Reo woke without waking.
There was no breath drawn, no eyes opening against light. Awareness simply resumed, like a paused sound starting again mid-note. For a moment, that was all there was—consciousness without context, thought without body.
Then he noticed the black.
It wasn't the absence of light so much as the absence of else. The space around him stretched in every direction, smooth and reflective, like polished obsidian. There was no horizon, no edge, no sky or ground to distinguish up from down. When he looked—if looking was the right word—he saw himself reflected beneath his feet, above his head, to either side. Infinite versions of his outline fading into darkness.
He was standing.
The realization came with mild surprise. He felt intact. Whole. No pain, no cold, no weight pressing into him. The last sensation he remembered—hard pavement against his face—felt distant, unreal, like a dream already losing coherence.
He took a step. The surface beneath him didn't ripple or crack. It accepted his movement without reaction, soundless. His reflection moved with him, perfectly synchronized.
"Hello, Reo."
The voice came from ahead of him.
He stopped.
She was seated a short distance away, legs crossed, hands resting loosely in her lap. A simple chair supported her, its design unremarkable, almost deliberately so. She hadn't appeared in a flash or descended from above. She was simply there, as though she had always been.
She looked human at first glance. Woman-shaped, adult, calm. Her hair fell straight and dark over her shoulders, unmoving despite the lack of air. Her clothing was plain—dark fabric, no ornamentation, no symbols to suggest office or authority. Only her eyes stood out. They reflected the void too well, catching and holding the light in a way that made it hard to tell where her gaze ended and the space began.
She regarded him without expression. Not coldly. Not warmly. Attentively.
"You're dead," she said.
The words landed without ceremony.
Reo waited for the shock to come. For denial, panic, something visceral. Instead, there was only a muted recognition, like hearing a fact you already suspected confirmed aloud.
"I thought so," he said. His voice sounded normal. Steady. It echoed faintly, then disappeared.
The woman inclined her head a fraction, as if acknowledging accuracy rather than courage.
"I am Ophelia," she said. "I oversee transition."
"Transition," Reo repeated.
"Yes."
He looked down at his hands. They looked the same as he remembered—skin tone, scars, familiar lines across the knuckles. He flexed his fingers. They obeyed.
"I was shot," he said. It wasn't a question.
"Yes."
"And this is… what?" He gestured vaguely at the void.
"A waiting state," Ophelia replied. "Temporary."
"How temporary?"
"That varies."
He absorbed that in silence. The black surface beneath his feet reflected his face clearly enough that he could see himself frown.
"So this is the afterlife."
"No," she said. "This is the interval."
He let out a short breath through his nose. "Figures."
Ophelia watched him as he paced a slow circle, his steps soundless. Her gaze followed, steady and unblinking, like a scientist observing a predictable reaction.
"When do I wake up?" he asked.
"In your next life."
The phrase should have carried weight. It didn't. It sounded procedural, like being told when a train departed.
"And this one," he said, glancing back over his shoulder, "is finished."
"Yes."
He stopped walking.
"Just like that."
"Yes."
There it was again. No emphasis. No attempt at reassurance. No apology.
He searched her face for something—pity, perhaps, or at least acknowledgement of the enormity of what she was saying. He found none. Not because she was cruel, he realized, but because cruelty would have required engagement.
"Reincarnation?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Automatic?"
"Yes."
"Everyone?"
"Yes."
"Always?"
Ophelia paused for the first time. Only for a heartbeat.
"Within acceptable variance," she said.
Reo huffed a quiet laugh. "Of course."
"And memories?" he asked. "Do I keep any of this?"
"No."
The answer was immediate.
"None of it?"
"No."
"Not even—" He stopped himself. The question had already fallen apart. There was no obvious exception to argue for.
"Memory loss is normal," Ophelia said. "Necessary, in fact. Continuity of self would cause instability across iterations."
He stared at her. "So I forget everything. My life. Who I was. This conversation."
"Yes."
"And I don't get a say."
Ophelia's eyes flickered—not with surprise, but with recognition. She nodded once.
"No," she said. "You don't."
The statement settled between them, heavy and unadorned.
Reo became aware of something then—not something she had said, but something she hadn't. She hadn't asked if he was afraid. Hadn't asked if he was ready. Hadn't asked if there was anything he wanted to say or do before moving on.
She had simply explained the process.
"You've done this before," he said.
"Yes."
"How many times?"
"A number you would find unhelpful."
He considered that. "You don't look tired."
"I don't experience time the way you do."
"Right."
He looked around again, at the endless reflections. "So what is this, exactly? A courtesy?"
"In a sense."
"A mistake?"
"No."
"Then why am I here?" he asked. "Conscious. Remembering."
Ophelia studied him more closely now. Not his face, but something behind it. The way one might observe a pattern forming unexpectedly in familiar data.
"This conversation usually doesn't happen," she said.
The words sent a faint chill through him. Not fear—something closer to unease.
"Usually," he repeated.
"Yes."
"So what went wrong?"
"Nothing," she said. "Went wrong is a human framing."
"Then what went different?"
She stood.
The motion was unhurried, precise. When she rose, the reflections shifted subtly, the void accommodating her presence without resistance. She stepped closer, closing the distance between them to a few paces.
"Occasionally," she said, "a consciousness fails to disengage on schedule."
"And that's bad."
"It is inefficient."
Reo laughed again, sharper this time. "I died because of a scheduling error."
"You died because you were shot," Ophelia said. "This is separate."
He sobered. "So what happens now?"
"Now," she said, "you will continue to exist here until reintegration is possible."
"And how long does that take?"
"That varies."
He tilted his head, studying her. "You're very fond of that phrase."
"It is accurate."
He exhaled slowly. "You're not here to help me through this."
"No."
"You're not here to comfort me."
"No."
"You're just… watching."
"Yes."
The honesty of it was almost disarming.
"Why?" he asked.
"Observation improves process integrity."
"Of course it does."
They stood in silence. The void reflected them endlessly, two figures suspended in an infinite dark. Reo became aware that despite the lack of air, lack of sound, lack of physical sensation, he could still feel something akin to fatigue. Not of the body, but of the mind. A dull pressure behind thought itself.
"When this ends," he said quietly, "I won't remember any of it."
"No."
"Not you."
"No."
"Not this place."
"No."
"And you're fine with that."
Ophelia regarded him. "Your remembrance is not required."
He nodded slowly. "Figures."
She turned away from him then, returning to her chair. She sat as she had been before, composed, waiting.
Reo remained standing, unsure what to do with himself. There was nowhere to go. Nothing to touch. No distraction to grasp at. Just the knowledge of an ending already past and a beginning he would never recognize as one.
"So," he said after a while, "what happens if I refuse?"
She looked at him again. "You can't."
"Everyone says that."
"This is not coercion," Ophelia said. "It is structure."
"And structure doesn't care what I want."
"No."
He swallowed. For the first time since waking, something like fear brushed against him—not of pain or punishment, but of erasure. The certainty that everything he had been was already dissolving, that even this clarity was temporary.
"How long do I have?" he asked.
Ophelia's gaze softened—not emotionally, but functionally, like a lens adjusting.
"Less than you think," she said.
The reflections around him shimmered, just slightly. The black surface beneath his feet seemed to deepen, darkening further, as though preparing to swallow even the concept of reflection.
Reo opened his mouth to speak, then stopped. There was nothing left to ask that would matter.
Ophelia watched him in silence.
"This conversation," she said again, almost to herself, "usually doesn't happen."