Ethan Cross had been dead for ten years, but his vengeance was far from over.

He had once been a skilled assassin, one of the best. But he had grown tired of the bloodshed, weary of the endless cycle of death. He wanted out. A life with his wife and son, far from the shadows that had consumed him. He had informed his higher-ups - he was done. No more contracts. No more killing. But they didn't accept retirement.

They had given him one last job, a final mission before they would let him walk away. A simple hit, they said. But Ethan knew better - there was no such thing as simple in his world. Still, he agreed, thinking he could finally be free.

But his enemies had other plans. One man in particular - Daniel Graves, a powerful crime lord Ethan had humiliated years ago - wanted him dead. Instead of killing Ethan outright, Graves sought a more painful punishment. The night before Ethan was set to complete his final job, his home was invaded. His wife and son were slaughtered, their screams echoing through the burning wreckage of what was once their sanctuary. And Ethan? They left him alive, beaten and broken, forced to witness the charred remains of his world.

That was the night Ethan Cross died.

But something dark had clung to his soul, something that refused to pass on. His body had perished, but his hatred had not.

Now, he was something more than a ghost, something worse than a nightmare. He was a shadow slipping between bodies, bending them to his will, forcing them to do what he no longer could.

For years, he had drifted, jumping from vessel to vessel, but none of them could hold him for long. They broke under the weight of his rage, their minds crumbling until he was forced to abandon them. Then, he found Mark Evans - a man whose pain mirrored his own, whose thirst for justice had already begun to twist into something darker. Mark didn't just tolerate Ethan's presence; he embraced it. He was strong, resilient. A perfect fit.

Tonight, he found his next vessel.

Detective Mark Evans was walking home, exhausted from another case he would never solve. He didn't hear the whisper in the wind. He didn't feel the cold seep into his bones. He only noticed something was wrong when his fingers twitched without his command, when his breath hitched as if someone else were pulling the strings of his lungs.

Ethan was inside.

Mark Evans had always been different. A detective known for his unrelenting pursuit of justice, he carried his own burdens of guilt and loss. Years ago, his own wife and daughter had been murdered in a case that went unsolved, leaving a gaping wound in his soul. The grief had never left him, and though he devoted his life to finding killers and bringing them to justice, he was haunted by the fact that he had never found the ones responsible for his own family's deaths.

That was why Ethan had chosen him. Mark was a man already teetering on the edge, someone with rage buried so deep it threatened to consume him. He didn't just seek justice - he craved vengeance. And vengeance was something Ethan understood all too well.

Mark's legs moved on their own, taking him down dark streets he didn't recognize, toward a decaying house he had long forgotten. The place where Ethan Cross's family had died in flames and screams.

Memories not his own clawed at Mark's mind - the cries of a wife and child, the glint of a knife, the laughter of the men who set the fire. And then, the face of the last one still breathing. The one who had escaped justice.

Daniel Graves.

A powerful crime lord, the mastermind behind Ethan's ruin. He had vanished from the public eye, slipping into the shadows, untouchable by the law. But Ethan didn't need the law. He needed a body, a willing puppet to carve his revenge into flesh.

Mark reached the lavish estate, his heart hammering in his chest, his hands slick with sweat. But his fear wasn't his own - it was the last flickering resistance of his mind, fighting the inevitable. His hands balled into fists. His lips curled into a snarl. His feet carried him through the gates, past the guards who never even saw him coming.

Ethan had done this before. Many times.

Graves was waiting in his study, unaware of the storm creeping through his house, slipping past locked doors and security cameras like a ghost. The moment he looked up, he froze. Recognition dawned in his eyes. Terror followed.

"Cross?" Graves' voice wavered, his glass slipping from his fingers, shattering on the mahogany floor. "That's not possible. You're dead."

Mark smiled, but it wasn't his smile. It was Ethan's.

"You're right." The voice that came from Mark's mouth was layered, distorted, carrying the weight of the grave. "But death was never the end."

Graves reached for the gun in his drawer, but Mark was faster. A hand - his, yet not his - lashed out, snapping the old man's wrist with a sickening crack. The scream that followed was music to Ethan's ears.

The fight was over before it began. Graves, once the predator, had become the prey.

An hour later, Daniel Graves was found in his lavish home, his body twisted at impossible angles, his own reflection staring at him from the broken shards of a mirror. The word "GUILTY" was carved deep into his chest.

Detective Mark Evans woke up in an alley, his hands bloody, his mind screaming. He didn't remember what he had done. But Ethan did.

And he wasn't finished yet.

---

Days passed. Mark tried to push the nightmares away, but they followed him like shadows. The murders began to escalate. Criminals, killers, men who had slipped through the cracks of the justice system - all found dead in gruesome ways. Each crime scene bore Ethan's mark. The word "GUILTY" carved into flesh, written in blood.

Mark felt himself unraveling. Every night, he woke in strange places, his body aching, his hands shaking. He heard whispers in his mind, voices that weren't his. Ethan was still inside, still pulling the strings. And the worst part? A part of Mark didn't want him to stop.

The police were catching on. His colleagues noticed his erratic behavior. They whispered when they thought he wasn't listening. Could Detective Evans be the one behind the killings?

One night, Mark found himself staring at his own reflection in his bathroom mirror, eyes hollow, dark circles etched beneath them. He gripped the sink, trying to steady himself. His lips moved, but the voice that came out wasn't his own.

"We're not done yet, Mark."

Mark slammed his fist into the mirror, shattering the glass. He gasped for breath, but he knew the truth.

Ethan was never going to leave.

And maybe, just maybe, he didn't want him to.

As his vision faded, the last thing he heard was Ethan's whisper in his ear.

"We're just getting started."