Michael was thirty years old, and he already hated every breath he took.

  Every morning felt the same—stale air, cheap coffee, silence. The cracked mirror above the bathroom sink stared back at him with judgmental apathy as he wiped sleep from his eyes. Dark bags weighed under them like shadows clinging to his soul. He was lean but not by choice—meals were skipped more out of disinterest than poverty. His black hoodie, torn at the sleeves, was his armor against a world that had long since decided he was nothing.

  He worked in a warehouse, a meat-grinding machine of corporate rot where men barked orders like they were kings of some cardboard kingdom. “Move faster, idiot!” they’d shout. Michael moved. He always moved. Not because he cared, but because he’d long since accepted that this was life—one endless loop of disappointment. The other workers mocked him behind his back, and sometimes not even behind it. To them, he was the weird guy. The quiet one. The loser who never talked.

  When he clocked out, it didn’t get better. Home was a rundown duplex that smelled like old smoke and wet laundry. And then there was Lucy.

  She used to be kind. Or maybe he just imagined that part.

  Now, it was screaming. Insults. Cold silences that stung worse than fists. Tonight was no different.

  “You just exist! You don’t live, Michael! You’re like a parasite!” she spat, standing in the hallway with wild eyes and shaking hands.

  Michael stood there, staring at the floor, shoulders slumped. “Then why are you still here?”

  That did it.

  She exploded, throwing a glass against the wall. Shards rained like glittering hate. He turned away. His chest felt heavy, his head buzzed like a hornet’s nest.

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  “I’m going for a walk,” he muttered.

  “Yeah, go do what you’re best at—running away!”

  The door slammed behind him. Cold air slapped his face. The sky was dark, smeared in a sickly amber from the city lights. His breath fogged before him like fading ghosts. He walked aimlessly, hands buried in his pockets, his mind racing through every regret, every stupid moment he’d swallowed whole just to avoid confrontation.

  He rounded the corner of the street near the liquor store.

  Then—

  Screeching tires. Headlights.

  A wall of metal and glass came screaming from the night. Lucy’s car.

  There was no time to move. No time to think.

  The impact was thunder.

  Pain exploded through his body. Something cracked—maybe everything. He was flung like a ragdoll across the pavement, blood blooming beneath him like a dying flower. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak.

  Lucy stumbled out of the car, face ghost-white, mascara running.

  “Oh my god—Michael!” she sobbed, dropping beside him. “I didn’t see you—I didn’t—!”

  But he wasn’t listening. The pain was fading. The world around him shimmered like heatwaves, going white. Bright. Blinding.

  He took one last breath, and the world dissolved.

  Silence.

  Then—light.

  When Michael opened his eyes, he was no longer on cracked concrete. No twisted metal. No blood.

  He lay on something soft. Grass? Velvet? It glowed with an otherworldly shimmer, and the air was scented with blooming lilies and honey-wine.

  Before him stood a woman.

  But no—she was not a woman. She was divine.

  Her beauty was terrifying. Her skin, pale as moonlight kissed with frost, shimmered like starlight on snow. Her eyes were galaxies, deep pools of amethyst that sparkled with unknowable wisdom and a touch of sorrow. Long, silken hair flowed down to her waist in waves of silver and gold, catching the light like liquid moonlight. She wore a gown woven from midnight itself, embroidered with constellations that shifted and moved with each breath she took. Wings of translucent crystal fanned out from her back, refracting light into dancing rainbows around her.

  And when she smiled… it was the first warmth he had ever felt.

  “I am Elyndra,” she said, her voice like wind chimes in a breeze, gentle but echoing with ancient power. “Goddess of Aerithrael, the world of eternal skies. I watched your final moments… such cruelty undeserved.”

  Michael blinked. His lips moved, but no sound came.

  “You have been broken by your world,” she said, kneeling beside him. Her fingers brushed his hair gently. “But I offer you a choice. A second chance.”

  She leaned closer, her presence intoxicating, radiant, otherworldly.

  “Be reborn in my world, Michael. Begin anew. As more than you were.”

  She extended her hand.

  “Will you accept?”