The clock blinked 3:27 a.m.
The apartment was silent, save for the dull hum of the fridge and the occasional groan of pipes somewhere behind the cracked drywall.
Xuhen sat cross-legged on the edge of his mattress, phone in hand, though the screen had long gone black. His eyes weren't focused. Almost like he was looking through the phone.
A half-eaten cup of instant noodles sat cold by his feet. Beside it, a crumpled bill notice and a second-hand laptop that wouldn't turn on without a charger he hadn't replaced.
Work had been long. Ten hours on his feet, restocking shelves for a manager who never remembered his name. He hadn't eaten a real meal in three days, but that was normal now. Survival was numbers. Calories, cash, caffeine, and hours left in the month before rent was due again. And there was college which was eating away through his money without providing anything substantial in exchange.
It was for the future they said but Xuhen saw no future and only darkness. That was his life, miserable, pathetic and full of struggles.
Xuhen let out a breath and fell backward onto his bed.
The ceiling stared down at him. Blank. Stained. Still.
His last thought before drifting off wasn't profound. It wasn't regret, or pain, or some forgotten dream.
It was just a vague, tired notion:
"I'll try again tomorrow."
Then came sleep.
Then came nothing.
His chest rose, fell. Rose, and then… stopped.
No pain. No struggle. One moment asleep.
The next—nothing. He was dead.
Darkness.
Stillness.
A weightless drift.
There was no light at the end of the tunnel, no grand revelation, no godly presence waiting to greet him. Just the silence of a soul untethered.
He floated in that void for what could've been seconds or centuries. Time unraveled. Space frayed. Memory and self slowly unraveled into smoke.
And then—
White.
A flash. Gentle, searing, soft and commanding all at once.
From the void, a woman in white emerged.
She did not walk. She did not speak. She simply was.
Her robes shimmered like silk soaked in moonlight, trailing behind her like water in reverse. Her long hair moved though there was no wind. Her face was blurred—as if reality itself refused to render it clearly—and yet, her presence weighed heavier than gravity.
She looked down at the drifting soul that was once Xuhen.
"…This one," she murmured, almost to herself. Her voice was more thought than sound.
She reached out. Her hand passed through the veil between planes, fingers weaving ancient signs in the air. Chains of white mist spiraled out and latched onto Xuhen's soul like vines finding purchase on stone.
"Time is thinning. I need a vessel. "
Her words meant nothing to the soul, which trembled under her gaze. He was not conscious enough to resist. Not aware enough to plead.
Without warning, the fabric of reality around them tore like wet parchment.
Through the rift, a new world emerged. A quiet mountainside under a storm-wrapped moon. A sleeping Village. A room of stone and cold, tucked away in the far outskirts of a Mortal Kingdom.
Inside that room, a child—frail, shallow of breath—tossed in fitful sleep.
The woman in white narrowed her eyes.
"You will serve," she whispered. "And in serving… survive."
She hurled the soul forward. It collided with the child's chest in a flash of pale fire, and for a heartbeat, the body seized—eyes wide, mouth open in a silent scream.
Then stillness again.
The child—now host to another soul—curled tighter into his blankets, as if nothing had happened at all.
The woman lingered only a moment longer. Watching. Thinking. Her form began to unravel into strands of starlight.
Just before she vanished completely, her voice echoed across planes:
"I left you a gift, little fracture. Use it well… if you can."
And then she was gone.