John's Last Breath
John had always thought the sea was his only friend.
It wasn't true, of course—he knew the ocean was a thing that devoured as much as it gave. But when you lived most of your life alone, with no family left, no warmth to come home to, you learned to take comfort in things that could not speak back. The salt spray, the rocking waves, the sharp scent of brine—it was easier to love something that didn't ask for anything in return.
Thirty-five years old and still carrying the brittle emptiness of an orphan's heart, John went fishing not because he needed the catch, but because the silence out on the waves was less suffocating than the silence in his room. The world had moved on without him, friends married, families grew, children laughed in parks. His own footsteps echoed hollowly against city streets.
So he fished. He always fished.
That day, the sky was heavy, bloated with swollen gray clouds that pressed down toward the earth. He noticed, but didn't care. Danger had a way of losing its edge when you had no one to mourn you. He rowed his small boat out anyway, the worn wood creaking with every stroke.
"Just another day," he muttered, voice rasping with the kind of tiredness that wasn't from lack of sleep, but from life itself.
But the sea had other plans.
The storm rolled in fast, like a predator springing from tall grass. Thunder split the heavens, lightning scarred the horizon. The waves rose like mountains, slamming into his tiny boat. John gripped the oars, but they were ripped away from him in seconds, snatched by the black waters.
The first wave threw him flat, slamming his ribs against the edge of the boat. Pain bloomed sharp and hot, his breath knocked from his chest. The second wave was merciless—it capsized the boat, sending him plunging into the freezing depths.
Saltwater invaded his mouth, burning his throat. He kicked, thrashed, clawed at the darkness, but the storm was a giant's hand, pressing him deeper and deeper. Rocks waited below, jagged teeth that ripped into his back and shoulder as the current smashed him against them. Something cracked—his arm, maybe a rib. White-hot pain flared and then dulled into a sick ache.
He tried to scream. Only bubbles escaped.
The water filled him. His lungs convulsed, desperate for air that wasn't there. Every instinct screamed for life, but the body betrayed him, drawing in a breath of liquid fire. The salt scalded, the pressure crushed, and he felt his own strength bleeding away into the endless dark.
And yet, it wasn't the pain that undid him. It was the loneliness.
The last thoughts clawing through his head weren't curses at fate or desperate pleas for rescue. They were memories. The empty bed. The birthdays unshared. The way laughter from others always seemed to fade when he entered the room. The knowledge that not a single soul on Earth would know he had died—not today, not tomorrow, not even weeks from now.
I never had anyone.
That thought ached worse than the salt in his lungs.
The storm swallowed him whole. Bones battered against stone, his body shuddered, went limp. And as the darkness closed in, a final, wordless acceptance passed through him: a sad resignation, a child who had once longed for love and never received it. His heart whispered what his mouth never could.
I just wanted… someone to care.
And then—silence.
---
At first, he thought death would be nothingness. An endless dark. But instead, John drifted into light.
Not the harsh white of hospitals or the sterile glow of lamps, but something impossibly soft. A river stretched beneath him—yet it was no river of water. It was a river of stars, flowing slow and endless, galaxies tumbling in its current. His battered body was gone, replaced with something lighter, translucent, as if he were made of thought and memory instead of flesh.
And above that river stood figures.
Wings shimmered like auroras, spreading across the sky in ribbons of shifting green, violet, and gold. Some of the beings looked human—faces kind, radiant with unearthly calm. Others bore features of animals: a lion-headed angel with soft amber eyes, a deer-faced angel with silver antlers that glittered like constellations, a wolf-bodied figure whose mouth curled into something closer to a gentle smile than a snarl. There were even those with beastfolk-like appearances, human and animal blended, each crowned with wings that painted the heavens.
They looked down at him not with judgment, but with sympathy.
One stepped forward, a woman with feathered ears and hair like a raven's plume. Her aurora wings pulsed a gentle blue as she knelt at the river's edge.
"He's so tired," she whispered, her voice like chimes carried on the wind. "So lonely."
Another—broad-shouldered, with scales tracing his jaw like emerald glass—bowed his head. "We know that weight. We have carried it too." His voice rumbled, not fierce, but sorrowful.
John's eyes widened, his translucent form trembling. "Wh… what is this?" His voice cracked, raw, barely above a whisper. "Where… where am I?"
The deer-faced angel's silver antlers glowed softly, spilling starlight across the river. "You are between worlds, child. Your body has ended, but your soul… your soul has been called."
