I dreamed again.
Not of monsters. Not of fire. Paperwork.
Endless glowing scrolls stacked to the sky. Angels in suits flying around like
caffeine-addicted pigeons, stamping documents with holy approval seals. Every time a
scroll got approved, it disintegrated into sparkly dust.
One angel sighed so hard it created a tiny hurricane.
"Welcome to the Divine Court," said a voice behind me. "Please take a number."
I turned—and yeah. There was a line. A literal line of souls stretching miles long. Some of
them had been waiting for centuries.
"This is... heaven's DMV," I muttered. "Figures."
I looked down and realized I was holding a clipboard.
Case #8421 — Denied Reincarnation: Self-Termination Clause 3B.
My own name was stamped on it in big glowing letters. "Wow. Even in death I'm
paperwork."
Before I could complain, the whole place started to glitch—like someone hit
CTRL+ALT+DELETE on reality.
The angels melted into patterns of glass and light, forming a tall woman made entirely of
reflections. Her face shimmered like broken mirrors.
Vanae, Goddess of Order. And she looked like she'd rather be anywhere else.
"You shouldn't be here," she said, voice echoing like twenty librarians judging me at once.
"Yeah, people keep saying that," I said. "Starting to think it's my brand."
She ignored me, scribbling glowing symbols into the air with a quill made of starlight.
"What are you writing?" I asked.
"The Laws. The Fragments that define reality."
"So… like cosmic terms and conditions?"
"Yes. Binding for all gods. Each of us is trapped by our own."
She turned, eyes cold as glass. "You, however, have none. You are an error."
"Cool," I said. "Always wanted to stand out."The scene flickered again. Now I was in a throne room the size of existence. Each throne
held something weird—some abstract god made of ideas. One was a skeleton made of
chains. One was a cloud of whispers. One was just… a giant floating eye.
Then a new voice spoke, dry as dust: Esmariel, Archivist of Forgetting.
"Every god is chained by their Law," he said. "Kyreus by the Accord. Vanae by Reflection.
Me... by memory itself."
"And me?"
"You? You're the typo the universe forgot to delete."
"Neat."
The room started shaking. Chains rattled across every throne.
A voice boomed: "Erase the Echo-born before he learns the Law."
That didn't sound good.
Suddenly, glowing text strings filled the air—floating like holy spaghetti. Each one hummed
with cosmic power, twisting and rewriting everything they touched.
I did the obvious thing.
I poked one.
It screamed. Then exploded.
White light swallowed everything.
When I woke up, Alis was staring down at me like I'd just told her I ate soap.
"You were twitching again," she said. "Nightmare?"
I sat up. My hand was glowing—new symbols spinning around the old mark like they were
gossiping about me.
"Not a nightmare," I said. "More like... a tutorial."
"A what?"
"A memo from the gods. Turns out they just realized I can read their laws."
Alis frowned. "And that's bad because…?"
"Because," I grinned, "they can't change them—but I can."