A blinding white light surrounded Ethan Blake.
For a brief, foolish moment, he thought—is this redemption? Is this finally peace?
But the next second, the light fractured, twisting into endless mirrors, each reflecting the ugliest moments of his life.
Amelia kneeling before him in her torn wedding dress, begging for love.His cold, dismissive voice: "You're not worthy."Her bloodied hands clutching the divorce papers as he walked away.The twins, barely five, standing in the rain, calling for a father who never turned back.
A deafening voice boomed through the void.
"Ethan Blake. Do you understand why you stand here today?"
Ethan fell to his knees instinctively.
"I… I was wrong. I deserve this. But please… just one chance. Let me start over."
A brilliant figure appeared before him—cloaked in golden light, face unreadable.
"You seek reincarnation?"
Ethan nodded frantically. "I'll do anything. I'll suffer again. Just… let me see them one more time. Let me tell them I'm sorry."
The mirrors flashed again, each scene stabbing through his heart. Amelia's lifeless eyes the night she walked out forever. The twins' mocking words. The cold finality of being erased from their lives.
The voice echoed again, colder this time.
"Do you think a man who let a woman beg at his feet… who watched his own children starve… deserves another chance at life?"
Ethan crawled across the ground, his hands raw, his knees grinding against sharp stones of regret.
"Please… I'll do anything. Take everything from me. Just… let me make it right!"
A portal opened before him, but instead of leading to a new life, it showed Amelia—standing tall and proud in the palace gardens, laughing freely in the arms of another man, her children smiling beside her.
Happy. Complete. Without him.
"Your punishment," the voice said, "is to watch this happiness for all eternity… without ever being part of it."
The portal grew larger, the vision clearer.
Amelia turned toward the ethereal camera as if she could see him through the veil of death. Her beautiful red lips parted with a soft, ruthless sentence:
"Ethan Blake… you are nothing but a forgotten shadow in my perfect life."
The portal slammed shut.
Darkness swallowed him whole.
Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell… Eternity Began.
Ethan wandered endlessly through the Void.
Each step replayed his greatest failures. His most brutal betrayals. His children's faces—faces that never aged, always frozen in those moments of rejection.
And he knew—
This was his afterlife.
Not hell.
Something worse.
An eternal reminder… of what he could never have again.