The first thing that returned was regret. It was a cold, heavy stone in the hollow where his stomach used to be. Max wasn't thinking, he was *feeling*—a torrent of emotional echoes from a life already lived.
He saw Stella's face, not as it was in the cavern—twisted in horror—but as it was in the stolen light of the viewscreen: full of wonder, her silver eyes reflecting a world of sun and sand. He felt the ghost of her shoulder brushing against his on the rusted fire escape. He heard her laughter, a sound so clean and bright it felt like a blasphemy in the memory of Limbo.
*I never told her,* the thought came, clear and sharp as broken glass. *I never told her she was the only good thing. That I wanted to build a life for us, somewhere with a real sky. I never even held her hand, not really. Not like I wanted to.*
The memories of their final moments played on a loop. The smug cruelty on Rake's face. The impact of fists and boots. His own pathetic, feeble struggles. The cold, suffocating embrace of the black water. A fresh, searing hatred for his own weakness bloomed alongside the regret. His body had been a fragile, breakable thing. A prison of flesh and bone that had failed him, failed *her*, at the most critical moment.
*It's over,* the thought whispered, a final, despairing sigh. *It's all over. She's alone with him. And I'm…*
Dead.
The word should have been an end. A period. But instead, it was a question mark.
He was jolted back into a semblance of consciousness not with a gentle awakening, but with the violent, gasping panic of a drowning man breaking the surface. His eyes snapped open, and he drew in a ragged, desperate breath that burned his lungs. He was on his knees, his hands braced on a cool, smooth surface that felt like polished obsidian.
*Alive? How am I alive?*
His mind, still waterlogged with death, tried to make sense of his surroundings. He was in a cavern of impossible scale. The air was still and silent, yet it thrummed with a low, sub-audible power that vibrated in his teeth. The ground beneath him was a vast, dark plain, and in the distance, walls of seamless black rock soared into a gloom that hid any ceiling. The only light came from the air itself, a faint, ethereal luminescence that cast no shadows.
His frantic panting was the loudest sound in the universe.
Then, the world *breathed*.
It was a sigh that came from everywhere at once, a seismic exhalation that stirred the still air into a sudden, gentle gale. The wind tousled his hair, dried the phantom river water on his skin, and carried with it a scent of ancient stone and ozone.
His gaze, wide with dawning, primal terror, was drawn upward and forward.
And he saw it.
The being from his fleeting vision was not a dream. It was a monument to power and despair. Chained to a throne of fused, skeletal remains and dark rock was a titan. Its skin was the colour of a starless midnight, and its form was so vast that his mind could not initially comprehend it. He was a speck of dust at the foot of a mountain. Magical chains, each link the size of a building block and glowing with intricate, pulsating runes of silver and gold, coiled around its limbs, its torso, its neck, pinning it to the colossal throne. The chains hummed, the source of the cavern's pervasive vibration.
The titan's head, crowned with horns of spiralling ebony, shifted a fraction of an inch. A movement that would have displaced continents in another age.
A voice, not heard with ears but felt in the marrow of his bones, in the core of his soul, resonated through him. It was deep, old as the bedrock of the world, and held a weight of epochs.
"Boy."
It was not a shout. It was a simple statement. But it was a force of nature.
Max's entire nervous system short-circuited. The fear wasn't psychological; it was biological, absolute. His legs, which had been trembling, turned to water. His eyes rolled back into his head, the world disappearing behind a screen of blinding white. A froth of pure panic bubbled from his lips as his body, unable to process the sheer magnitude of the presence before it, simply shut down. He collapsed back onto the obsidian floor, dead for the second time.
---
Consciousness returned, strangely, with less panic. He was floating, weightless, several feet above the ground, directly in front of the titan's immense, shadowed face. Two points of soft, silver light, like distant galaxies, regarded him from the gloom.
Max opened his mouth, and a high-pitched, uninterrupted scream tore out of him. It was the scream he hadn't had the air to make in the river.
