Feathers of impossible brilliance scattered in the chamber's cold light. They glimmered like shards of stardust as they unfurled to their full span. The air thickened, heavy and almost suffocating, as if her presence bent the very atmosphere around her.
For a long moment, I could neither move nor think.
Everything about her defied reason. Every feather, every subtle glow along her skin, every movement that seemed deliberate and effortless—everything screamed that I was witnessing something beyond the boundaries of human understanding. Too real. Too impossible.
My mind protested. Angels didn't exist. None of this could be real. Perhaps it was a hallucination, some cruel trick of a brain on the edge of death.
But the air was too cold.
The floor beneath my feet, too solid.
And the hum from the hibernation chamber was far too insistent, far too tangible.
The world around me refused to vanish.
"Lord Caelus," Uriel said, her voice soft yet imbued with a reverence I could barely comprehend. "Please… do not be afraid."
Afraid?
I almost laughed. Afraid would be the barest understatement. My entire reality had been shattered in the span of a heartbeat. My existence, my very self, had been rewritten.
"I…" My voice cracked, brittle despite the surge of something deep inside me. "I do not even know who I am."
Uriel's wings folded slowly, the vast expanse collapsing like a curtain of snow. She stepped closer, deliberate and graceful, her eyes never leaving mine.
"You are who you have always been, my lord," she said quietly. "Even if your world has changed."
My lord. Always been. Her certainty chilled me.
She was wrong. I am Atlas. I know nothing of this divine being, Caelus. The name felt alien, like a crown forced onto a stranger's head. I wanted to tear it off, throw it away, scream that she had the wrong person.
"I am not him," I rasped, the words harsher than I expected. "I am not this god you believe me to be."
Silence.
Uriel did not flinch. Only those almond-brown eyes remained fixed on me, unblinking, weighing my denial. Behind her, the feathers shivered, then vanished as if they had never existed at all.
Slowly, she lowered herself to one knee. "No," she whispered, not to me, but to the room itself. "You may not remember… but you are."
Her words slid over me like ice water. Each syllable felt heavy, final, undeniable.
I could not comprehend her certainty. I was a boy who should have died long ago, a human who had never known sunlight, laughter, or freedom. And yet, something stirred inside me.
A will, coiling and restless, pressing against my ribs like a caged animal. Part of me—the part that had never truly lived—wanted to claim this new life, to seize it, to carve a place in a world that had suddenly grown too large for a boy who had spent years counting hospital ceilings.
Could I do that? Could I take what was not mine?
She wanted her lord back, not a sick, broken boy trapped in someone else's body.
Guilt churned in my stomach. This life should not belong to me.
Uriel rose from her knee with a deliberate grace, her movements almost ceremonial.
"My lord," she said softly, voice steady, eyes shimmering with unwavering conviction, "even if your memories have faded, rest assured, no one else could ever inhabit the Avatar. It was forged for you alone."
She paused, letting her words settle, then continued, quieter, almost intimate: "Do not despair. Your memories will return in time. We only need to uncover the path to restore them."
Doubt coiled in me, curling like smoke around my guilt. Uriel was no deluded stranger. She was an angel. An Archangel. Could she be right? Could I really be Caelus?
And yet, why did I still have these memories of Atlas?
I drew a slow, deliberate breath, forcing my heartbeat to steady. Panic was useless. There was only one path forward.
I would have to play the role she believed in—to become the Caelus she insisted I was.
If I succeeded, if we uncovered the truth, perhaps I could claim a fragment of the life I had always dreamed of. Perhaps, for once, I could live as something more than the dying boy in a hospital bed.
"I will trust you."
The words left my mouth before I was even sure I wanted to say them.
Uriel's eyes widened slightly, a flicker of relief breaking through her otherwise composed expression. A genuinely pleased smile crossed her face.
"You will not regret it, my lord," she murmured. Then, drawing in a steady breath, her tone shifted, lighter and brisker, almost professional.
"Right. I almost forgot. Our supreme deity has awoken—I should prepare the others before we discuss your amnesia."
"Uriel… the others?" My voice came sharper than intended.
"Oh, right… the amnesia." Her expression softened for a heartbeat before she straightened. "I will bring some of the other Archangels. They should be free soon."
She spoke as casually as if summoning friends, yet the weight behind her words settled in my chest like a stone. Three Archangels.
I could not imagine what they would expect of me, or of God. Or the standards they would hold me to.
Even if I was supposedly divine, or merely a human trapped in the body of one, I did not feel godly.
Looking down at myself, I saw nothing extraordinary. Just a body that was strong, healthy, athletic. More human than I had ever been.
Is this what a god should feel like? All-powerful? All-knowing?
The chamber hummed around me, the lights flickering slightly as shadows stretched across the walls. I swallowed, bracing myself.
The others would arrive soon. And when they did… I had no idea what I would find, or if I would survive meeting them.
And still, beneath the fear, a tiny spark of something unfamiliar flared. Defiance. Curiosity. Determination.
Even with my Divinity Eclipsed, I would meet it head-on.