My Counterattack System After Reborn

Chapter 2: Re-Spawn

Zachery smirked. Then he spat in Todd’s face and said, "You like Eve Roberts, don't you? I think that you love each other, but you were just holding hands. Haha! Whether she wants it or not, I will have her tomorrow. I will take off her clothes and shoot our porn video; just for you! When I lose interest in her, I will give her to my men. Once everyone has lost interest in her, I will sell her as a s*x slave.”

By the time Jarod was finished speaking, Todd’s face had turned white. “Wh-Why w-would she ag-gree to m-mary you?” he stuttered.

“She has a father who likes to gamble,” Zachery explained. “He owed me more money than he could pay in two lifetimes, so we worked out a deal. This is mostly your fault, you know. I am only doing this to hurt you.”

Todd’s face turned red from rage. He wanted to kill Zachery, but he was helpless. When the guards let him go, he fell to the ground. He didn’t even have the strength to stand, and by the time he did, they were long gone.

While Todd had been waiting to recover, he had received a text message from Eve. It said, “I love you. I'm sorry. Forget me.”

Tears welled up in Todd’s eyes, and by the time that he was standing, he was bawling. I should be the one saying sorry – he thought.

More than anything, Todd wanted to get revenge on Zachery, and the best way to do that, he realized, was to kill himself. Once he was back at the dormitory, he pulled out an old bag from under his bed. There was a small box inside it, and inside the box, there was a gun. It had been a present from his mother. She had given it to him from her death bed.

  Todd loaded the gun and walked out of the dormitory. He was not fully committed yet, and for a while he walked the street aimlessly, util, without meaning to, he found himself outside his ancestral home. It now belonged to the Douglass family. He watched from across the street as Jarod and Zachery walked out the front door.

As he watched them, he thought about life. He did not want to continue to live a life filled with fear, heartache, and humiliation. He wanted to avenge his parents, rescue Eve, and finally redeem himself.

This is the only way – he told himself. He stood up, put the barrel of the gun into his mouth, and pulled the trigger.

Bang!

Jarod and Zachery looked up in time to see Todd’s demise. His brains burst out the back of his head and the momentum of the blast sent him flying backward. The sound of his skull was nearly as loud as the gunshot had been.

“There goes my evening…” Jarod muttered.

Zachery sighed and said, “Well, at least he’ll be out of your hair from now on…”

It was too bad that they didn’t know that the dead do not always stay dead…

***

For a moment, time ceased to exist. Chronos wrapped his cape around Todd’s shoulders, and they whirled into the past. All the while, The Moirai did their work. Clotho spun Todd a new thread, Lachesis held it, and Atropos did the one thing she had sworn to never again do: She connected this new thread to the one that she had just cut. Once the deed was done, Chronos’s crazy dervish came to a stop, and Todd opened his eyes.

This outcome had cost Todd everything, and it was worth it, but he was exhausted, nonetheless. It took a while for his eyes to focus, and when he was able to, he turned over, sat up, and tried to figure out where he was. He looked around and recognized nothing.

“What is happening?” he wondered. “Was I dead?”

  Suddenly, his mind was flooded with memories. He did not feel an affinity for them, though. He was at a total loss.

Suddenly, a mechanical voice spoke up in his mind, "The host's Resentment Numerical Value has reached the standard. Congratulations to the host for activating the Pretentious System."

  Simultaneously, a strange transparent curtain appeared in front of Todd, and data was displayed on it:

Host: Todd Bower

Slap-Face Numerical Value: Zero

Goods: None

  Mall: Unread Messages 

Lottery System: Draw Treasure Box Prizes

  Current Task: None

Todd Bower was stunned. None of this made any sense to him. He reread all of the data, and just as he was about to start again, a door opened and an elegant woman walked in. She looked at Todd and said: "Todd, you are awake. Hurry up and eat breakfast or you’ll be late for school..."

“Mom!” Todd exclaimed. He was stunned. The woman in front of him was Linda, his mother! Tears began to stream down his face.

“Why are you crying?” Linda frowned and said, “Don’t cry.” She went to her son and embraced him. It is like he hasn’t seen me in forever – she thought. "Tomorrow is your 18th birthday. Are you scared about what it will be like to be an adult?”

“My eighteenth birthday!” Todd exclaimed. His face turned white and his heart began to beat too quickly. He didn’t know if he had enough time to change the future, and if he failed, he doubted that he would get a third chance to get things right. He looked back to see if the displayed data had changed, but the curtail was gone, and all that was left was his bedroom.

Todd got out of bed and went into the bathroom to look in the mirror. He touched his face and thought – I am just a baby… He had only been in his mid-twenties at the time of his death, but the years had been hard on him, and he had looked like someone that was closer to forty. For a moment he thought that he might be dreaming, but a hard pinch on the arm disproved that theory.

Todd had re-spawned somehow, but he knew that it would all be for naught if he could not change the outcome of the next thirty-six hours. He made his hands into fists and thought - The tragedy must not be repeated!

Todd quickly changed, kissed his mother goodbye, and took off down the stairs.

  “Todd!” his mother shouted after him. "You haven't washed your face or eaten..."

No time!” Todd shouted back. And then he was gone.

There was a driver waiting for him, and when he saw the boy running, he bowed gently, politely opened the Porsche’s door, and said, "Young master, please get in the car."

  Todd smirked at the driver and said nothing. He knew from his previous life that the driver was one of Jarod’s spies, and without him, things would not have gone down the way that they did. Not only was the driver a spy, but he was a martial arts master who had retired from the army.