Flash is (not) a Villain - Coldflash (Eng.)

An alternate reality

It was funny. He had always imagined his death differently. Something typical for a thief. Like being shot by a guard or a cop during a robbery. Or being beaten to death in prison. Something painful and insignificant.

But when the time came and he blew up Vanishing Point, everything was different. He felt nothing, no pain, no emotion. An almost frightening emptiness filled his senses.

Unlike what is told in some religious books, he was not in heaven or hell, nor was there a white light at the end of a tunnel. Nor did he see any memories passing him by. If he was honest, he didn't know what he was seeing or where he was. There was only this infinite nothingness that seemed to swallow him up.

Slowly, Snart opened his eyes. He could only see his surroundings in a blur. He was in a room, with a large window to his right. It was bright, perhaps noon. As his vision cleared, he recognized an all too familiar view of Central City. Snart was apparently in one of his safe house apartments on the outskirts of the city. He was lying on a comfortable double bed, yet his body felt as if he had spent nights sleeping on a cold floor. His entire body ached and it was hard enough for him to sit up sensibly.

His gaze roamed the room again and lingered on the view of the city. It felt like everything that had happened since he had entered the Waverider had just been a bad dream. Still, he couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. His stomach contracted painfully and an unpleasant feeling spread through him.

Slowly he became more and more aware of his situation. How could he be here when he had been with Hunter in the future and...? He had been killed in the explosion. Was he dead? No, he definitely felt the booming throb behind his forehead too real for that. But if he hadn't died, what had happened? And how had he gotten here?

With aching bones, he got up and walked around the apartment. Everything looked the same. Nothing had changed, except for a few little things. The coldgun hung in its holster on the back of a chair in the kitchen. Normally Snart always kept it close to him in case he needed it. On the table in front of the chair was a smartphone. Actually, he only used old prepaid cell phones, so the police had trouble tracking him. And something else was different. There were pictures hanging everywhere in the apartment. He preferred to decorate his hideouts rather soberly, since he was never in the same place for more than a few days anyway. Even though this apartment was by far his favorite.

Curious, he took the cell phone from the table into his hand. It was locked with a pin. However, after a few failed attempts, Snart was able to unlock the phone with Lisa's date of birth. There were only a few numbers stored in the cell phone. Except for Lisa's number, there were four other contacts stored in it that Snart just couldn't figure out what connection he had with them that he had their numbers: Cisco Ramon, Caitlin Snow, Detective Joe West, and Dr. Harrison Wells. If the pin for the cell phone hadn't been his own sister's birth date, he could have sworn that this cell phone belonged to Barry Allen and certainly not to him. And why did he have all of Team Flash's contacts, but Barry's wasn't there? The longer Snart tried to understand what was going on, the more questions he had that he didn't know the answers to and only made his head hurt more.

But just standing here and brooding over it wasn't going to get him out of his previously unclear situation. He had to find someone as soon as possible who was able to understand everything and help him. And what was the first place to go for someone who had something unusual happen to them in Central City? Even though Snart wanted to dismiss this thought as soon as possible, he knew that only S.T.A.R. Labs, or rather the Flash Team, could help him now.

But before that, he should calm down a bit. Taking a shower first and then having breakfast might be helpful. If S.T.A.R. Labs existed here, wherever he was, it wasn't going to disappear all at once just because he didn't get going right away, was it? Not thirty minutes later, Snart looked into the mirror next to the apartment door, ready to go. He was wearing dark gray jeans and a black turtleneck shirt. He tucked the coldgun into its holster at his hip and pulled on his dark blue parker. So he left his apartment and shortly thereafter the building, making his way to S.T.A.R. Labs for the first time this week.

***

Snart was halfway through his route when he passed Central City National Bank just in the heart of the city. Despite the early hour, few people were out and about. In general, Snart had seen few people on his way here, and when he did, it was only at an unusually large distance from other people. Just as he was about to wonder about this, a flash of red and yellow suddenly shot past him, straight into the bank. Astonished, he stopped and looked after Flash. Had there been a robbery? He hadn't heard the bank's alarm, was he so inattentive that he didn't even notice? But not even a few seconds later it turned out that there had been no robbery at all. It was only when Flash dashed out of the bank that the alarm went off and guards ran out into the street with their guns drawn, even though they wouldn't be able to catch him anyway, let alone see in which direction he had disappeared.

Now Snart was one hundred percent sure that this was not the Central City he knew. Flash had just robbed a bank in broad daylight and was gone in seconds. Snart had to find out what was going on as soon as possible!