practically nothing worrying happened, which is very strange.

When you think of DC, what comes to your mind is probably cosmic villains, demonic entities and events that almost cause the extinction of humanity. But nothing happened during the time I was here.

Stopping to think, if we ignore the heroes and villains flying around, DC is very similar to the real world. I can guarantee this first hand.

I'm having a calm day, enjoying the sounds of nature and the quiet environment while thinking about what my mother will do for dinner, something that is not very different from what I did as a teenager.

The dangers and threats around me are very obvious, but if I can have a quiet day like this from time to time, maybe it's not so bad to be in DC.

Hmm, look at that. It's getting late, it's better to go home to avoid getting scolded by my mother.

So, I got up from the bench and left the park, starting to make my way home.

Was I worried about someone wanting to kidnap me or with some murderer roaming the series? No. I have the powers of Warlock, I can easily blow up the head of any normal criminal who appears.

In addition, I was using my soul detection, so I could easily know if someone...

Shit, someone is following me. And it's definitely not a normal person.

I've felt and observed the souls of normal people before, and this one is very different from them. Would it be a supernatural being? I remember feeling their souls for a brief moment the other time and it was very similar to that.

Well, regardless of who it is, he's following me and that's a problem.

After observing my surroundings for some time, I noticed an empty alley with some garbage cans thrown on the floor and without thinking much, I entered it.

As soon as I entered, I took flight and created some spears around me, before making them and me invisible.

After that, I created a barrier around the alley so that no one could see what was happening. Her main function was to make everything that was inside her in addition to isolating, ensuring that she was able to see what was happening unless she paid attention or entered.

After a few minutes of waiting, my target finally arrived. It was a tall man in a suit and sunglasses, who kept looking around, almost as if he was trying to find me.

I was ready to impale him with the spears, but he did something that surprised me. His body began to grow and get thinner, his skin took on a grotesque pale color, his teeth became sharp like those of a shark and using his own hands that now had claws, he tore off his own face revealing a face without eyes, no nose and without ears, only his mouth full of sharp teeth.

Okay, I probably won't sleep well tonight. This creature is clearly not human.

I've never seen this kind of monster in DC, but I think I've heard of it before in my other life. What was the name again?... I think it was Doppelganger or Skinwalker.

I'll just call it a Doppelganger because I never understood what a Skinwalker is.

But without further ado, I threw all the spears at the creature, aiming at all the vital points I could, so she let out a scream of horrendous pain when she was hit.

He kept struggling and screaming for some time, but soon after he stopping to move and was silent, symbolizing that he had died.

Honestly, it amazes me that a non-human creature died so simply. Shouldn't he have regeneration, metamorphosis, know magic or something like that? Or just because I'm in a world based on comics, doesn't it mean that all supernatural beings have the power to destroy a city?

You know what, I won't think too much about it. What matters is that he has already found me. This means that sooner or later, others will come too and may not be so easy to kill.

The best thing is to go back and rest. If I'm a little late, mom will probably be a beast.