Knowing well his visitor was a hallucination, he shuffled past the angel, careful not to touch.
Raven wings were ominous, sure, but he needed an antipyretic before returning to bed. Once he slept through the worst of this cold, he could finally start the grueling search for a new job.
"Am I too early?" the stranger asked, picking at a feather. "You're still in complete denial."
He would've jumped if the trek to the bathroom had left him with any strength.
The angel had to pour him a white caplet as well; his hands were too weak to pop the lid off.
Wait. Hallucinations weren't supposed to do that.
"Sorry, but I'm very much real," the visitor claimed.
Did he think that out loud?
No, he'd lost his voice, drifting in and out of sleep for the last two days. He'd also lost his job after thirty years, and must have caught this nasty cold on his way home.
Both of those hit hard over fifty, but together they felt like the end of the world.
"It'll be over soon," the angel promised. "And it'll hurt less once you're oxygen-deprived."
Over? What? This sickness—his life? Suffocation didn't sound comforting at all.
He almost snapped at the stranger but could only manage a glare.
"Good. We're in the second stage, then. I worried for a moment."
"What? Who're—" A wet cough rattled him, speckles painting the caplet red on his palm.
Shit. Gasping for air, he choked on the smell of incense next.
Was that part of the hallucination? Too much complexity for a fever dream.
"Because it isn't one," the angel grunted. "But since you're asking, I'm Lu, your guardian. Which means I owe you an apology for the pain."
Sure, an actual angel. Why not? Couldn't he have healed him, then?
"It's not that I couldn't," Lu answered the thought. "But we have rules against altering fate. Postponing your death would be a pretty obvious violation."
He had to find out he was dying like this? Wasn't he too young for that?
"Well, all that overtime didn't help with your health," Lu pointed out. "But a quick thousand years in purgatory, and you can try again. Though you'd make the same mistakes—"
"Wait," he gritted out, but that was all the air he had.
The angel said he was sorry, so wasn't he entitled to some compensation? Even his ungrateful asshole of a boss paid him severance he'd never get to spend now.
"Can't tell if you're bargaining or already in the depression stage," Lu sighed. "But fine. Guess I do owe something. Want to be the rich prince beloved by all in your next life?"
"No," he coughed the word, surprising even himself.
Not after a thousand years in a place designed to wallow in regrets. He had way too many.
To relive the wasted hours at work over and over? To regret dropping out of school?
To remember—her?
Freckles for days, an untamed red mane. Chaos incarnate, who ruined his life. They dated for three months thirty years ago, and he was still longing for her all the same. He couldn't blame her for his choices, yet he clutched her memory like a lifeline.
"Sounds like depression to me," the angel noted. "But I'm still waiting for your counteroffer."
So he could actually make one?
Shoving down another cough, he thought hard about what he wanted.
Not wealth or titles, nor another meaningless life to waste. He must not forget his mistakes—and he needed the strength to fix them.
"So skip purification and live a meaningful life," Lu summarized, pondering. "I'll have to bend some rules, but I can arrange for your memories if that's all."
No, he missed the most important part.
His voice came out as a strangled whisper, but he put all his effort into his last words.
"Control," he gritted out. "I want to be... in charge of my own life."
A scream split reality when he arrived—as if the world itself were in pain.
Pressure mounted in the darkness, threatening to crush his tiny body.
Tiny. He'd never felt this fragile before.
"You'd think birth's better than dying, but go figure," Lu noted, still by his side.
The pressure peaked, and he broke one last barrier between worlds.
Shapes and colors surrounded him; everything blurred.
The screams were no longer muffled, his cries joining the cacophony.
Cold air rushed into his lungs. Taking his first breath in another world was both painful and liberating.
"Boy's strong," an unfamiliar voice claimed. "Devil's little singer."
The smell of hay invaded his nose, the incense fading. Everything seemed—poor, broken.
Lu's silhouette was sharp and beautiful against this new, ugly reality.
But a second shape soon overshadowed his guardian as well.
"That was mean, Lucifer." The fiery hair and freckles were familiar. "I had a claim on his soul."
She had black horns like a dragon or a demoness. But the rest? She was so beautiful it hurt.
"Lilith," the angel yelped before reigning in his face. "I'll have you know, he asked for it. Not that I would wait a thousand years to taste his suffering again. And neither could you."
The woman pouted, booping the baby's nose, and he forgot how to cry.
"So you weren't trying to expropriate him?" she asked. "If I want to seduce him again—"
"Be my guest," the angel offered. "Torture him all you want. Might want to wait a bit, though."
"Eighteen years, not a day more," Lilith said, crossing her arms. "And I won't limit myself to three months this time, even if your sister's onto you. It won't be my problem now."
Lu froze, his void-like eyes widening.
"She forced a girl to become a martyr in the same world, so she shouldn't—"
"Don't care. I warned you," Lilith said, looking only at the baby. "Reset his mind, or whatever."
She disappeared with a flash, then—
"Konrad, the little one will be Konrad," a woman whispered with her last breath.
She had a coppery smell, hands cold and rigid. The midwife had to pry him out of them, putting him on itchy straw soaked with her fluids.
His mother? Her eyes lost their light fast.
"May the spirits guide her soul," the midwife pleaded to the sky. "And this boy, too."
The world was a blur. Every sound new and strange, scents and textures telling a story he didn't understand. He wasn't in his flat but in a stable, with straw below and rain above.
Then—a cracked basket and a storm-washed sky were all he could see.
Alone. Abandoned.
Darkness crept in, and he shivered, powerless.
All he had was his voice, raw and wailing, but he made the most of it.
"A loud one, this basket," a woman scooped him up once the rain stopped. The stars were bright, but he didn't recognize them. "What's on this scrap, Father? Can't read tribal script."
After some rustling, a new voice joined, out of breath.
"That can't be." A pale face hovered above him. "May the saints forgive me, we'll take him in."
"Who is it?" the woman asked. She looked like a nun. "Does it say Halstadt?"
The man—a priest?—tore the piece of scrap apart, scolding her.
"If you don't want eternal damnation, you'll never mention that name again," his voice boomed. "It's Konrad Ostfeld. An orphan, the tribes have left behind. A nobody, understood?"
She might have nodded, but Konrad wasn't a nobody.
In a few years, people would only know him as the Prodigy of Haiten.