A Man Who Should Have Died

Rain hammered the crushed taxi like bullets. The metal screamed as the car flipped once, twice, before slamming violently into the guardrail. For one suspended heartbeat, everything stood still. Then the barrier gave way.

The taxi plunged into the swollen river.

Vanel's body slammed against the seat as the impact punched every breath from his lungs. Pain exploded through his ribs, and his ears rang violently. Before he could gather himself, freezing water burst through the shattered windows, swallowing the vehicle within seconds.

"No..." His voice trembled as he struggled against the twisted wreckage. His right leg was pinned beneath the crumpled dashboard. He pulled with all his strength, but the metal refused to move.

The door wouldn't open, over and over again, he tried but nothing. The icy water climbed from his waist to his chest. Every second stole another breath, another ounce of hope.

"Please..."He wasn't ready.

He had sacrificed too much to die like this. His lungs burned and panic clawed up his throat as the last pocket of air disappeared.

In the final moments, flashes tore through his mind: the blinding runway lights, faces flashed before him. His mother's proud smile the day he signed his first modeling contract.

The tiny apartment where he survived on instant noodles while chasing impossible dreams. The countless nights practicing his runway walk until dawn. The blisters, hunger and loneliness. Seven years...

Seven years spent believing hard work would someday be rewarded. And the sting of Dylan’s words, that cold gray stare dragging over his body like he was something to be used and discarded.

“Forgettable, replaceable, you’re fired.” These words kept ringing in his mind, a bitter, bubbling laugh escaped suddenly escaped Vanel’s lips as darkness rushed in.

“So…” he thought, his lungs screamed. “This is how I disappear.” The river finally claimed him as his body slowly sank beneath the surface.

---

It had been three days since the incident but the headlines screamed the same obituary across every platform: FORMER AURELIUS LUXE MODEL VANEL LENSE DEAD AT 29 IN TRAGIC CRASH

The footage of his public humiliation looped endlessly beside images of the wrecked taxi being pulled from the river. The fashion world offered shallow condolences and then moved on as if nothing had happened.

A new face was soon announced for the campaign within forty-eight hours and no one mourned him for long.

Aurelius Luxe Tower, top floor.

Placing a black folder on the CEO’s desk with his usual practiced silence, Derrick broke the norm. “Police have confirmed the identity, sir. They recovered the body yesterday. The funeral’s this Friday.”

Dylan didn’t react or look up from the contract he was signing; his elegant hand steady as he went on. “Double the compensation stated in his contract,” he flatly said.

Derrick hesitated. “Sir… the internet is blaming the company. Some are saying the dismissal pushed him…”

“So?” Dylan’s voice remained ice-cold.

“Shall I issue a statement?” He immediately swallowed.

“Express condolences in a standard template.” Dylan leaned back, his gray eyes unreadable. “The dead don’t care about public opinion.” Derrick nodded and turned to leave.

“Derrick.” He paused, turning back to him. Dylan stared at the rain-streaked window for a long moment. “Was I…?”

He paused, instinctively as he thoughtfully titled his head once. “Nothing, you’re dismissed.” Derrick quietly closed the office door behind him.

Silence settled over the top floor. Dylan remained seated, with his gaze fixed on the rain beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows. The city looked blurred beneath the storm.

Without realizing it, his pen had stopped moving. He looked down, the ink had pooled into a dark stain across the contract. It was unlike him. Dylan Loperse never lose focus, never.

He opened the bottom drawer and pulled out Vanel Lense’s employee file. He stared at the photograph clipped to the front—young, bright-eyed and smiling like the world was his.

His thumb brushed over the image, and his jaw tightened. “Weak,” he muttered.

But then he didn’t close the file right away. The smiling photograph stared back at him. For the first time in years, Dylan found himself unable to focus on the contracts before him. He closed the file.

Then opened it again and finally slammed the drawer shut.

---

In a heavily guarded private hospital nestled deep in the mountains located hundreds of miles away, the machines beeped steadily.

The operating room had been converted into a private recovery suite. With armed guards standing outside the door. No hospital records carried the patient's real name. And every doctor present was made to sign a lifetime confidentiality agreement.

To the outside world, Vanel Lense was dead. The man lying in the hospital bed no longer legally existed.

“The facial reconstruction was a success,” the lead surgeon said, reviewing the chart. “Bone structure altered, scars minimized and voice subtly modified. He remembers everything.”

The doctor glanced at the unconscious man on the bed. “Vanel Lense died three days ago and will soon be reborn again when he wakes up.” He said.

His fingers suddenly twitched against the white sheets. Slowly, yet painfully, his eyes opened. The bright lights stabbed into his skull. His throat felt raw and his body felt heavy and foreign. Bandages covered most of his face.

“W-Where…?” The voice that came out was lower, rougher and unfamiliar.

“Easy, you’ve been sleeping for three days.” The doctor stepped closer. Vanel instinctively reached for his face, he felt bandages everywhere.

“What…” He stammered. “What happened to me?”

A small mirror was placed in his trembling hands. Vanel stared but couldn’t recognize himself. The face looking back wasn’t his.

The man in the mirror was undeniably handsome but he wasn't Van. The eyes were the same haunting shade, yet the overall structure belonged to a stranger.

The mirror slipped and shattered across the floor.

“You are no longer Vanel Lense,” the doctor said quietly. Praise slowly raised trembling fingers to his new face.

Every unfamiliar contour reminded him that the man called Vanel Lense had drowned beneath that river. The mirror reflected someone stronger. Someone the world would never recognize.

Tears gathered in the corners of his eyes, but they never fell. He had already cried enough in his previous life. The doctor quietly placed a leather folder on the bedside table.

"Everything you need is inside." He opened it, and there was a passport, driver's license, a bank account, an employment records as well as childhood photographs.

Someone had manufactured an entirely new existence for him. "Who did this?" he whispered. The doctor smiled faintly.

"You'll meet the person who saved your life when the time is right.” he closed the folder. His eyes slowly drifted toward the rain outside.

Dylan Loperse, the name no longer filled him with despair but purpose. A cold smile spread across his lips. "The next time we meet..."he scoffed. "You'll never know who I am and by the time you do..." His face turned cold.

"Everything you've built will already belong to me."