Alright, let's kick off
CHAPTER ONE: THE LAST VERSE
The night he died, Elijah Kane was on stage spitting his soul into a mic.
The club was packed wall to wall, thick with heat, sweat, and smoke. Beats boomed from the speakers like heartbeats—heavy, primal, alive. The crowd bobbed and roared, a thousand strangers moving as one under flashing neon lights. And there he stood, at the center of it all, feeding them lines like a prophet with fire on his tongue.
But no one knew it would be his last verse.
Elijah was born in a world where talent alone wasn't enough. You could have bars that made gods cry, but if you didn't play the game, the game would bury you. Labels, contracts, silent deals—he'd walked through all of it. Fought for every word. Burned bridges he never got to rebuild.
But in that moment, on that stage, none of it mattered.
His voice cut through the music.
> "I've been reborn in the fire, remade from the flame,
Carved truth in my lyrics, now remember the name..."
The crowd erupted. Phones flashed. Drinks flew in the air.
But Elijah felt something strange.
His chest. Tight. A sudden weight. Like a fist closing around his heart.
He staggered.
The beat kept going.
He dropped the mic.
The crowd thought it was part of the act—until he hit the floor.
---
They said it was a heart attack. Too young. Too healthy. Gone in seconds. The news trended for a week. RIP posts. Fan tributes. A documentary. Then silence.
Elijah Kane vanished from the world just like that.
---
And then...
He opened his eyes.
Bright light. Blinding. Cold air on his skin. Everything felt too sharp, too loud, too real.
He gasped and sat up, lungs desperate for air.
Where was he?
No stage. No music. No people.
He was in a stone alley, narrow and dripping with rain. Walls stretched up like prison towers, covered in strange symbols and glowing graffiti. A beat echoed faintly from somewhere far off, like a heartbeat in the distance.
He looked down at his hands.
They were small. Pale. Not his.
He scrambled to his feet, stumbled to a broken mirror leaning against the wall.
A kid stared back at him. Maybe fifteen. Sharp jaw, messy black hair, stormy grey eyes.
Who the hell was this?
"Elijah?"
The voice was soft, right behind him.
He spun around.
An old man stood there in a long hooded coat. His eyes were pitch black, like ink pools that swallowed light.
"I… what is this?" Elijah asked, voice shaking.
The man smiled, revealing silver teeth. "This is your second shot."
"My what?"
"Your second life."
Elijah stared, heart pounding. "I'm dead?"
"You were. Now you're not. Not in the same way."
The old man looked him up and down.
"You kept spitting truth when they wanted lies. That kind of fire don't just burn out. It moves. Rebuilds. Rebirths."
Elijah's mind raced. He looked around the alley. Nothing made sense.
"Why here? Why me?"
"Because this world needs a voice again," the man said, stepping closer. "And you… you're going to be louder than ever."
---
Somewhere above the alley, a billboard flickered to life.
WANTED: RAPPERS WITH REAL BARS. APPLY AT THE UNDERGROUND.
Elijah blinked.
"What the hell is the Underground?"
The old man grinned. "Where your story begins… again."
And with that, he vanished into the shadows.
---
Elijah stood there, soaked in rain, heart still racing, mind spinning. He didn't know where he was, who this new body belonged to, or why the universe had chosen him.
But deep down, past all the fear, something pulsed in his soul.
A beat.
And with it, came a voice inside him, clear and certain.
> "Spit truth, even if the world ain't ready for it."
He clenched his fists.
If this was his second shot...
He wasn't wasting a single bar.