I wake up.
That's the first wrongness. The simple fact that I'm capable of waking up.
I should be dead. I was dying. I felt it the cold spreading through my limbs, Lucian's healing failing, the world going dark at the edges. I saw my own dying face reflected in that obsidian mask.
And now I'm... here?
My eyes snap open and I sit up so fast my head spins.
I'm in a bed. Not the cold wooden platform of Baelin's market district, soaked in my blood. An actual bed with sheets and a pillow and the faint smell of lavender that I haven't encountered in years.
Confusion hits first. Then fear.
I jump to my feet, hands immediately running over my body, searching for the wounds that should be there. The blade through my stomach. The ones pinning my shoulders and legs. The shattered bones and torn muscle and catastrophic internal damage.
Nothing.
My skin is intact. No blood. No injuries. Just smooth flesh marked by the brands of my Awakening the wolf on my ribs, the Möbius strip over my heart, the unbroken ring at my sternum.
The brands remain. But the wounds are gone.
What the fuck?
I look around the room properly for the first time, and my breath catches.
I know this room.
I know this room.
Small. Maybe twelve feet by ten. A single window looking out onto... I can't quite see. The light coming through is wrong too dim, too grey, like perpetual twilight. A dresser against one wall, scratched and worn. A mirror above it, the glass slightly warped with age. A rug on the floor that used to be blue but has faded to something between grey and brown.
And in the corner, partially hidden by shadow, a small wooden chest.
My wooden chest. The one I kept my things in when I was a child. This is my room.
My childhood room from our house in Lont. The house where I grew up. Where I lived with my parents before the Inquisitors came and hanged them in the square.
The house I haven't set foot or seen in years. And now I'm standing in my old room, completely uninjured, with no idea how I got here.
Am I dead?
The thought comes with sudden clarity. This must be the afterlife. Some kind of... what? Purgatory? A waiting room before final judgment? Does that mean the gods exist? Is this same joke for cursing them? Pricks would do that wouldn't they.
I laugh. The sound comes out harsh and bitter, echoing in the small space.
Of course. Of course this is how it works. I die finally fucking die after everything and instead of peaceful oblivion, I get dumped back in the place where my life first went to shit.
The universe really does have a sense of humor.
But if this is the afterlife... where is everyone else? Where are the dead? Where are my parents?
I move to the door, my bare feet silent on the worn floorboards. The door opens easily, swinging outward into the hallway I remember walking down thousands of times.
The hallway is exactly as I remember it. Narrow Wood-paneled walls. The floor creaking in familiar patterns. At one end, my parents' bedroom. At the other, the living room and kitchen.
I step out, hyperaware of every detail. Looking for something out of place. Some sign that this isn't real, isn't actually happening.
But everything is perfect. Too perfect like someone recreated the house from my memories down to the smallest detail. I walk to my parents' bedroom first. The door is closed. I rest my hand on the handle for a moment, hesitating.
Do I want to see their room? Do I want to confront whatever memory or ghost or illusion might be waiting inside?
I push the door open.
Empty.
Just a bedroom. Their bed, neatly made with the faded quilt my mother loved. The dresser with my father's things still scattered on top a brush, some coins, a pocketknife. The window looking out onto that same grey twilight. Just an empty room frozen in time.
I close the door and move on.
The anger starts building as I explore. Hot and acidic, rising from my gut.
I remember the last moments of my life. Pinned to that platform. Bleeding out while Teleb crouched over me. Watching my own dying face in his mask.
And I remember the impotent rage. The fury at being so completely, thoroughly beaten. At having all my power three fucking marks and it wasn't enough. Wasn't even close to enough.
I wanted to knock that mask off. Wanted to see his face. Wanted to hurt him the way he hurt me.
But I couldn't. Was helpless and pathetically weak.
And now I'm here, in this mockery of an afterlife, with that anger still burning.
