"Felix Altan."
In the endless expanse of nothing but blinding white light, the omega's eyes snapped open. The sound of a disembodied amalgamation of voices calling his name startled him to consciousness.
There was bone-chilling brightness all around him, inescapable and suffocating, unforgivingly, it seared into his eyes. As though it were a punishment for something, for what he did not know.
It was wrong. All of it. He was not meant to be here.
A deafening flash burst a few feet away from him, flinging Felix away. With a sharp cry, the mage threw an arm over his face to shield himself, a hiss of pain leaving his lips.
"Who—?!" The omega exclaimed, voice hoarse, other hand flying to his neck. Gingerly, he touched the skin in a panic. Nothing. There was nothing. Not a bump, nor a scar. Not even so much as a burn of the noose that had decorated his delicate neck only a few minutes ago. The mage's breath hitched, fingers flexing around his neck. "What..?"
Nothing.
That was simply impossible. He could remember it clear as day—
He'd been executed, hanged to his death on the gallows, the noose tightening around his neck till it snapped and breath escaped his lungs. How? Where was he?
Lowering his arm, the omega forced himself to open his eyes despite the burning pain the light inflicted upon him. Ears ringing with a sharp noise, the omega growled, watery blue eyes darting around. Wherever he looked, he saw nothing but white.
His limbs were light. Lighter than they'd been in years; liberated from the years of guilt, resentment, pain, and fury.
Hands shaking, the omega lowered his head, a thick lump lodging in his throat as he stared at his hands. They were the same, scarred and calloused. Hands of a ruthless killer.
He blinked. Blood dribbled down his hands, slicked his fingers, a heavy droplet broke away, splashing on the floor. He jerked, blinking again, the blood was gone, his hands were clean.
There was no floor, the omega was floating in the air, suspended in nothing as his robes fluttered.
Where..?
"Where is this?"
"Felix Altan." The voice called again, a tinge of annoyance trickling in those two words at being ignored. "You're in a state between life and afterlife."
Felix's head snapped up, gaze darkening as he spread his hands, trying to summon magic into them. "Who are you?" His voice was taut, tone measured. "Between afterlife… You mean The Stasis?"
"If that is what transient lives call this state of being." The voice conceded, ricocheting in the white void, unamused.
"Who are you?" The omega bit out again, the muscles in fingers tightening. But his magic was quiet, his core strangely still.
He couldn't access his numen, the omega shuddered. His stomach sank as the realisation set in. He couldn't feel the thrum of his magical core.
"What good will it do for you to know, the Enforcer?"
The title had the mage tensing, muscles coiling with latent energy as he glared up at nothing. He despised the title now that the life he lived was no more.
"You will not address me as such!" He snapped, blood roaring in his ears. Snapping and raging at a disembodied voice in the Stasis was hardly the wisest thing to do. "I possess a name of which you're aware I am sure!"
But Felix no longer had anything left to lose.
For a few moments, the voice did not return, making the omega wonder if it had grown bored of his temper already.
"Your arrogance never ceases to amaze us." The voice carried with it a tinge of astonishment, as if it could not believe the audacity of a merely mortal man.
Felix bristled but could not give a scathing response to a correct observation. He was arrogant indeed. The largest portion of his life was spent doing things people were too afraid to do, or no one wanted to do, or could not do.
Felix liked to think his pride was ill-gotten but deserved — despite the nature of his deeds.
"Are you ashamed?" All of a sudden, the voice inquired, startling the omega out of his mind.
"What?" Felix murmured belatedly, unable to gather his scattered wits in time. He took a cautious step back, the lack of solid ground leaving him vulnerable.
"Does the knowledge of everything you have done in your life, in vain as they were, bring you any shame?"
Felix's gaze lowered, eyelashes trembling as he spun around, lips pursed tight. Shame. Remorse.
Of course, he did. Of course, he was ashamed of all he'd done. Although by the time the weight of his regret crushed the omega down, it was already too late.
He did not answer immediately. Words long dead on his tongue before they could leave his lips. The hollow in his chest, where his heart was meant to be, ached. The muscles clenched around nothing as he swallowed the painful, stabbing dryness in his throat.
"I am." His voice was small, the two words despite the weight they carried were fragile. Felix dared not linger on them too long, afraid of what that was to mean.
Again, the voice did not respond instantaneously. The deafening quiet in the void stretched wide, tangling him in its web. The longer the silence reigned, the more restless he grew.
The shame chasing him for ears with guilt snapping at his heels was finally catching up to him. Felix's body was lighter than he remembered it being.
It almost wasn't his own. His soul an interloper in a foreign husk, a thief hidden in a different shell.
"Do you?" The question arrived stilted, belated. "If you knew right from wrong all along, why did you only ever choose the wrong?"
Felix's jaw clenched, the muscles twitching as his head snapped up to look above himself. White. White. A blinding light.
Where was this voice coming from? His own conscience? His long forgotten goodness.
"You hold yourself in a regard higher than worthy."
"Silence." The mage snarled, fists clenching tighter on his sides. "If you can hear my thoughts, at least have the decency to hide it."
"Why do you think yourself worthy of any decency? Least of all mine." The voice laughed. Felix did not find it funny, he found none of it amusing. "See, your thoughts as they are, are exceedingly amusing to myself. I cannot resist taking a peek at them."
Felix bristled, rage simmering low in his gut as he clenched his fists tightly. With enough spite to burn down an entire village, the omega gritted out. "Am I brought here solely to be the subject of your ridicule?"
Once more, as if it had heard something utterly hilarious, the disembodied voice laughed, the sound guttural and echoing throughout the entire Stasis.
"As amusing as the idea is, it is not the case. You've been brought into The Stasis — as you prefer to call this place — for another purpose entirely."
"And what could the said purpose be… Pray tell."
"To my own abject horror, you — Felix Altan — have been chosen as one of many souls who will be given the chance to weigh your heart at the scale of divinity. Which, I say, is absurd to waste the spot on someone like yourself. Surely, your heart shall outweigh the horn of the Lion—"
Felix stilled, the gaping hollow seized in his chest and the cavity pulsed with the absence of beat. 'The Lion'? Did this thrice damned voice mean his heart was to be weighed at the ever-just scale of the lion-headed god Yttar? As the omega digested those words, the already heavy lump lodged in his throat grew heavier.
Surely, the heart of a man as evil as himself was bound to fail at the impartial scale of Yttar. Felix swayed backward, the white world around him spinning sharply.
"And what will become of those who fail?" Swallowing around the lump, the mage rasped, horror seeping into his bones like the biting chill of the winter.
"It is quite simple really, their heart will be consumed by Yttar, their existence of their soul erased and the energy it leaves behind will make a soul anew."
A sharp ringing deafened the omega, his limbs failing as he swayed more, fear and nausea rising to his throat. Erased.
Erased. Devoured. Consumed. Begin anew.
The proof of his existence extinguished. Oh gods.
Bleak thoughts began echoing in the omega's mind, a chilling cold clawed up his body, threatening to drag him down into the quagmire with itself. He could do nothing but struggle in the recesses of his mind futilely. He did not want to accept this.
But what choice did a sinner have?
Then, the world around Felix turned dark.