*****TW******
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I stood in the street without feeling the ground beneath my feet, the night draped around me like something pulled from an old dream. The air carried the scent of stillness, the kind that only existed after three in the morning when even the city grew tired of pretending it was alive.
Christo's Deli sat behind us, its windows dark, shelves empty, chairs stacked in crooked silhouettes. But the neon sign above the awning still glowed in steady green, buzzing quietly against the sky. CHRISTO'S, the letters spelled out, as if announcing itself to no one. Christo never turned it off. Said the place looked dead without it.
Riley sat on the curb with one knee drawn up, cigarette caught between his fingers, hair tousled in that way only he could manage — silver-blond strands falling into his eyes, catching the glow of the sign above us. His eyes had that lazy, warm green that softened whenever he looked at me, even on nights he pretended he felt nothing at all.
His skin held that sun-touched warmth I used to envy, and the corners of his mouth lifted every time he breathed out smoke, the ember lighting the sharp edge of his jaw.
The memory-version of me sat beside him, younger but already worn around the edges, eyes watching him as though he were the only thing in the world that felt steady. And I — the Hugo who no longer belonged to that world — stood a few feet away, watching us like someone standing before the last window of a burning building, knowing he had already died inside it.
"Give me a cigarette," the younger me said.
Riley pulled the pack from his pocket, tapping it lightly before sliding the last one free. "Last one," he said. "Make a wish before you light it."
"You believe in that shit?" my younger self asked, a tired smile tugging at his mouth.
"No," Riley said, "but I still did it every time anyway. Keeping the ritual alive."
He handed it over, fingers brushing younger Hugo's knuckles.
The me in the memory hesitated a moment before striking the lighter. I remembered the exact wish that passed through his head — through my head — like something the universe wasn't meant to hear:
I wish we could get out of here.You and me.I wish we weren't stuck in this street forever.
He lit it. The flame kissed the end briefly before shrinking back.
"That quick?" Riley asked. "You already had a wish in mind?"
My younger self inhaled, held it for a moment, then let the smoke drift from his mouth. He nodded.
Riley smiled — soft, crooked, genuine. A smile the version of me watching from the curb hadn't seen in years. "Sometimes you're unbearable in how adorable you are."
"That doesn't sound right," younger Hugo muttered, frowning. "You mean I'm soft?"
"Not necessarily soft," Riley said, shifting slightly on the curb. "But you kind of act in a way that is… sweet. Your demeanor. The way you smile. The way you talk." He shrugged. "I don't know. Forget it."
"No," younger me said. "No, I like it. It's fine."
Riley nodded, glancing back toward the street. The glow from the neon light painted his hair in warm shades of gold and green. "You don't have to stay this late with me," he said quietly. "Customers might never come eventually."
"It's okay," younger Hugo said. "I don't have anything to do anyway. Also… it must be scary waiting out here with drugs in your pockets, waiting for whoever shows up next."
Riley laughed under his breath, smoke trailing up past his cheek. "And you'll protect me?"
"I might throw a punch here or there."
Riley let out a real laugh then — bright, sudden, warm — and reached out with one hand, sliding it to the back of younger Hugo's head. He pulled him close, close enough that younger me ended up leaning against Riley's collarbone, cheek brushing the soft fabric of his shirt. Riley kissed the top of his head without ceremony, like it was something he'd always done.
Then he let him go, still smiling. "God, you're never beating the adorable allegations."
Younger Hugo laughed, a shy, embarrassed sound, smoke curling from his lips and dissolving into the night.
And I — the me standing outside the memory, watching it unfold like a scene carved into glass — felt the tears slip down my face before I realized I was crying. They fell silently, the way grief falls when it has nowhere left to land.
Riley flicked ash onto the pavement, still unaware that one day he'd be gone, and one day I'd be standing in a cell choosing hell over the world without him.
But in this moment — in this sliver of time — he was alive. He was warm. He was mine.
And all I could do was watch myself sit beside him, unaware that this was one of the last safe nights we'd ever have.
Riley lifted his head slightly and exhaled smoke into the cold air, the curl of it catching the green glow from Christo's sign. The younger me watched him, eyes softened by something warm and quiet, almost hopeful in a way I didn't remember ever being.
"What did you wish for?" Riley asked.
My younger self let the cigarette rest between two fingers, gaze drifting toward the empty street. "If I said it," he murmured, "it might not come true."
Riley gave a dry laugh, low in his chest. "I've never said any of my wishes, and they never came true anyway."
A soft sigh broke from younger Hugo, and he lowered his eyes. "I wished… if both of us could get out of here."