I move through the living room. Small couch and a few chairs. A table where we used to eat meals together. Everything covered in a thin layer of dust that shouldn't be here if this is just a memory.
The kitchen. Pots and pans hanging on hooks. The stove my mother used to cook on. The smell of... nothing. No food cooking. No life happening. Just stale air and silence.
I check every room. Every closet. Every corner. And there is nothing. No one is here but me. It just empty spaces and preserved memories.
And then I notice something that makes my blood run cold.
There's no front door.
I mean, there is a front door. But when I try the handle, it doesn't move. When I pull, it doesn't budge. When I examine it closely, I realize it's not actually a door at all.
It's just... wall. Shaped like a door. Painted to look like a door. But solid. Immovable. Fake.
I'm trapped. Locked in a perfect recreation of my childhood home with no way out.
The realization hits me like a physical blow. I stumble backward, my back hitting the hallway wall, and I slide down to the floor.
My emotions, which I've been holding at bay through sheer force of will, finally wash over me.
And I break.
My life really was a cruel joke, wasn't it? Every single moment of it. Every supposed blessing just another curse in disguise.
Parents who loved me? Executed for harboring a spy, leaving me orphaned and I was forced to fend for myself.
Strength and skill? Meant nothing against Teleb. Against real power. Against someone who'd actually mastered their abilities I was an amatruer.
And now I can't even die properly. Can't even get the peace of everlasting sleep. Instead, I'm trapped here, in this cell made from my own broken memories, forced to contemplate my own death for... what? Eternity?
I laugh, and it comes out as a sob.
Why? Why am I being made to suffer this? Why can't I just... stop existing? Disappear into nothingness? Be done with all of it?
I've had enough. More than enough. One hell after another, and I'm so fucking tired.
I lean my head back against the wall and close my eyes.
I pray to gods I don't believe in, to the universe that clearly hates me, to anyone or anything that might be listening that no one else has to experience this. That whatever afterlife torture this is, it's unique to me.
Because it's one thing to die. I can accept death. Expected it, even. Knew it was coming eventually.
But it's quite another to have suffered the fear of death and survive it. To go through that terror, that pain, that moment of absolute helplessness, and then be forced to remember it. To relive it again and again in whatever this place is.
I've suffered both. The fear of dying and the reality of dying. And I wouldn't wish either on anyone.
I think about a candle. A solitary candle in a chapel, flickering against the dark.
That's what I am, isn't it? A single flame trying to hold back the darkness. A single flame ignited in rage against the night, burning brighter, refusing to be extinguished.
But this is different. This is the darkness of time. Of the yawning maw of some empty, echoing future that's forever barred to me now. The knowledge that I had so little time, and now it's come to an end.
It's comforting to know the sun will always rise. That's what people say. That's the hope we cling to.
Until it doesn't. Until it dissolves into cold ash and the universe runs down. Or you do.
Fire fades as does life.
Or it's snuffed out.
For the chapel candle, that's no tragedy. The candle doesn't know when it's extinguished. It's only a symbol. Only the avatar of the unconquered sun, lit to keep watch through the night.
But the human flame knows. And it shivers not from wind but from fear. From the sickness of the heart that comes from understanding mortality. From comprehending the finite nature of existence.
And so I shiver here on the floor of my dead parents' house. In this afterlife prison. In this moment stretched into eternity.
I'm only seventeen years old.
Seventeen.
But I feel ancient. Feel the weight of every year, every day, every hour of suffering and violence and trauma pressing down on me like physical mass.
I feel the ache in every once-broken bone. Remember each fracture and cut. Every tear. I feel every scar. Where my body bears the permanent marks of violence even if they don't show on the surface. Every wound from the outskirts. Every injury from becoming Awakened. Every battle, every moment of pain. It's all there. Written in my flesh. A history of suffering that I carry with me even in death. I don't know how long I've been sitting here. Time doesn't seem to work right in this place. Could have been minutes or it could have been years so far. There's no hunger. No thirst. No physical need to move. Just me and my thoughts and the slowly crushing weight of isolation.
