One
TRIGGER WARNING:
This book demands a strong suicide trigger warning!!! If you or someone you know is in a poor mental state, is a survivor of suicide, has PTSD, or is considering suicide, please do not continue to read. Please call the suicide hotline. Things get better.
USA: 988 (Core International numbers on the previous page)
✽✽✽
"I didn't want to die. But I didn't want to keep waking up, either. There's a difference. I was tired of pretending everything didn't feel fake. That night, I just wanted the noise to stop."
~ Aaron
AARON
It's unsettling how quietly a life can change.
There's no thunderclap. No warning siren. No grand moment where the universe leans in and says, "This is it." Most of the time, it's something small. Something forgettable. A choice that doesn't feel like a choice at all.
A woman leaving her shopping cart on the curb.
That's what I remember.
She looked straight at me—really looked at me—like she saw something worth acknowledging. Then she turned away and walked off, leaving the cart to roll slightly before settling into place. Abandoned. Meaningless.
I don't know why that stuck with me.
Maybe because, at the time, I felt exactly like that cart.
Left behind. Unimportant. In the way.
That was earlier that evening.
By the time the sun started sinking behind the horizon, bleeding orange light through my bedroom curtains, I had already made my decision.
Or maybe the decision had made me.
I sat on the edge of my bed, a bottle of pills clenched tightly against my chest. My fingers dug into the plastic like I was trying to crush it—like if I held it hard enough, it might disappear.
In my other hand, I held a beer I'd stolen from my dad's liquor cabinet. It was still cold. Condensation slipped down the glass and pooled against my skin.
I didn't even like beer.
But it felt like something you were supposed to have in a moment like this.
Pathetic, right?
I let myself fall backward onto the mattress. The ceiling stared down at me—blank, white, indifferent. My room looked the same as it always had. Same posters. Same scattered clothes. Same faint smell of dust and something stale I could never quite identify.
Nothing about it reflected what was about to happen.
My lips were already starting to lose color. I could feel it—the strange numbness creeping in, like my body was slowly forgetting how to be alive.
The sunlight filtered through the sheer black curtains, casting dim, fractured shadows across my face. It made everything feel distant. Unreal. Like I was watching myself instead of actually being there.
Maybe I was.
If you're wondering whether I hesitated... I did.
Not in some dramatic, movie-worthy way. I didn't cry. I didn't suddenly remember every good moment of my life.
I just... paused.
And then I didn't.
The pills were gone before I could think too hard about it.
The beer burned on the way down. Bitter. Sharp. Wrong.
And then—
Nothing.
Or at least, that's what I expected.
But death isn't nothing.
It's quiet, sure. Still. Cold in a way that seeps into you rather than shocks you.
But it isn't empty.
Because the first thing I noticed... was her voice.
"Aaron!"
It sounded far away at first. Like it had to travel through layers of water to reach me.
Then louder.
"Aaron!"
There was something desperate in it now. Something cracking.
I couldn't move. Couldn't respond. Couldn't even turn my head toward the sound.
But I knew that voice.
Cecily.
My sister.
Her footsteps were uneven, rushed. The door slammed open so hard it hit the wall behind it. I could almost feel the vibration of it, even though my body wasn't... mine anymore.
Her hands were on me.
Warm.
God, they were so warm.
They shook me—hard at first, then softer, like she was afraid of breaking something that was already broken.
"Aaron, wake up. Please—please wake up—"
Her voice shattered on the last word.
I wanted to tell her I was right there.
That I could hear her.
That I was sorry.
But I couldn't do anything except exist... beside myself.
Because that's when I saw it.
My body.
Lying there.
Still.
Pale.
Lifeless in a way that didn't look real until you stared too long.
My lips had turned a faint blue. My skin had lost all warmth, all color. I looked like something unfinished. Like a version of me that had been erased halfway through.
Cecily pulled me into her arms—my body, not me—and held on like she could force life back into it through sheer will.
Her tears hit my skin, one after another, leaving tiny trails of warmth that faded too quickly.
"I need you," she whispered against my ear, her voice trembling. "You can't do this to me..."
I flinched.
Not physically.
Something deeper than that.
Because Cecily had never needed anyone.
She was the kind of person who walked into a room and made it hers. Confident. Untouchable. The kind of girl people revolved around.
Or at least... she used to be.
Then Jared happened.
And everything changed.
I watched as she pulled back slightly, her expression shifting. Something cold flickered behind her eyes—something calculating.
Her gaze dropped to the pill bottle on the floor.
For a moment, she just stared at it.
Then, quietly, she picked it up... and slipped it into her jacket pocket.
I blinked.
Confused.
Why would she—
But the thought didn't finish.
Because something else was happening.