The wolf-bodied angel added, "Not all of us were called. We were merely saved. Broken lives, abandoned hearts. She gathered us. Gave us wings when we had none. A place when we had nothing."
"She…" John repeated.
And all of them smiled, tender and knowing.
The raven-haired angel pressed a hand to her chest. "Vespa."
At that name, the river of stars shimmered brighter, as though it recognized the word.
Another angel, this one small and childlike with rabbit ears poking from her hair, looked down at John with wide, innocent eyes. Her wings rippled pink and gold as she whispered: "She will come. She always comes. But we… we wanted to see you first. Because we know what it is, to be where you were. Alone. Unseen. Forgotten."
Their words pierced deeper than the rocks had. John's chest ached—not from broken ribs, but from the fragile recognition that they understood.
"Why… why me?" His voice shook. "I'm nobody. I didn't matter to anyone. I wasn't… I wasn't worth saving."
The scaled angel stepped closer, his aurora wings burning emerald and sapphire. "Every soul is worth saving."
The wolf-bodied angel lowered his muzzle, as though bowing. "But you are more. Chosen. A thread that ties two worlds. Do not mistake loneliness for worthlessness."
The deer-faced angel's silver antlers glowed brighter, his voice like wind through leaves. "Your soul carries Earth's mana, long dormant. In you flows a conduit of life. Even in your suffering, you have been preparing for this."
John's translucent form shivered. "A conduit?"
But before they could answer, the river shifted.
Stars bent inward, light folding like petals. The current swelled, and from its center, a radiance bloomed. She appeared.
Vespa.
Her steps touched the river as though it were solid, each one sending ripples of galaxies outward. She wore a dress spun from the night sky itself, woven of constellations and nebulas that twinkled, flared, and darkened in rhythm. Suns burned across her hem, black holes curled near her sleeves, and yet the sight of her was not terrible—it was beautiful. Comforting.
Her hair was golden, flowing like sunlight on morning water. Her eyes were crimson, but not cruel; they burned like hearth embers, warm and steady. And her smile—her smile healed. Just the curve of her lips seemed to ease the ache in John's chest, as if all his broken years had been acknowledged and gently kissed away.
The angels knelt, wings folding like auroras dimming before dawn.
Vespa looked at him. Just him.
And for the first time in his life, John felt seen.
She reached out, her hand glowing with soft starlight. "It is time to come home, my son."
The words undid him. Tears spilled, raw and unashamed, falling into the starry river below. His translucent form trembled as sobs wracked through him, his voice breaking into pieces. "Why… why would you… call me that? I'm not… I was never…"
Her hand touched his cheek, and warmth flooded him. Not heat, not fire, but the steady warmth of an embrace you had longed for your whole life. The warmth of a mother who had never been there—until now.
"My dear child," she whispered, crimson eyes soft as the morning sun, "you were never unwanted. Never unseen. You endured loneliness, yes—but you endured. You carried kindness in silence. That alone has weight. That alone enriches the world."
The aurora-winged angels began to pray. Their voices rose together, soft and melodic, a poem carried like wind through reeds:
Kindness is a river, flowing unseen,
Gentle in strength, steady, serene.
Love is the vessel, patience the oar,
Guiding the weary to gentler shore.
To heal is to live, to live is to give,
A spark in the dark, reminding to live.
The lonely are never forgotten, nor small,
For the Mother of Light has room for them all.
The words wrapped around John's soul, soothing the jagged edges of years of silence. His sobs quieted, though tears still fell, and for the first time in decades, they weren't tears of despair, but of release.
Vespa's hand moved to his chest, where a faint golden light now glowed. "You are a Living Conduit. Earth's mana flows through you, feeding this world to come. Your task is not to fight, nor to conquer. Your task is simple, and yet greater than any blade could wield: live. Truly live. And in your living, you will heal."
John's translucent body shone brighter, the broken cracks in his spirit knitting together. His breath came easy, though he no longer needed air. His heart no longer hurt—not because it had forgotten loneliness, but because it had finally been given warmth.
Vespa leaned closer, her voice soft, intimate, a mother's lullaby: "You have carried loneliness long enough. Now, carry love. Go, my son. Be Reborn, Be yourself. And in time, you will see—you were never meant to be alone."
The river swelled, light engulfed him, and the angels' prayers echoed like distant bells.
And John , let himself be carried into a new dawn.
For the first time, he was not afraid