Post Evil star(pov matt)

Prologue

The second gate opened via the Nazca Lines, Peru, and the Old Ones unraveled their evil force.

Chaos, its king, striked Matt with such strength it broke the boy. Even with Pedro running to his fellow gatekeeper, it did nothing and the boys got overpowered.

The Old Ones were free, the first of the Five has fallen.

The bad guys won.

Matt opened his eyes catching his breath. 

He's in the dreamworld. 

He checked all over his body and didn't find any wound. Then again, he's dreaming, so he doubted his actual state would reflect there. The scenery was like every other time, the sky grey and stormy, deep sea all around the islet. 

He's not sure how long he stayed movingless but soon enough, something changed under his eyes. There was a building in front of him. As he didn't have better thing to do, he went to check it. 

After making sure that no swan or ugly beast would attack him on his way, though.

Matt finally reached the foundation, way bigger than he saw earlier, and tried to push the front door. To his surprise, it opened easily and he let himself in. Quickly enough, he got that was a library with the amount of bookshelf and books around. 

He checked the title and eventually got they're about people's biography or something like that, having caught Winston Churchill, lady Diana Spencer and Gordon Ramsey among others. He didn't see any authors name and figured it's written anymously or any other reason that he could never understand as it's a dream. He suddenly stopped before one as it had his name, Matthew Freeman. 

Surprised and curious, he took it and started to study it. Like the others, there's no author name and there was actually nothing more than his name. The coverage was white and hardcover and the book was in fact kind of thin.

He suddenly stilled when his eyes caught another presence.

There's a man looking at him behind the counter.

"I see you find your book. Do you intend to read it?"

Matt's taken by the voice, smooth and accentless, yet having an arabic tone. But mostly, Matt's surprised at the words.

"My book?" Matt repeated. 

"Your book, the one you that tell you all about your life."

"All my life? Even my death?"

Saying that now made it even more real.

Because, it's what he was, right? This huge monster did strike him and he died by consequence since he's there and Pedro's not.

The sad look on the man confirmed it. 

"Well, it wasn't supposed to happened that way."

"What do you mean?"

"You may as well take a look. The last pages got adusted due to unexpected turn of event. You weren't supposed to find your end like that."

Matt did as told and opened right at the end of his book. He checked the page and merely noticed the hundred forty and the last words before his eyes fell on those burnt pages. Now they were completely gone, it looked like they were torn hastily. He raised his head again.

"Now what? The Old Ones won? The world's doomed?"

"Not exactly. The Old Ones and its king, Chaos, did think they won and are actually ravaging the human world. What they do not know is that's not the end of the Five, they're still there, alive."

"You mean Pedro and the others?"

"Oh, Pedro is indeed alive, so are the three others, though it's kind of hard to say about one of the twin. But the Old Ones didn't win."

"Yet."

The Librarian shook his head slowly at Matt's pessimism.

"They didn't win and won't win like ten thousand years ago. Because like in the past, the Five will succeed once again and bring peace to the world."

"I don't know if the world will ever know what peace is."

The man made a face, as if conceding the point.

"Fair. What I'm saying is that this battle between the Old Ones and the Five already happened in the past, and the outcome will remain the same because the Five will gather. Whereas in the past or in the present."

It took times, but Matt finally got it. Ten thousand years ago, there were already the Five, Matt and Pedro were probably their reincarnation or something and from what the Librarian's saying, both Five could travel time and replace the other one who's dead.

So Matt just got changed when he couldn't do his job.

He wondered what he was supposed to feel. Like earlier when first coming here and realizing he's really dead, Matt felt nothing less than emptiness.

He felt neither sadness nor frustration, maybe regret that he's leaving Pedro and Richard behind. Even though he barely knew any of them, the time spent together was better than the last few years. It was as good as during his childhood with his parents.

"So, what happens to me? Do I go to heaven or something?"

Something like playfulness crossed the man's face before it's gone.

"Do you think you could go somewhere you don't even believe?"

Matt shrugged. Maybe, he didn't know.

"This is the after life for the Five, for the Gatekeepers. If you'd like, you could go around, I'm sure you could find something interesting. Otherwise, the library is big enough for you to spend time."

Matt pouted. Reading other people's life wasn't what he expected spending his time. The rest of his time if he got it right. Since he's dead, he thought, he could, like, dream about all the things he didn't do. Saving his parents, being more serious in class, not befriending thugs, looking for the other gatekeepers... So much things.

He turned his book in his hands again and again, without deciding to read it. If he did read it, the number of thing he wanted to change will increase. Then again, what's stopping him to change it? 

What's worst could happen?

Death?

He's already dead, remember?

Taking his decision, Matt look straight into the Librarian's eyes.

"I will change my childhood."

"Very well. Do you want some time to read through you book or do you just need to borrow a pen to write what you'll change?"

Matt had to take his time to blink. It wasn't like he's in hurry.

"You're letting me...just like that?"

"I'm not a deity, Matt, I do not control how things should be done, especially not the dead. You're free to do what you want in the afterlife."

Right, because he's a free man, now.

"Just remember. Once you start to change the first page, you would not be able to touch the rest."

So he had to be sure of which event to change. There was no need to dwell on it, he had already chosen. Of course, he had to find the others three, two being twin which would ease things more, but it's not like he would find anything more in his book as it end with Chaos' strike. So, he borrowed a pen and changed what happend the day his parents went to that wedding but died in a car accident before that.

As he finished the sentence, probably full of grammar and spelling mistakes, with a full stop, he had a last thought about his power. Especially his clairvoyance, couldn't he trigger it other than smelling a burnt sense?

But too late, the Librarian was waving at him and already his surrounding's fading.

1.

Waking up in his eight years old bedroom the day before his parents death made Matt feely.

Being in the body of an eight years old didn't help and he shedded some tears while feeling the most alive he ever felt in years.

As he listened to his mother climbing the stairs to reach his room, he expected her call to wake him up and ready for the wedding. One they will never attend if he could do anything about it.

First, he could forget about telling them the truth, his father wasn't supertitious.

Second, he had to forget to pretend being sick, as last time he did the trick, his parents went without him and still found their death.

He had consider burning the car, but dismissed it quickly. His objective was to make his parents stay but not interned himself once they discover the truth.

He then thought about eating something not comestible right under their eyes to force them to look after him. Nothing lethal, especially after coming back to life, and he settled to soap when his mother knocked on the door and opened after he gave her permission.

He shedded another round of tear when seeing her and welcomed the comforting hug with open arms. It also served to have her beside him when he swallow the soap "accidentally".

If he expected to fall while coughing his lungs out, he should have research if he was allergic to soap beforehand. Because vomitting bile and being unable to breath seemed a pretty bad thing for someone alive and probably on the verge of dying.

Again.

At least, this time, he was with his parents. He thought as he's losing consciousness while hearing his mother calling for his father.

He came back to consciousness in a hospital room. Which partially surprised him. So he survived an allergic reaction. Comparing with what he went through, it seemed a small victory.

But seeing his parents did compensate.

They were alive.

Until the next time, a vicious voice tone his hope down.