THE AFTERLIFE PARADOX

Wallace cut the call and turned his phone off. He was already on a plane. He rested on the back of the chair and closed his eyes. He was exhausted from what had happened that series of nights. The torture he experienced down in hell made him feel as if an eternity had passed, yet only to wake up and find out that it was just a few hours. Then, he had to fight those two, almost dying in the process.

He then had to deal with his mental demons, unable to sleep, and he finally had to talk to those who were the cause of this – those he trusted when he was growing up, whom he never thought could do such things to him. His own younger sister did not even hesitate to plunge a knife deep into his chest. Before that, he had worse experiences.

"Hmm," he sighed.

"Are you okay?" A beautiful voice woke him up. He looked up to see a beautiful attendant staring at him with a smile.

"You look sick," she said.

True, his face was ghastly pale due to blood loss, and there were dark circles underneath his eyes due to his inability to sleep, making him look as if he was sick.

"I'm okay, I just need a little rest," he answered.

"Do you need anything?" she asked him.

"Any wine will do," he answered.

He closed his eyes again to think about how he was going to take steps from here. There were a lot of unanswered questions in his brain now, but he had to stabilize himself first before seeking out answers to those questions. He didn't even know if those from hell were still after him. He had a lot of problems, but he felt like he was just too weak now.

"It's here," the lady said as she gave him a cup filled with wine.

"Thanks," he smiled.

She looked at that handsome but tired face gleefully.

"You're welcome," she answered.

He poured it down his throat all at once. He felt a burning sensation down his throat. He rested on the chair and closed his eyes again. He touched his right chest and did not feel anything, but he knew there was something there that would only awaken if he was exerting his body.

"I don't even know much about myself, what happened to me, and why I turned this strange," he thought.

"Why are those people after me? What is the Karum that these people are talking about? Is it the one that brought me back from hell and turned me into this?" A lot of questions, but no answer to them, and it was driving him insane.

He then drifted into sleep without even knowing how. He felt someone tapping on him; he opened his eyes.

"We're about to take off, so I will have to disturb you to fasten your seatbelt," she said with a smile.

"Okay," he answered as he fastened his seatbelt, and he drifted into a deep sleep again.

"Hmm," he woke up because he was being tapped by someone. He saw the same waiter.

"We've arrived," she smiled.

"Twelve hours have passed just like that," he said.

"Hmm, anyway, I can see that you've gotten better. You should sleep more," she said.

"Hmm," he nodded his head.

True to it, the burning sensation on his body had already disappeared, and the pain had dulled, showing that he had almost recovered from his injuries.

"Thanks," he said as he stood up and went to collect his luggage.

After thirty minutes, he walked out from JFK airport with a full bag of luggage. He boarded a taxi.

"Peninsula hotel," he said.

"Okay," the driver answered.

"Can I borrow your phone?" he asked.

The man gave him his phone, and he took out a paper. He dialed the number on the paper.

"It's Wallace," he said when the other side picked up the call.

"I've arrived, and I'm on my way to the Peninsula hotel," he said.

He cut the call and returned the phone.

Unknown to him, in one of the tall buildings adjacent to the airport, a man dropped the telescope in his hand. He took out his phone to make a call.

"He's arrived," he told the man at the other end of the phone.

"Just make sure to monitor him," the voice at the other end of the phone said.

"He already boarded our taxi; it makes it easier for us to track him," he said.

"Okay, just make sure he doesn't suspect anything. I want to take him down in one fell swoop," the latter said.

"Hmm," the man nodded.

The car drove to one of the three five-star hotels in the city and dropped him off there. He directly booked a room and went into his room. He laid on the bed the moment he arrived. It was already evening when he arrived.

He heard a knock on his door and opened the door. A tray was pushed in. The first thing he had to do was fill the bottomless hole in his stomach. He hadn't eaten for close to a day now, and he had burned most of the energy in his body. He ate before he started smoking and took his laptop. He scrolled to Google and typed

"Karum." He scrolled through the results, but all he saw were information about malls and names of people. The results were basically useless.

Frustrated, he dropped the laptop and took out a cigarette, lighting it up. He took a puff while thinking about what he could do. "Looks like I need an information agency to get some information, but I can't go to any information agency asking around about some mysteries; they will feel suspicious. I've already died once and experienced hell, and I don't want to die again," he thought.

Thinking about the problem he had now without any solution in sight, he drifted into deep sleep. He arrived in a dark space again. "You can't escape from us," he heard the eerie voices, and the skulls appeared again. He woke up and checked the time. He had only slept for one hour. It was night again, and the mental demons had come out again.

"Great, I won't be able to sleep again," he thought as he took out a cigarette and took puffs after puffs of cigarette while he took his laptop and started his work. The night passed by just like that without him being able to get a wink of sleep. The sky brightened up, and the mental demons disappeared.

"Ttri ring," he received a notification on his laptop.

"Congrats, you have been given admission. In two weeks, the portal will be opened for you to start your admission procedure," he read the message. That was when he remembered that he had written a test back in Ghana and applied for admission to Fordham University.

"I think I will have to start schooling," he thought as he looked at the message. He didn't sleep a wink throughout the night, and strangely, he didn't feel tired today. He took the hotel cell phone and pressed a series of numbers into it before dialing it. He agreed on a particular time with the person at the other end of the line.

He wore workout clothes and left his room. He went downstairs to the receptionist. "Is there any gym with specialized testing equipment?" he asked.

"The hotel has a gym for you," the woman answered with a smile.

Minutes later, he was in a room with specialized training equipment. He had to pay a particular amount to be able to access it. Not many people used it because most people only exercised for fun.

He looked at the machine in front of him and clenched his fist. He threw out a series of punches, and "bang, bang, bang" they collided with the panel. "155, 157, 153" were the results. He was surprised. One had to know that 150kg worth of strength could easily break multiple bones in a human.

He clenched his fist and "bang" threw a punch with his full force. "309kg" he squinted his eyes. This strength was enough to cause a skull fracture and severe head trauma. Anyone hit with this force, even if they didn't die, would never be the same for the rest of their life.

Ever since he had returned from hell, he was not even normal again. He had strange abilities that could make the world dub him as a monster, along with monstrous physical strength. This was just like the beginning. He wanted to do some small exercises at first but decided against it. His body had fully adapted to the evolution, and the strength now was his peak strength. He might destroy any of the training equipment if he wasn't careful.

Thankfully, his body subconsciously adapted to the strength, allowing him not to exert much on his daily life, but trying to actively control it would be a different matter altogether. He couldn't even control how much of the strength he could use now.