It was a beautiful release, like a final breath after years of suffocation. Heat swept through Thomas’s body as if a key had finally turned in the rusted lock of his flesh. His vision fractured into a kaleidoscope of color, every nerve flaring in a cold fire that consumed sensation. His world collapsed inward, shrinking into a single, pulsing core. Then, red blurred everything as the floor surged up to meet him. He heard the crack of his skull against wood, but felt nothing. No pain. No weight... release.

  He lay still, sight, sound, taste—all gone, fading into the quiet void inside his shattering mind. And strangely, it brought joy. He didn’t have to hear the cries of the daughter mourning her father. Didn’t have to choke on the acrid stench of gunpowder or the bitter copper taste of blood. The memories that always haunted him—screams, slaughter, sorrow—drifted away like the snowfall outside.

  His eyes, heavy as stone, refused to obey him. His black orbs stared lifelessly ahead, unmoved by his will or desperation. He longed to see her face, his killer... no, his savior, before the dark took him. Just a glimpse. A silent thanks. But instead, his final sight was the red puddle spreading beneath his cheek—his blood, thick and warm. “I’ll never have to spill that cursed liquid again,” he thought with true happiness. And with that final thought, his mind sank into the rising dark.

  Like strings snapping from an overdrawn bow, Thomas Arthur Delaney's end came with a harsh, discordant finality. Violent, abrupt, and fitting. Yet, as the darkness closed in, one image stayed alive with him: Mary Buetherd. Whole. The girl who ended it and saved herself. And in this strange moment between life and death, peace unfurled within him. Not because he’d died—but because, at the end, he hadn’t let the monster win one last time.

  “Take that... you... What the hell?” His thoughts had just begun to settle into the velvet calm of oblivion when, suddenly, something ripped him back. A jolt, like plunging into icy water, ran through his core. His vision returned, but nothing he saw made any sense. Blurs of white light and streaks of color whipped past, too fast for his mind to follow. He was being pulled—no, hurled—through some chromatic vortex, caught in the eye of a storm with no wind or gravity. “Is this the light at the end of the tunnel?” he thought. “I thought it’d be... well... light.” But the only thing before him, growing as the light whipped past, was blackness.

  Even as the last lights vanished behind him, he kept moving deeper into the void. Forward, always forward, until something new within the darkness emerged ahead. It was part of the dark, yet separate from it, like something hiding within plain sight. As he rapidly neared, its shape became clearer: a vast, floating sphere, far too large to measure, its surface undulating with unnatural motion. Dread bloomed in his chest at the awful waves of motion. Then, without warning, Thomas was envelpoed by sticky warmth, like slipping into a bath of piss, wrong. Too smooth. Too sudden. And with this sensation, his mind began to unravel again. Not gently this time, like the in-between had been. It was violent, suffocating as it was ripped away.

  Below him, the surface writhed now in full detail, squirming with forms like worms, like serpents. "No," he thought, "something worse."

  His forward motion slowed, just enough for clarity to bring forth true horror. “Not worms… people… monsters,” his mind gasped. The surface was a flowing tangle of beings—stripped bare, but marked with feathers, fur, scales. Faces twisted by madness. Plucked from his childhood nightmares and turned real. Thousands of them. Millions. Their blank, soulless eyes turned upward as one, hundreds locking onto him at once. Hands, claws, and tentacles reached up towards his bare feet. Grasping. He screamed, thrashed, and kicked, but the effort meant nothing. His thoughts and memories continued to unravel, and his suffocating fear became distant. Meaningless. Then his feet touched them, and they dragged him down. No sound was made—only silence as the horde swallowed him.

  Down he sank, deeper into the humid dark, until all memory had peeled away. Thought, name, past—vanished. There was no pain, no fear, no identity. Only a single, primal truth remained in the husk. Something new had been born. Not a man. Not even a soul. Just… It.

  It existed, if that word even meant anything anymore. The dark was not a nightmare. Not pain or pleasure. It was peace. Dreamlike and endless. It drifted through the tangle of bodies and shadow, content in its unknowing. If It had thought, It might describe the place as a bottomless lake, warm, black, and perfect. So perfect, it erased the memory of being touched. But It didn’t think. It only moved, as did the others. They swam as one, a great, formless body adrift in the void.

