White.

  Everything was white.

  Not the sterile white of the medicae ward or the pale white of snow. This was absolute white—an absence of color, of texture, of anything that could be called physical reality.

  Lilith—no, not Lilith. Not here.

  I don't have a body.

  The realization hit with strange detachment. No arms, no legs, no face. Just... awareness. Consciousness floating in an endless expanse of nothing.

  Am I dead?

  The thought should have terrified her, but instead, there was only a distant curiosity.

  Then—a voice.

  It spoke in sounds that made no sense. Not Gothic. Not English. Not any language Lilith had ever heard. The syllables twisted in ways that made her awareness ache, as if the sounds themselves were wrong for the space they occupied.

  The voice stopped.

  Paused.

  Then spoke again, and this time—

  "Can you understand me?"

  English.

  Not High Gothic. Not the language she'd been speaking and understanding since waking up in this universe.

  Modern. English. The language of her previous life.

  What the—

  "I... yes," Lilith—Maverick—responded, though she had no mouth to speak with. The words simply were, projected from her consciousness. "I can understand you."

  "Good," the voice said, and there was something almost pleased in its tone. "Language is always the first barrier. So tedious to overcome."

  And then—pain.

  It hit like a tsunami of sensation despite having no body to feel it through. Burning, tearing, twisting—every nerve that didn't exist screaming in agony.

  Lilith's consciousness recoiled, trying to escape, but there was nowhere to go.

  Why—why does it hurt? I don't have a body! How can I feel—

  "Because your soul is still adjusting to the new environment," the voice answered, as if she'd spoken aloud.

  Can it read my thoughts?

  "Yes," the voice confirmed. "In this place, thought and speech are one and the same. There is no hiding. No deception. Only truth."

  The pain began to fade, slowly, leaving behind a phantom ache that made Lilith's awareness feel raw and exposed.

  "Are you... are you the one who brought me here?" she asked, her consciousness still trembling from the aftershock.

  "Define 'here,'" the voice replied, and suddenly—

  A figure materialized in the white expanse.

  A man.

  At least, the shape suggested a man. Two arms, two legs, a torso, a head. But the features were... wrong. Blurred. Indistinguishable. Like looking at someone through frosted glass or dense fog. The face was there but also not there, impossible to focus on, impossible to remember even as she looked directly at it.

  "Apologies," the man said, gesturing vaguely at himself with blurred hands. "This form is easier for humans to process. Raw manifestation tends to break mortal minds. We wouldn't want that."

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  We?

  "A figure of speech," the man said smoothly. "Or perhaps not. Doesn't matter."

  He settled into a position that might have been sitting, though there was nothing to sit on. The white expanse simply accepted his presence without question.

  "Well?" He made a gesture that might have been inviting. "Ask your questions. You have many, I can feel them buzzing around your consciousness like angry insects but make it quick."

  Lilith—Maverick—tried to gather her thoughts, which was difficult when thoughts were all she was.

  "How did I get here? To this universe. To Warhammer 40k."

  The man tilted his blurred head, considering. "You died."

  "I... what?"

  "You slept," the man clarified, his tone casual, almost conversational. "And never woke up. Went to bed. Heart stopped sometime in the night. Peacefully, if it matters. No pain. No drama. You simply... ceased."

  I died in my sleep.

  The information settled over her consciousness like a weight.

  "And you..." Lilith's awareness focused on the figure. "You brought my soul here? To this universe?"

  "Yes."

  "Why?"

  The man's blurred shoulders moved in what might have been a shrug. "A whim. Or is it? Does the reason matter?"

  "Of course it matters!" Lilith's awareness flared with something like anger. "You ripped me out of my world, threw me into a nightmare universe, put me in a child's body, and you're saying it was just a whim?"

  "Essentially, yes."

  "That's—that's insane!"

  "From your perspective, certainly." The man leaned back, his blurred form shifting. "From mine? It's Tuesday."