***"Oh, for Order's sake... shut up."***
The voice was laced with a profound, cosmic annoyance. Max's scream cut off as if a switch had been flipped, though his mouth continued to open and soundlessly close like a stranded fish.
***"If you die of fright again,"*** the titan continued, his tone dry as desert bones, ***"I will personally ensure you do not come back. It has been a very, very long time since I heard another voice. If all of your kind are this... excitable, I am not sure I have been missing much."***
Max managed a weak, trembling gulp. The sheer normalcy of the being's irritation was somehow more grounding than any reassurance could have been.
***"You are unharmed,"*** the voice stated, its patience clearly being tested. ***"Your body is reconstituted. Your spirit is intact. Cease your flailing."***
To emphasize the point, the titan's will gently lowered Max until his feet touched the ground. He stood on wobbly knees, his heart still hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs.
"W-who... what are you?" Max stammered, his voice a thin reed in the vastness. "Where is this? Am I... in the afterlife?"
***"In a manner of speaking. This is my afterlife. My prison."*** The titan shifted, the chains groaning in protest with a sound like grinding continents. ***"But you are a guest, not an inmate. For now. Tell me, how did a mortal whelp find his way into the heart of my cage? The Styx does not usually deliver... packages."***
The question, and the being's strange, almost comical demeanor, cut through some of Max's fear. Shame and anger quickly flooded in to replace it. He looked down at his hands, the memory of his powerlessness fresh and raw.
"I was... killed," he said, the words tasting like ash. He narrated the events in a halting, emotional rush—the confrontation with Rake, the beating, Stella's screams, the cold plunge into the forbidden river. "I wasn't strong enough to protect her. I wasn't strong enough to do anything."
The titan was silent for a long moment, the silver lights of its eyes unwavering.
***"This city... Limbo. Describe it to me. Now."***
The request was sudden, intense. Max did his best, painting a picture of the perpetual twilight, the scarce resources, the brutal rule of the Barons and their gangs. He spoke of the gold coins, the mythical boat, the desperate acts committed for a sliver of hope.
***"Do they still have those little fried dough balls dusted with crystal-sugar? The ones that melt on the tongue?"*** the titan asked, his tone suddenly wistful.
Max blinked, thrown by the non-sequitur. "I... what? No. Nobody has sugar. People fight over mouldy bread."
***"A tragedy. And the Sunstone Gardens? The fountains that sang the hymns of creation?"***
"Gardens?" Max let out a bitter, choked laugh. "The only things that grow in Limbo are rust and despair. It's a hellscape. It's been that way for as long as anyone can remember."
A low, dangerous rumble started deep within the titan, a sound that made the very air pressure change. The glowing runes on his chains flared brightly, as if in warning.
***"As long as anyone can remember,"*** he repeated, the wistfulness gone, replaced by a cold, simmering fury. ***"Of course. That is the point. To make them forget what was."***
"Forgot what?" Max asked, his curiosity overpowering his fear. "What was it before?"
***"It was my charge,"*** the titan's voice boomed, echoing through the cavern. ***"My purpose! I was a Lord of Order, tasked with nurturing this world, with maintaining peace and prosperity! Limbo was not a city of damned souls; it was a bastion, a beautiful, thriving nexus! And I was its guardian!"***
His aura flared, a visible nimbus of silver and white energy that pushed against the darkness, causing the chains to scream in protest. Max shielded his eyes, feeling the raw, untamed power wash over him.
***"But Order has its opposite. A being of pure entropy and malice—the Lord of Chaos. He coveted this world. He could not create, so he sought to corrupt. He tricked me, lured me here, and with the aid of betrayers, he bound me with these chains, forged in the heart of a dying star and inscribed with the laws of reality themselves. He cast me down into this pit, and he has been reigning in my stead, twisting my world, perverting its systems, feeding on the suffering he sows. The 'Barons' you speak of are likely his chosen conduits, little more than puppets he grants a shred of power to in exchange for spreading his corruption."***
Max listened, his awe growing with every word. This wasn't just a story; it was the secret history of his entire existence. The reason for the darkness, the suffering, the hopelessness.