  Until Thomas suddenly had memories come crashing into him. Gasping for air in the suffocating dark, his mind reeled at what was around him. The creatures that moved around him, like waves in the ocean, stared at him as he screamed in terror. He kicked and punched, trying to drive away the horde, before warmth and emptiness slowly took away his mind again. Returning him to his ignorant state.

  This continued to happen. It happened to those around It as well. It never understood what the screaming was, whether it was nearby or far in the distance. When It's mind returned and Thomas took over, terror and fear became his only companions. Then it would melt away—a constant cycle, like the sun rising and setting.

  Time passed. Or perhaps it didn’t. When, without warning, the dark void shattered, as light tore through the sky above the writhing world, blinding, holy, and terrible in its glory. Like a god of flame come to punish the dark wretches. The silence of the void cracked. Something stirred within It, a memory buried deep in Its past.

  “Light”

  The word surfaced in Its mind, hateful and raw, as it bubbled to the surface.

  The light scorched the warm dark, driving It back and forcing everyone to try to retreat. All around, the masses shrieked—wails ripping free from trillions of throats as they fled the blazing intruder.

  Then came another burning presence—born of the God of light above, yet different from it. Not fire. Not judgment. Something worse. The new intruder flew toward their world of darkness like a descending blade. Its presence pressed down on the living mass, heavy and suffocating. That weight shattered the numbness that shielded their minds.

  "Pain"

  The word returned to It. The pain wasn't physical but something far worse—memories. Memories of a life lived formed in Its mind. And with them came a tidal wave of fear. The horde scattered, writhing away from the agony of remembrance.

  It ran, like the others. But the intruder followed upon wings of light. Always. Closer. Heavier. The pressure doubled, then tripled, until a strangled wail tore from Its throat. Everything was returning. Not like before. This felt far worse.

  First came sound—noise crashing in, like thunder after silence. Panic surged within at the sound. It clawed through the others, desperate to hide, to sink back into oblivion. But nothing stopped the intruder from following. The forms around It, once faceless, now resolved into horrors—limbs twisted wrong, eyes too wide. "Eyes?" the thought screamed. "Vision!" And with sight came understanding. And with understanding… terror. It fought. Clawed and ripped through the swarm, desperate to stay in the comfort of the dark. But the intruder would not be denied.

  Then—It felt! Not numbness. Not warmth. Pain! “Oh God. I feel!” The thought was raw, alien. A vice clamped around Its body. The intruder had seized It, pulling it away from the dark. Toward the burning God in the sky. Toward the Light. It shrieked, thrashed, but the grip held fast. The light grew closer, brighter than anything It remembered. “Sun,” It whispered, the word surfacing from nowhere. The fight drained from Its limbs. It curled in on itself, weeping as memory came roaring back. Not just facts—emotions, regrets, pain... life. “No. No, no, no... please...” But the plea went unheard. The light consumed It whole, and Thomas Arthur Delaney screamed back into existence.

  Judge 1332 watched as the ball of light blinked out, leaving behind a trembling wreck of a man. A scream tore from his lungs—but died just as fast, cut off mid-breath. He gasped like a fish out of water, lungs starved for the crisp air of the salon. His body convulsed as if it meant to vomit, then began twitching with frantic urgency. His hands clawed at his coat, his face, his chest. His form was clothed and decent after the nudity he had just experienced. He wore the standard issue: a white shirt, a gray coat, brown trousers, and buckled boots—the default attire given to male retrievals. The hound was back, but he was not whole.

  His eyes stayed hidden beneath a tangled veil of black hair as his hands explored the clothes wrapped around his frame. Fingers traced his arms, neck, chest—searching, remembering. 1332 watched in silence. Most souls reacted in the same way: with confusion, followed by questions. “Where am I?” “What is this place?” Others broke apart—screaming, collapsing, rocking like children. The Wardens were never gentle. They returned what was left—sometimes shattered, sometimes hollowed out. Damnation did that. It was the deepest pit in all creation, a place where the self unraveled forever. Even if light faded from all the stars, Damnation would remain. And though she’d never admit it, even Judge 1332 felt something close to fear when she thought of being lost in that mass.

  But this one—this soul—was not so easily broken. He was rattled, shaken to the bone, yes. But something inside him still held firm, still recognized the weight of the moment before him. And then—

  “Not a real saloon…” he muttered, eyes scanning the room. “No—meant to look lived-in, but too clean. Too deliberately laid out.” His voice trembled, but his mind worked. “I can remember... a bullet. Death, the tunnel, then the dark. Now this… judgment? Afterlife?” He lifted his head, his dark gaze locked on her, sharp despite the shaking. “You an angel? Or a devil? Here to pass sentence? Tell me my sins, throw me into fire and brimestone?”

