SCROLL 2
Ethan had stopped climbing before he ever got as high as he thought he could. His body — or what was left of it — had collapsed into a crawl through something that wasn't a place so much as the absence of one. He braced himself for darkness, for that choking velvet-black you hit when the lights go out and your brain invents monsters in the corners. He braced himself for light too, that harsh migraine-bright glow hospitals used when they wanted to remind you you're sick.
But this wasn't either.
It wasn't even that in-between fog you see when you stand too fast and your blood forgets gravity for a second.
It was… white.
Not paper-white, not cloud-white. This was horizon-eating, eye-hurting, unbounded blank. The kind of white that looked less like color and more like someone had gotten lazy with reality's texture pack and spammed "fill layer" until the world was a glitch. A cheap cut-and-paste that went on forever.
The air pressed against his skin — thick, heavy, and weirdly flavored, like breathing through a stack of half-burnt paper cups soaked in instant ramen seasoning. It didn't move. No wind. No echoes. Not even the tiny sounds that came from being alive — breath, swallow, heartbeat. A silence so absolute it made his teeth itch.
The ground — if it was ground — felt solid under him, but no matter how much he squinted, he couldn't make out details. His shoes were gone. Or maybe they'd never been there in the first place. His pulse too — missing like a stolen wallet.
He pressed two fingers to his neck, waiting for that thump-thump reassurance. Nothing. Tried the other side. Still nothing.
"Well," he muttered to himself in that half-panicked, half-sarcastic tone he used to cope, "either I'm dead, or my cardiologist owes me a handwritten apology."
Still nothing.
The horror movie reel inside his head flickered on anyway: the crunch of the engine, the sickly metallic gleam of that spirit-metal plating, the gut-churning lurch before impact, the nausea that came right before everything blanked.
"Ah," Ethan said flatly, "so that's how it is."
The words twisted in his mouth, muttered nonsense — high and hoity and down and beat and crowned — but the meaning was there, raw and bitter.
He rubbed his ribs, half-expecting to find tire marks pressed into them. He lived off horror movies, but this? This was some bootleg arthouse sequel nobody asked for.
The air shifted. No, not the air. The color.
It wasn't white anymore. Not really. Something bled into it — a tint so wrong his brain tripped over itself trying to name it. Between sunset seen through tears, and old wine spilled across moonlight. Between bruised skies and things that didn't belong in human speech.
And then a voice.
It came low and deep, but also high and airy, like someone had layered every register and every echo and dropped them straight into his bones. It wasn't sound. It was vibration, crawling through marrow, rippling the hollow of his chest.
> "The river of existence flows unceasingly. Some drink deeply. Others… drown."
Ethan blinked, unimpressed. "…Cool. And you are?"
The figure — or whatever passed for one — shimmered out of that impossible color, tilting like it was amused.
> "I am a caretaker of passages, a witness to endings and beginnings. A lantern in the dark between worlds. In your tongue…" it paused, rummaging through some cosmic filing cabinet for words, "…I am called the Celestial Guide."
Ethan tilted his head, deadpan. "Right. Celestial Guide. Do you have a business card, or do you just show up quoting fortune cookies at lost souls?"
The thing didn't flinch.
> "Even a single leaf," it said serenely, "may carry the wisdom of the entire forest if one knows how to read its veins."
Ethan stared. "…That didn't answer my question. But sure. Go off."
The Celestial drifted closer, moving with the kind of patience only immortals and customer service reps had.
> "Ethan Cole. You stand at the threshold of rebirth. Your body in the mortal realm has perished, but your soul remains intact. Now begins the journey to your next life."
"Ohhh," Ethan said, clicking his tongue. "Reincarnation. Got it. Mystery box time. So do I get to pick? Or is this one of those spin-the-wheel situations where I pray I don't respawn as a dung beetle?"
> "All destinies," the Celestial intoned, "are the weaving of threads unseen. There are three universal rules—"
Ethan raised a hand. "Hold on. Do I at least get snacks while you monologue? Because if this is gonna be a TED Talk, I'm gonna need—"
He didn't finish.
