Cold. That's the first thing I notice. Not the kind of cold you can shiver away no, this one seeps into me, like it's inside my bones.
I'm lying on something smooth… wet, maybe. I can't move. My limbs won't respond. I can't even tell if I have limbs. I try to open my eyes, but there's nothing. Just darkness.
It's so quiet it hurts.
Did I… die?
The thought doesn't sound like my voice. It just drifts somewhere in the void, like I threw it out and it never came back. I can't tell if I'm breathing. I can't feel a heartbeat. I don't feel alive, but I don't feel gone either.
So this is what death feels like? No fire, no light, just a black, empty space. Figures. Even hell didn't want me.
I try to laugh, but I can't move my mouth. Great. Can't talk, can't scream, can't even move. If this is the afterlife, I got scammed.
My mind drifts to the bridge. The cold air. The way my fingers slipped. That last second when I knew I was done for. I thought maybe I'd see something when I hit the water — a light, an angel, my mom maybe. But no. Just this.
"Guess this is what I get, huh?" I mutter inside my head. "All that talk about divine plans and second chances…"
I can't tell how long I've been here. Minutes? Hours? Years? It doesn't matter.
If this is hell, it's not fire and brimstone. It's silence. It's being stuck alone with your thoughts forever.
In the eerie silence of the dark place, I felt something strange.
Peace.
It shouldn't have made sense not here, not after everything but there it was. A calm so deep it almost scared me. My body, or whatever was left of it, rested in what felt like shallow water. Cold, smooth, still.
I couldn't tell if I was lying down or floating. It didn't matter.
Even my thoughts felt lighter… unburdened. The weight I'd carried all my life the debt, the stress, the heartbreak, the endless grind, it all just… slipped away.
I couldn't remember the last time I felt like this. Hell, maybe never.
All I ever did was run from work, from failure, from everything that made living feel like a punishment. Never a day of rest, never a breath that wasn't heavy.
And now… silence.
The difference was so sharp it almost felt like a joke.
"Heh," I muttered in my head, the thought bubbling up like a sigh."Guess I should've died earlier."
For the first time in… maybe forever, I felt weightless. No pain. No noise. No expectations.
Just peace.
I let it wash over me, sinking deeper into the quiet. Maybe this was what I'd been chasing all along not happiness, not purpose, just rest. A place where nothing and no one could reach me.
Yeah… this wasn't so bad. Maybe death wasn't the worst thing after all.
I almost smiled at the thought.
And then a whisper brushed against my ear.
"I don't think they're gonna let you rest so easily… Delian."
My eyes snapped open or at least, I thought they did. There was still nothing but darkness, stretching forever. Yet I felt something now. Something alive. Watching.
The voice wasn't loud. It didn't echo. It was right there, like someone leaning close enough to breathe against my neck.
My body if I still had one went cold.
Who the hell
I couldn't move. Couldn't speak. The silence had become my only company, so when that whisper came… I thought maybe I was losing it.
Hallucinating. That had to be it. I was dead, alone, and my brain was just what? Filling the void with imaginary voices?
But then, as if it heard me think it
"You aren't hallucinating, Delian."
Every inch of me froze. The numbness that had dulled my senses suddenly cracked, replaced by something raw and primal. Fear. The kind that crawls up your spine and makes you wish you were dreaming.
The voice didn't sound human. It tried to be, but it wasn't. Hoarse, distorted like someone dragging metal across stone and forcing it to whisper and other distorted voices piling on it one after the other.
I wanted to tell myself I was imagining it again, that I was just hearing things.
"No," it said, before I could even finish the thought.
My mind stuttered. It could… hear me?
"Yes," the voice replied.
That single word echoed in my skull, heavy and deliberate.
WHAT THE FUCK!?
The thought exploded out of me before I could stop it. I didn't know what terrified me more that I wasn't alone, or that something out there could hear every thought I had.
"You're too loud," the voice said, sounding almost like it was wincing.
I froze. My pulse if I even had one hammered in my chest. "Who… who are you?" I thought, the words trembling inside my head. "What do you want?"
"I want to talk, Delian," the voice replied calmly, as if this were the most normal thing in the world. "And as for who I am… let's just say, I'm the owner of the place you're in right now."
My mind blanked."Owner of… this place?" I muttered. Then, trying to make sense of the absurdity, I added nervously, "So… what? Satan?"
There was a pause. Then the voice came back sharper, heavier, with an edge that could cut through bone with an almost offended tone.
"Do not call me that."
The air or whatever surrounded me shook.
"Alright! Alright, my bad!" I blurted in my head. "Sorry, I didn't mean to offend uh whoever you are."
"Apology accepted," the voice said, its tone softening slightly, though there was still a rumble beneath it like laughter buried under thunder. Not a human laugh not even close. It was low and layered, like several people laughing at once, echoing through the dark until it rattled in my skull.
"You really are an interesting individual, Delian. Terrified out of your mind, yet you still choose to speak so casually with me."
I swallowed or tried to. "I'm only talking because I can't do anything else," I thought bitterly. "Can't move. Can't run. What else am I supposed to do?"
The voice hummed, amused.