The air in the room shifted.
It grew colder, heavier. Like something unseen had entered and was pressing down on everything at once.
Cecily stiffened.
Her eyes darted around the room, searching.
She couldn't see me.
But she could feel it.
Feel me.
Or... feel something.
My attention pulled away from her as a strange glow began to form in the corner of the room.
At first, it was faint. Barely noticeable.
Then it grew.
And with it... came a figure.
Tall.
Still.
Wrapped in shadows that seemed to breathe.
A hood obscured its face, but I could feel its gaze on me—sharp and knowing.
Its wings unfolded slowly, stretching outward with a quiet, ominous grace. Dark feathers caught the dim light, absorbing it rather than reflecting it.
I wasn't afraid.
That's the strange part.
I should've been.
But instead... I smiled.
"Guess this is it," I muttered, more to myself than anything else.
I took one last look at Cecily.
She was still crying. Still shaking. Still holding onto something that wasn't there anymore.
"Goodbye, Aaron," she whispered.
The words hit harder than anything else had.
Goodbye to you too, Cecily.
Some things never really change.
The light intensified suddenly—blinding, overwhelming. It wrapped around me, pulling me forward.
The winged figure moved with it, its presence both suffocating and oddly... comforting.
And then—
Everything vanished.
✽✽✽
LUCIFER
There are few sounds in the underworld that still manage to hold my attention.
The crack of a whip is not one of them.
It echoed anyway—sharp, deliberate, and unnecessarily theatrical—as it split the stagnant air of my chamber. The sound reverberated off obsidian pillars and bled into the velvet shadows draped along the walls, as if the room itself resented the interruption.
"Lucifer."
Abaddon's voice followed, slick with amusement and arrogance he had not yet earned. I did not turn to him immediately. I rarely do. Anticipation is a tool, and silence—when wielded properly—is far more unnerving than any threat.
Another crack.
This time, I glanced over.
He stood near the far end of the room, looming over a soul that barely held its shape. It flickered—unstable, incomplete, like a candle fighting a draft it could not see. Abaddon enjoyed that sort of thing. Breaking something that had already been broken. Testing its limits, even when there was nothing left to test.
"The boy has died," he said, almost casually, as if announcing the weather.
Now that interested me.
I shifted where I stood, resting one hand against the carved edge of a blood-darkened shelf. Bottles lined it—centuries of indulgence, each one carrying a different memory, a different ruin. I let my fingers drift across their necks before selecting one at random. The glass was warm, as everything in this place eventually became.
"And?" I asked, my voice low enough to force him to listen closely. "You're informing me because...?"
Abaddon smirked, though his attention lingered on the soul before him, tracing its outline with a disturbing fascination. "Because," he said, "this one matters."
I uncorked the bottle with a quiet twist and brought it to my lips. The liquid burned, slow and deliberate, like it knew exactly what it was meant to do.
"Does it?" I muttered.
There was a pause—just long enough for tension to gather in the corners of the room.
"Did Azrael deliver him?" I asked.
That question changed everything.
Abaddon's smirk faltered, only for a moment, but I saw it. His shoulders shifted, subtle but telling. Even here, even in hell, hesitation is a liability.
"No, sir," he admitted. "Not yet."
I exhaled slowly, rolling the taste of fire across my tongue.
"Then we are not behind schedule," I said. "We are ahead of it."
I set the bottle down with deliberate care, my gaze lifting toward the vaulted ceiling where shadows coiled like living things.
"My father," I continued, the word sour even now, "has a rather irritating habit of making decisions without consultation. This... arrangement—" I gestured vaguely, irritation sharpening my tone, "—will not proceed without my consent."
Abaddon huffed, clearly dissatisfied with my lack of urgency. He released the soul, letting it collapse onto the foot of my bed as though it were nothing more than discarded cloth. It sank into the dark velvet, barely leaving an impression.
"How disappointing," he muttered.
"Yes," I said dryly. "That seems to be the theme of the day."
The air shifted.
Not with sound, but with presence.
Light—pure, intrusive, and unwelcome—cut across the threshold of the chamber as a figure appeared in the doorway. Wings brushed the frame, too large for the space yet somehow fitting perfectly within it.
Azrael.
Of course.
I tilted my head slightly, annoyance threading through my expression. "Brother," I greeted, the word laced with everything it was not meant to be. "You're late."
He ignored the jab, stepping fully into the room. His gaze moved immediately to the soul sprawled across my bed, his expression tightening with quiet disapproval.
"Another one?" he asked, his tone flat.
Abaddon bristled. I could feel it from across the room.
"Is the boy here?" I interrupted before either of them could escalate the tension further.
