The night I died, the world was silent.
No thunder split the clouds. No sirens wailed in the distance. No miracle came racing through the dark to pull me out of the fire.
There was only the crackle of flames eating through old woodand the slow, patient drip of blood sliding down my ribs.
I sat chained to a steel chair in the center of an old warehouse, wrists bound so tightly that every twitch scraped bone against metal. The air shimmered with heat. Flames crawled along the walls, licking at rusted beams and broken windows, turning the whole place into a furnace.
Smoke stung my eyes and clawed at my lungs, but I refused to close them.
My last sight would be their faces.If I was going to die, I would watch the ones who chose it.
Footsteps echoed across the concrete. Unhurried. Certain.
Lucas stepped into the light.
My older brother. My partner. The man I trusted to watch my back when every knife in the city was pointed at it. Tonight, the fire made a halo around him, reflecting in his dark eyes as if he had dragged the flames here himself.
He wore a black suit that probably cost more than this rotting building. Not a speck of ash on him. Not even his tie was out of place.
He had always hated fire.
But now he looked beautiful in it.
"Aiden," he said softly, as if greeting me at a family dinner. "Look at you."
His voice was steady. Calm. The same tone he used when discussing profit margins and expansion plans.
I tasted metal as I forced a crooked smile. "You picked a dramatic stage for a board meeting."
Lucas' lips curved, but there was no warmth in it.
"You built an empire," he murmured, stepping closer. "You made this city whisper your name. And somewhere along the way, you started believing you were untouchable."
He crouched, lowering himself until his eyes were level with mine. His cologne cut through the stench of smoke and blood, sharp and expensive.
"Power," he continued, his gaze flicking over the burns already blistering on my arms, "makes people stupid. Even you."
I let out a low breath that might have been a laugh.
"Is that what this is?" I asked. "A lesson?"
His smile sharpened.
"No," he said. "Lessons are for people who can change. This is… closure."
Footsteps joined his. Lighter. Slower. The sound of high heels on cracked concrete.
I did not need to turn my head to know.
Evelyn.
She emerged from the curtain of smoke like something the fire itself had shaped. Her long dark hair fell over the shoulder of her white coat. The flames turned the strands into flowing embers. In her right hand, she held a slender silver dagger that caught the light and scattered it in cold flashes.
The woman I loved.The woman I would have died for without hesitation.
Apparently, she had decided to test that.
She did not rush. Did not flinch at the heat. She moved with the same calm grace she always had, like the chaos around her existed only for decoration.
"Sorry, Aiden," she said eventually.
She did not look at the chains. Or the burns.
She looked at me like I was already dead.
"You were always going to fall," she continued, almost gently. "You climbed too high. People up there forget what the ground feels like."
Something inside my chest snapped. It was not a bone.
It was worse.
"Was it ever real?" I asked.
My voice came out raw, scraped thin by smoke and betrayal. All the memories crowded in at once: her laughter in my office, her hand over mine guiding a pen across a contract, her head resting on my shoulder while we watched the city lights from the rooftop.
The silence stretched.
For one heartbeat, the fire felt distant. The world waited with me.
Evelyn hesitated. Just a fraction.
Then a small smile curved her lips.
"No," she said.
It landed like a blade between my ribs.
She had always known exactly where to cut.
Lucas rose and took a step back, his silhouette framed by the burning walls.
"This city will belong to me now," he said. "The banks, the streets, the shadows. All of it. And you…" He studied me like I was nothing more than a problem finally solved. "You will fade into ash. Forgotten."
He snapped his fingers.
Two men appeared from the gloom behind me, their faces hidden behind masks. They dragged something heavy across the floor, iron shrieking against concrete. When they hauled it upright, I saw it clearly.
A metal cross.Thick. Brutal. Primitive.
Runes were carved along its arms, etched deep into the steel. They glowed faintly, the light a sickly, holy white that did not belong in a place like this.
My throat tightened.
Holy seals.
They did not just burn flesh. They seared spirit, carved into soul, turned a person into empty static. This was not an execution.
It was erasure.
Even in death, they did not want me left behind.
"Lucas," I rasped, my voice hoarse. "You realize every back you ever show after this will be a target, right?"
He tilted his head as if considering it.
"Let them try," he said. "You are the only one who could have stopped me."
He nodded to the men beside the cross.
"Light it."
The floor exploded in white fire.
The pain did not feel human.
Every nerve in my body came alive at once, screaming as holy flame raced up my veins like molten metal. Skin blistered and split. Muscles tore. The seals dug hooks into something deeper than flesh and pulled.
I threw my head back and roared as the light devoured me from the inside out.
They watched.
They did not look away. Not Lucas. Not Evelyn. They stood in the halo of the burning cross and took in every second.
The heat should have blinded them. It did not.
My vision, though, began to fray at the edges. The warehouse blurred, dissolving into streaks of orange and white. The roar of the flames faded until all I could hear was my own heartbeat.
Slow.Heavy.Distant.
I forced my eyes to find Evelyn through the haze.
She finally met my gaze.
I searched for something in her eyes. Pity. Regret. Doubt. Anything.
There was nothing.
Only satisfaction.
