Marcus Reid had always figured that dying in Gotham was statistically probable.
Engineering student. Night classes. Rough neighborhood because rent was cheap. The math wasn't exactly in his favor.
What he hadn't figured was waking up three days later in a morgue drawer.
The cold hit him first. Metal against his back, pressing through what felt like a paper-thin gown. Then the darkness—complete, suffocating darkness that made his breath catch.
Where—
Marcus's hands shot up instinctively, hit something solid about six inches above his face. Smooth. Cold. Unyielding.
His heart hammered against his ribs. The space was tiny. Confined. A box.
No no no no—
He pushed against the surface above him. Nothing. Pushed harder. Still nothing.
"Hey!" His voice cracked. "HEY! Someone—anyone—I'm in here! I'm—"
The memory hit him like a freight train.
The alley. Three guys. Guns. His wallet already gone. Him saying something stupid like "that's all I have, man, just take it." The gun rising anyway. The muzzle flash. The—
Marcus's breath came in short, panicked gasps.
He'd been shot. Point-blank. In the chest.
He was dead.
But I'm not dead. I'm clearly not dead because dead people don't wake up in—
His hands found a latch mechanism near his shoulder. Some part of his brain that wasn't currently screaming in terror remembered reading about morgue drawer safety releases. Required by law in case of—
—in case someone wakes up who shouldn't be dead.
Marcus pulled the latch.
The drawer slid open with a mechanical hiss.
Fluorescent lights stabbed into his eyes. He threw an arm up, squinting, his other hand gripping the edge of the metal drawer. Cold air—warmer than the drawer but still cold—washed over him.
A morgue. He was definitely in a morgue.
White tile walls. Steel tables. That distinct antiseptic smell mixed with something else he really didn't want to identify. Three other drawer compartments in the wall. Several body-shaped bags on gurneys.
And absolutely no one else present.
"Okay," Marcus said to the empty room, his voice shaking. "Okay, this is fine. This is totally fine. Just woke up in a morgue. Normal Tuesday. Nothing weird about this."
He sat up slowly, his body protesting the movement. Everything ached—a deep, bone-level soreness like he'd been hit by a truck. But he could move. Could breathe. Could feel his heart pounding like a drum solo.
Marcus looked down at himself. The paper gown covered most of him, but he could see the edge of something on his chest. Slowly, dreading what he'd find, he pulled the gown aside.
A scar. Perfectly circular. Right over his heart.
Where the bullet had—
"I died," Marcus whispered. "I actually died. That guy shot me. I remember falling. I remember—"
The rest was fuzzy. Pain. Darkness. A sense of falling that went on forever. And then... nothing. Just absence.
Until he woke up here.
"Okay. Okay." Marcus swung his legs over the side of the drawer, his bare feet touching the cold tile floor. "There has to be an explanation. Maybe I didn't actually die? Maybe I just—"
His eyes landed on a clipboard hanging near his drawer. He grabbed it with shaking hands.
NAME: Reid, Marcus J.
AGE: 21
DATE OF ADMISSION: April 23
CAUSE OF DEATH: GSW to chest, cardiac arrest
STATUS: Pending autopsy
Marcus checked the date on the wall clock. April 26.
Three days. He'd been dead for three days.
"Nope. No. Absolutely not." He dropped the clipboard, the clatter echoing in the empty room. "This is not happening. This is—I need to—"
Clothes. He needed clothes.
Marcus stumbled to a supply closet, yanked it open. Scrubs. Blue scrubs. He grabbed a set, his hands still shaking, and pulled them on over the morgue gown. They were too big, but he didn't care.
Shoes. There had to be—
He found a pair of slip-on hospital shoes. Close enough.
"Okay. Okay. Step one: get out of the morgue. Step two: figure out how I'm alive. Step three: have a complete mental breakdown. Priorities."
Marcus moved toward the door, testing it carefully. Unlocked. The hallway beyond was dimly lit—night time, maybe early morning. No one visible.
He slipped out, every nerve screaming at him to move faster, get out, go somewhere that wasn't a building full of dead people.
The hospital—it had to be a hospital morgue based on the signs—was quiet. Marcus followed the emergency exit signs, half-expecting someone to stop him, to tackle him back onto a morgue drawer where dead people belonged.
But no one did.
He pushed through a service exit and stepped out into Gotham's night air.
Rain. Of course it was raining. Because Gotham.
Marcus stood there in too-big scrubs and hospital shoes, rain soaking through the thin fabric, and tried to process what had just happened.
He'd died. Official death certificate and everything. Three days in a morgue drawer.
And now he was standing in an alley behind Gotham General, very much alive, with absolutely no idea how or why.
"Well," Marcus said to the empty alley, rain dripping down his face, "this is either a miracle or the worst nightmare I've ever had. Possibly both."
His chest ached where the scar was. He pressed his hand against it through the wet scrubs, felt his heart beating strong and steady.
I should be dead. I was dead. The paperwork says I was dead.
So what the hell happened?
Marcus started walking. He had no plan, no destination. Just movement. Because standing still meant thinking about impossible things, and he wasn't ready for that yet.
He needed to get home. Needed to figure out what happened. Needed to—
A car horn blared. Marcus jumped back, realized he'd nearly walked into traffic without looking. The driver yelled something obscene and sped past.
"Right. Alive. Try to stay that way." Marcus laughed, a slightly hysterical edge to it. "Wouldn't want to waste this whole resurrection thing by immediately getting hit by a car."