And then I hear it.
A voice.
"Ayato?"
My eyes snap open so fast it makes my head spin.
That voice. I know that voice.
No. No, it can't be.
"Ayato?"
I scramble to my feet, trembling. My heart is pounding so hard I can feel it in my throat.
And there, at the end of the hallway where it opens into the living room, she's standing.
My mother.
She looks exactly as I remember her. Her hair pulled back in a loose bun. Kind eyes. The dress she used to wear around the house simple, practical, worn soft from washing. A smile on her face that I haven't seen in years.
She's here. In this place. Looking at me like nothing's wrong. Like she didn't die screaming while Inquisitors put a rope around her neck.
My breath comes in short, sharp gasps. I can't speak. Can't move. Can't do anything except stare.
"There you are," she says, and her smile widens. "I've been looking for you."
She takes a step toward me, and every instinct I have screams wrong.
This isn't her. Can't be her.
The voice is right. The appearance is right. Even the way she moves, the tilt of her head, the warmth in her expression all of it is perfect.
But it's not her.
I don't know how I know. Can't point to any specific detail that's off. But I know, with the same certainty I know my own name, that whatever I'm looking at, it's not my mother.
My mother is dead. Has been dead for years. And she's not coming back.
The helplessness that had overtaken me that crushing weight of despair and exhaustion is replaced in an instant by fear.
And anger.
How dare this place, this afterlife, this whatever-the-fuck-this-is, use her image? How dare it take my mother's face and wear it like a mask?
I find my voice. It comes out rough. Harsh. "You're not her."
The smile falters. The thing wearing my mother's face stops advancing, and for a moment, genuine confusion crosses those borrowed features.
"You're not her," I repeat, forcing the words through clenched teeth. "My mother is dead. So what are you?"
The confusion deepens. It she whatever this is tilts its head slightly, studying me with an expression I can't quite read. Like it's trying to understand why I'm upset. Like it genuinely doesn't comprehend the problem.
And then understanding seems to dawn. The confusion clears, replaced by something that might be... regret?
The smile returns. But different this time. Softer and almost sad.
"Ah," it says, and the voice is still my mother's but there's something else underneath now. Something vaster. "We... apologize."
The thing takes a step back, giving me space. A gesture of... what? Respect? Consideration?
"We took this form to appease you," it continues, and my mother's hands spread in a placating gesture. "We thought... we believed seeing her would bring comfort. That this form would ease your fear. We did not understand it would cause distress."
I stare, my back still pressed against the wall, trying to process what I'm hearing.
It thought wearing my dead mother's face would comfort me?
"We are... inexperienced with such things," it admits, and there's something almost vulnerable in the way it speaks. "With mortal grief. With the weight of loss. We meant no harm."
The anger warring with my fear doesn't know where to go now. How do you rage at something that's apologizing? That seems genuinely remorseful for causing pain?
"What are you?" I ask again, but this time there's less venom in it. More confusion. More desperate need to understand what's happening.
The thing wearing my mother's face smiles again. And this time, the smile is knowing. Ancient. Like it's about to reveal something profound.
It spreads its arms wide my mother's arms, but the gesture carries weight that no human movement could hold.
"Long have we watched," it says, and now the voice carries layers. Multiple tones speaking in harmony, each one slightly different but perfectly synchronized. "Long have we waited, in expectation of this moment."
The hallway seems to darken around us, the grey twilight coming in from the windows shifting to something deeper. Not threatening. Just... significant. Heavy with importance.
"Hail child of clay," it intones, and the words echo impossibly in the hallway. "Hail Child of Light."
The thing steps forward again slowly, carefully.
"Welcome," it says, voice resonating with power and purpose and something that feels like inevitability. "Welcome at last."
The smile on my mother's borrowed face is warm and genuine. And deeply pleased.