  1332 eyebrows had raised slightly as he spoke. She hadn’t expected him to surprise her. Not after all she’d seen. She’d studied every moment of his life, knew his thoughts like they were her own. Yet here he was—putting things together, already asking the right questions. No panic. No denial. Just...calculation. It was remarkable. And maybe a little troubling. Most minds took hours, if not days, to reach this level of acceptance. But not his.

  She nodded, her voice calm, “Valid questions, Thomas. I’m closer to an angel than a devil—but neither title fits. Think of me as… a bureaucrat.” He grimaced, but didn’t speak. She continued slowly, “Yes, this is the afterlife. And no, I’m not here to sentence you. Your judgment already happened—twice, actually. That second ruling is why you’re here now. I pulled you out of Damnation.”

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  Confusion crept into his voice. “Judged a second time... and you called that place Damnation?” He raised a hand before she could answer. “No, don’t worry. Damnation, Hell, whatever you want to call it is fine.” His brow furrowed. “But why pull me out? Why bother? Who are you, really, if not an angel? I never met a bureaucrat who didn't make my skin crawl, and you are far too clean as well.” He sounded stable, even sharp—but she recognized the signs. The trauma still lingered beneath the surface. It always did. Best to go slow. Rushing the process could fracture what remained, and she didn't have time to try to put him back together.

  “Who am I, exactly?” she repeated softly. “My designation is Judge A56AT1332. I act under the authority of the Creator. One of their Agents.” His eyes narrowed, more puzzled than before. She offered a gentler line. “I know that name means nothing to you. You can call me 1332.”

  “Alright, 1332…” He leaned forward slightly. “Why bring me here? Why not leave me in Hell, where I belong?”

  “Simple,” she said. “Because I reviewed your life. All of it. And I determined you didn’t belong in Damnation.”

  “Not belo—oh. Ohhh.” His brow rose, a bitter laugh escaping. “So there's worse than that place, huh? Makes sense. I earned worse than that dark numbness.” He rubbed his arms, voice growing distant. “That place—Damnation, was it? Not exactly a joyride, but hell... I’ve seen worse. Arizona, for one. Honestly figured it was purgatory. A waiting room. Not the real thing.”

  Now it was her turn to frown. His response didn’t line up with the horrors of Damnation. Either he’d already begun suppressing the memory, or his mind was still recovering. “No, Thomas,” she said gently. “You don’t belong there. You’re not going back to that void. Not to Damnation—or any other eternal punishment. At least, not yet.” Her reassurance seemed to unsettle him even more. She pressed on. “You’re here because your first life wasn’t enough. Not enough to damn you. Not enough to redeem you. So... you get a second chance.”

  Her words should’ve comforted him. They usually did for everyone else. But Thomas only shook his head. “No. I think there’s been a mistake.” He exhaled hard, voice sharpening. “I’m Thomas Arthur Delaney.” When she gave no reaction, he repeated it, this time louder. “Thomas Arthur Delaney." She still didn't react. "Death’s Hound. Bloody Hand. Ghost of Antietam.” A disbelieving, bitter laugh escaped him. “I’m the villain in bedtime stories, lady.” His composure cracked. Voice rising. “I don’t deserve a second chance. I EARNED my place in Hell—and a little girl sealed it with a bullet. I belong there!”

  His outburst, while loud, did clarify things. 1332 had seen it before—souls so steeped in guilt they couldn’t imagine redemption. That kind of self-hatred didn’t confirm evil. More often, it disproved it. Still, she couldn’t recall a case where someone clung to Damnation like a badge of honor. Not ideal. But it was too late to pivot. She smiled, soft and knowing. “I know who you are, Thomas Delaney. I know everything. The choices. The consequences. I know you better than you know yourself.” As she spoke, a faint glow shimmered from her form. With a subtle motion, she summoned a small halo above her head—simple, radiant. Delaney’s jaw dropped to his chest. Her transformation struck him like a brick thrown by his deeply rooted faith.