He kept walking, sticking to side streets, avoiding the main roads. His apartment was maybe three miles away. Doable. He'd walked farther for worse reasons.
Though usually while alive the whole time, some part of his brain noted helpfully.
"Shut up, brain. We're processing. Give me a minute."
The rain continued. Gotham's eternal weather pattern: gray, wet, and vaguely threatening.
Marcus passed closed shops, empty lots, the occasional homeless person huddled in a doorway. Normal Gotham night. Like the universe hadn't just broken every rule by letting him wake up.
His apartment building finally came into view. Old brick. Fire escape zigzagging down the front. His window—third floor, far left—was dark.
Does anyone even know I'm... was... that I died?
Marcus climbed the fire escape, grateful for the first time that his building's security was basically nonexistent. His window was unlocked—he always kept it that way for exactly this kind of situation.
Well, not EXACTLY this situation, he thought, sliding it open and climbing through. Usually the fire escape is for when I forget my keys, not when I resurrect from the dead.
His apartment was exactly as he'd left it three days ago. Books scattered across his desk. Coffee mug in the sink. Laundry hamper overflowing because he'd been planning to do laundry after his evening class.
The class where he'd been shot walking back.
Marcus stood in his tiny living room, dripping rain water onto the carpet, and finally let himself feel it. The fear. The confusion. The sheer impossibility of everything.
He'd died. He'd been dead for three days. And now he was alive.
"Okay, Marcus," he said to his empty apartment. "You're an engineering student. Engineering is about solving problems. So. Problem: you died. Problem: you're now alive. Solution: figure out what the hell is going on."
He needed to change clothes. Needed to dry off. Needed to think.
Marcus stripped off the wet scrubs, found dry clothes in his dresser. T-shirt. Jeans. Normal clothes. Grounding.
He caught sight of himself in the mirror above his dresser and froze.
Same face. Brown hair plastered wet against his head. Same dark eyes. Same slightly crooked nose from that skateboarding accident in high school.
But something was different. He couldn't put his finger on what. Just... different.
Marcus lifted his shirt, looked at the scar on his chest again. Perfectly circular. Perfectly healed. Like it had been there for months, not three days.
Three days dead. And I healed like this?
He pressed his fingers against the scar tissue, half expecting pain. There was none. Just the slightly numb feeling of old scar tissue.
This wasn't normal. None of this was normal.
But I'm alive. Whatever happened, however it happened, I'm alive.
And in Gotham, that's basically a miracle all on its own.
Marcus pulled his shirt back down, ran a hand through his wet hair, and tried to make a plan.
First: figure out if anyone knew he'd died. His roommate, maybe? His uncle? Sarah?
Oh god, Sarah. My best friend probably thinks I'm dead.
Second: figure out why he wasn't dead anymore.
Third: figure out if this was a one-time thing or if something fundamental had changed.
And fourth: try very, very hard not to think about the three days he'd spent in a morgue drawer. Or what they'd been planning to do with his body. Or—
"Nope. Not thinking about it. Moving on."
Marcus grabbed his phone from his desk, checked it. Dead battery. Of course.
He plugged it in, waited for it to power up.
Seventeen missed calls. Thirty-three texts. Multiple voicemails.
His roommate. His uncle. Sarah. Detective Bullock?
Why is a detective calling me?
Marcus scrolled through the texts, his stomach sinking with each one.
Sarah (April 23, 11:47 PM):Marcus where are you? Class ended an hour ago
Sarah (April 23, 11:52 PM):This isn't funny. Call me.
Sarah (April 24, 2:14 AM):The police just called. They said you were shot. They said you're in the hospital. I'm coming there.
Sarah (April 24, 8:23 AM):I can't believe you're gone. This isn't real. This can't be real.
Marcus's hands were shaking again. He scrolled further.
Uncle Mike (April 24, 9:15 AM):They called me. Said you didn't make it. I'm coming to Gotham. We'll figure out arrangements.
Uncle Mike (April 25, 3:47 PM):Your roommate let me in your apartment. I took some things for the service. I'm so sorry, kid. I'm so sorry.
The service. They'd planned a funeral. For him.
Because I was dead. Because I actually died.
Marcus sat down hard on his bed, phone clutched in his hand.
People thought he was dead. His best friend thought he was dead. His uncle—the man who'd raised him after his parents died—thought he was dead.
I have to tell them. I have to let them know I'm—
The door to his apartment opened.
Marcus's head snapped up.
His roommate—Jackson, another engineering student—stood in the doorway, grocery bag in hand, staring at Marcus like he'd seen a ghost.
Which, technically, he had.
"Marcus?" Jackson's voice was barely a whisper. The grocery bag slipped from his fingers, a carton of eggs cracking open on the floor. "You're... you're dead. You're supposed to be dead."
Marcus tried for a smile. It probably looked slightly deranged. "Yeah, funny story about that. Turns out I got better?"
Jackson's eyes rolled back. He collapsed backward into the hallway.
Marcus jumped up, caught him before his head hit the floor. "Jackson! Dude, come on, don't pass out on me! This is already weird enough!"
But Jackson was out cold, his pulse rapid but steady.
Marcus sighed, easing his unconscious roommate down gently.
"Well," he said to no one in particular, "that could have gone better."
He looked at Jackson, at his tiny apartment, at the phone still showing all those messages from people who thought he was dead.
Welcome back to life, Marcus Reid.
Now what?