The Sinner's Realm
They say the dead don't speak.
But that night, as the river swallowed the boy whole, a whisper broke through the silence.
It wasn't a prayer.
It wasn't even a cry for help.
It was a name—soft, almost uncertain.
Like a half-forgotten melody breathed between the living and the damned.
Zane didn't expect to survive.
He wasn't searching for rescue, for redemption, or for God.
He only wanted the ache to stop.
The weight in his chest.
The blur in his thoughts.
The guilt that never left.
But fate misfired.
Elsewhere—just beyond the veil where time curled and souls awaited judgment—a pair of hands held a file that wasn't his to open.
Azriel, a reaper of dusk and silence, had accepted the shift for a friend, a simple favor done out of kindness.
One soul.
One name.
One task.
Only…
When he arrived at the bridge, the name was missing.
Vanished.
As if the universe had second thoughts.
He found the boy already drowning—limbs slack, heart still. But the file was blank. No death scheduled. No entry granted. No gate would open.
In that moment, Azriel had a choice.
Collect a soul that technically didn't exist…
Or bring him back, and risk it all.
He chose the boy.
He erased the memory.
He wrote silence where love could have bloomed.
But he didn't expect Zane to come back. Again. And again. And again.
Each time with no recollection.
Each time jumping to find something—or someone—he couldn't name.
Each time Azriel catching him… and cursing himself for it.
They called it obsession.
They called it defiance.
They called it sin.
But in the space between life and death, where forgotten souls wander and fate loses grip—
They only ever called it love.
And in that place…
They were both already lost.