Something in Riley's smile faltered. Not entirely—just enough to let the truth bleed through. "But you can leave," he said.
"I said both of us," Hugo answered. "Not just myself."
Riley's eyes softened in a way that made the memory cut deeper than the present ever could. He took another slow inhale from the cigarette, the ember brightening against his lips. The smoke filled his mouth before he leaned forward and placed his hand at the back of Hugo's head again — fingers threading through his hair with a familiarity that had never been spoken out loud.
He pulled him closer, closer, until their foreheads nearly touched.
And then Riley did it — the same gesture I remembered only in fragments, like a dream held together with trembling edges.
He brought the cigarette to his lips and exhaled the smoke not into the air, but into Hugo — a steady stream passed from Riley's mouth to his, their breaths mingling in a quiet, electric closeness. Hugo inhaled it, eyes half-lidded, their faces inches apart. When he exhaled, the smoke drifted between them, trailing upward in a slow ribbon while their eyes stayed locked, breath mingling, heat brimming between their lips.
Riley's thumb smoothed the back of younger Hugo's neck, a gentle stroke that made the moment feel fragile, holy, dangerous. "You always ask for things like that," he whispered. "Big things. Impossible things."
Hugo's breath trembled. "It doesn't hurt to try."
Riley's mouth curved at the edge, something bittersweet passing through his expression.
"It always hurts to try," he said.
I exhaled, and the smoke drifted between our lips in a thin ribbon that rose and dissolved in the cold air above us.
He closed the last inch.
His mouth met mine in a full, certain kiss — warm, confident, and slow enough to let me feel the shape of him. His lips pressed firmly against mine before parting just a little, guiding me into the rhythm. It wasn't hurried or nervous; Riley kissed like someone who knew exactly what he was doing, like he had thought about it long before he acted on it.
My lips opened for him in a quiet, instinctive response. His breath mingled with mine, soft warmth passing between us each time our mouths deepened the connection. There was a subtle glide of lips, a slow pressure and release, his lower lip catching against mine before he drew me closer by the back of my neck.
His hand stayed there, firm and warm, holding me in place with a kind of protective gentleness that made my chest ache. I tilted toward him, letting the kiss settle more fully, the two of us moving in unspoken agreement — a slow pull, a slight parting, a soft meeting again.
Riley tasted like smoke and cold air and something sweet underneath, something that belonged only to nights like this when the world felt quiet enough for truth.
He pressed forward a little more, deepening the kiss without rushing it, guiding our mouths together in a way that felt natural, practiced, familiar despite being new. A soft sound escaped me — a small hitch of breath I didn't mean to give — and Riley caught it, responded with a firmer kiss, his fingers tightening just slightly at the back of my head.
For a moment, the world narrowed to the warmth of his mouth, the slow give of his lips, the quiet shared breath that blurred the line between us.
When he finally eased back, he didn't move far. His forehead rested lightly against mine, our breaths still mingling.
"You don't make anything easy," he whispered, voice warm against my mouth.
And younger me — still flushed from the kiss, still caught in the afterglow of it — let out a small, breathless laugh.
Watching it from outside the memory, I felt something inside me crack with a softness I hadn't felt in years. Tears slipped down my face again, quiet, unstoppable.
That was the night I wished harder than I ever had for both of us to survive.
Riley pulled back just enough to look at me — really look. His hand stayed cupped around the back of my neck, thumb brushing the line of my jaw as though he didn't realize he hadn't let go yet.
His expression shifted, the confidence of the kiss slipping into something softer, more unsure. His breath warmed my lips. His eyes flicked between my mouth and my eyes, caught in the space between wanting and doubting.
"Hugo…" he said, voice low, almost hoarse. "I—"
He swallowed hard, the movement visible in the glow of Christo's sign.
"I don't know why I did that," he said. "I didn't think. I just… reacted."
His fingers slid back slightly, almost pulling away, then settling again when he couldn't make himself let go. His brows drew together, the way they always did when he felt too much and didn't know how to hold it.
"You probably hated it," Riley murmured. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have— I don't know why I—"
He broke off, shaking his head a little, embarrassed in a way that made the whole night ache deeper.
"I'm sorry," he said again. Softer. "I really don't want you to feel weird because of me."
Younger me stared at him, lips still parted from the kiss, breath unsteady. He didn't say anything. He didn't know how to. And Riley mistook the silence for regret.
He let his hand slip away from my neck.
And the me standing outside the memory — the one who had lost him, burned him, missed him for years — felt something collapse inside my chest.