"You have to stop him!" Max said, a spark of desperate hope igniting within him. "You have to go back and fix it! Make it peaceful again!"
***"YES!"*** the titan's roar was a physical force. ***"I will shatter my chains! I will return to Limbo, I will tear the Lord of Chaos limb from limb, and I will pronounce my judgment upon all who have embraced his darkness! I will scour the city clean of their sin!"***
The word "sin" hit Max like a physical blow. The spark of hope sputtered.
"Sin?" he asked, his voice small. "What... what do you consider a sin?"
***"Any act that brings harm to another! Any act that spreads chaos and despair! Theft, violence, betrayal! They have wallowed in it, and they will BURN for it!"***
Max's heart plummeted. "But... everyone in Limbo has done those things. *I've* done those things. We steal to eat. We fight to survive. We've lied, we've cheated... we did it all for the coins, for a chance, any chance, to get Stella out of there. Are we all supposed to burn?"
The titan's furious energy seemed to pause. The silver lights of his eyes narrowed, focusing on Max with an unnerving intensity. He could feel the being's perception scanning him, sifting through the echoes of his life.
***"I sense the truth in you, child. Your acts were born of desperation, not malice. The spark of Order still flickers in your heart, buried under the grime of survival."*** The titan's voice softened marginally. ***"Do not worry. We are... companions in misfortune. I will not exact judgment upon you when I am free. In fact, I could grant you and your Stella passage from that place. A true escape, to a world with a sun."***
The offer was everything Max had ever dreamed of. But it was tied to this being's freedom. "How?" Max asked, stepping forward eagerly. "How can I free you?"
***"You cannot,"*** the titan stated, the finality in his voice like a door slamming shut. ***"You are a mortal soul, fragile as a soap bubble. You lack the power to so much as scratch these chains. You are... weak."***
The word was a spear through Max's heart, confirming his deepest insecurity. His shoulders slumped, the brief flare of enthusiasm extinguished. He was reminded, cruelly, that even in the face of a god, he was nothing.
"However,"*** the titan's voice came again, a low, conspiratorial rumble. "There is... a path. A way we can both achieve our goals."
Max looked up, his eyes wide. "How?"
***"You wish for power to protect her? To change your world? I require a hand to wield my will in a realm I cannot currently touch. Become my Avatar. Let my power of Order flow into you. Let your flesh be my vessel. You would become my Reaper in the world above, and together, we will cut the cancer of Chaos from Limbo."***
The offer hung in the air, immense and terrifying.
***"Do not answer lightly, mortal,"*** the titan warned, his tone deadly serious. ***"The path will be drenched in the blood of the wicked. You will face the Lord of Chaos and his cohorts—beings of such vile darkness that their mere presence can suffocate the soul. The weight of my power may very well shatter your mind. This is not a gift. It is a pact."***
Max didn't need to think. He had lived in hell his entire life. He had already faced the deepest darkness the world had to offer in the form of Rake's cruelty and his own helplessness. The thought of that suffocating darkness held no new terror for him. But the thought of Stella, alone and afraid, did. The thought of a world where the innocent suffered forever, did.
He met the titan's galactic gaze, and for the first time, he did not flinch. He saw his own resolve reflected in those silver points of light—a hard, cold certainty.
"I accept," Max said, his voice steady, devoid of any fear. "I will be your Reaper."
The titan observed him for a long, silent moment. He saw the regret, the love, the hatred for weakness, and the iron will that had been forged in the fires of a hopeless life.
"So be it."
Max felt a surge of anticipation. "What happens now? Do I get the power?"
The titan's massive form seemed to lean forward, the shadows on his face shifting into a devilish, knowing smile.
"Now," the voice echoed, filled with a grim finality, "you die."
Before Max could even process the words, the world vanished. The obsidian floor rushed up to meet him, and for the third time, everything went black.