"Goodbye, Aiden," she whispered.
The seals flared.
The world shattered.
Darkness did not fall.
It detonated.
For a long moment, there was nothing. No sound. No heat. No weight. I floated in an empty silence where even pain could not reach me.
Then something pulled.
A thread snapped tight around my existence and dragged.
Warmth returned.
Not the scorching rage of holy fire. A softer heat.
Sunlight.
Air crashed back into my lungs. I choked on it, rolling to my side as a machine screeched nearby. My heart hammered so hard it felt like it might punch through my chest.
No chains.
No cross.
The stench of burning wood was gone, replaced by disinfectant and sterile sheets.
I was lying in a hospital bed.
For a second, I did not move. I just listened to the beeping of the heart monitor and the hiss of air conditioning, trying to understand how any of this could exist after what I had felt.
Slowly, I brought my hands into view.
No burns.
No ruined flesh.
My wrists were clean. Pale. Smooth.
Like holy fire had never touched them.
Like Lucas and Evelyn had never stood before me.
My breath quickened. I sat up too fast, dizziness washing over me in a wave. The blanket tangled around my legs as I swung them off the bed. Cold tile met my bare feet.
I stumbled to the mirror mounted on the opposite wall.
The face staring back at me was mine.
But not the one I had last seen reflected in warehouse glass and firelight.
This one was younger. No scars carved by a decade of struggle. No tired shadows beneath the eyes. The jaw was sharper, the gaze less worn, anger not yet etched into every line.
Eighteen.
My fingers lifted, touching the mirror, then my own cheek.
"No," I whispered. "That is not possible."
The door burst open.
"Aiden! What are you doing?" A nurse rushed in, the panic in her voice crackling like static. "You cannot be out of bed, you just came out of surgery!"
I ignored the ache in my skull and grabbed her arm. Her eyes widened as she met my stare.
"What year is it?" I demanded.
She blinked. "What?"
"The year," I snapped. "Tell me the year."
"Two thousand twenty six," she stammered. "February. Why does that matter, you should lie down, your vitals are unstable—"
Her voice faded into the background.
Two thousand twenty six.Ten years before the warehouse.Ten years before holy seals and white fire.Ten years before my own brother burned me out of existence.
My grip loosened. I took a step back, heart pounding so loud it drowned the machine beside me.
The mirror fogged with my breath though the room was not cold.
That was when I heard it.
A voice slid through my mind like a blade of glass, clear and mechanical, every word carved in ice.
[System initializing]
[Sin Protocol activated]
[Welcome back, Aiden Crow]
My pulse stumbled.
I stared at my reflection, but my vision shifted. Lines of crimson text burned across the air in front of me, layered over the mirror, over the room, over the frightened nurse still hovering near the door.
[Objective: Rewrite your fate]
[Primary directive: Enact vengeance upon those who betrayed you]
[Reward structure: Power gained through fear, domination, conquest, and sin]
The words pulsed like a second heartbeat in my skull.
My mouth went dry. I had dealt with gods and monsters disguised as men. I had paid priests to whisper blessings and curses. I had seen strange things in the deeper corners of the city.
Nothing like this.
More text slid into place, sharp and merciless.
[First task assigned]
[Humiliate your future murderer publicly within the next 24 hours]
[Target: Lucas Crow]
[Reward: 500 Sin Points + first ability unlock]
[Consequence for failure: Permanent system lock]
The hospital lights flickered overhead.
The nurse swore under her breath, glancing up at the ceiling. "Not again. The power grid has been acting strange all week…"
She could not see the crimson words burning in the air.
But I could.
My reflection in the mirror smiled slowly. There was something cold and hungry in that expression that had not been there even at thirty.
I did not smile back.
"Lucas," I said softly.
The memory of white fire and his calm voice in the burning warehouse slammed into me.
He had watched me die.Now I would watch him fall.
"This time," I whispered, "you die screaming."
I tore the IV from my arm. The needle ripped free, leaving a sting and a trail of blood down my wrist. The nurse shouted my name, lunging forward to stop me, but she might as well have been shouting at a storm.
I pushed past her, the hospital gown fluttering around my legs as I stepped into the corridor. The world felt too sharp, every sound and color amplified. Nurses moved between rooms. A doctor barked instructions at a passing intern. The smell of medicine and cheap coffee filled the air.
Ten years.
Ten stolen years.
All of them now laid out in front of me like a second chance wrapped in barbed wire.
The system's words burned at the edge of my vision.
[Objective in progress]
I walked down the corridor without looking back.
Behind me, the nurse called for security. Somewhere, a machine still shrieked an alarm I had triggered by abandoning the bed. None of it mattered.
I pressed my palm against the cool metal of the main door.
The world beyond waited in darkness.
The first time, I had climbed my way up from nothing with my bare hands, only to be pushed into holy fire when I reached the top.
This time, I would not climb.
I would conquer.
The doors slid open.
Night air spilled in, sharp and cold against my skin, carrying with it the distant rumble of traffic and the restless pulse of the city.
I stepped forward.
Barefoot.Dressed in a thin hospital gown.Burning with a purpose the fire could not destroy.
The world did not know it yet.
But I was coming to take everything back.