I should've told him then that it was fine, I thought. I should've said I didn't hate it.I should've said I wanted him to do it again.I waited. God, I waited.I waited for him to say it meant something.I waited for him to say I meant something.
The younger me kept staring, stunned, confused, overwhelmed by a tenderness he wasn't prepared for. Riley wrapped his arms around his knees, avoiding my gaze for the first time all night, the haze of smoke drifting up between us like a veil.
I watched my own silence ruin the moment.
I watched Riley assume he had crossed a line.
I watched him fold into himself a little, as if trying to keep his heart from showing.
If I could've stepped into that night, I would've pulled his face back toward mine. I would've kissed him again. I would've told him the truth.
But memories weren't doors. They were graves.
And all I could do was watch my younger self sit there, trembling from the kiss, waiting for Riley to try again, waiting for a sign, waiting for the meaning behind it—
And Riley sitting beside him, convinced he had already taken too much.
The memory dissolved the way dreams do — not all at once, but in thin, trembling layers, each one peeling away before I could hold on. Riley's warmth dimmed. The neon light faded. My younger self blurred into something weightless and unreachable.
The world shuddered.
And then I was back in my cell, lying on my side, my cheek pressed against the stiff pillow. My breath came shallow, as if I had just surfaced from underwater. The ceiling looked dimmer than before, the light from the hallway crawling across the concrete in soft strips.
I blinked, and the tears didn't fall — they stayed trapped in the corners of my eyes, thick and unmoving, as if even they were too tired to continue.
I realized something then.
Corvian hadn't followed me into the memory.
He always did. Every time he dragged me through my own past, he hovered there — observing, interfering, manipulating. But this time he didn't enter. He kept his distance.
He gave me privacy.
I couldn't understand it. A devil — a creature built to intrude, distort, twist — holding back so I could see something without him. Something he knew mattered.
I let out a slow, shaky breath.
"I can't believe you were gentle with me," I whispered to myself.
I turned onto my side, facing the wall, curling my knees slightly as the weight of Riley's kiss pressed itself into the back of my skull like a bruise I didn't want to heal.
Then the sound came.
A rush of air, sudden and close — wings cutting through space in a way that made the small cell feel even smaller. A low, rolling thump followed, something heavy hitting the floor.
I turned back sharply.
The raven stood near the foot of my bed, feathers shimmering with that strange, dark sheen that looked almost oily in the dim light. It cocked its head once. Then opened its beak.
Something dropped.
A shard of glass — long, jagged, wickedly sharp — slammed against the concrete with a crisp clatter, catching the light like a blade.
My stomach tightened.
"What's that?" I asked, voice rough.
The raven blurred — the world folded around it — and Corvian stood in its place, tall, pale, eyes shaped by something ancient and unreadable. His wings folded into his back in a ripple of shadow that disappeared as quickly as it surfaced.
"You said you're coming with me," he said.
"Yes," I murmured.
His gaze lowered to the shard. "Pick that up."
"What?" My pulse fluttered, uneven. "Why?"
"Come on," he said. Not impatient. Not cruel. Just expectant. "Pick it up."
I slid off the bed slowly, bare feet hitting the cold floor. My body felt heavier than usual, as though the memory had taken something from me on its way out. I crouched and reached for the shard. The edges caught the dim light, sharp enough to look alive. My fingers closed around it carefully.
It was cold. Too cold. Colder than glass should be.
The weight of it made my hand tremble.
"Listen," Corvian said.
His voice curled through the room, low and dark, the kind of tone that made the air shift as if the walls themselves leaned in to hear him.
And there the chapter pauses, with Hugo holding a piece of glass sharp enough to end a world.
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Corvian, 3181.
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He held the shard in his hand as though it were a question he already feared the answer to. The edge caught the dim light, and I watched the tremor in his fingers — that small human quake that always told more truth than any sentence could.
I stepped closer.
"I did not want you frightened," I said, my voice steady, though something tightened in me at the sight of his eyes widening. "But there is no other path."
He looked down at the glass, then back at me, and the words escaped him in a broken whisper. "You want me to kill myself?"
The sound of it carried through the cell like a shiver in the air. His breath caught, and moisture gathered at the corners of his eyes; he blinked fast, as if the tears themselves betrayed him.
"I promise," I told him, "this is the only way. I am not guiding you toward harm for cruelty. You know I cannot do the act for you, even if I wished to. The laws of my making do not allow it."
His throat tightened. His voice rose, cracking along old grief. "Is that what Kent told Igor before Igor killed himself?"
