The afterlife queue smelled of damp stone and regret. Carlos Reyes stumbled into it, ears still ringing from the plane’s explosion—Caracas to Miami, a fireball at 30,000 feet. Marisol’s scream, Sofia’s tiny hand slipping from his, the textbooks he’d clutched—all gone. Now, he stood on a cracked gray slab, hemmed in by a sea of souls stretching beyond sight. The air hung heavy, tasting of ash and stale breath, a faint hum vibrating through the void. Shadows loomed—tall, jagged spires like broken teeth, their tips lost in a swirling, bruise-purple sky.

  **First Hours**: He paced, boots scuffing the stone. Every soul was a statue—blank eyes, slack jaws—except him. He shouted, “Marisol! Sofia!” but his voice flattened, swallowed by the hum. The spires pulsed faintly, runes etched into their bases glowing sickly green. He counted breaths—120, 240—clinging to a doctor’s rhythm. No one answered.

  **First Days**: Exhaustion gnawed, but sleep wouldn’t come. He sat, knees to chest, watching a woman beside him, her face frozen mid-sob. The hum grew louder, a drone that burrowed into his skull. He traced imaginary sutures on his palm, whispering medical terms—*scalpel, suture, saline*—to anchor himself. The sky churned darker, purples bleeding to black. A metallic tang coated his tongue; he spat, but it lingered.

  **First Weeks**: Time smeared. He stopped counting days when the spires’ runes shifted—green to red, pulsing like a heartbeat. The crowd thickened, new souls pressing in, silent and staring. Carlos muttered to Sofia—her favorite lullaby, “Duérmete, mi ni?a”—but the words jumbled. His hands shook; he couldn’t recall Marisol’s eyes. Were they brown? Hazel? The stone beneath him cracked wider, a spiderweb of fractures mirroring his mind.

  **Millions of Years**: Eons ground him down. The queue was a prison of eternity, spires now crumbling, their runes faded to dull scars. The sky was a void, no color, just weight. Souls blurred into a gray mass, featureless, while Carlos drifted—half-aware, half-lost. Marisol’s name was a sound without shape. Sofia’s laugh, a ghost he chased through the hum, now a deafening roar. His body didn’t age, but his soul frayed, threads of memory snapping one by one. He was a husk, rocking silently, hands tracing sutures on air.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Then—a crack. Light split the gray. Two figures clashed: Noah, wiry and furious, hurling magic at Wizen, a titan of scars and glowing runes. The hum shattered, and something in Carlos snapped awake—a shard of himself, sharp and alive. He blinked, the spires sharpening into focus, the crowd stirring.

  Noah speaking to Wizen, shouting about escape. Sticky—a demon girl with tangled curls—clung to Wizen’s leg, whimpering. Wizen roared, slamming Noah back, but his eyes flicked to a glowing orb in his hand: the Key Relic, pulsing gold. “Take her!” Wizen bellowed, tossing Sticky to Noah. “Save her soul—go!” Noah snatched the girl and the relic, diving through a shrinking portal—a rip of red light. The Damned Plains awaited them.

  Carlos drifted toward it, pulled by instinct, a moth to flame. But Wizen’s arm shot out, halting him mid-air. “Not yet,” he growled, voice like gravel. A rune flared on his palm—Memory Echo, silver and jagged. It sank into Carlos, and his past flared: Marisol’s hazel eyes, Sofia’s laugh, the plane’s fire. Wizen’s gaze softened, pain flickering. “A father,” he murmured. “Like me.”

  Carlos rasped, voice rusty, “Who…?”

  Wizen’s runes dimmed, his strength fading. “I failed my daughter, even with a god’s power. The Key was mine, but I lost her anyway.” He pressed a single rune into Carlos’s chest—Weave, a Master rune, golden and alive, threads spiraling like a heartbeat. “This is enough. Go. Continue where I left off—but don’t stray like I did.”

  The portal flickered, nearly gone. Wizen’s last spark surged, shoving Carlos through. “Save yours,” he whispered, collapsing as the gray reclaimed him. "May you suceed where I failed..."

  Carlos landed hard, knees sinking into ashen dust. The Damned Plains stretched endless—cracked earth, air thick with sulfur, demons drifting like wraiths, their eyes glinting red. The Weave rune pulsed in his soul, a surgeon’s tool for a broken world. Marisol and Sofia were ghosts, but Wizen’s words burned: *Save yours.* He rose, dust falling from his newly formed body. One rune. One chance. He’d stitch this hell together—or die trying.

  A horned shadow lumbered closer, claws scraping. Carlos smiled, grim and certain. Time to operate.