  Lilith wanted to scream, but she had no throat to scream with.

  "What are you?" she demanded instead. "Some kind of god? A demon? A Chaos entity?"

  The man made a sound that might have been laughter. "Those are all very limited concepts. What am I?" He paused, as if considering how to explain. "I am ████████. Does that help?"

  The word—if it even was a word—hit Lilith's consciousness like a physical blow. It was censored, redacted, incomprehensible in a way that made her awareness recoil. The syllables existed and didn't exist simultaneously, occupying a space in understanding that mortal minds were never meant to perceive.

  "I—I can't—"

  "Exactly," the man said. "Mortal comprehension has limits. I exist outside those limits. Best to simply accept that I am something you cannot fully understand and move on."

  "Fine." Lilith tried to steady herself. "Who are you, then? Do you have a name?"

  "Names have power," the man said thoughtfully. "But yes, you may call me Naic. It's close enough to my true designation without breaking your consciousness."

  "Naic," Lilith repeated.

  "Pleased to make your acquaintance, Maverick Langley. Or should I say Lilith? Identity is such a fluid thing, isn't it?"

  Before Lilith could respond, before she could ask another of the thousand questions burning through her awareness, Naic raised a blurred hand.

  The gesture felt final. Dismissive.

  "That's enough," he said. "I'm not here for a philosophical discussion or to answer your existential questions. I'm here to give you something, and then you need to return to your body."

  "Wait—what? I have so many questions! I need to know—"

  "You don't need to know anything," Naic interrupted, his tone still casual but with an edge of finality. "This is the first and last time we will meet. There's no point in explanations or grand revelations. You'll live your life, or you won't. It's all the same to me."

  "Then why—"

  "Why bring you here now?" Naic's blurred head tilted. "Because your soul is in flux. Burning itself apart from accumulated trauma and exposure to forces it was never meant to withstand. This is the optimal moment for intervention."

  He raised his hand higher, and the white expanse began to shimmer.

  "I'm going to grant you power," Naic said simply. "A gift. A tool for survival. Consider it compensation for the inconvenience of dying and being reborn into a universe actively trying to kill you."

  "No!" Lilith's awareness flared with panic. "I don't want it!"

  Naic's hand paused mid-gesture. "You... don't want power?"

  "No! Everything that's happened—everything that's gone wrong—it's because of the power I already have! The psyker gene-seed, the Navigator's Eye, the connection to the Warp! It's killing me! It nearly killed everyone around me! Adding more power will just make it worse!"

  Silence.

  Then Naic began to laugh.

  It started as a chuckle, then grew into full, genuine laughter that echoed through the white expanse in ways that made reality itself vibrate.

  "Oh," he said between laughs. "Oh, that's delightful. A mortal refusing power. How rare. How utterly fascinating."

  Lilith felt herself being pulled.

  Not physically—she had no body to be pulled. But her awareness was being tugged backward, away from the white expanse, away from Naic.

  I'm going back. My body is pulling me back.

  "Wait!" she called out, desperation flooding through her consciousness. "You can't just—I need to know—!"

  Naic was still laughing, the sound following her as she was dragged away.

  "Very well, very well!" his voice echoed, growing more distant. "No power, then! But you're still getting something!"

  "What? What are you—"

  His voice came one last time, distorted and fading, the words blurring together as the white expanse collapsed around her:

  "I'll give you ███████ ██████ instead."

  The words were censored again, incomprehensible, lost in the roar of reality reasserting itself.

  Lilith tried to call out, to demand clarification, but she was already gone.

  The white expanse vanished.

  Naic's laughter faded to nothing.

  And Maverick Langley—Lilith—fell back into darkness, plummeting toward a body that was waiting, burning, desperate for her return.

  The last thing she felt before consciousness slipped away entirely was a strange sensation.

  Not pain. Not cold. Not heat.

  Something different. Something new.

  Something that hadn't been there before.

  But before she could identify it, the darkness swallowed her whole.