The Veil was not made of shadow, but silence—a silence so complete it pressed against the skin like icy water, seeping into the cracks of thought and memory, drowning all but the faintest echoes of what once was. It was the place between dying and what came after. A void where time held no teeth, only the slow, agonizing drip of eternity.
Eris stood at its edge, unmoving. Her black robes whispered against nothing, the fabric carrying the memory of wind though none stirred here. She had not drawn breath in a hundred years; her lungs remembered air only faintly, as one recalls the dream of another life—one soaked in blood, betrayal, and fire.
Once, she was destined for Hell. Absolute judgment.
She had welcomed it.
But then—he had prayed.
Not once. Not for a fleeting moment. But for lifetimes.
Every death he suffered, every breath wasted upon his own mortal fragility, had been spent uttering her name. Begging Above—who listens. Who always listens. He prayed for her soul—shattered, blackened, irredeemable—to be given a chance to seek redemption and live the life she always wanted, even not with him.
And Someone in the cosmos, silent and watchful, had softened.
Not into forgiveness, but into chance—an unrelenting chance with a heart to be hardened yet soul to be softened.
A century of servitude. Harvesting the dying from among the ancient and the accursed. A reaper among reapers, dealing not in mercy, but in duty.
Eris had never questioned it.
Until tonight.
Something shifted in the void behind her, a tremor in the silence—a deep inhalation from the mouth of darkness.
She did not turn. "You're late, Noctar."
The air folded in on itself like a wound being stitched, reality bending as something vast and ancient stepped forward. A tall figure emerged, cloaked in robes older than language, threaded with whispers of forgotten gods. His mask gleamed like polished obsidian, featureless save for its mirrored surface.
It reflected only her.
"I am never late, Eris," said the voice. It was not spoken—it simply was—a pressure, a presence.
She turned slowly to face him, the weight of years settling in her bones. Her eyes, once fierce with defiance, now held the dull sheen of time, fractured but sharp. "Then I suppose I'm early for hell."
Noctar did not react, but something shifted in the air around him—a presence more than a movement. "You are early," he said. "But not for hell. For choice."
The word struck her like cold metal—choice. The luxury of the living.
Noctar drifted closer, soundless. "Your sentence is fulfilled. You served your time without resistance. You may now choose."
Eris narrowed her eyes, a flicker of skepticism glinting beneath her lashes. "Choose what?"
His masked face did not change, but she could feel his stare like an unseen weight pressing against her. "Reincarnation. Or rebirth."
Silence swallowed the space between them.
Eris blinked, and something warm stirred in her chest. Hope? No. That had died with her long ago.
"I thought there was no salvation for the condemned," she murmured.
"There is none," Noctar replied. "Only answered prayers."
She scoffed bitterly, her lips curling into something that made her safe. "Lucian"
He tilted his head, his mask catching the pale glow of souls drifting in the abyss. "Your husband—he believed in redemption. Enough to pierce the gates of fate with prayers. Enough to trade his own reincarnations for the faintest chance of your soul's salvation. For you, to have the chance, to live a happier life."
A flicker of something ancient passed through her—guilt, maybe. Love. Or the echo of it.
Eris's throat tightened, though she had not drawn breath in a century. "I remember his voice," she admitted, quieter now. "And his eyes that never burn.
"That is by heart."
She turned away, her fingers flexing at her sides as if grasping for a sensation long lost. The Veil shimmered before her, shifting like layers of water, revealing brief slivers of the mortal world: city lights. Glass towers. Neon soaked in rain.
The Living.
"What happens if I choose reincarnation?" she asked.
"You will be reborn, soul-washed. New. Innocent. You will remember nothing. Not of death. Not of your crime. Not of him."
Her jaw clenched slightly. "And if I choose rebirth?"
"You will be awakened in your life before death—as yourself. With memory intact. With history in your bones."
Eris breathed in the silence, though she had no breath to take. She studied Noctar, his masked stillness, and something in her chest tightened further. "What's the catch?"
"When you die in that life," Noctar said, "you will return here. Not for a century. Forever."
Her lips parted slightly, a smile barely visible in her expression. "A reaper without end."
"A redemption sealed in choice."
She turned toward him, meeting her own haunted reflection in his mask.
"He deserve no less."
"You deserve nothing," Noctar said.
Eris stepped forward. Her eyes, though empty, carried a quiet resolve. "Then I choose rebirth."
Noctar was still, his robes untouched by time itself.
"Why?" he asked.
She didn't hesitate.
"Because the sins I bore should be remembered, and the one who had prayed was there, with memories of loving me. There I will live happier."
The world split behind him.
A city rose in the distance, carved from light and stone, its edges blurred by rainfall and thunder. The scent of smoke and electricity kissed the wind.
Modern. Mortal. Alive.
Noctar did not speak again. Instead, he lifted a hand, and her soul began to unravel—strands of black silk pulled from a spool, reweaving themselves into flesh.
"You will not forget me," he said. "You will not forget this place."
Her lips pressed together, eyes dark and unwavering. "And all my sins."
"Yes. That is the weight you carry—the thread of memory that ties you back here. But this truth shall remain in you only, all knowledge cannot be revealed, as you are not blessed to be a shaman, or your breath shall be taken."
She looked once more at the void behind her. At the souls drifting like smoke through caverns of afterlife. She had walked among them for so long, she could barely remember the color of a sunrise.
But she remembered his voice.
"Please, let her soul be saved, and let her heart starts anew, forgetting pain and sins."
Eris stepped into the light.
And fell.