  She gave a slow shake of her head. “No, Thomas. You’re not evil. You were a man trapped in impossible choices… and you did better than most ever could hope.” He didn’t argue. Just stared at her glowing form, stunned. She doubted he truly believed her, not fully, but the performance had landed. She let the glow fade, halo vanishing, voice softening. “Understand, I’m not saying you’ve earned paradise. Or that you were a saint. But you now stand where very few ever do.” She paused. “You get a second chance. A chance to prove you deserve...Heaven.” It wasn’t the true name. But it would do.

  Something shifted in him. The edge of denial dulled, giving way to curiosity. 1332 smiled inwardly—mortals were always easier to manage once they had a few of their beliefs confirmed. The questions came quickly. Most about Damnation—its purpose, its numbness. Others about his body, the strange sterility of the room, the lack of scent or sweat or smoke. She answered each one. Calmly. Honestly. Letting him ease back into himself. Better he burn off the simple questions now, before they moved on to the hard ones.

  After a long pause, his eyes finally caught on the back wall, specifically, the shelf lined with bottles. His gaze lingered there, hungry and amused, and 1332 could’ve sworn he nearly drooled. “Mind if I have a drink?” he asked. She obliged, pouring him a glass of Old Overholt, she knew it was his drink of choice, while fixing something else for herself. He accepted it with a slight grin, acknowledging that she had known this small detail, and nodded at their surroundings. “You know,” he said, gesturing to the pristine room, “this’d be a lot more convincing if it were messier. Little grime goes a long way.”

  She sighed softly while pouring herself a glass of something sweet and fizzy. “Believe me, I’ve tried. We have over three and a half million simulation rooms, and every one of them is too neat. Too precise. They don’t feel lived-in.” She took a long sip, savoring the sweetness. “Turns out, my kind isn’t great at mess. Cleanliness, grandeur—that’s easy. Subtlety? Not so much.”

  Thomas chuckled, shaking his head as he sipped his whiskey. 1332, who detested the taste, had opted instead for a bubbling glass of cola—an Earth indulgence she’d grown far too fond of. As her first glass emptied, she quietly thanked the mortal who had introduced her to the stuff. For a few minutes, silence settled between them. Comfortable, but deceptive. Thomas nursed his drink. She downed several more. All the while, she tried not to let her rising anxiety show. Unfortunately, this moment couldn’t drag on forever. Then, finally, he held up his glass and asked, “So… I’m dead. But this ain’t hell?”

  She’d already told him this—more than once, in fact—but acceptance didn’t come easily. Even when they said it themselves, the truth rarely stuck the first time. So she repeated it again. Gently. “Yes. You died. Shot in the head by Mary Buetherd. December 18th, 1872.”

  He sighed, swirling the glass. “Yeah… makes sense, I guess." He looked around the room again. "Can’t say I’ve ever had a drink with it this dead, no matter the hour. Why I always loved gathering places.” His voice trailed off. The silence settled deeper. She watched his eyes drift across the room—empty chairs, untouched tables. “It’s so… quiet,” he murmured. “Hasn’t been this quiet in a long time. Wonder how long it’ll last.” 1332 realized these words were no longer being directed at her. Thomas stopped his searching and instead looked down. He stared at his hands, perhaps wondering if they might start trembling again. They didn’t.

  “Would you prefer background noise?” she offered gently. “I can fill the saloon with sound—chatter, footsteps, laughter. Make it feel... occupied.”

  His eyes shifted slowly to her, refocusing. And for just a heartbeat, she thought she saw fear flicker there. "Fear," she thought, "In this man?" 1332 glanced down at her empty glass, idly wondering if her form had a sugar threshold after all. But then his expression cleared. He gave a slight shake of the head. “No, that’s... It’s okay.” The moment passed. He leaned back into the chair, exhaling deeply. A smile ghosted across his lips. “Truth is, I haven’t felt this clear in ages. Damnation... was quiet...for the most part. Too quiet for some, maybe, but after everything I’d lived with, the silence felt like mercy. I still feel that way, honestly. I just... don’t want the noise to come back.” She didn’t fully grasp what he meant, but she let it go. "Let him process it at his own pace," she told herself, "You have other things to focus on."

  He sipped his drink, then grinned as he shifted gears. “I was never much of a drinker, you know? Couldn't handle it." He laughed, "Course you know. Bill liked to remind me-” He deepened his voice into a comical slur. "'Delaney… nah, you don’ want the good stuff. You’d be drunk ‘fore it touched yer lips. Then you’d go on ‘bout yer past, start punchin’ shadows, an’ next thing I know, the damn piano’s on fire an’ you’re challengin’ a mirror to a duel.'"? He chuckled at the memory. Then his tone sobered. “That reminds me. Is everyone else still alive? Was I the only one of McConnell’s men to die that night?”

