"Those people are back."
He was already under the bed, breath shallow, muscles tight, trying not to tremble. Whatever was out there, it was hunting.
Thud.
The sound of a body hitting the floor.
A second later, he saw her. A red-haired girl. Young. Eyes wide, glassy.
Her mouth torn open, a steel-chain threaded with barbed thorns wrapped around her jaw.
She stared straight at him.
What—
Christian shot up, breath ragged, drenched in cold sweat.
A nightmare. Again.
His hands trembled as he reached for the cigarette on the nightstand—same as always. He brought it to his lips, paused, then sighed.
He didn't even smoke.
"Who am I?" he muttered.
Then again, who hasn't asked themselves that at 3 a.m.?
But Christian Booth wasn't just anyone. Not anymore.
"I'm Christian," he whispered.
"Ghost hunter. Spell-slinger. Con artist with a conscience."
He could weave a hex faster than most people could dial 911. He'd seen things.
But was that all he was?
He bit the filter of the unlit cigarette, staring blankly ahead. Just chewing the habit. It was less about addiction, more about memory.
He wasn't just a hunter or a magician.
He was also a struggling screenwriter, pitching top-shelf scripts that always got tossed in the trash.
A burned-out artist living off temp crew gigs and background work.
He had props collecting dust in a rented storage unit and dreams of directing something—anything—that didn't suck.
He used to chase women like they were answers, but none of them stuck around. Maybe he didn't want them to.
He wasn't a saint. Never drugged a drink, never crossed that line. But he'd sold pieces of himself for less.
Once, he gave up his soul to save a girl from jumping off a ledge. (Og Christian)
Funny thing: the girl never thanked him.
Now he was floating in the bloodstream of Hollywood—alive but barely—more like drifting.
"Is that all I've got left?"
He turned to the mirror. What looked back at him wasn't comforting.
Sunken eyes under grey irises. Heavy bags from sleepless nights.
A crooked nose with a subtle hook. Stubble across his chin and jawline—days old. Blonde hair greasy and unkempt.
He wore the same dirty plaid shirt from yesterday—or was it the day before? The motel room light burned constant, too bright for his hungover nerves.
"Mirror, mirror," he said, voice dry, "how many lives has 'Christian' lived before this one?"
The moment the words left his mouth, he grimaced.
"Christ. I sound like a lunatic."
Still, the mirror did have a vibe—old bronze frame, strange symbols etched across the glass, faint traces of sigils drawn in red ink.
Or maybe blood. You never know with antiques.
Just another piece in his scavenged collection.
He tucked a silver coin into his pocket, one he'd set on the mirror as a focus. Didn't do much this time.
Three months. That's how long he'd been stuck here.
Another body. Another timeline. Another mess.
At first, he was thrilled. Spells worked here. Real ones. But the shine wore off fast.
The tech was old, and the lingo evolved, but people? Still just as lost.
And the worst part: this body wasn't fully his.
He didn't get the clean package deal like other travelers—no memory dump, no inherited instincts.
Just muscle memory and vague impressions. He knew the streets of LA without a map.
Knew how to flirt, fight, vanish into crowds.
The guy before him had skills, but no soul left.
He'd been a dirtbag with a smile, sleeping his way through the city. Left Christian a pile of baggage and no return address.
So Christian did what he always did: turned to magic.
Not the flashy stuff. The old stuff. The half-whispered rites tucked inside forgotten books. Soul Recall.
Supposedly for kids scared out of their bodies. Modern shrinks called it a placebo.
Christian knew better.
He didn't have kids.
But he did have a body that wasn't fully his—and a soul that belonged somewhere in it.
The ritual was obscure, but not impossible. He figured if the body hadn't died, the soul must still be lingering.
Hiding. So he tried to call it back, to steal its memories, its secrets.
It didn't work—at least, not all the way.
Then again, maybe that was the best outcome.
"The guy's soul is too weak," Christian muttered.
"Not even strong enough to put up a fight for the body, let alone offer up decent memories."
He wiped the runes off the bronze mirror, the faint glow of the sealing spell fading with a whisper.
It had been a precaution—if the previous occupant's soul tried to reclaim the body, the trap would've sprung.
But that never happened. The soul was barely clinging together, let alone capable of resistance.
"Not scattered, but close," he said, staring into the mirror's dull reflection.
"What I'm getting back are scraps—just flashes. I get the outline, but the details? Gone."
He rolled the unlit cigarette between his fingers, eyes closed, thinking.
"But that's how memory works anyway. People forget. If the details are fuzzy, I can just say I've got a lousy memory. No one's gonna argue."
Christian shrugged it off. The life he'd inherited wasn't complicated.
The biggest question now was... should he keep living it?
He thought about the dozens of movie scripts burned into his mind from the ghost of the man before him.
That guy had poured his soul into those pages. Even shattered and fragmented, that obsession lingered.
"Doesn't matter that he looked like a star," Christian murmured.
"This... this was his legacy."
So what now?
He could keep training. Spellwork didn't need permission, and time was on his side—even if progress here was slow, clunky.
He could try being a full-time occultist. However, America no longer had room for that.
Here, psychics were con artists, sideshow acts. Which was ironic—he had been one.
Before the jump, Christian was the kind of "Master" who taught spells by pretending to teach lies.
Learning deception to access truth, not the other way around.
He could exploit his knowledge. Use it to get rich.
Time traveler clichés—stocks, tech, patents. Make a killing and outpace Buffett, Musk, Jobs, or whoever was on top now.
But that meant choosing a lane. And before you play the game, you've got to ask: what do you want?
"What's the point of changing paths," he whispered, "if I'm still just drifting?"
Another sigh. The cigarette fell from his mouth and hit the floor.
"…Screw it," he said.
"Let's start with this script. Doesn't feel like a masterpiece, but it mattered to him. Gotta count for something."
Call it karma. Or closure.
He picked up the pages from the desk, leaned back in the creaking chair, and let his eyes shut. Time to meditate.
Even with the precautions—the wards, the sigils, the mirror seals—soulwork was dangerous.
His predecessor's spirit might've been a ghost of a ghost, but memory was persistent.
Bleed-throughs happened.
Over time, they wore you down. Pulling on someone else's past could twist your own. Sometimes subtly. Sometimes not.
That's why he meditated after every soul call. To flush the psychic debris.
To stay grounded. To keep the question—Who am I?—from becoming unanswerable.
But tonight, the meditation failed.
The last fragments were still too fresh. That damn script kept looping in his head. Frame by frame.
Scene by scene. A horror flick, nothing special.
Cheap scares. Bad pacing. And yet—it stuck. Played like a cursed film reel across the inside of his skull.
He'd seen worse. He'd summoned worse. But something about this one kept clawing at him.
Then—snap.
A memory.
A police officer. Christian's voice echoing in some interrogation room.
The cop didn't buy a word of it.
Then—an arrow. Black iron. It tore through the cop's skull, clean and sudden.
Christian's eyes flew open.
"…No way. That's Wrong Turn."