"Fair enough."
A pause. Then, softly almost playfully it asked,
"Say, Delian… do you know how long you've been here?"
I hesitated."Uh… a few minutes, maybe?"
That earned another laugh deeper this time, like the sound of rocks grinding underwater.
"A few minutes? No, no, no…" it said. "You've been here for months."
My mind blanked. "What?"
"Yes," the voice purred. "Time flows… differently here. You only just woke up."
"Woke up?" I echoed, frowning. "What's that supposed to mean? I died I fell off a damn bridge. What do you mean woke up?"
The darkness around me seemed to pulse, faint ripples spreading through the void.
"Exactly what I said," the voice murmured. "You died there… and awoke here."
I wanted to argue, but the words wouldn't form. Because for the first time, I realized something terrifying I couldn't even remember what my body felt like anymore.
I hesitated for a moment, then asked softly, "What do you mean, woke up?"
"I mean exactly that," the voice said. "You're in the Void, Delian. The space between everything. A place where lost souls wander after death."
The words hit me like a cold splash of water not that I could feel anything here.
The Void. Lost souls. Death.
So it was real then. I really was dead.
If I still had a face, I think I smiled a sad one."So that's it, huh?" I thought. "Guess I didn't make it after all."
"Who would, after falling from that height?" the voice replied almost casually. "The police found your body three days later. Died from the impact and drowning."
I let out a shaky mental laugh. "That's… grim."
"Do you know what's more grim?" the voice asked, and this time, it didn't sound like just one being speaking dozens of overlapping tones, all echoing the same question at once.
"…What?"
"Only a handful of people showed up to your funeral."
That one stung but not enough to surprise me."Yeah," I muttered in my head, "that sounds about right."
"You aren't sad?"
"Of course I am," I admitted. "I didn't live the life I wanted. Worked myself half to death, then literally died miserable. What's there not to be sad about?"
For a moment, the darkness seemed to hum quietly, like the voice was thinking.
"And yet…" it said softly, "you sound more angry than sad."
"Angry?" I repeated the word in my head. "Yeah… I guess I am."
The voice hummed like it already knew the answer.
I thought for a second, then asked, "If this place exists… then there's a better one too, right?"
"Oh, you mean heaven?" the voice asked, almost too casually.
I hesitated. "Y-Yeah…"
"Most definitely, yes."
Something about how confidently it said that sent a chill through me.
"And if you're wondering," the voice added, its tone curling with something like spite, "yes, those bastards are up there."
"Thought so…" I muttered. "I did insult them before I died, didn't I?"
"You did."
I took a slow mental breath. "So… me dying that wasn't because I mocked heaven, was it?"
"No..." the voice said immediately. "That was just your stupidity....."
"…Excuse me?"
"Who," it continued dryly, "stands on a slippery bridge railing, drunk out of their mind, in the middle of the night, with no one around, and expects nothing to happen?"
I stared into the dark, speechless for a second. "Okay… fair point."
"You humans always want someone to blame," the voice said with faint amusement. "Even when you've already done the job yourselves."
I let out a breath or at least the memory of one. "Guess even death comes with a lecture."
"Would you prefer silence again?"
"…No," I thought. "Keep talking."
The voice went quiet for a moment, almost as if it was thinking. Then, in that same calm, layered tone, it said,
"Though, if you had somehow stayed alive after that night… it wouldn't have been good either."
That pulled me up short. "What?"
"You mocked them," it said simply. "And those beings you cursed? They don't take insults lightly. If you'd survived that fall, they'd have made sure your life turned into a living hell."
I winced. Somehow, even in death, that sent a chill down my spine. "So you're saying… I was screwed either way?"
The voice didn't answer right away. It didn't need to.
I let out a dry laugh sharp and broken. "Hah… figures. My life was already a damn mess, and now you're telling me it'd have gotten worse?"
"The universe has a cruel sense of humor," the voice replied, almost sounding amused.
"What a stupid fucking joke."
After a pause the then voice asked,
"Do you… regret it?"
At first, I thought maybe I did. A little.
But then I remembered everything it had just told me. If I'd survived that fall, my life would have turned into a living hell all because I mocked some heavenly beings.
I lingered in that thought, letting the darkness press against me. For the first time, I allowed myself to think about what life had been — miserable, exhausting, full of deadlines, debt, heartbreak. The bridge. The fall. Victor's endless complaints. Mom. Sofia… all of it.
And yet, even in that misery, I had a spark of defiance. A tiny, stubborn refusal to bow to the grind, the petty rules, the so-called "divine plan" everyone preached.
That spark had nearly cost me more than my life.
I let out a bitter laugh. How absurd. My life, already a mess, could have gotten worse. Far worse. All because of some egotistical sky beings who decided a human's insult mattered.
"Petty," I muttered to myself. "Shameless. Undeserving. And I was supposed to grovel?"
The voice laughed — low, distorted, layered, echoing all around me like broken glass and thunder.
"Yes! Yes, Delian! They are petty. Shameless. Undeserving. I was right about you!"
I stared into the darkness, stunned.
I had nothing to say.
"Huh?" I finally thought