  She wasn’t forbidden from answering that, but the longer he steered the conversation, the more unease crawled under her skin. They were drifting off course. She couldn’t let that happen. “I’ll answer your questions, Thomas,” she said gently. “But first, we need to talk about why you’re here. About what comes next for you.”

  That seemed to mollify him, at least for now. He took another sip, then gestured for her to continue. “Alright, 1332, go ahead. I’m listening.” 1332 nodded, sent a silent command to her controller, and her prepared speech began to scroll across her vision—lines she’d practiced a thousand times. She started, voice even and sure, “To begin, you must understand what you are... and where you came from.”

  “An evil bastard… and Virginia.” The weak joke caught her off guard, interrupting her concentration. She paused the scroll with a mental flick, blinking once before giving him an amused, but tight, smile. His expression shifted, boyish embarrassment coloring his features and reminding 1332 for the first time just how young he had been at his death. “Sorry. I’m bad at reading the room,” he muttered, then made a zipping motion across his mouth. “I’ll do my best not to interrupt. Promise.”

  If she hadn’t been so on edge, she might’ve seen the joke for what it was—a good sign he was accepting his situation. Humor meant he was adapting. Processing. But stress had shortened her fuse. Maybe her patience wasn’t as bottomless as she had always assumed. She said nothing, just restarted the speech. “First, you must understand what you are, and where you came from. People often ask if there’s a God, or if anything exists before life… or after death.” Her voice was steady. This was her rhythm, her comfort zone. She had delivered this news to millions. “The answer to all of those questions is yes. There is a God. You existed before you ever opened your eyes on Earth, and there is true life after death. Heaven, as you call it, is real and within your reach.”

  She stole a glance at him, eager to catch that moment—the awe, the wonder when someone hears the answers to life’s biggest questions. But Thomas’s attention was already wandering away from their conversation.

  That flash of irritation returned. She coughed, pointedly. He blinked and looked up, caught. “Sorry,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I was never good with speeches. Ma used to say I wouldn’t listen even if Jesus himself came down to teach me.”

  1332 felt something pulse through her at his words. The feeling surprised her. Annoyance wasn’t part of her usual emotional register—certainly not during processing a Chosen. And yet, here she was, biting down on her temper over a wandering mortal’s attention span. She breathed deep and tried again, voice calm but firm. “Please, Thomas. Try. This truly is the most important thing you’ll ever hear.”

  Thomas nodded and leaned forward, his eyes back on her. 1332 cleared her throat and, this time, she barely got the words out before his gaze began to drift again, eyes glazing over at her words.

  This time, the flicker of anger became a full blaze. A visceral, primal fury that made her want to smite him on the spot—right between his infuriating, blank eyes. She’d never once smited a mortal before. But now… it was tempting. The thought alarmed her. The stress and anxiety were catching up. Too much depended on this. Too many pieces already in motion. And it all hinged on him!

  1332 took a breath—not for oxygen, but for clarity—and applied a mental technique her progenitor had once taught her: rearrange the problem. Reframe it. Find the angle where the obstacle stops being a wall and starts becoming a door. She needed something to smooth the sharp corners of her frustration before it cracked through her calm.

  "What do you remember about your subject?" she asked herself. Thomas’s psych profile had flagged his aversion to what he’d called “fluff.” She frowned at what that implied about her speech, briefly reconsidering smiting—again. But she held the impulse in check and allowed herself a small moment of pride for doing so. Then, like lightning behind her eyes, a new idea struck. Unorthodox. Risky. Technically frowned upon. Potentially damaging to the subject. But his growing nervousness at 1332's silent stare only encouraged her. And so, for the first time in her tenure, 1332 broke from what she had planned. She leaned forward, a grin tugging at the edges of her mouth. “Fine,” she said smoothly. “Not a fan of show? Then how about...” She reached out and pressed a single fingertip to his forehead. “A bit of show, Mr. Delaney.”

  Thomas didn’t flinch. He should have. The moment her finger made contact, a line of burning energy stitched them together—anchor to anchor. It pulsed once, sharp and final. His breath hitched, and then he froze. Still as stone. From that single point of touch, she entered. Slipped past the barriers of mind and memory. And in doing so, took control.