I have died before.
Not metaphorically.
Not symbolically.
Truly, heart stopping, lungs collapsing, vision turning black.
But long before I died as a Space Marine, I died as a mortal.
My first life ended on a quiet world with no glory and no witnesses. A blink of fate, a flash of metal… and then nothing.
Then I opened my eyes on Baal Secundus, a world of heat, dunes, and ash. I was ten years old, starving, surrounded by ruins and mutated creatures. I didn't know why I was there or how I had survived. Sometimes I felt faint echoes of a past life, memories of peace, of civilization, but they slipped away whenever I tried to grasp them.
Then the Blood Angels came.
Great red warriors descending from the sky, their jump packs roaring like thunder. A Chaplain in black and crimson approached me, towering, his skull helm staring into my soul.
"Do you fear death, boy?" he asked.
Something inside me, something older than that moment, answered before I even thought.
"If death takes me today, then I was unworthy of the Angel."
Instead of punishment, he nodded.
"Rise. You will be tested."
That was the day my new life truly began.
The transformation into an Astartes is hell, bones broken and rebuilt, organs replaced, gene-seed injected. Yet I survived. Some said I was stubborn. Others said my mind accepted the changes too easily, as if it had been waiting for this transformation for lifetimes.
When I emerged as a full Space Marine, I wore crimson ceramite, the blood-red armor of the Chapter. They named me Brother Caelum.
And so I fought.
Decades turned to centuries.
Centuries turned to nearly a millennium.
I battled tyranids that darkened skies.
I faced Chaos monstrosities whose screams cracked stone.
I fought machine legions older than humanity's cradle.
I survived wars that annihilated entire worlds.
But nothing shaped me more than the man who would become my commander, my mentor, and in time… my brother.
Commander Dante.
The Lord of the Host.
The oldest living Space Marine.
The golden angel who carried our Chapter's sorrow on his shoulders.
I first served under him as a young Astartes, and at first, I feared him. Who could not? He was legend, myth, and fear made flesh. But over the centuries, I learned him. I learned how he fought not with arrogance, but with purpose. How he bore the weight of thousands of lives and yet never faltered. How he could look at a battlefield filled with death, ruin, and despair, and still command hope.
I fought beside him in wars no history books would record: orbital drops through firestorms that turned the skies red, boarding actions aboard world-eating tyranid vessels, crusades through systems torn by Chaos, the black rift in the Segmentum Solar bleeding warp-taint across planets.
I watched him take blows that would fell lesser men. I watched him charge daemons that could have shredded entire squads with a single swing. I watched him bleed, and still, he stood taller than any mortal could ever imagine.
And I learned from him.
Every strategy he whispered. Every command he gave. Every decision that cost worlds, and yet saved thousands of worlds, was etched into my mind. He taught me patience, precision, and mercy tempered by brutal justice. He taught me that strength without honor was meaningless. That power without purpose was a curse. That a Space Marine was more than a weapon… he was a shield, a symbol, a promise.
Over centuries, I became his shadow, his shield, his right hand. He entrusted me with missions that would break any other warrior. I led detachments of the Sanguinary Guard, commanded squads against xenos monstrosities, and carried his will across devastated worlds. He even allowed me to carry his standard once, in a crusade against a Chaos warhost so massive that the heavens themselves seemed to bleed. That day, I stood under his colors, knowing the Chapter's fate rested in my hands as much as his.
And as the years turned into centuries, my deeds earned me something rare, something that no mere mortal could ever claim:
The right to wear gold.
The artificers of the Chapter rebuilt my armor over and over, reforging crimson plates into gilded masterpieces. Each layer engraved with victories, each joint strengthened with relic alloys. My armor burned, shattered, and was reforged hundreds of times, until it shone in the sunlight like a star beside Dante's own golden plates. Not because I demanded it. Not because I wished for it. But because I had earned it, through blood, sweat, and centuries of unwavering loyalty.
Dante himself placed the final plate upon my shoulder one twilight on a shattered world.
"You have earned this, Caelum," he said quietly. "You stand not behind me, but beside me."
And when I later crossed the Rubicon Primaris and survived, reborn even stronger, faster, larger, Dante entrusted me with his own Death Mask of Sanguinius, the very one he had worn through countless battles, passing it to me as a symbol of his trust and as the heir to his legacy.
"Take it," Dante said. "Not as a relic… but as my trust."
I bowed. "My lord, I will follow you until my final breath."
And I kept that oath.
Our final battle together was a hell unlike any other. A daemon prince of Khorne, massive beyond reason, its body twisting with rage and fire, tore open the sky. The warp screamed. The ground shattered beneath us.
Dante and I descended like twin comets, golden wings of armor streaking against a blood-red sky. I watched the daemon raise its colossal axe toward him, and I acted without thought.
I threw myself into the path.
The blow shattered my chest. My hearts ruptured. My vision dimmed. Pain like a thousand suns consumed me.
But even as death claimed me, I drove my power axe into the daemon's skull. I crushed it beneath us both.
Dante caught me as my life drained, his voice trembling in a way I had never heard.
"Brother… forgive me."
I smiled through the blood. "The Angel… watches."
And then everything ended.
Or so I thought.
When I opened my eyes again, sunlight poured over me, not the harsh UV-burn of Baal, but warm, gentle rays brushing across my armor. Waves lapped against the shore with a soothing rhythm, and the scent of salt and life filled my lungs. My body lay half-buried in pristine white sand.
I sat up slowly. My golden Primaris armor gleamed under the blue sky, flawless and radiant, reflecting the light like a herald of war. My jump pack hummed steadily, fully powered and ready. My power axe rested nearby, its edge gleaming. And on my face… the Death Mask of Sanguinius, glowing faintly, blessed and terrifying in its presence.
I rose to my full towering height, sand slipping from gilded plates. The sea breeze carried scents I had never known: fruit, distant forests, and life untouched by war. My senses detected the hum of creatures below the waves, immense, powerful, alive.
Too peaceful. Too clean. Too… innocent.
And yet, even here, even in this quiet, the warrior in me stirred. I flexed my fingers around the haft of my axe. The weight felt right. The armor, heavy yet familiar.
~~~
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