For you, what comes after death? No matter what belief you follow, this is a question that will always wander through everyone's mind. After all, death is the end.
But what comes after the end? The heaven many long for, or the hell everyone fears? To Liam Mason, heaven was nothing more than a tale left behind by the elderly to teach others the meaning of hope. And for someone raised to become the perfect soldier, hell had always been his reality.
Raised to be the "absolute man," he became exactly that. But how could someone above everything—and everyone—die?
It was supposed to be just another mission to deal with invaders. Instead, the sea that separated the two empires became the stage for one of the bloodiest battles in five hundred years of rivalry.
A blood-red moon bathed the sky, while the blood of soldiers soaked the ground. Liam did not understand how, but he was sprawled across a rock, a hole torn through his body. His entrails were almost visible.
The so-called 'end-of-life film' took hold of Liam's mind, even as his vision faded. The death of his mother, his enrollment in the military academy, his training, and his rise as the greatest general of his empire.
It was all nonsense to him. What was the point of this? To remind him that he should repent before departing? That would never work.
Even on his deathbed, only one question passed through Liam's mind now: he had become one of the strongest men in the world, but for what? Why accumulate so much power if, in the end, he still yielded to death?
The answer was already clear. He was human, and death would always be the end for that race. No matter how perfect they believed themselves to be, it was a cycle.
Selfishness and the question: why desire everything?
Without realizing it, he condemned himself. He entered the cycle of life once more—birth, destiny, and death.
In an equivalent exchange, a soul without consciousness—belonging to someone who had not yet completed his destiny in that world—was given to a baby who would have been born dead.
Still unable to understand anything, unable even to see, capable only of crying, a new name was given to him.
The opportunity to choose.
"It's a boy. Have you thought of his name?" asked a woman. Her rugged, wrinkled appearance made her easy to underestimate as someone gentle, but never judge a book by its cover.
"Yes. His name will be Theo!" replied Camille, a young woman with long, golden hair, still holding her newborn son in her arms.
A tear slid down her delicate face, for only a few seconds earlier, her son had shown no sign of life.
"Welcome, my little one." Those were Camille's first words to her youngest child.