In the 2nd Hello, the atmosphere was a thick, cloying violet. Unlike the mechanical brutality of the 1st Hello, this realm was a place of eternal, muddy twilight where the air tasted of copper and unkept promises. Here, the "Corrupted"—those who had actively chosen sin and ignored every warning—dwelt in a sprawling, dilapidated city that looked like a Victorian slum submerged in a swamp.
Near the edge of a jagged obsidian square, a man was struggling through the thick, black mire. This was Shetan, the crawler who had first encountered Robert on the desert plains of the afterlife. He was a man split vertically down the middle; his left side was a functional, muscled torso, while his right side was a trailing weight of pale, unresponsive flesh that dragged behind him like a heavy anchor.
His progress was agonizingly slow, his single hand digging into the slick mud to haul his dead weight forward. He stopped beside a rust-eaten wheelbarrow abandoned near a pile of jagged slag.
Standing nearby was a woman named Gerry. She was dressed in the faded, tattered violet rags of the 2nd Hello, her face hardened by a lifetime of selfishness that had followed her into the grave. She was busy scraping the grime from her fingernails with a piece of sharpened bone, ignoring the wet, rhythmic thud-drag of Shetan's approach.
"Hey!" Shetan called out, his voice a strained, wet rasp. He reached the wheelbarrow and collapsed against its metal frame, his single eye darting toward the Gallows Clock—a massive, glowing timepiece suspended in the center of the square.
The hands of the clock were jagged blades, ticking toward the Roman numeral VIII. It was 7:45 PM.
"You there... Gerry, isn't it?" Shetan panted, wiping the black mud from his brow with his functional hand.
Gerry didn't look up. "Who's asking, half-pint?"
"Shetan," he replied, his breath coming in ragged bursts. "Listen, I need a favor. A big one. There's a place... The Velvet Noose. It's a club three sectors over, near the weeping pipes. It opens at eight sharp. If you're not there when the doors lock, you don't get in for a month."
In the 2nd Hello, clubs like The Velvet Noose were the only places where the damned could pretend they were still alive. They offered "Ethereal Wine"—a liquid that numbed the phantom pains of their crimes—and music that drowned out the distant wailing of the tiers below.
"I can't make it on my own," Shetan pleaded, gesturing to his dragging half. "The mud is too thick today. Look, this wheelbarrow... if you could just push me? It's only a mile. I have two credits hidden in my boot. I'll give you one."
Gerry finally stopped scraping her nails. She looked at the wheelbarrow, then at Shetan's mangled form, and finally at the clock. A cold, mocking smile spread across her face.
"A mile?" she repeated, her voice dripping with venom. "A mile in this muck feels like a marathon, Shetan. And you want me to break my back pushing your rotting carcass so you can go get drunk and forget you're a monster?"
"Please," Shetan begged, his single hand gripping the rim of the barrow until his knuckles turned white. "I haven't felt the numbness in days. The memories... they're starting to burn."
Gerry stepped closer, her boots squelching in the mud. She leaned over him, her shadow falling over his halved body.
"You haven't learned where you are yet, have you?" she whispered. "This isn't the world of charity galas and 'love thy neighbor.' This is the 2nd Hello. We're here because we spent our lives looking out for Number One. Why should I spend my energy helping you reach a club I'm not even invited to?"
"I told you, I'll pay!"
"Keep your credits," Gerry spat, kicking the wheelbarrow so hard it rattled against Shetan's ribs. "Sort yourself out, Crawler. In this place, if you can't walk, you crawl. If you can't crawl, you sink. I've got my own debt to pay and my own skin to worry about."
She turned her back on him, walking away into the violet haze without a single backward glance.
Shetan watched her go, his single eye welling with a frustrated, hopeless rage. He looked back at the Gallows Clock.
7:52 PM.
The bells began to toll in the distance, a low, ominous sound that signaled the opening of the clubs and the closing of the paths. Shetan let out a guttural scream of fury, digging his fingers into the black mud once more. He began to haul himself forward, the wheelbarrow mocking him with its empty, rusted belly.
The twelve-hour hourglass ran dry with a final, silent hiss of sand. Marianne stood in the center of the silver-veined kitchen, her breath coming in shallow, ragged hitches. The midnight-blue silk of her gown felt like a lead weight against her skin, and her eyes were rimmed with the red fatigue of a woman who had spent half a day fighting for a perfection she didn't believe in.
Gretchen had disappeared into the shadows of the pantry, leaving Marianne alone with the humming silence of the obsidian counters.
The heavy doors creaked open, and Kaelen, Zoe's chief assistant, stepped into the light. He held a scroll of translucent vellum that seemed to shimmer with a life of its own. He didn't look at the mess of discarded pear ribbons or the flour-dusted counters; his eyes settled on Marianne. Despite her exhaustion, the scrubbed-clean skin and the elegance of the silk made her look like a fallen queen—a sight that caused even the stoic Kaelen to linger for a second longer than necessary.
"The time of preparation has ended," Kaelen said, his voice echoing. He unrolled the scroll, laying it across the polished stone. "This is the Sacrament of the Table. It is the list of meals the Sovereign consumes daily. You will memorize it. You will live it."
Kaelen leaned against a pillar, his arms crossed. "The Sovereign is waking. You will begin with breakfast. I will observe."
Under Kaelen's watchful, appreciative gaze, Marianne moved. Her hands, though trembling from fatigue, acted on the muscle memory Gretchen had hammered into her. She prepared a dish of Winter-Grain Porridge, infused with the essence of crushed star-anise and topped with those impossible, translucent ribbons of nectar-pears. Every movement was a struggle against the fog in her mind. She felt Kaelen's eyes on the curve of her neck, on the way she handled the silver utensils with a strange, clinical grace.
She didn't look at him. She was focused on the temperature. A degree too low, and the grain would seize; a degree too high, and the pears would wilt.
When the meal was finished, she placed it on a tray of hammered silver. Beside the bowl, she laid a single, frost-tipped napkin and a spoon carved from the bone of a white horse. It was a masterpiece of order—symmetrical, pristine, and devoid of a single smudge.
Marianne straightened her back, smoothing her blue silks. "It is ready," she rasped, her voice dry from the heat of the stoves. "I will take it to him."
She reached for the tray, her heart hammering against her ribs. She expected Kaelen to open the doors to the private dining hall. Instead, he didn't move. He simply looked at the tray, then back at her, a flicker of something like pity—or perhaps warning—crossing his face.
"He won't accept it," Kaelen said flatly.
Marianne froze. "What? The temperature is exact. The proportions are perfect. I followed every instruction Gretchen gave me."
Kaelen stepped closer, his shadow falling over the silver tray. "You followed the recipe, Marianne. You followed the logic. But you are standing there with the eyes of a martyr, and your hands still smell of the effort."
He gestured to the dining hall doors, behind which the Sovereign waited in his cold, absolute silence. "Zoe Holiyos Liffender does not just eat food; he consumes the spirit of the service. If he detects even a hint of your exhaustion, or a single bead of sweat on your brow, he will consider the meal tainted by 'mortal struggle.' He wants perfection that looks as though it cost nothing."
Kaelen shook his head slowly. "Go back to the basin. Wash your face. Hide the fatigue. If you walk in there looking like you've worked for twelve hours, he will dash that tray to the floor before you even reach the table."
Marianne looked at the tray, then at the closed doors. The realization hit her like a physical blow: in this house, the labor was not the cooking—the labor was the lie of being effortless.