For a moment, the room felt smaller, compressed by the memory he dragged into it. I reached out and cupped his face in both hands — carefully, delicately, as one might cradle something that was already beginning to slip away. His skin felt warmer than usual, fevered from crying.
"We do not have to do it now," I said. "We can wait. Any hour, any day you choose. This is not a command. It is a condition." My thumbs brushed the corners of his cheeks, catching the wetness there. "But I give you my oath — on your life, not mine — that this is the only passage for you to come with me. And I will be there the moment you cross. I will not leave you to wander. I will not let you be alone even for a breath."
His shoulders shook as he tried to swallow the sob rising in his chest. He closed his fingers around the glass as though it hurt him to hold it.
"Corvian…" His voice broke. "I can't do it."
"Yes," I said, "you can."
He flinched at the firmness, but I softened my tone, just barely. "Your soul will remain intact. The body is only a garment — this place already stripped it from you long before I arrived. With me, you will be free of it. Free of this cell. Free of judgment and fear. You can have anything you crave. Anything you once wished for and were denied."
He lowered his head, breaths uneven, trembling. His tears slid down onto the floor, leaving small dark marks on the concrete.
"It won't be as cruel as this world," I said. "Nothing in my realm mirrors the torments you have endured here. You will not suffer. You will not want. You will not be left behind."
I watched him — the way his sorrow pressed itself into the lines of his face, the way pain folded him inward. Humans always carried their endings so visibly. Even when they tried to hide them, they leaked from their eyes, their breath, their trembling hands.
He clutched the shard tighter, knuckles bleaching.
His gaze rose to mine again, filled with fear, yes, but also trust — a trust that unsettled me more than any resistance ever had. Humans were not meant to look at me with belief. Not with longing.
And yet he did.
"Hugo," I said quietly, "I will meet you there. I will catch whatever leaves you the moment it does. You will not drift. You will not fall. You will not be abandoned."
His tears fell harder now, silently, the way grief fell when a human understood the enormity of what lay before him.
I held his face as he tried to steady his breathing, his chest rising and falling in uneven waves.
He whispered something like a prayer — not to a god, but to the choice trembling in his hands.
And I waited.
Because devils did not rush death. We only received what humans surrendered.
He wiped his face with the back of his hand, breath trembling as though each inhale scraped against something raw inside him. I watched the decision settle over him — slow, heavy, inevitable.
"Okay," he whispered. "Okay… the longer I wait, the harder it'll get anyway."
I inclined my head. "Whatever suits you."
His fingers shook around the shard. His voice thinned. "But, Corvian… what happens to my body?"
"Probably buried," I said. "Whatever they do with the dead here."
He swallowed, the movement tight. "And… will I look the same down there?"
"Yes." I did not elaborate. He was not ready to hear what form meant in my realm, nor how the mark reassembled a soul into shape. "You will recognize yourself."
Before I could speak further, something shifted in the cell — a presence that pressed against the air with a weight I felt in my bones.
I turned my head to the right.
And he stood there.
The Angel of Death.
Not flaring with light. Not towering. Not dramatic. Simply there, in the corner near the wall, as still as a blade planted upright in soil. His appearance never changed — the same pale face without shadow, the same quiet, unreadable eyes. He did not carry a weapon. He never needed to.
A coldness moved across my chest, sharp and immediate. It happened every time he arrived — a pull in the center of my being, as if something in me recoiled from the order of him. A perfect, divine inevitability. Death was not judgment. Not punishment. Not mercy. It simply was.
I stepped back from Hugo.
Distance was instinct. Distance was survival.
Hugo did not see him. Humans rarely did until the last breath.
But I saw. I always saw.
The ache rose inside me again — a deep, hollow pressure that felt foreign, unwelcome. I had existed through empires rising and falling, witnessed continents drown themselves in their own ruin, watched the cosmos bend through ages. None of it stirred emotion in me.
Yet watching Hugo tremble with that shard in his hand, with Death already waiting — something in me tightened.
I exhaled slowly, steadying myself.
Hugo didn't notice. He lifted the shard and brought it to the side of his neck.
His fingers pressed the glass tip into the soft skin just below his jaw, the place where a pulse beat strongest. His breath shook against the cold edge.
His voice slipped out, barely audible. "Here… right?"
I did not answer immediately.
Because for the first time in three thousand years, the sight of a human preparing to die under my guidance did not feel clean.
It felt like a crack forming somewhere deep in me— a place I did not know I still possessed.
Hugo kept the shard pressed to his skin, waiting.
And Death watched.
His stillness filled the cell. My silence filled the rest.
And Hugo stood between us, one breath away from leaving everything he had ever been.