Trent's consciousness floated in emptiness. No beeping monitors. No voices. No pain.
Just... nothing.
Then, the sensation returned—not with gradual waking, but with the sudden snap and the heaving of his chest. His feet were wet. He could feel water lapping at his ankles.
His eyes flew open.
A vast water stretched in every direction. No horizon line separated it from the sky; they blend into each other at the edges of his vision.
"What the fuck?" His voice didn't echo. The water swallowed the sound.
Trent looked down. He stood ankle-deep in water so clear he could see his feet perfectly.
"Am I dead?" he whispered.
The last thing he remembered was the ambulance. The nurse's fist knocking his jaw. The female EMT's panicked voice.
*"What the hell? His vitals just crashed! BP zero, no pulse!"*
*"That's impossible! It was just one punch!"*
*"He's dying! Start compressions!"*
Trent touched his jaw. No pain. No bruising. He ran his hands over his body—no road rash from the scooter accident, no blood, no torn clothes. Even his old scars were gone—the burn mark on his forearm from a kitchen accident, the small scar above his eyebrow from a childhood fall.
"I'm dead," he said with surprising calm. "I'm actually fucking dead."
Then it hit him like a physical blow—he'd left his mother and Mira alone. The realization doubled him over, a pain so hurtful it felt like his organs were being slice in pieces.
"Mom... Mira..."
They were already struggling with his father's death, breaking on the edge of financial ruin. Now they'd lost him too. Who would help his mother with the rent? Who would make sure Mira finished school instead of dropping out to work? Who would keep their family from tearing apart completely?
Anger surged through him—not at his family, but at himself, at the circumstances, at the joke his life had become.
"That fucking tortoise," he snarled, fists clenching. "That stupid fucking tortoise."
If he hadn't swerved to avoid it, he would still be alive. If it had just stayed on whatever tortoise patch of land it belonged on instead of wandering onto a busy road, none of this would have happened.
A sound caught his attention—the soft splash of footsteps on water.
Trent spun around, quickly dropping into a fighting stance, one he'd learned in the self-defense classes at school.
The stance was probably useless—he'd never actually been in a real fight—but it was all he had.
A shadow approached through the twilight gloom. Tall, broad-shouldered with long hair, walking in a graceful nature.
Someone Trent recognized before he could even make out the face.
His hands fell to his sides. His throat closed up.
"Dad?"
The figure stepped into clarity, and Trent's knees gave out. He splashed down into the water, kneeling as his father—exactly as Trent remembered him before the cancer had eaten away at his frame—stood over him.
"Trent." His father's voice was deeper than he remembered, vibrating across the water. Not warm. Not comforting. Disappointed.
"Dad, I—" His voice cracked. He couldn't finish the sentence. What could he possibly say?
"You've let them down," his father said. "You've let your mother down. You've let Mira down. And you've let me down."
Each word drove into Trent like a hammered nail. He couldn't look up, couldn't meet his father's eyes.
"Who will take care of them now?" his father continued. "Your mother works sixteen hours a day. She is already dying from the chemicals at the factory. Mira talking about quitting school to work full-time. Did you know that?"
Trent shook his head, tears welling up. "No, I—"
"Of course you didn't. You were too busy feeling sorry for yourself."
The tears spilled over, hot trails down his cheeks disappearing into the endless water under him. "I'm worthless," Trent whispered. "I'm so fucking worthless."
His father said nothing, letting the words hang in the still air.
"I couldn't even get a decent awakening," Trent continued, the words pouring out now. "E-rank Water Mage. What good is that? I can't fight monsters. I can't join a guild. I can't even get a decent job with that."
He looked up at his father through tear-blurred vision. "Mira would have been better as the eldest. She's smarter, tougher. She would have figured something out. I just... I just fucked everything up."
Trent shoulders shook with silent sobs. "I'm not supposed to be your son. I'm not supposed to be the eldest. I couldn't handle the responsibility. I couldn't take care of them. And now I'm dead, and they're alone, and it's all because I got drunk and crashed a scooter trying to avoid a fucking tortoise, and—"
"Stop."
His father's voice cut through Trent words like a knife. Trent looked up in surprise.
"The fault is not entirely yours," his father said, his expression softening slightly. "Some of it is mine."
Trent blinked in confusion. "What? No, Dad, you—"
"I left you unprepared," his father interrupted. "I sacrificed time with my family to chase strength, to earn money, to advance through the ranks. I spent years protecting humanity instead of teaching you what really matters."
His father knelt down in the water, bringing himself eye-level with Trent. The water didn't wet his clothes, Trent noticed with wordless curiosity.
"I was an Eclipse Diety," his father continued. "One of the strongest beings in the realm. Did you know that?"
Trent hesitated, then shook his head.
Of course he doesn't know. He'd always assumed Crimson Phoenix meant fire—maybe a flame-type hunter with a flashy title. But Eclipse Deity? That felt too vast, too strange, like something from a different realm entirely.
He didn't really know what it meant.
"Do you know why I kept it from you and Mira? Why I registered under a code name? Why I never used my true abilities at home?"
Trent shook his head.
"Strength without purpose is meaningless," his father said. "I've seen hunters consumed by power, obsessed with being the strongest. But they forgot why we fight in the first place."
He placed a hand on Trent's shoulder. It felt solid, warm. Real.
"I wanted you to find your own path. To awaken not because you were my son, but because you had found something worth fighting for."
Trent stared at his father. "But I failed. I got the worst possible rank. I can barely create enough water to fill a cup."
A small smile played at the corner of his father's mouth. "Did you really think strength comes only from high ranks? That the system created by humans to categorize awakened abilities is somehow the absolute measure of worth?"
"I... what?"
His father stood, pulling Trent to his feet. "The ranking system is flawed. It measures raw power output, destructive capacity, immediate utility. It doesn't measure potential. It doesn't measure growth. And it certainly doesn't measure heart."
Trent frowned. "But what good is heart when you can't pay the bills? When you can't protect your family?"
"You're thinking too small," his father said. "You're thinking like someone trapped in the system, not someone who could transcend it."
He began walking, gesturing for Trent to follow. As they moved across the endless water, the sky above them darkened further, stars appearing.
"We fear failure because we think it's the end," his father continued. "But failure is just the beginning. It's the first step toward something greater."
Trent struggled to keep up, his mind racing to process his father's words. "Dad, I'm dead. There are no more steps for me."
His father stopped, turning to face him. "Are you certain about that?"
"I... I heard the Nurses. No pulse. No blood pressure. I died."
"Yes," his father agreed. "Your body died. But you're still here, aren't you?"
Trent looked around at the impossible landscape of water and starlight. "Where is 'here' exactly?"
"The In-Between. The space between life and death, between ending and beginning." His father gestured at the endless expanse. "Few souls linger here. Most pass straight through to whatever comes next. But some—those with unfinished business, with deep regrets, with powerful connections to the living world—they stay for a time."
"So I'm... what? A ghost?"
His father shook his head. "Not exactly. Think of yourself as... potential. Energy without form. Consciousness without vessel."
Trent ran a hand through his hair, frustrated. "I don't understand what any of this has to do with my failure, or Mom and Mira being alone, or—"
"What if you could go back?" his father interrupted.
Trent's froze . "What?"