The floor buckled like rippling glass. The air warped. Something tugged at his bones hard enough to feel like a meat hook behind his sternum.
"What the—?!"
Before the Celestial could drop its three rules, Ethan was yanked sideways out of existence, erased like chalk in the rain.
The space went silent again.
---
He blinked awake. Still white. Still that endless, bleach-bomb emptiness.
He looked down. Body check. Limbs? There. Clothes? Intact. Heartbeat? …Nope.
"Fantastic," he muttered. "Dead again. My favorite hobby."
This time the voice came with less theatrics. Calm. Patient. Like a teacher who had been grading the same bad essay for a thousand years.
> "Welcome, traveler of the ceaseless wheel. You have shed one skin of life and stand at the doorway to another. I am your guide—the light in the mist, the bridge across gloom, the voice in—"
"Yeah, sweet intro," Ethan cut in. "Quick question though: do I finally get abs this time, or do I have to grind for them?"
Pause. Long enough that even imaginary crickets should've chirped, except this place didn't load crickets either.
> "The seeds of greatness must be watered with—"
And poof. Gone again.
---
When he came back, soot smeared his face. His hair stood on end like he'd wrestled a lightning bolt and lost. One eyebrow was gone; the other clung on out of pity.
He coughed black dust. "Runaway carriage," he hacked. "There's traffic in fantasy worlds, apparently. And I stood in front of all of it."
The heavens themselves shifted, light trembling like disturbed water.
> "In the market of fate, one must look both ways before—"
Zap. Gone again.
---
This time, he came back dripping wet, leaving a puddle under him. A fish flopped out of his sleeve, hit the ground, and melted back into the white.
"Do you know what it's like to drown before you even learn how to swim?" Ethan asked nobody, wringing out his shirt. "Because I do now. Twice. In under a minute."
> "The river teaches patience, but only if one refrains from—"
Snatch. Gone.
---
He reappeared limping. Jeans shredded, one shoe gone, shirt perforated like Swiss cheese. A single feather spiraled down and landed beside him.
"Chickens," he muttered darkly. "Carnivorous. Pack hunters. They chirp before they attack. Psychological warfare."
The Celestial's serene voice faltered.
> "Even the smallest claw may—"
Flash. Gone.
---
Next time, he came back scorched, smelling like a barbecue accident. A ragged bite mark tore across his shoulder.
"I hate dragons," Ethan said simply.
The Celestial sighed.
> "In the scrolls of eternity, no soul has ever been so catastrophically efficient at perishing."
Ethan shrugged. "Guess I'm just built different."
The Celestial's tone hardened.
> "This is your final attempt. Fail here, and—"
But Ethan vanished mid-sentence.
The white stayed empty. No soot, no puddle, no feathers, no Ethan.
The Celestial lingered in silence, whispering after a long eternity:
> "Am I relieved… or deeply concerned?"
---
And then Ethan woke.
Not to blackness. Not to white. To weight.
Thick, suffocating pressure wrapped him on all sides, hot and wet like velvet dunked in steam. His arms stretched a few inches before bumping into walls that weren't walls — soft but stubborn. Moisture rained constantly, a cloud he had to breathe.
And then the beat.
Not his own heartbeat. This was slower, deeper, a bass drum hammering through the fluid around him. It pulsed in sync with his chest, as though the world itself was breathing him.
And then teeth.
A pinch at his calf, sharp, insistent. Not an accident. Something in here was gnawing on him like a rat with leather.
He tried to scream, but only managed a muffled grunt. Goo rushed down his throat when he swallowed.
The bite didn't stop. It got bolder, tugging and jerking.
Heat. Pressure. Oxygen starvation. Teeth.
The realization slammed into him.
He wasn't buried. He wasn't drowning. He wasn't trapped.
He was fetal.
In a womb.
And something else was in here with him.
---
[✦ At this point, Ethan's memories crash back in, the lore of the novel he once read, the recognition that he's not the protagonist but the doomed older brother, and the sinister voices outside speaking in High Imperial. The womb becomes not just a rebirth but a set-up — a trap seeded into destiny itself.]