Azrael did not answer right away. Instead, he approached the bed, kneeling beside the fading soul. He lifted its head gently—too gently for this place—and something in the air shifted again.
Light gathered.
It started small, barely noticeable, then expanded rapidly, spilling from him in waves that swallowed the shadows whole. I raised a hand to shield my eyes, irritation giving way to something far less comfortable.
Pain.
Not physical—nothing so simple—but something deeper. Something that pressed against memory and identity and everything I had built to keep both intact.
"Careful," I growled. "You'll ruin the décor."
He didn't stop.
The light intensified until it was unbearable, until the room itself seemed to dissolve under its weight. Color fractured into something unrecognizable, and for a fleeting moment, I felt unmoored—as if I were being pulled somewhere I had no intention of going.
Then—
Darkness.
Complete and absolute.
✽✽✽
"Lucifer."
The voice dragged me upward through layers of nothingness, slow and deliberate, like something pulling a corpse from deep water.
My eyes opened.
Metal.
Cold.
Wrong.
I looked down.
Leather restraints bound my wrists to a chair I had once used to break others.
How ironic.
"Azrael," I said quietly. "You've made a very dangerous decision."
"Have I?" he replied.
I tested the restraints.
Tight.
Engineered.
Calculated.
Not enough.
"I don't enjoy being handled," I said.
"I'm not asking you to enjoy it."
My smile sharpened.
"Then you misunderstand the nature of this relationship."
"I understand it perfectly," he said. "Which is why this is necessary."
The light shifted again—and with it, something new entered the space.
A presence.
Unsteady.
Fractured.
Human.
I lifted my gaze.
The boy stood there, barely holding himself upright. His soul clung to him like something that didn't want to stay. His eyes were hollow—not from death, but from everything that came before it.
Ah.
So this was him.
"This?" I murmured. "This is what replaces me?"
I laughed.
Not loudly.
Not wildly.
Just enough to let the sound rot in the air.
"You've brought me a ghost of a boy and called it a successor," I continued. "How disappointing."
Azrael said nothing.
He never needs to.
I leaned forward as far as the restraints allowed, studying the boy with something closer to hunger than curiosity.
"You must be Aaron."
He flinched.
Good.
That meant there was still something inside him worth breaking.
"Look at you," I whispered. "You didn't even fight your way here, did you?"
His jaw tightened.
There it is.
A fracture.
"I asked you a question," I said softly.
Silence.
Azrael placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Aaron," he said. "Speak."
The boy swallowed.
"I—"
His voice failed.
I smiled wider.
"Yes," I murmured. "That's exactly what I expected."
But then—
Something shifted.
Subtle.
Violent.
His hands curled, not in fear—but in resistance. The kind that doesn't understand itself yet. The kind that reacts before it thinks.
The restraints around my wrists groaned.
Then snapped.
The sound echoed like a verdict.
I stood.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
The room seemed smaller now.
Or perhaps I had simply reminded it what it was built to contain.
"Interesting," I said.
Azrael watched without moving.
"Strong," he observed.
"Yes," I agreed. "And unrefined."
I stepped closer to the boy until there was no space left between us. He tried to hold his ground.
Tried.
I reached out and forced his chin upward, locking his gaze with mine.
"Do you feel that?" I asked quietly.
His breath hitched.
"That pressure?" I continued. "That weight in your chest like something is about to tear you apart?"
His eyes flickered.
He felt it.
Of course he did.
"That's power," I said. "And it doesn't care whether you survive it."
I released him abruptly.
He staggered, barely catching himself.
"Don't waste it," I added.
Azrael stepped forward again.
"It's time," he said.
The words landed differently this time.
Final.
I felt it then—the shift beneath everything. The structure of my domain bending, not to me, but away from me. Shadows recoiled. The air thickened.
Something was being taken.
Not stolen.
Reassigned.
Figures emerged within the light behind Azrael—vast, radiant, inevitable. Wings unfolded like blades made of heaven itself.
I knew them.
I had always known them.
I just never believed they would come for this.
Michael stepped forward.
Calm.
Certain.
Unbearable.
He placed a hand against my chest—not to harm, not to restrain—but to anchor.
"Remember," he said.
I almost laughed.
Almost.
But my body—my power—didn't respond the way it should have.
For the first time in eternity—
I was not in control.
"This is not the end," he added.
No.
He was wrong.
It wasn't an end.
It was worse.
It was a transfer.
The darkness surged—not mine, not anymore—and swallowed everything I had built, everything I had claimed, everything I was.
And as it took me—
As it stripped the throne from beneath me and placed it into trembling, untested hands—
One truth burned colder than anything hell had ever offered:
The boy wasn't ready.
Which meant—
This world was about to become something far more dangerous than anything I had ever made.
