It began, once again, with paperwork.
But this time, it screamed.
Not metaphorically—actual, soul-piercing shrieks erupted from the sentient stack of forms Vespera had been handed.
"That's new," he muttered.
Liora, lounging nearby with a cup of ghostly espresso, raised an eyebrow. "It's the new Self-Aware Compliance Packet. They upgraded."
The form howled again, then burped ink.
After being certified and re-certified, soul-validated and universe-permitted, Vespera and Liora were finally allowed a temporary residence in the newly established Neutrality Zone: a pocket dimension where the rules of life, death, and coffee coexisted in relative harmony.
They moved into a cozy haunted loft above a bakery run by a banshee named Dolores. Her sourdough screamed when sliced, but paired well with jam.
Gregor, now a practicing interdimensional lawyer-slash-baker, stopped by daily. He brought legal advice and muffins.
"You'll want to update your Eternal Residency Form 84-Y. The clause about spontaneous existential combustion was revised. Again."
Liora bit into a muffin. "This one's got hope in it. That's dangerous."
Gregor nodded gravely. "That's why I only bake it in small batches."
Peace, however, is an illusion.
It began when their mailbox coughed.
Vespera opened it to find a letter covered in red stamps: URGENT, UNREAL, UNFORGIVABLE.
The sender: THE COMMITTEE OF REALITY MAINTENANCE (C.R.M.)
Inside was a summons to attend a mandatory Reality Alignment Review. Location: The Bureau of Dimensional Misconduct, North Wing, Lower Echo.
"Why is it always the North Wing?" Vespera groaned.
"Because evil has better lighting there," Gregor explained.
The Bureau's North Wing was a masterpiece of awful architecture: infinite hallways, impossible doors, and elevators that traveled diagonally through time.
They were greeted by a receptionist who was actively on fire. She handed them glowing visitor badges and a compliance waiver shaped like a duck.
"Sign here, here, and quack here," she instructed.
They complied.
Then came the interview.
A panel of six bureaucrats—each a different species of miserable—grilled them with questions.
"Did you knowingly defy entropy?"
"Was the soul-binding consensual and gluten-free?"
"Have you declared all metaphysical earnings over the threshold of one irony per annum?"
Vespera answered as best he could.
Liora answered with sarcasm.
The duck notarized every word.
Things escalated when the floor collapsed.
Apparently, their presence triggered a localized paradox—a tiny one, only the size of a large sofa. Still, it opened a rift into the Department of Forgotten Things.
They fell in.
The Department of Forgotten Things was run by Harold.
Harold was a narcoleptic cyclops who collected dreams people lost while sneezing.
"Oh," he said sleepily. "Visitors. Haven't had those since the Great Sock Incident."
"What year was that?" Liora asked.
Harold shrugged. "Yesterday. Or 1974. Depends on the tide."
He offered them tea brewed from expired memories. It tasted like regret and artificial lemon.
While trying to find their way back, they wandered into the Hall of Misfiled Destinies.
A ghost there thought he was Napoleon. He insisted Vespera owed him a duel.
"I'm not dueling a memory with a baguette," Vespera snapped.
"Coward!"
They ran.
Eventually, they were rescued by a team of Emergency Reality Engineers, who arrived riding a metaphysical centipede named Bernard.
"You two again?" the team leader sighed. "You're the couple from the Love Reversal Incident, right?"
"That's us," Liora grinned.
"I lost a week of stability because of your paperwork."
"You're welcome."
Back in their haunted loft, they decided they needed a break.
So they went on vacation.
Destination: The Isle of Perpetual Midlife Crisis.
It was lovely. Confusing, but lovely.
The sand judged your choices. The water offered unsolicited advice. The sun never set because it couldn't commit.
They rode mood swings across the bay.
Vespera got a tattoo that only appeared when he was doubting himself.
Liora found a cave that echoed your worst decision. She spent a full hour in there, laughing.
They signed up for classes.
"Tap Dancing for the Chronically Dead."
"Conflict Resolution Through Interpretive Mime."
"Cooking With Emotional Baggage."
Vespera discovered he had a gift for mime-fighting. Liora learned that emotionally sautéed resentment pairs well with ghost-pepper sauce.
They even attended a retreat titled "Finding Yourself In Someone Else's Memories."
It was hosted by a sentient fern.
When they returned, things had changed.
The bakery now served spectral lattes.
Gregor had launched a podcast: Law & Afterlife, featuring legal drama reenactments starring ghosts.
Karen from the support group had started dating a minor chaos deity.
And their doormat had been upgraded again. It now read: "Yes, We're Still Alive. Somehow."
Then came the call.
Not a phone call.
A Call.
Capital-C, Universe-Level Summons.
A messenger arrived in a burst of glitter and dread. She was tall, glowing, and very, very tired.
"You're needed," she said. "By the Core."
"Of what?"
"Everything."
They packed quickly.
The Core of Everything was located beyond the edges of narrative space. To reach it, they had to pass through:
The Library of Unwritten Apologies
The Desert of Eternal Meh
A Toll Booth run by a confused sphinx who only asked questions about breakfast cereal
Once past, they reached the Core.
It was... underwhelming.
A small room. A single desk. A bored entity in a Hawaiian shirt reading a crossword.
"Oh good," it said. "You're the glitch-lovers."
Vespera nodded cautiously.
"I need you to help debug the universe."
"Why us?"
"Because you broke it. With love."
Liora blinked. "...Seriously?"
"Yes. It caused empathy overflow, irony backwash, and two spontaneous musicals."
Vespera frowned. "One of those might have been Gregor's podcast."
"Regardless," the entity said, standing, "you're conscripted. Here's a wrench of paradox and a manual written in feelings."
Liora accepted both. "Does it come with insurance?"
"No, but it comes with snacks."
A vending machine materialized.
It spat out cosmic granola bars.
And so, armed with confusion, affection, and a divine toolkit, Vespera and Liora were assigned the title:
Official Semi-Authorized Patch Agents of Reality
Their job: fix the small tears, soothe the existential rifts, and remind the universe that laughter and love were just structured chaos.
Their mission began immediately.
Their first assignment?
Convincing a time-looping sea serpent to stop narrating people's dreams in rhyme.
They bribed it with a haiku and a spoonful of nostalgia.
Next up, defusing a philosophical bomb set to detonate whenever someone asked, "But what if we're all just characters in a story?"
They solved it by distracting the bomb with a copy of Existentialism for Dummies.
At one point, they had to referee a game of chess between Schrödinger's cat and the concept of indecision.
They ruled in favor of the cat.
Because of course they did.
It only got weirder from there.
But as Vespera said, while throwing a wrench of paradox at a glitching moon:
"It's better than filing forms."
And Liora replied:
"Barely."
They kissed beneath a rain of metaphorical frogs.
Somewhere, the afterlife clapped.
And in the Bureau of the Damned, a new folder was added:
D'ANGELIS-LIORA: CHAOS COMPLIANT
Stamped: HILARIOUS. CONTINUE MONITORING.